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Scale and nuTonomy, the leading players in the self-driving vehicle ecosystems, open-sourced a research dataset named nuScenes last week. According to the companies, this is the largest open source dataset for self-driving vehicles, which includes data from LIDAR, RADAR, camera, IMU, and GPS. nuTonomy with the help of Scale’s Sensor Fusion Annotation API, compiled more than 1,000 20-second clips and 1.4 million images. nuScenes comprises of 400,000 sweeps of LIDARs and 1.1 million three-dimensional boxes detected with the combination of RGB cameras, RADAR, and LIDAR. The collection of this much data was facilitated by six cameras, one LIDAR, five RADARs, GPS, and an inertial measurement sensor. They chose the driving routes in Singapore and Boston to showcase challenging locations, times, and weather conditions. This open-source dataset reportedly surpasses in terms of size and accuracy of common datasets including public KITTI dataset, Baidu ApolloScape dataset, Udacity self-driving dataset, and even the more recent Berkeley DeepDrive dataset. Making this huge dataset available to the users will facilitate training and testing different algorithms for autonomous driving, accurately and quickly. Scale CEO Alexandr Wang said: “We’re proud to provide the annotations … as the most robust open source multi-sensor self-driving dataset ever released. We believe this will be an invaluable resource for researchers developing autonomous vehicle systems, and one that will help to shape and accelerate their production for years to come.” You can read more about nuScenes in this full coverage. To know more about nuScenes check out its website and also see the official announcement by Scale on its Twitter page. Google launches a Dataset Search Engine for finding Datasets on the Internet Ethereum Blockchain dataset now available in BigQuery for smart contract analytics 25 Datasets for Deep Learning in IoT

Prior to news of Linus Torvalds self-imposed leave from the project, Linux leaders - including Torvalds - revised its Code of Conflict, moving instead to a Code of Conduct. A new Linux Code of Conduct was submitted by Greg Kroah-Hartman on Saturday 15 September. Kroah-Hartman wrote that "the Code of Conflict is not achieving its implicit goal of fostering civility and the spirit of 'be excellent to each other.'" Read the new Linux Code of Conduct here. The change was committed yesterday (16 September) by Torvalds. Other leading figures in the Linux project also put their names behind the move, including Olof Johansson and Steve Rostedt. It's not immediately clear to what extent the new Code of Conduct has something to do with Torvalds' hiatus, but it's impossible to avoid making a connection between the two. What's new in the Linux Code of Conduct? Linux's Code of Conflict has always felt combative. The naming makes clear that disagreement is part and parcel of open source development. It was always clear that "critique and criticism" were simply a part of what it means to be in the Linux community. "The Linux kernel development effort is a very personal process compared to "traditional" ways of developing software. Your code and ideas behind it will be carefully reviewed, often resulting in critique and criticism. The review will almost always require improvements to the code before it can be included in the kernel. Know that this happens because everyone involved wants to see the best possible solution for the overall success of Linux." By switching to a Code of Conduct, Linux is immediately placing emphasis on how contributors and maintainers work together to cultivate an open and safe community that people want to be involved in. Contrast this with the section from the Code of Conflict above: "In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation." The Code of Conduct then goes on to outline specific examples of what is and isn't acceptable. "Using welcoming and accepting language" and "showing empathy to other community members" are just two examples of how the code suggests community members can help to create a positive working environment. The new Code of Conduct then goes on to detail the responsibilities of Linux maintainers. They are presented as custodians or stewards for Linux. They are responsible for "clarifying the standards of acceptable behavior and are expected to take appropriate and fair corrective action in response to any instances of unacceptable behavior." The reaction to the new Linux Code of Conduct Reaction to the news - coupled with Linus Torvalds apology today - has caused considerable reaction on Twitter and across the open source community. For some, this is an example of politics entering into open source code - with some suggesting that it could be detrimental to the Linux project overall. Of course, the link between a more positive, inclusive and respectful community environment to a weaker project does seem strange to say the least. Taken alongside news last week that Python is dumping 'master' and 'slave' in its documentation, it would seem that we're starting to see open source projects take inclusivity and accessibility seriously. Some in the community might see that as a threat to them - but, if we really do think 'be excellent to each other' is the philosophy we should live by, shouldn't we do everything to make sure we're always held to that standard?

Last month, Google announced that the TensorFlow community plans to release a preview of TensorFlow 2.0, later this year. However, the date for the preview release has not been disclosed yet. The 2.0 version will include major highlights such as improved eager execution, improved compatibility, support for more platforms and languages, and much more. Key highlights in Tensorflow 2.0 Eager execution would be an important feature of TensorFlow 2.0. It aids in aligning users’ expectations about the programming model better, with TensorFlow practice. This will thus make TensorFlow easier to learn and apply. This version includes a support for more platforms and languages. It will provide an improved compatibility and parity between these components via standardization on exchange formats and alignment of APIs. The community plans to remove deprecated APIs and reduce the amount of duplication, which has caused confusion for users. Other improvements in TensorFlow 2.0 Increased Compatibility and continuity TensorFlow 2.0  would be an opportunity to correct mistakes and to make improvements which are otherwise restricted under semantic versioning. The community plans to create a conversion tool which updates the Python code to use TensorFlow 2.0 compatible APIs, to ease the transition for users. This tool will also warn in cases where conversion is not possible automatically. A similar tool helped tremendously during the transition to 1.0. As not all changes can be made fully, automatically, the community plans to deprecate APIs, some of which do not have a direct equivalent. For such cases, they will offer a compatibility module (tensorflow.compat.v1) which contains the full TensorFlow 1.x API, and will be maintained through the lifetime of TensorFlow 2.x. On-disk compatibility The community would not be making any breaking changes to SavedModels or stored GraphDefs repositories. This means they will include all current kernels in 2.0 (i.e., we plan to include all current kernels in 2.0). However, the changes in 2.0 will mean that variable names in raw checkpoints might have to be converted before being compatible with new models. Improvements to tf.contrib As part of releasing TensorFlow 2.0, the community will stop distributing tf.contrib. For each of the contrib modules they plan to  either: integrate the project into TensorFlow, move it to a separate repository, or remove it entirely. This means that all of tf.contrib will be deprecated, and the community will stop adding new tf.contrib projects. Following is a YouTube video by Aurélien Géron explaining the changes in TensorFlow 2.0 in detail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTNH0tcscqo Understanding the TensorFlow data model [Tutorial] TensorFlow announces TensorFlow Data Validation (TFDV) to automate and scale data analysis, validation, and monitoring Intelligent mobile projects with TensorFlow: Build your first Reinforcement Learning model on Raspberry Pi [Tutorial]

After the SQLite community, last month, released a draft of what users can expect in the SQLite’s next release, the community finally announced the release of SQLite 3.25.0 yesterday. The primary update, however, is that they have added a support for windows functions and have provided improvements in the query optimizer. Let’s have a closer look at what the new features in this version are. Features in SQLite 3.25.0 A support for windows functions has been added in this SQLite release The ALTER TABLE command has been enhanced with A support for renaming columns within a table using ALTER TABLE table RENAME COLUMN oldname TO newname. Fix table rename feature so that it also updates references to the renamed table in triggers and views. Improvements to the Query Optimizer include: Avoid unnecessary loads of columns in an aggregate query that are not within an aggregate function and that are not part of the GROUP BY clause. The IN-early-out optimization: When doing a look-up on a multi-column index and an IN operator is used on a column other than the left-most column, then if no rows match against the first IN value, check to make sure there exist rows that match the columns to the right before continuing with the next IN value. Use the transitive property to try to propagate constant values within the WHERE clause. For example, convert "a=99 AND b=a" into "a=99 AND b=99". Users now have a separate mutex on every inode in the unix VFS, rather than a single mutex shared among them all, for slightly better concurrency in multi-threaded environments. The PRAGMA integrity_check command has been enhanced for improved  detection of problems on the page freelist. This version showcases the infinity output as 1e999 in the “.dump” command of the command-line shell. A SQLITE_FCNTL_DATA_VERSION file-control has been added. A Geopoly module has been added. Bug fixes in SQLite 3.25.0 The August draft release had showcased fixes for two tickets. However, the final release has four ticket fixes including, Fix for ORDER BY LIMIT optimization The ORDER BY LIMIT optimization might have caused an infinite loop in the byte code of the prepared statement under very obscure circumstances, due to a confluence of minor defects in the query optimizer. Fix for rearrangement of the order of constraint checks On an UPSERT when the order of constraint checks is rearranged, ensure that the affinity transformations on the inserted content occur before any of the constraint checks. Fix for ".stats on" command Avoid using a prepared statement for ".stats on" command of the CLI after it has been closed by the ".eqp full" logicc. Fix for incorrect byte-code generation by  LIKE optimization The LIKE optimization was generating incorrect byte-code and hence getting the wrong answer if the left-hand operand has numeric affinity and the right-hand-side pattern is '/%' or if the pattern begins with the ESCAPE character. For more details, visit SQLite 3.25.0 release log. How to use SQLite with Ionic to store data? Introduction to SQL and SQLite Introducing Watermelon DB: A new relational database to make your React and React Native apps highly scalable

After Google Launched its Certification Authority in August 2017, it has now put in a  request to Mozilla certification store for the inclusion of the Google Trust Services R1, R2, R3, and R4 roots as documented in the following bug. Google’s application states the following- "Google is a commercial CA that will provide certificates to customers from around the world.  We will offer certificates for server authentication, client authentication, email (both signing and encrypting), and code signing.  Customers of the Google PKI are the general public. We will not require that customers have a domain registration with Google, use domain suffixes where Google is the registrant, or have other services from Google." What are Google Trust Services Roots? To adopt an independent infrastructure and build the "foundation of a more secure web," Google Trust Services allows the company to issue its own TLS/SSL certificates for securing its web traffic via HTTPS, instead of relying on third-party certs. The main aim of launching the GTS was to bring security and authentication certificates up to par with Google’s rigorous security standards. This means invalidating the old, insecure HTTP standard in Chrome, and depreciate Adobe Flash, a web program known to be insecure, and a resource hog. GTS will provide HTTPS certificates public websites to API servers, and it will be inclusive to all Alphabet companies, not just Google. Developers who build products that connect to Google’s services will have to include the new Root Certificates. All GTS roots expire in 2036, while GS Root R2 expires in 2021 and GS Root R4 in 2038. Google will also be able to cross-sign its CAs, using GS Root R3 and GeoTrust, to ease potential timing issues while setting up the root CAs. To know more about these trust services, you can visit GlobalSign. Some noticeable points in this request are Google has supplied a key generation ceremony audit report Other than the disclosed intermediates and required test certificates, no issuance has been detected from these roots. Section 1.4.2 of the CPS expressly forbids the use of Google certificates for "man-in-the middle purposes". Appendix C of the current CPS indicates that Google limits the lifetime of server certificates to 365 days. The following concerns exist in the Roots- From the transfer on 11-August 2016 through 8-December 2016, at the time it would not have been clear if any policies applied to these new roots. The applicable CPS (Certification Practice Statement) during that period makes no reference to these roots. Google does state in their current CPS that these roots were operated according to that CPS. From the transfer on 11-August 2016 through the end of Google’s audit period on 30-September, 2016, these roots were not explicitly covered by either Google’s audit nor GlobalSign’s audit. The discussion was concluded with adding this policy to the main Mozilla Root Store Policy (section 8). With these changes and the filing of the bug, Mozilla plans to take no action against GTS based on what has been discovered and discussed. Here is what users had to say on this request- Source: Vue-hn To get a complete insight into this request, head over to Google groups. Let’s Encrypt SSL/TLS certificates gain the trust of all Major Root Programs Pay your respects to Inbox, Google’s email innovation is getting discontinued Google’s prototype Chinese search engine ‘Dragonfly’ reportedly links searches to phone numbers  

Node.JS is a popular backend widely for web development despite some of its flaws. For embedded systems, now there is low.js, a Node.js port with far lower system requirements. In low.js you can program JavaScript applications by utilizing the full Node.js API. You can run these on regular computers and also on embedded devices, which are based on the $3 ESP32 microcontroller. The JavaScript V8 engine at the center of Node.js is replaced with Duktape. Duktape is an embeddable ECMAScript E5/E5.1 engine with a compact footprint. Some parts of the Node.js system library are rewritten for more compact footprint and use more native code. low.js currently uses under 2 MB of disk space with a minimum requirement of around 1.5 MB of RAM for the ESP32 version. low.js features low.js is good for hobbyists and people interested in electronics. It allows using Node.JS scripts on smaller devices like routers which are based on Linux or uClinux without using much of the resources. This is great for scripting especially if they communicate over the internet. The neonious one is a microcontroller board based on low.js for ESP32, which can be programmed in JavaScript ES 6 with the Node API. It includes Wifi, Ethernet, additional flash and an extra I/O controller. The lower systems requirements in low.js allow you to run it comfortably on the ESP32-WROVER module. The ESP32-WROVER costs under $3 for large orders and is a very cost effective solution for IoT devices requiring a microcontroller and Wifi. low.js for ESP32 also adds the additional benefit of fast software development and maintenance. Specialized software developers are not needed for the microcontroller software. How to install? The community edition of low.js can be run on POSIX based systems including Linux, uClinux, and Mac OS X. It is available on Github and currently ./configure is not present. You might need some programming skills and knowledge to get low.js up and running on your systems. The commands are as follows: git clone https://github.com/neonious/lowjs cd lowjs git submodule update --init --recursive make low.js for ESP32 is the same as the community edition, but adapted for the ESP32 microcontroller. This version is not open source and is pre-flashed on the neonious one. For more information and documentation visit the low.js website. Deno, an attempt to fix Node.js flaws, is rewritten in Rust Node.js announces security updates for all their active release lines for August 2018 Deploying Node.js apps on Google App Engine is now easy

With JDK 11 reaching general availability next week, there is also a proposed schedule released for JDK 12. The proposed schedule indicates a final release in March 2019 along with two JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs) proposed for JDK 12. Mark Reinhold, Chief Architect of the Java Platform Group at Oracle, made an announcement in a mail posted to the OpenJDK mailing list. Per the mail, JDK 12 should be out to the public on March 19, 2019. The proposed schedule for JDK 12 will be as follows: 13th December 2018 Rampdown Phase One 17th January 2019 Rampdown Phase Two 31st January 2019 Release-Candidate Phase 19th March 2019 General Availability JDK 11 had a total of 17 JEPs contributed out of which three were from the community, the highest number in any JDK release. The other 14 were from Oracle according to a tweet by @bellsoftware. For JDK 12, there are two JEPs integrated which will be available as a preview language feature and four candidate JEPs. JDK 12 preview features JEP 325: Switch Expressions (Preview) This JEP is going to allow the switch statement to be used as both statements and as an expression. Both forms can use either a “traditional” or “simplified” scoping and control flow behavior. The changes to the switch statement will simplify everyday coding. It will also pave the way for the use of pattern matching in switch. JEP 326: Raw String Literals (Preview) This JEP adds raw string literals to Java. A raw string literal can span many source code lines. It does not interpret escape sequences, such as \n, or Unicode escapes, of the form \uXXXX. This does not introduce any new String operators. There will be no change in the interpretation of traditional string literals. JDK 12 JEP candidates JEP 343: Packaging Tool To create a new tool based on the JavaFX javapackager tool for packaging self-contained Java applications. JEP 342: Limit Speculative Execution To help both developers and deployers to defend against speculative-execution vulnerabilities. This is to be done by providing a means to limit speculative execution and not a complete defense against all forms of speculative execution. JEP 340: One AArch64 Port, Not Two Remove all arm64 port related sources while retaining the 32-bit ARM port and the 64-bit AArch64 port. This will help focus on a single 64-bit ARM implementation and eliminate duplicate work to maintain two ports. JEP 341: Default CDS Archives Enhance the JDK build process to generate a class data-sharing (CDS) archive by using the default class list, on 64-bit platforms. The goal is to improve out-of-the-box startup time and eliminating the need for users to run -Xshare:dump to benefit from CDS. To know more details on the proposed schedule for JDK 12, visit the OpenJDK website. JEP 325: Revamped switch statements that can also be expressions proposed for Java 12 Mark Reinhold on the evolution of Java platform and OpenJDK No more free Java SE 8 updates for commercial use after January 2019

Linux is one of the most popular operating systems built around the Linux kernel by Linus Torvalds. Because it is free and open source, it gained a huge audience among developers very fast. Torvalds further welcomed other developers’ contributions to add to the kernel granted that they keep their contributions free. Due to this, thousands of developers have been working to improve Linux over the years, leading to its huge popularity today. Yesterday, Linus, who has been working on the Kernel for almost 30-years caught the Linux community by surprise as he apologized and opened up about going on a break over his ‘hurtful’ behavior that ‘contributed to an unprofessional environment’. In a long email to the Linux Kernel mailing list, Torvalds announced Linux 4.19 release candidate and then talked about his ‘look yourself in the mirror’ moment. “This week people in our community confronted me about my lifetime of not understanding emotions. My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I made it personal. In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me. I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry” admitted Torvalds. The confession came about after Torvalds confessed to messing up the schedule of the Maintainer's Summit, a meeting of Linux's top 40 or so developers, by planning a family vacation. “Yes, I was somewhat embarrassed about having screwed up my calendar, but honestly, I was mostly hopeful that I wouldn't have to go to the kernel summit that I have gone to every year for just about the last two decades. That whole situation then started a whole different kind of discussion --  I realized that I had completely mis-read some of the people involved,” confessed Torvalds. Torvalds has been notorious for his outspoken nature and outbursts towards others (especially the developers in the Linux Community). Sarah Sharps, Linux maintainer quit the Linux community in 2015 over Torvald’s offensive behavior and called it ‘toxic’. Torvalds exploded at Intel, earlier this year, for spinning Spectre fix as a security feature. Also, Torvalds responded with profanity, last year, about different approaches to security during a discussion about whitelisting the proposed features for Linux version 4.15. “Maybe I can get an email filter in place so that when I send email with curse-words, they just won't go out. I really had been ignoring some fairly deep-seated feelings in the Community...I am not an emotionally empathetic kind of person...I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely,” writes Torvalds. Torvalds then went ahead to talk about him taking a break from the Linux Community. “This is not some kind of "I'm burnt out, I need to just go away" break. I'm not feeling like I don't want to continue maintaining Linux. I very much want to continue to do this project that I've been working on for almost three decades. I need to take a break to get help on how to behave differently and fix some issues in my tooling and workflow”. A discussion with over 500 comments has started already on Reddit regarding Torvald’s decision.  While some people are supporting Torvald by accepting his apology, there are others who feel that the apology was long overdue and will believe him after he puts his words into action. https://twitter.com/TejasKumar_/status/1041527028271312897 https://twitter.com/coreytabaka/status/1041468174397399041 Python founder resigns – Guido van Rossum goes ‘on a permanent vacation from being BDFL’ Facebook and Arm join Yocto Project as platinum members for embedded Linux development NSA researchers present security improvements for Zephyr and Fucshia at Linux Security Summit 201

Last month, the Intercept informed that Google is reportedly building a prototype search engine for China called 'Dragonfly' which lead to Google employees pressuring Google to abandon the project on ethical grounds. Google has then appeased their employees stating that the project was simply an exploration and nowhere near completion. Now, there are fresh reports from the Intercept that Google’s custom search engine would link Chinese users’ search queries to their personal phone numbers, thus making it easier for the government to track their searches. This means those who search for banned information could be interrogated or detained if security agencies got hold of Google's search records. According to The intercept, Dragonfly will be designed for Android devices, and would remove content considered to be sensitive by China’s authoritarian Communist Party regime- which includes information about freedom of speech, dissidents, peaceful protest and human rights. Citing anonymous sources familiar with the plan—including a Google whistleblower having "moral and ethical concerns" about Google’s role in censorship, the Intercept revealed that "programmers and engineers at Google have created a custom Android app" which has already been demonstrated to the Chinese government. The finalized version could be launched in the next six to nine months,  after the approval from Chinese officials. What this means to other nations and to Google China has strict cyber surveillance, and the fact that this tech giant is bending to China’s demands is a topic of concern for US legislators as well as citizens of other countries. Last week, in an Open letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, the US Senator for Florida Marco Rubio led by a bipartisan group of senators, expresses his concerns over the project being   "deeply troubling" and risks making “Google complicit in human rights abuses related to China’s rigorous censorship regime”. He also requests answers for several unanswered doubts. For instance, what changed since Google’s 2010 withdrawal from China to make the tech giant comfortable in cooperating with China’s rigorous censorship regime. This project is also driving attention from users all over the Globe. Source: Reddit   Google has not yet confirmed the existence of Dragonfly, and has publicly declined to comment on reports about the project. The only comment released to Fox News from a Google spokesperson on Sunday was that it is just doing 'exploratory' work on a search service in China and that it is 'not close to launching a search product.' In protest to this project last month, more than 1,000 employees had signed an open letter asking the company to be transparent. Now, some employees have taken the next step by resigning from the company altogether.  This is not the first time that Google employees have resigned in protest over one of the company's projects. Earlier this year, Project Maven, a drone initiative for the US government that could weaponize their AI research caused a stir among at least a dozen employees who reportedly quit over the initiative. The scrutiny on Google’s take on privacy has continued to intensify. It is about time the company starts  taking into consideration all aspects of a user’s internet privacy. To know more about Project 'Dragonfly', head over to The intercept. Google’s ‘mistakenly deployed experiment’ covertly activated battery saving mode on multiple phones today Did you know your idle Android device sends data to Google 10 times more often than an iOS device does to Apple? Bloomberg says Google, Mastercard covertly track customers’ offline retail habits via a secret million dollar ad deal      

Mary Meeker is leaving Kleiner Perkins and starting a new investment fund along with three other partners. Joining Meeker in her new fund are Kleiner Perkins other investors Mood Rowghani and Noah Knauf, as well as Juliet de Baubigny, a partner. As her latest stint as venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins, Meeker has led the company’s investments in more mature start-ups and yielded several successful bets by putting money into Facebook, Twitter, Spotify and Snap when the companies were further along. She is popularly known as the Queen of the Internet for her coverage of internet stocks, since 2010. She also delivers an annual internet trends report considered as one of the most prestigious and thorough in the technology industry. She also remains one of the few women to earn a general partner title at Kleiner Perkins. The business industry is generally known to not award women with the highest roles in VC. In 2014, she was listed as the 77th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. Her exit from Kleiner Perkins, will undoubtedly be a huge blow to the venture capitalist firm, given the fact that Meeker is by far the most senior woman in venture capital and has a high stature in the business community. It seems Kleiner Perkins is changing its tactics in the business consulting industry. In 2016, legendary investor John Doerr stepped down as managing partner, replaced by Ted Schlein. The departures of Meeker, Rowghani and Knauf’s add further support to the claim. Talking about Meeker at the time of her hiring, Schlein said, “There is only one Mary Meeker,” He now says he is “not naive” about what it will be like to lose Meeker. Kleiner Perkins will have to move on without its most famous name. Python founder resigns – Guido van Rossum goes ‘on a permanent vacation from being BDFL’ Anima Anandkumar, the machine learning guru behind AWS bids adieu to AWS. Dr. Fei Fei Li, Google’s AI Cloud head steps down amidst speculations; Dr. Andrew Moore to take her place

Typescript 3.1 release candidate is here with a few breaking changes and a showcase of what’s there to come in Typescript 3.1. TypeScript 3.1 RC is meant to gather all feedback to ensure a smooth final release. Here are the breaking changes: Support for Mappable tuple and array types Mapping over values in a list is one of the most common patterns in programming. Typescript 3.1 RC introduces mapped object types when iterating over tuples and arrays. This means if you’re already using existing mapped types like Partial or Required from lib.d.ts, they also automatically work on tuples and arrays now. Properties on function declarations Traditionally, properties on function declarations has been done in Typescript using namespaces. They are internal modules which organize code and support the concept of value-merging, where you can add properties to classes and functions in a declarative way. But they come with their own problems: ECMAScript modules have become the preferred format for organizing new code in the broader TypeScript & JavaScript community, and namespaces are TypeScript-specific. Additionally, namespaces don’t merge with var, let, or const declarations Now, in TypeScript 3.1, for any function declaration or const declaration that’s initialized with a function, the type-checker will analyze the containing scope to track any added properties. As an added bonus, this functionality in conjunction with TypeScript 3.0’s support for JSX.LibraryManagedAttributes makes migrating an untyped React codebase to TypeScript significantly easier. Vendor-specific declarations removed TypeScript 3.1 RC now generates parts of lib.d.ts (and other built-in declaration file libraries) using Web IDL files provided from the WHATWG DOM specification. This makes lib.d.ts easier to keep up-to-date. However, many vendor-specific types have been removed. Differences in narrowing functions Using the typeof foo === "function" type guard may provide different results when intersecting with union types composed of {}, Object, or unconstrained generics. You can have a look at the Typescript roadmap to get the whole picture of the release. The final release, Typescript 3.1, is expected to ship in just a few weeks. Read more about the Typescript 3.1 RC on Microsoft blog. TypeScript 3.0 is finally released with ‘improved errors’, editor productivity and more. TypeScript 3.0 release candidate is here. How to install and configure TypeScript.

Today (September 14), Mark Zuckerberg published a long and detailed post on Facebook outlining the challenges the platform faces in terms of misinformation and election interference. With the U.S. midterms coming up in November, it would appear that Zuckerberg is keen to reassert his authority and demonstrate to the world that he has a grip on the big issues. Covering fake accounts, ad transparency, and election interference, Zuckerberg goes into detail about the problems Facebook has faced and the actions its taking to solve them. For example: Zuckerberg says Facebook has "removed a billion fake accounts" in the months between October 2017 and March 2018. It's done this, Zuckerberg explains, using machine learning tools and doubling the size of its safety and security team from 10,000 employees to 20,000. Facebook is tackling misinformation in a number of ways - on the one hand its reducing the economic incentives (so, sites that push misinformation are blocked from promoting their content), but also having a team of 'fact-checkers' from the International Fact Checking Network. "Posts that are rated as false are demoted and lose on average 80% of their future views" Zuckerberg writes. Zuckerberg claims that "Facebook now has a higher standard of ad transparency than has ever existed with TV or newspaper ads." In terms of political campaigning, for example, it's now possible to see when political ads are paid for by third parties. Furthermore, he also explains that you now need to verify your identity to run political campaigns in the U.S. This should, in theory, prevent international interference in other countries' campaigns and political discourse. Is Facebook saying "we're well prepared" or "we need your help?" The most curious thing about Zuckerberg's 'manifesto' is that, for all of its bullishness, it does also detail Facebook's weaknesses. On the one hand he details how the organization is taking real and practical steps to solve huge problems, but within just a few paragraphs he hints at the limitations and weaknesses of Facebook's community standards, and the difficulty of crafting a policy. He wants us to know that Facebook knows exactly what its doing, but he also wants us to know that it needs everyone's help. "Preventing election interference is bigger than any single organization" Zuckerberg goes on to write, before explaining how Facebook needs to be part of a joined up approach involving the tech industry, media and government. It's hard to disagree with that point, but to the rhetorical move from we're deleting billions of fake accounts with machine learning to "we're all in this together" (a phrase Zuckerberg actually writes) does seem a little odd. The confused media reaction to Zuckerberg's post It would seem that the media is a little confused about what to take from Zuckerberg's post too: on the one hand, some outlets, like The New York Times and The Hill, take Zuckerberg's assertions at face value, citing his point that Facebook is now "better prepared to fight election interference". Others, however, like The Next Web and Business Insider focus on Facebook's limitations, and Zuckerberg's plea for support. We may have to wait for the next instalment of Zuckerberg's dispatches to get a bit more detail on how Facebook is going to handle ongoing political crises - but it's safe to say it doesn't look like there are going to be any more radical changes soon. Read next Facebook, Twitter open up at Senate Intelligence hearing, committee does ‘homework’ this time Four 2018 Facebook patents to battle fake news and improve news feed Facebook, Twitter takes down hundreds of fake accounts with ties to Russia and Iran, suspected to influence the US midterm elections

Yesterday, Facebook announced that Cadence, Esperanto, Intel, Marvell, and Qualcomm Technologies Inc, have committed to support their Glow compiler in future silicon products. Facebook, with this partnership aims to build a hardware ecosystem for machine learning. With Glow, their partners will be able to rapidly design and optimize new silicon products for AI and ML and help Facebook scale their platform. They are also planning to expand this ecosystem by adding more partners in 2018. What is Glow? Glow is a machine learning compiler which is used to speed up the performance of deep learning frameworks on different hardware platforms. The name “Glow” comes from Graph-Lowering, which is the main method that the compiler uses for generating efficient code. This compiler is designed to allow state-of-the-art compiler optimizations and code generation of neural network graphs. With Glow, hardware developers and researchers can focus on building next generation hardware accelerators that can be supported by deep learning frameworks like PyTorch. Hardware accelerators for ML solve a range of distinct problems. Some focus on inference, while others focus on training. How it works? Glow accepts a computation graph from deep learning frameworks such as, PyTorch and TensorFlow and generates highly optimized code for machine learning accelerators. To do so, it lowers the traditional neural network dataflow graph into a two-phase strongly-typed intermediate representation: Source: Facebook High-level intermediate representation allows the optimizer to perform domain-specific optimizations. Lower-level intermediate representation, an instruction-based address-only representation allows the compiler to perform memory-related optimizations, such as instruction scheduling, static memory allocation, and copy elimination. The optimizer then performs machine-specific code generation to take advantage of specialized hardware features. Glow supports a high number of input operators as well as a large number of hardware targets with the help of its lowering phase, which eliminates the need to implement all operators on all targets. The lowering phase reduces the input space and allows new hardware backends to focus on a small number of linear algebra primitives. You can read more about Facebook’s goals for Glow in its official announcement. If you are interesting in knowing how it works in more detail, check out this research paper and also its GitHub repository. Facebook launches LogDevice: An open source distributed data store designed for logs Google’s new What-if tool to analyze Machine Learning models and assess fairness without any coding Facebook introduces Rosetta, a scalable OCR system that understands text on images using Faster-RCNN and CNN

Yesterday, Mozilla announced that they will be releasing a new version of Firefox Focus for Android next week. This version will be powered by Gecko, which is a browser engine developed by Mozilla and is also used in Firefox Quantum. Firefox Focus enables you to stay “focused” by automatically blocking ads and trackers. Once you are done browsing, you can delete your search history completely using its erase button. It provides a faster browsing experience and you do not have to worry about the retargeted ads. Why Firefox Focus needs Gecko? Since the beginning, Focus has been using Android’s built-in WebView, but it has some limitations. WebView is not designed for building browsers. It only supports a subset of web standards, as Google expects developers to use native Android APIs, and not the Web, for advanced standards. To add next-generation privacy features to Focus, its developers require deep access to the browser internals. This is why, they decided to use their own engine, Gecko. Firefox for Android already uses Gecko, but not in a way that’s easy to reuse in other applications. To make Gecko reusable they built GeckoView. To allow the use of GeckoView in other applications, the developers have decoupled the engine from its user interface and packaged it as a reusable Android library. In a nutshell, GeckoView will help them leverage all of their Firefox expertise in building more compelling, safe, and robust online experiences. They are also planning to use GeckoView in entirely new products like Firefox Reality, a browser designed for virtual and augmented reality headsets. You will hear more about Firefox Reality later this year promises the Mozilla blog. You can currently download Focus Beta and report issues, if any. If you are an Android developer, you can give this library a try or directly contribute on GitHub. To read more about GeckoView, check out the announcement on Mozilla’s official website. Mozilla releases Firefox 62.0 with better scrolling on Android, a dark theme on macOS, and more Upcoming Firefox update will, by default, protect users privacy by blocking ad tracking Firefox Nightly’s Secure DNS Experimental Results out

YouTube has begun transcoding videos into the AV1 video codec and has created an AV1 beta launch playlist to test the same, yesterday. Why does the AV1 format matter? This transcoding aims to significantly reduce video stream bandwidths without loss in quality while exceeding the compression standards set by even HEVC. Google was opposed to using HEVC due to its high royalty costs. To combat this, the company developed its own VP9 format in 2012 for HD and 4K HDR video which saw limited uptake outside of Google’s own properties. AV1 now replaces both HEVC and VP9. The AV1 initiative was announced in 2015, where internet giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, and several others joined forces to develop a ‘next gen’ video format. Besides better compression as compared to VP (and HEVC), AV1 has a royalty-free license. This could lead to reducing the operating-cost savings for YouTube and other video streaming services. Since video streaming contributes to a massive chunk of total internet traffic, even a small improvement in compression can have massive effects on the network as well as on user experience. AV1 also provides an architecture for both moving and still images. More widespread support and adoption of the AV1 software is projected for 2020. Source: Flatpanelshd YouTube users of the new AV1 format will not notice a reduction in their data consumption just yet, because the first batch of videos has been encoded at a very high bitrate to test performance. Future playlists could, however, test the CODEC's other more important aspects- data savings. To watch the videos in AV1, users will have to use Chrome 70 or Firefox 63 that were both recently updated to support AV1. YouTube also mentions that AV1 videos are currently available in 480p SD only, switching to VP9 for higher resolutions. Head over to YouTube’s official site for more coverage on the news. YouTube’s Polymer redesign doesn’t like Firefox and Edge browsers YouTube’s CBO speaks out against Article 13 of EU’s controversial copyright law YouTube has a $25 million plan to counter fake news and misinformation