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Python made it to the TIOBE index in the third position for the first time in its history. The TIOBE programming community index is a common measure of programming language popularity. It is created and maintained by the TIOBE company based in the Netherlands. The popularity in the index is calculated based on the number of search engine results for search queries with the name of the language. They consider searches from Google, Google Blogs, MSN, Yahoo!, Baidu, Wikipedia, and YouTube. The TIOBE index is updated once a month. Source: TIOBE Python is third behind Java and C. Python’s rating is 7.653 percent while Java had a rating of 17.436 percent. C was in the second place rated at 15.447 percent. Python moved above C++ to be placed third. C++ was third last month and now is in the fourth place this month, with a rating of 7.394 percent. Python has increasing ubiquity, being used in many research areas like AI and machine learning which are all the buzz today. The increasing popularity is not surprising as Python has versatile applications. AI and machine learning, software development, web development, scripting, scientific applications, and even games, you name it. Python is easy to install, learn, use, and deploy. The syntax is also very simple and beginner friendly. TIOBE states that this third place took a really took a long time. “At the beginning of the 1990s it entered the chart. Then it took another 10 years before it reached the TIOBE index top 10 for the first time. After that it slowly but surely approached the top 5 and eventually the top 3.“ Python has also been the language of the year in the index for the years 2007 and 2010. The current top 5 languages are Java, C, Python, C++, and Visual Basic .NET. To read more and to view the complete list of the index, visit the TIOBE website. Build a custom news feed with Python [Tutorial] Home Assistant: an open source Python home automation hub to rule all things smart Build botnet detectors using machine learning algorithms in Python [Tutorial]

European’ Union’s copyright preform bill, is currently up for a vote in the European Parliament on September 12. It’s Article 13 has been on the receiving end of backlash with many organizations protesting against it. Last week it was Youtube’s CBO speaking out and this week German OpenStreetMap has made their map unusable, to protest against EU copyright reform. [box type="shadow" align="" class="" width=""]According to Article 13, there is an “obligation on information society service providers storing and giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploaded by their users to take appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with right holders and to prevent the availability on their services of content identified by rightholders in cooperation with the service providers”.[/box] The Article 13 is a new revamped version that EU has come out with as the older version of the copyright reform bill was rejected by the Parliament back in July. The older version also received heavy criticism from different policy experts and digital rights group on grounds of violating the fundamental rights of the internet users. This legislation has the possibility of changing the balance of power between producers of music, news and film and the dominant websites that host their work. On one side, people say that if passed, this law would mean the end of free Internet. Platforms will have to algorithmically pre-filter all user uploads and block fair use content, cool satire, funny memes etc. On the other side, supporters of the law say that their hard work is being compromised because they are not being fairly compensated for their work. These people are creators who depend upon being paid for the sharable content they create, such as musicians, authors, filmmakers and so on. Although people have supported OpenStreetmap’s decision. A hacker news user pointed out, “Good for them. The Internet as we know it is being attacked from multiple angles right now, with the EU filtering proposals, AU/5Eyes anti-encryption proposals, etc.” A person also called it as, “Oh no, more evil political hacking!” You can read about more such opinions on Hacker news. You can also find some of the most common questions around the proposed Directive on the EU website. Mozilla, Internet Society, and web foundation wants G20 to address “techlash” fuelled by security and privacy concerns. Facebook COO, Sandberg’s Senate testimony: On combating foreign influence, fake news, and upholding election integrity. Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey’s Senate Testimony: On Twitter algorithms, platform health, role in elections and more.

GNU nano 3.0 was released this Sunday. Linux Terminal nano is a popular text based editor. While veteran users may prefer vim, nano is simpler to use and beginner friendly. It is also easier to save and exit from a file on nano, unlike Vim. Termed as "Water Flowing Underground", nano 3.0 sees improvements in speed, usability, and improvements. The major improvements include: Faster file reading by upto 70 percent Roughly twice the speed for ASCII text handling New shortcuts; Ctrl+Delete deletes the previous word and Ctrl+Shift+Delete deletes the previous word Various key bindings like M-Q to find previous, tabs to spaces toggle is placed on M-O, the toggle for more space is removed completely On opening multiple files, the correct number of lines are shown on the status bar The formatter command and searchagain function is removed, M-W is now bound to findnext by default The No-Convert toggle is now under the Insert menu The Backup and New-Buffer toggles are removed from the main menu, but remain on the Write-Out and Insert menus Higher precision in accepting a rebindable key name Any Esc key pressed before a valid command keystroke is ignored More escape sequences are recognized rcfile error messages on a Linux console are not hidden now The ‘copytext’ function is now ‘copy’ and ‘uncut’ is now ‘paste’ There are also improvements made to avoid a hang while performing a full-justify on text Nano is the default text editor on many popular Linux distributions and is preinstalled. For nano 3.0 your Linux distribution will update it. It will take some time before you’ll see this in your system updates. These are the major changes in GNU nano 3.0. For a full list and a changelog and bug fixes, visit the GNU website. GIMP gets $100K of the $400K donation made to GNOME GNOME 3.30 released with improved Desktop performance, Screen Sharing, and more Is Linux hard to learn?

Now for some personal news: Packt has passed 2000 repositories on GitHub. This milestone, which has taken significant effort from some of the Packt team, has been a direct response to customer demands. It means the code inside Packt books and videos can now be easily accessed by readers and viewers, making the step between learning and doing that little bit easier. You can find Packt's GitHub portal here.  Packt's GitHub portal: some dates and statistics Packt's first official GitHub repo was created in March 2016 for Swift 2 by Example. You can find it here. Since then, more than 90,000 people have used our repositories - a number which is growing every day. The top programming languages represented on Packt's GitHub portal The most popular languages on Packt's GitHub largely indicate the areas that are most popular with Packt readers. However, it does also offer an insight on the most popular languages today. Over time, Packt should be able to track changes that will allow us to see how the popularity and usage of languages changes over time. The most popular GitHub repo The most popular Packt GitHub repo is the repo for our book Deep Learning with Keras. This repo (which you can find here) has (at the time of writing) 408 Stars, 340 Forks, and 51 Watchers.         Making Packt products more practical - and making learning easier The initiative is designed to make Packt products more practical. In theory, it should make it easier to bridge the gap between learning a new skill and solving a problem. Product Manager Erol Staveley explains: "By making our code assets open source, we’re letting people build and explore our hands-on examples, giving back to the community a little, and helping them learn by doing. This is a small but valuable step in the evolution of our products as we seek to ensure they remain relevant to the needs of our readers." If you're a Packt customer, it's well worth diving into the code for any products you already have.  Read next GitHub parts ways with JQuery, adopts Vanilla JS for its frontend GitHub open sources its GitHub Load Balancer (GLB) Director Microsoft’s GitHub acquisition is good for the open source community

The Haiku OS project initially launched in August 2001, then named as “OpenBeOS”, is nearing a beta release expected later this month. It's been over 17 years since the project launched, and more than 18 years since the last release of the operating system- BeOS that inspired it. BeOs launched in 1995 by Be Inc, almost became the operating system for Apple’s hardware. However, the negotiations between Be Inc and Apple turned into nothing and the iPhone giant decided in favour of NeXT. Used primarily in the area of multimedia by software developers and users, BeOS had an impressive user interface, pre-emptive multitasking, symmetric multiprocessing and a 64-bit journaling file system. Cloning BeOS, Haiku's boot performance is very good. The Haiku user interface is modeled entirely after BeOS, acquiring its signature variable-width title bars and spatial file management. Be Inc was shuttered in 2001. Although BeOS is dead- Haiku is very much alive, with around 50 people contributing to a patch every year. The biggest challenge that Haiku faces is the length of time between its releases. The most recent release, Haiku R1 Alpha 4.1, dates back to November 2012. In response to the considerable amount of time taken for this release, Haiku developer Adrien Destugues asserts that they needed to figure out various details regarding the project. From how to get the process back on track, to figuring out the buildbot setup, how to distribute the release to mirrors, where to get CDs pressed , and how to ship these to users who want to buy them. While the expected release date is somewhere towards the end of this month, Destugues is also open to delaying the release for another month or so in order to ship a quality product.  However, he confirms that, beginning with the first beta, there will be more frequent releases and continuous updates via the OS’s package manager. Why Should Haiku users stick around? Right after the first release of Haiku, the development team released a poll with a list of features, for which developers and users would vote to decide if they were ‘R1’ or ‘not R1’ Along with fixing a lot of bugs encountered in the previous version, users can now look forward to new features, including- Support for Wi-Fi A modern web browser with CSS and HTML5 support Improvements to the APIs which include support for system notifications, applications localisation, easier controls in the GUI, ‘stack and tile’ window management ‘Launch daemon’ in charge of starting and monitoring system services 64-bit CPU support, support for more than eight CPU cores USB3 and SATA support Support for more than 1GB of RAM Haiku now includes Package manager. All of these features will help the 200 odd users to run Haiku on a modern machine. The Haiku OS is famous among its users for its ease of use, responsiveness, and overall coherence. HaikuPorts and HaikuArchives currently include a range of software that can be used with the OS- including small 2D games, porting tools for embedded systems and the occasional Python library needed. Haiku has also made it possible to achieve porting Qt, LibreOffice, or other large applications over from the Linux world. While working with Haiku, developers often encounter system bugs in the process. This means if one is developing an application and is faced with resolving a bug, sooner or later they will be fixing the OS as well. Naturally, there are some viewers who are apprehensive of the timeline committed by Haiku, as they have waited long enough for the release. Source: Reddit After a span of 17 years, it would be interesting to see the number of Haiku users that have stuck around for the Beta release. Head over to computerworld for deeper insights on this project. Sugar operating system: A new OS to enhance GPU acceleration security in web apps cstar: Spotify’s Cassandra orchestration tool is now open source! Storj Labs’ Open Source Partner Program generates revenue opportunities for open source companies

The Ripgrep team released a minor version Ripgrep 0.10.0 last week. It explores features such as PCRE2 support, multi-line search and a JSON output format among other minor updates. Ripgrep is a command line search tool that recursively searches your current directory for a regex pattern while respecting your gitignore rules. It offers first class support on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Major Updates The minimum version which was required to compile Rust has been changed to track the latest stable version of Rust. The new minor versions will be using the current stable version of the Rust compile as its minimum supported version. Ripgrep 0.10.0 has now got libripgrep which helps with fast searching over arbitrary streams of data.  A new feature offering multi-line support has been added, which allows matching over multiple lines. There’s another new feature PCRE2 and JSON Lines format. The PCRE2 feature provides support for look-around and backreferences ( match the same text as previously matched by a capturing group ) and JSON lines format makes use of --json flag which helps print results in that format. Other changes A --one-file-system flag has been added to skip directories on different file systems. Two new minor features namely --sort and --sortr flag have been added for more sorting. --crlf flag is added in Ripgrep 0.10.0 to permit $ to work with carriage returns on Windows. A --null-data flag has been added to ripgrep 0.10.0 that makes ripgrep use NUL as a line terminator. --line-buffered and --block-buffered have been added for forcing a buffer strategy. A --pre-glob feature has been added for filtering files through the --pre flag. Bug Fixes A bug in ignore crate, where first path was treated as a symlink, has been fixed in ripgrep 0.10.0. Compile time and runtime CPU features have been added to --version output. ripgrep is more robust now when it comes to memory maps failing. For more information, check out the official ripgrep 0.10.0 release notes. Arduino now has a command line interface (CLI) Command Line Tools for DevOps Command-Line Tools

After concluding the release cycle of version 1.0 last month, OpenZeppelin marked the start of another release cycle by launching OpenZeppelin 2.0 RC 1 on September 7th. This release is aimed to deliver reliable updates to their users, unlike some of the earlier releases, which were backwards-incompatible. OpenZeppelin is a framework of reusable smart contracts for Ethereum and other EVM and eWASM blockchains. You can build distributed applications, protocols, and organizations in Solidity language. What's new in OpenZeppelin 2.0 RC 1? Changes This release provides a more granular system of roles, like the MinterRole. Similar to Ownable, the creator of a contract is assigned all roles at first, but they can selectively give them out to other accounts. Ownable contracts is now moved to role based access. To increase encapsulation, all state variables are now private. This means that derived contracts cannot directly access the state variables, but have to use getters. All event names have been changed to be consistently in the past tense except those which are defined by an ERC. ERC721 is now separated into different optional interfaces - Enumerable and Metadata. ERC721Full has both the extensions. In SafeMath, require is used instead of assert. The ERC721.exists function is now internal. Earlier, SplitPayment allowed deployment of an instance with no payees. This will cause every single call to claim to revert, making all Ether sent to it lost forever. The preconditions on SplitPayment constructor arguments are now changed to prevent this scenario. The IndividuallyCappedCrowdsale interface is simplified by removing the concept of user from the crowdsale flavor. The setGroupCap function, which takes an array is also removed, as this is not customary across the OpenZeppelin API. ERC contracts have all been renamed to follow the same convention. The interfaces are called IERC##, and their implementations are ERC##. ERC20.decreaseApproval is renamed to decreaseAllowance, and its semantics are also changed to be more secure. MerkleProof.verifyProof is renamed to MerkleProof.verify. ECRecovery is renamed to to ECDSA, and AddressUtils to Address. Additions ERC165Query is added to query support for ERC165 interfaces. A new experimental contract is added to migrate ERC20 tokens with an opt-in strategy. A modulo operation, SafeMath.mod is added to get the quotient. Added Math.average. Added ERC721Pausable. Removed Restriction on who can release funds in PullPayments, SplitPayment, PostDeliveryCrowdsale, RefundableCrowdsale is removed. ERC20Basic is removed, now there's only ERC20. The Math.min64 and Math.max64 functions are now removed,  left only the uint256 variants. The Mint and Burn events are removed from ERC20Mintable and ERC20Burnable. A few contracts that were not generally secure enough are removed: LimitBalance, HasNoEther, HasNoTokens, HasNoContracts, NoOwner, Destructible, TokenDestructible, CanReclaimToken. You can install the release candidate by running the npm install openzeppelin-solidity@next command. To read more about OpenZeppelin 2.0 RC 1, head over to OpenZeppelin’s GitHub repository. The trouble with Smart Contracts Ethereum Blockchain dataset now available in BigQuery for smart contract analytics How to set up an Ethereum development environment [Tutorial]  

On 29th August 2018, the team at Snort released the fourth alpha of the next generation Snort IPS- Snort 3, in beta version. Along with all the Snort 2.X features, this version of Snort++ includes new features as well as bug fixes for the base version of Snort. Here are some key features of Snort++: Support provided for multiple packet processing threads Shared configuration and attribute table available Simple, scriptable configuration Key components are now pluggable Autodetect services for portless configuration Support for  sticky buffers in rules Autogenerate reference documentation Provide better cross-platform support Facilitate component testing Support pipelining of packet processing, hardware offload and data plane integration, and proxy mode Below is a brief gist of these upgrades, Easy Configuration LuaJIT is used for configuration with a consistent, and executable syntax. Better Detection of Services The team has worked closely with Cisco Talos to update rules to meet their needs, including a feature they call "sticky buffers." The Hyperscan search engine, and regex fast patterns make rules faster and more accurate. HTTP Support Snort 3 has a stateful HTTP inspector that handles 99 percent of the HTTP Evader cases. The aim is to achieve 100% coverage soon. The HTTP support also includes new rule options. Better Performance Deep packet inspection now gives a better performance. Snort 3 supports multiple packet-processing threads, and scales linearly with a much smaller amount of memory required for shared configs. JSON event logging This can be used to integrate with tools such as the Elastic Stack. Check out the Snort blog post for more details on the same. More Plugins! Snort 3 was designed to be extensible. It has over 225 of plugins of various types. It is easy for users to add their own codec, inspector, rule action, rule option, or logger. In addition to all these features, users can also watch out for additional upgrades like next generation DAQ, connection events, search engine acceleration among others. To know more about the release of Snort 3, head over to Snort’s official page. OpenFaaS releases full support for stateless microservices in OpenFaaS 0.9.0 Mastodon 2.5 released with UI, administration, and deployment changes GNOME 3.30 released with improved Desktop performance, Screen Sharing, and more

GitHub has finally finished removing the JQuery dependency from its frontend code. This was a result of gradual decoupling from JQuery which began back in at least 2 years ago. They have chosen not to replace JQuery with yet another framework. Instead, they were able to make this transition with the help of polyfills that allowed them to use standard browser features such as, EventListener, fetch, Array.from, and more. Why GitHub chose JQuery in the beginning? Simple: GitHub started using JQuery 1.2.1 as a dependency in 2007. This enabled its web developers to create more modern and dynamic user experience. JQuery 1.2.1 allowed developers to simplify the process of DOM manipulations, define animations, and make AJAX requests. Its simple interface gave GitHub developers a base to craft extension libraries such as, pjax and facebox, which later became the building blocks for the rest of GitHub frontend. Consistent: Unlike the XMLHttpRequest interface, JQuery was consistent across browsers. GitHub in its early days chose JQuery as it allowed their small development team to quickly prototype and release new features without having to adjust code specifically for each web browser. Why they decided to remove JQuery dependency? After comparing JQuery with the rapid evolution of supported web standards in modern browsers, they observed that: CSS classname switching can be achieved using Element.classList. Visual animations can be created using CSS stylesheets without writing any JavaScript code. The addEventListeners method, which is used to attach an event handler to the document, is now stable enough for cross-platform use. $.ajax requests can be performed using the Fetch Standard. With the evolution of JavaScript, some syntactic sugar that jQuery provides has become redundant. The chaining syntax of JQuery didn’t satisfy how GitHub wanted to write code going forward. According to this announcement, this step of decoupling from jquery will allow them to: Rely on web standards more Have MDN web docs as their default documentation to refer Maintain more resilient code in future Speeding up page load times and JavaScript execution time Which technology is it using now? GitHub has moved from JQuery to vanilla JS (plain JavaScript). It is now using querySelectorAll, fetch for ajax, and delegated-events for event handling; polyfills for standard DOM manipulations, and Custom Elements. The adoption of Custom Elements is on the rise. It is a component library native to the browser, which means that users do not have to download, parse, and compile additional bytes of a framework. With the release of Web Components v1 in 2017, GitHub started to adopt Custom Elements on a wider scale. In future they are also planning to use Shadow DOM. To read more about how GitHub made this transition to using standard browser features, check out their official announcement. Github introduces Project Paper Cuts for developers to fix small workflow problems, iterate on UI/UX, and find other ways to make quick improvements Why Golang is the fastest growing language on GitHub

Shadow Robots Company, experts at grasping and manipulation for robotic hands announced that they are joining a new space avatar program named AVATAR X. This program is led by ANA HOLDINGS INC. (ANA HD) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). AVATAR X aims to accelerate the integration of technologies such as robotics, haptics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), to enable humans to remotely build camps on the Moon, support long-term space missions, and further explore space from Earth. In order to make this possible, Shadow will work closely with the programme’s partners, leveraging its unique teleoperation system that it has already developed and that is also available to purchase. AVATAR X is all set to be launched as a multi-phase programme. It aims to revolutionize space development and make living on the Moon, Mars and beyond, a reality. What will AVATAR X program include? AVATAR X program will comprise of clever elements including Shadow’s Dexterous Hand, which can be controlled by a CyberGlove worn by the operator. This hand will be attached to a UR10 robot arm controllable by a PhaseSpace motion capture tool worn on the operator’s wrist. Both the CyberGlove and Motion Capture wrist tool have mapping capability so that the Dexterous Hand and the robot arm can mimic an operator’s movements. The new system allows remote control of robotic technologies while providing distance and safety. Furthermore, Shadow uses an open source platform providing full access to the code to help users develop the software for their own specific needs. Shadow’s Managing Director, Rich Walker says “We’re really excited to be working with ANA HD and JAXA on the AVATAR X programme and it gives us the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how our robotics technology can be leveraged for avatar or teleoperation scenarios away from UK soil, deep into space. We want everyone to feel involved at such a transformative time in teleoperation capabilities and encourage all those interested to enter the AVATAR XPRIZE competition.” To know more about AVATAR X in detail, visit ANA Group’s press release. Four interesting Amazon patents in 2018 that use machine learning, AR, and robotics How Rolls Royce is applying AI and robotics for smart engine maintenance AI powered Robotics : Autonomous machines in the making  

Web visualization has been one of the most interesting themes to have emerged in the last 4-5 years. It allows developers to create interesting insight based apps, interactive maps business intelligence based charts & reports and then compile them right in your browser. Three.js, D3.js, Chart.js are few of the top libraries and frameworks that are most popular presently. The latest addition to this list is P5.js. P5.js is a JavaScript library that acts as a software sketchbook and allows the developers to use the whole browser as a canvas. The main goal of P5.js is to make coding accessible for artists, designers, entrepreneurs and others who want to create their own browser based visualizations with a custom touch. The inherent technology behind P5.js is Processing which is a sketch software/language for artists. To include a larger set of developers and designers into the fold, P5.js has incorporated coding in JavaScript. You can use it with DOM and hence this is as developer friendly as it is easily accessible by artists. P5.js has also add-on libraries that make it easier to interact with other HTML5 objects including text, video, webcam, sound etc. You can get started with P5.js by downloading the complete set-up file or the minified version of it from the official P5.js page. You can also start from one of the online versions of P5.js stored in CDN. It comes packed with the Sublime text code editor by default but you can use any code editor of your choice. Other good editor options include Brackets, Atom and OpenProcessing. If you are not using the p5 web editor, then Notepad++ or Eclipse might be good choices for you. P5.js comes with an option to customize the mouse and touch options while you are drawing. Unless a particular touch behavior is declared, the mouse touch assumes the touch of a mobile device which is intuitive and practical. P5.js also allows for Asynchronous JavaScript calls and functions. Loading images, external files, and URLs are generally handled by async functions which makes the overall process faster. There are a few variables and functions that make browser interaction easier, many more to come! windowWidth / windowHeight displayWidth / displayHeight winMouseX / winMouseY fullscreen() Any native JS function can be used easily with you p5.js sketch. One of the core ideas behind p5.js is that your sketch is not just the graphics canvas but the you can draw using the complete length and breadth of your browser. For this reason, there is the p5.dom library that makes it easy to interact with other HTML5 objects, including text, hyperlink, image, input, video, audio, and webcam. There is also a p5.sound library that provides a friendly interface to HTML5 web audio API for loading, playing, and synthesizing sounds. 8 ways to improve your data visualizations Getting started with Data Visualization in Tableau What is Seaborn and why should you use it for data visualization?

iRobot, the intelligent robot making company revealed its latest robot vacuum, the Roomba i7+ yesterday. It is a successor to the Roomba 980 which was launched in 2015. The i7+ has two key changes - it stores a map of your house and empties the trash itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPgxcETuqzI Weighing about 7.4lbs, the Roomba i7+ is designed to be easier to manage than the previous models. The new charging base houses a larger trash bin for automatic emptying. The stationary base automatically sucks the debris out of the Roomba into the bag. The base has the capacity to hold dirt of 30 cleanings. This would mean you’ll have to empty the bigger trash bag only once a month, depending on your cleaning needs. The i7+ works with two rubber brushes, one to loosen up the dirt and another to lift and collect it. The large bag in the base traps dust so that it can’t escape. It works on iAdapt® 3.0 Navigation with vSLAM® technology both of which are patented. They allow the robot to map its surroundings and clean sections of your home systematically. It creates visual landmarks to keep track of areas it has cleaned and areas pending to clean. Source: iRobot The i7+ too like the older models connect to the iRobot Home app and can sync with virtual assistants like Alexa to schedule cleanings. Like the previous 900 series, the i7+ too maps your house, the difference being that the newer model stores the map for automatic navigation later. You can use the app to differentiate and name different rooms and control the cleaning frequency. With an assistant, you can use voice commands to clean specific rooms. The i7+ will be available in stores from October. The price tag of $949 may not appeal to everyone, but if you want your house to be cleaned automatically, this is something to consider. There is also a lower- priced model, the i7 with a price tag of $699. This version does not have a self-cleaning base or mapping features, but it can be controlled by Wifi or an assistant. You can pre-order the latest Roomba i7+ from the iRobot website. Home Assistant: an open source Python home automation hub to rule all things smart How Rolls Royce is applying AI and robotics for smart engine maintenance 6 powerful microbots developed by researchers around the world

React announced its monthly release yesterday, React 16.5.0. In this release they have improved warning messages, added support for React DevTools Profiler in React DOM, and done some bug fixes. Updates in React A Dev warning is shown if React.forwardRef render function doesn't take exactly two arguments. A more improved message is shown if someone passes an element to createElement by mistake. The onRender function will be called after mutations and commitTime reflects pre-mutation time. Updates in React DOM New additions Support for React DevTools Profiler is added. The react-dom/profiling entry point is added for profiling in production. The onAuxClick event is added for browsers that support it. The movementX and movementY fields are added to mouse events. The tangentialPressure and twist fields are added to pointer events. Support for passing booleans to the focusable SVG attribute. Improvements Improved component stack for the folder/index.js naming convention. Improved warning when using getDerivedStateFromProps without initialized state. Improved invalid textarea usage warning. Electrons <webview> tag are now allowed without warnings. Bug fixes Fixed incorrect data in compositionend event when typing Korean on IE11. Avoid setting empty values on submit and reset buttons. The onSelect event not being triggered after drag and drop. The onClick event not working inside a portal on iOS. A performance issue when thousands of roots are re-rendered. gridArea will be treated as a unitless CSS property. The checked attribute is not getting initially set on the input. A crash when using dynamic children in the option tag. Updates in React DOM Server A crash is fixed that happens during server render in react 16.4.1 Fixes a crash when setTimeout is missing This release fixes a crash with nullish children when using dangerouslySetInnerHtml in a selected option. Updates in React Test Renderer and Test Utils A Jest-specific ReactTestUtils.mockComponent() helper is now deprecated. A warning is shown when a React DOM portal is passed to ReactTestRenderer. Improvements in TestUtils error messages for bad first argument. Updates in React ART Support for DevTools is added New package for scheduling (experimental) The ReactDOMFrameScheduling module will be pulled out in a separate package for cooperatively scheduling work in a browser environment. It's used by React internally, but its public API is not finalized yet. To see the complete list of updates in React 16.5.0, head over to their GitHub repository. React Next React Native 0.57 coming soon with new iOS WebViews Implementing React Component Lifecycle methods [Tutorial] Understanding functional reactive programming in Scala [Tutorial]

Robert Kyncl, YouTube's Chief Business Officer, opened up on YouTube’s Creator Blog, on Tuesday. This was about  “Article 13” in the EU proposal, which is currently up for a vote in the European Parliament on September 12. According to Article 13, there is an “obligation on information society service providers storing and giving access to large amounts of works and other subject-matter uploaded by their users to take appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with right holders and to prevent the availability on their services of content identified by rightholders in cooperation with the service providers”. In a nutshell, any user-generated content on these online platforms that a copyright enforcement algorithm considers as copyrighted work would need to be censored by these platforms. This is a new revamped version that EU has come out with as the older version was rejected by the Parliament back in July. The older version also received heavy criticism from different policy experts and digital rights group on grounds of violating the fundamental rights of the internet users. “The "Article 13” potentially undermine this creative economy, discouraging or even prohibiting platforms from hosting user-generated content. This outcome would not only stifle your creative freedom, it could have severe, negative consequences for the fans, the communities and the revenue you have all worked so hard to create,” mentioned Kyncl. Kyncl also pointed out how the creators and artists on these platforms have built businesses “on the back” of this “openness”.  YouTube has a strong set of copyright management tools like Content ID and a Copyright Match Tool which are pretty efficient at managing the re-uploads of creators’ content. “Copyright holders have control over their content: they can use our tools to block or remove their works, or they can keep them on YouTube and earn advertising revenue. In over 90% of cases, they choose to leave the content up. Enabling this new form of creativity and engagement with fans can lead to mass global promotion and even more revenue for the artist.” reads the YouTube blog post. A good example given by Kyncl is that of a famous pop singer, Dua Lipa whose singing career started with covering songs of other Artists. Also, Alan Walker’s worldwide famous track “Fade”  was heavily used by other users in the YouTube community along with being used in video games. This resulted in a massive fanbase for him. YouTube is not the only one disapproving of the new proposal. Other organizations such as  European Digital Rights, the Internet Archive, Patreon, Wordpress, and Medium have all opened up about their disapprobation against the EU copyright policy. “This is the new creative economy in action. The Copyright Directive won’t just affect creators and artists on YouTube. It will also apply to many forms of user-generated content across the Internet” writes Kyncl. For more information, check out the official YouTube blog post. YouTube has a $25 million plan to counter fake news and misinformation Mozilla, Internet Society, and web foundation wants G20 to address “techlash” fuelled by security and privacy concerns Facebook COO, Sandberg’s Senate testimony: On combating foreign influence, fake news, and upholding election integrity

The NYPD's secretive Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center uses software from IBM in its video analytics system as per the Intercept’s report. This technology developed by IBM will  allow cops to automatically scan surveillance footage for machine-generated labels that identify clothing and other identifying classifiers. Recent confidential corporate documents from IBM provide real-time insight into how this system was developed and used. Since at least 2012 and until at least 2016, IBM's video classification tool has allowed NYPD officers and contractors to use skin color as a classifier for identifying suspects; the training data for this feature came from the NYPD's own footage. The Intercept and the Investigative Fund have learned that IBM began developing this object identification technology using secret access to NYPD camera footage. With access to images of thousands of unknowing New Yorkers offered up by NYPD officials, IBM was creating new search features that allow other police departments to search camera footage for images of people by hair color, facial hair, and skin tone. More recent versions of IBM's tools have "ethnicity" search boxes that allow users to search on terms like "white," "black" and "Asian." In an email to The Intercept, the NYPD confirmed that select counterterrorism officials had access to a pre-released version of IBM’s program, which included skin tone search capabilities, as early as the summer of 2012. NYPD spokesperson Peter Donald says, “The search characteristics were only used for evaluation purposes and that officers were instructed not to include the skin tone search feature in their assessment. The department eventually decided not to integrate the analytics program into its larger surveillance architecture, and phased out the IBM program in 2016.” The NYPD has been notorious for decades' worth of mass-scale racial profiling scandals, ranging from stop-and-frisk to public executions of black people. Though they mention that IBM personnel had access to certain cameras for the sole purpose of configuring NYPD’s system. And the department had safeguards in place to protect the data, including non-disclosure agreements for each individual accessing the system, for the companies and the vendors it worked for. Civil liberties advocates contend that New Yorkers should have been made aware of the potential use of their physical data for a private company’s development of surveillance technology. They want NYPD to be transparent about surveillance acquisitions and adhere to the New York City surveillance bill. Say hello to IBM RXN, a free AI Tool in IBM Cloud for predicting chemical reactions Stack skills, not degrees: Industry-leading companies, Google, IBM, Apple no longer require degrees IBM Files Patent for “Managing a Database Management System using a Blockchain Database”