Tech News

It has been a tough few months for some of the U.S.' biggest tech companies. Political upheaval has placed a big focus on data, privacy, and government contracts not only in the tech industry but across the public too. You could easily argue that these organizations have been quiet in spite of considerable noise, but that might be changing. Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer today (13 July) wrote a blog post arguing in favor of regulation of facial recognition technology. What Brad Smith argues in his blog post In his blog post Brad Smith sets the context clearly. He argues that while facial recognition technology can be "both positive and potentially even profound," it also "raises a critical question: what role do we want this type of technology to play in everyday society?" For Smith, that question can't be answered by tech companies alone. "As a general principle," he writes, "it seems more sensible to ask an elected government to regulate companies than to ask unelected companies to regulate such a government." As Smith also notes, we shouldn't actually be that surprised at a company asking for government regulation. In other industries, it's actually common. Smith cites the aviation, food and pharmaceutical industries as areas in which corporations work closely with government to develop regulation and legislation. However, Smith doesn't outline anything specific with regards to legislation. Instead he is much more keen to urge a "thoughtful approach" from government, as a challenge to ways of using facial recognition technology that could be exploitative. He does, however, argue for Congress to form a bipartisan expert commission to properly assess the uses (and abuses) of facial recognition technology. "The purpose of such a commission should include advice to Congress on what types of new laws and regulations are needed, as well as stronger practices to ensure proper congressional oversight of this technology across the executive branch," he explains. Does Brad Smith think tech companies still have responsibility? In short, yes. Although Smith believes the debate and discussion around facial technology has to take place in a civic space away from the demands of industry and government, he is forthright in asserting technology companies' responsibility in developing and deploying new technologies. He outlines 4 things that the tech industry can do to ensure that facial recognition technology is used ethically: Working to minimize bias in machine learning and artificial intelligence systems More transparency in how facial recognition technology is being developed and used Being more cautious in how facial recognition technology is applied Actively participating in public policy discussions around facial recognition technology Are things changing in tech? Although it's only a blog post, this is one of the first instances of a senior figure at a tech company talking positively about working with government. Contrasted with Mark Zuckerberg's Congressional testimony, it couldn't look more different. At a time when conversation around the ethics of technology has never felt more visible and urgent, Brad Smith's intervention is welcome. How the wider tech world and government responds is another matter. Read next: Microsoft condemns ICE activity at U.S. border but still faces public and internal criticism Tech’s culture war: entrepreneur egos v. engineer solidarity Amazon is selling facial recognition technology to police

The tech world has spent the last 24 hours or so pretty confused at semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom's purchase software company CA Technologies. The deal, which Broadcom sealed with $18.9 billion in cash, was, according to the company, a way of adding to its portfolio "mission critical technology businesses." However, it seems the deal was just a little too left-field. Yesterday (Thursday 12 July), Broadcom's shares dropped 13.8%. This equates to a drop of $14.5 billion. Why did Broadcom purchase CA Technologies? This is the question that everyone seems to be asking. Ostensibly, the move is really about consolidating and driving Broadcom's position in the tech space forward. However, as The Register pointed out, a quarterly review between executives in June made no mention of an acquisition. It certainly didn't mention CA Technologies. Speaking to Bloomberg, Cody Acree said "It’s the lack of obvious connection between the two businesses. What does Broadcom know about improving CA’s efficiencies?" However, there may be some method in Broadcom's apparent madness, even if investors don't see it. Broadcom's business in semiconductors - Silicon chips - is more unstable than the type of software solutions offered by CA Technologies. The semiconductor market depends a lot on fluctuations in the consumer gadget market. However, even if this makes sense to the Broadcom excecutives, communicating this strategy would surely be absolutely essential. Surprising feints might look good in the long run but they can spook investors. A tale of two markets: consumer tech and software solutions It will take some time to see if Broadcom's move actually does work out. But it demonstrates the vast difference between the consumer and B2B markets in technology. It doesn't seem outrageous to suggest that at the very least Broadcom feels anxious about the volatility of its core market at the moment; its acquisition of CA Technologies might be the insurance policy it has been searching for.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced a free version of the Microsoft Teams app posing heavy competition to its rival chat service Slack. The new Teams app comes loaded with key features such as unlimited free chat messages, app integrations, 300 user base limit, etc.  Whereas, Slack’s free version limits users to 10,000 searchable messages, making the Teams app a strong contender to Slack. Until now, Teams was only offered to clients that paid for Office 365 and its subscription. But, there is no need to be an Office 365 subscriber anymore to experience the power of the Teams app as stated by Lori Wright, General Manager of Microsoft 365 Teamwork. Let’s have a look at the features that the free version of the Teams app offers. Key Features The free version of Teams app is globally available in 40 different languages. It offers unlimited chat messages, app integrations, and search. It provides 10 GB team file storage as well as additional 2 GB per user. It has a built-in online office which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote along with SharePoint and OneDrive. There are native audio and video calling options for one on one meetings, small groups as well as for the full team. With over 140 business apps working with Teams, Microsoft will offer two additional features to the free version of Teams app, later this year. This includes background blurring and Inline message Translation in 36 languages. Background Blurring will intelligently blur out your screen’s background. So if you are conducting a video call from your kitchen table, there is no need to worry about the dirty dishes and the mess in the background as it won’t be visible.  Inline Message Translation allows people to chat in their native language and then translate their messages into English. But, there are still some key features that are available only in the paid version of the Teams app. With the paid version, all the video chats conducted within Team can be stored in the cloud. These are searchable and comes with automatic captioning. It also offers Email hosting through Exchange or Outlook. Microsoft is also planning on including facial recognition for the viewers to easily search what was said and who said it. Other than that, there will be a public preview of "live events” feature i.e. video broadcasts that can be transcribed, archived, and time coded which will be available shortly. Microsoft doesn't consider the free version of the Teams App as a lightweight version of the paid offering, which is the case with Slack. As mentioned earlier, Microsoft includes innumerable features that offer increased storage space, messaging search features along with letting users make group video and voice calls. Whereas, Slack's free version only allows calls between two people at a time. But, Slack is also working on improving its own in-app search, with automated suggestions. The main question is, whether the users who are already happy using Slack would want to switch to the Teams app or not. We can only wait to find out. Microsoft launches Surface Go tablet at just $399 Microsoft Azure IoT Edge is open source and generally available! Microsoft introduces ‘Immutable Blob Storage’, a highly protected object storage for Azure  

Earlier this week, Facebook announced to test augmented reality (AR) ads onto the news feed to attract more advertisers. Ty Ahmad-Taylor, Vice President Product Marketing at Facebook made the announcement at the marketers' event hosted by The Social Network. The event highlighted how Facebook plans on advertising for the Christmas holiday season. Demo ads were presented by Ahmad, one where his face was incorporated into Candy Crush gameplay footage and the other, where shoppers could virtually test out makeup and sunglasses on their face, thereby, converting the ads into virtual fitting rooms. At 2017’s F8 developer conference Keynote, Mark Zuckerberg confessed that he thought of Augmented Reality in the context of AR glasses only. But, that’s clearly not the case anymore as Facebook changed its course by bringing AR to their messenger platform for developers as well as to their camera platform. Now, it is bringing the same AR experience into its news feed by giving chance to advertisers to test out the new AR ads. Facebook is looking forward to introducing AR ads to more industries in the future but as of now, it is working with companies that have physical ads. It is working with companies like ASUS, Nike, Sephora, and Kia to create AR experiences on its Messenger app. In fact, ASUS noticed 10 times higher user engagement on the app that used AR experience than those who did not. AR Ads appear like regular ads on news feed but there is a “tap to try it on” option with AR capabilities. You click the button, try the product virtually and if you like it, go ahead and make the purchase. Initially, it was tested by Michael Kors. It let users try on the sunglasses using the AR effects. Now, brands like NYX Professional Makeup, Pottery Barn, Sephora, Wayfair, Bobbi Brown, and King are also planning to test their ads later this summer. This feature will allow users to interact with the virtual version of fashion accessories, cosmetics, and furniture before actually buying them. Facebook is also bringing Shopping on Instagram to Stories. Shopping on Instagram was launched last year and allowed brands to tag their products on News Feed posts. Now, they will be able to do the same with Stories. This feature will be made available globally to all brands that have enabled shopping on Instagram before the Christmas holidays. Lastly, Facebook announced a new Video Creation Kit consisting of tools for advertisers to incorporate images into templates of mobile video ads. This will help them set up video ads easily to step into the advertising game more effectively. For more information on Facebook AR ads, check out the Facebook’s official blog page. CTA announces its first AR/VR Standard terminology Game developers say Virtual Reality is here to stay Adobe glides into Augmented Reality with Adobe Aero

Jetbrains have released a new version of their Kotlin/Native technology. With Kotlin/Native, you can compile Kotlin to native binaries that run without any virtual machine. It can also be used when a developer needs to produce a reasonably-sized self-contained program not requiring an additional runtime. Kotlin/Native is now available in version 0.8 with the focus on safer concurrent programming, extending the stdlib functionality, and better iOS development support. The version also hosts numerous bug-fixes and performance optimizations. Let us take a look into each one in detail: Better concurrency support The version 0.8 improves concurrency support with the addition of shared immutable state and improved atomic values and references. Previously, Kotlin/Native applications kept the singleton object state local to a particular thread of execution. This helped in keeping the state of singleton objects on different threads non-synchronized. Now, the version 0.8 allows freezing on singleton objects. With this, developers now have a shared immutable state. A file will be read once per process execution, and is available to any thread or worker. Once published, the object is frozen, and cannot be modified anymore. Library improvements in Kotlin/Native Kotlin/Native has added performance improvements to the existing libraries. The standard library (kotlin.*) is standardized with other platforms using expect/actual mechanism and mostly matches other Kotlin flavors. The standard random number generator and collection shuffling functions are now available, eliminating the need of platform-specific APIs to obtain random numbers. Other JetBrains-provided libraries, like kotlinx.coroutines, kotlinx.serialization, and Ktor HTTP client will get experimental Kotlin/Native support. Developers can now write an iOS app and Android application sharing the same REST API-related logic. iOS support improvements The version 0.8 fixes bugs that prevent publishing iOS apps to AppStore and solves framework initialization problems. It also adds support for 32-bit ARM iOS, so that older devices can be used with Kotlin/Native as well. Binaries can be downloaded for macOS, Linux, and Windows. Visit the GitHub release page for additional information. Forget C and Java. Learn Kotlin: the next universal programming language Getting started with Kotlin programming 4 operator overloading techniques in Kotlin you need to know

Firefox has been experimenting with some intriguing new apps as part of its 'Test Pilot' scheme: Firefox Lockbox and Firefox Notes. Both are, according to Mozilla, "the first steps toward bringing Mozilla’s mission of privacy, security and control to mobile apps beyond the browser." Both Lockbox and Notes are Firefox's first venture into mobile for its Test Pilot scheme. Find Firefox Lockbox here. Find Firefox Notes here. What is Firefox Lockbox for iOS? Firefox Lockbox is essentially a password manager for iOS. It allows you to log into an app - like Twitter or Facebook, for example - without opening a web page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOniFEypZhQ What is Firefox Notes? Firefox Notes is a note taking application for Android. It allows users to sync their notes across different devices. It's basically a multi-platform, cloud-based note taking app. Firefox is also keen to point out that these notes "are encrypted from end-to-end, which means that only you can read them." What is Firefox's Test Pilot scheme? Firefox's Test Pilot scheme allows users to try out Firefox applications and features before they're officially released. It allows developers to get useful feedback quickly so they can iterate, or even kill the apps before they go properly live. The Activity Stream feature in Firefox's desktop browser started life in Test Pilot. To try out any of the Test Pilot features - including Lockbox and Notes - all you need is a Firefox account and the Firefox sync plugin set up. If you use Firefox regularly, it could be well worth your while taking part in the project. You could provide some really useful feedback and help the development team improve the product. Read next: Someone created a div that looks different on every browser Firefox 61 builds on Firefox Quantum, adds Tab Warming, WebExtensions, and TLS 1.3

In the real world, a person having multiple identities is said to have Dissociative identity disorder (DID); but what about the virtual world? Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and so on have an equal number or even more fake identity profiles than real ones. It has set out on a mission to excise these fake and suspicious profiles from its platform. The committee plans to depreciate 214% more accounts on a yearly basis for violating its spam policies. Source: Twitter blog Twitter initiated this drive to improve the authenticity of conversations on the platform. It also aims to ensure users have access to information that is highly credible, relevant, and of a high-quality. Following this, it started off its battle against the fake profiles and has been constantly suspending fake accounts which are inauthentic, spammy or created via malicious automated bots. Instead of waiting for people to report on these accounts, the company is proactively dodging across problematic accounts and observing their behavior by using machine learning tools. These tools identify spam or automated accounts and automatically take necessary actions. Some plans Twitter has, to avoid fake account creation, include: Enabling a read-only mode to reduce visibility of suspicious accounts It plans to monitor the behaviour of every profile and update its account metrics in near-real time. This will help in knowing the number of followers an account has, or the number of likes or Retweets a Tweet receives, and so on. The account may even be converted into a read-only mode, if found behaving suspiciously. The account will be removed from follower figures and engagement counts until it has passed a challenge of conforming the account with a phone number. A warning is displayed against such read-only accounts to prevent new accounts from following it. Once the account passes the challenge, its footprint is restored. Improving Twitter’s sign-up process Twitter will make it all the more difficult for spam accounts to register for an account. The new accounts will also have to confirm either an email address or phone number when they sign up to Twitter. It also plans to working closely with its Trust and Safety Council and other expert NGOs to ensure this change does not affect people working in a high-risk environment where anonymity is necessary. This process would be rolled-out later this year. Auditing existing accounts for signs of automated sign-up It is also conducting an audit to secure a number of legacy systems used to create accounts. This process will ensure that every account created on Twitter passes some simple, automatic security checks designed to prevent automated signups. The new protections Twitter has recently developed as a result of this audit have already aided them in preventing more than 50,000 spam sign-ups per day. Malicious behavior detection systems being expanded They are also planning to automate some processes where suspicious account activity is detected by the behavior detection systems. Activities such as exceptionally high-volume tweeting using the same hashtag, or the same @username without a reply from the account. These tests vary in intensity, and may simply request the account owner to complete a simple reCAPTCHA process or a password reset request. Complex cases are automatically passed to the team for review. Twitter has fastened its seat belt and won’t stop until it takes down all the fake accounts from its platform. While this move is bold and commendable for a social network platform given the steep rise in fake news and other allied unsavory consequences of an ever-connected world, Twitter’s investors did not take it well. The company shares fell to around 9.7% on Monday, after it announced that it is suspending more than 1 million accounts a day. As per a Twitter statement, the account suspension doubled since October last year. Many speculate that this is a response to the congressional pressure the platform has been receiving regarding the alleged Russian fake accounts found on Twitter to interfere with the U.S elections held last year. The number reached around 7 million in May and June, and a similar pace continues in July. Though this move raises serious concerns around their falling user growth rate, this is an important step for the organization to improve the health of their social platform. Chief Financial Officer, Ned Segal, tweeted, "most accounts we remove are not included in our reported metrics as they have not been active on the platform for 30 days or more, or we catch them at sign up and they are never counted." I, for one, ‘like’ Twitter’s decision. Minor inconveniences are a small price to pay for a more honest commune and information sharing. Read more about this news on The Washington Post’s original coverage. Top 5 cybersecurity assessment tools for networking professionals Top 5 Cybersecurity Myths Debunked Top 10 IT certifications for cloud and networking professionals in 2018  

Early this month, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) published its first set of standards for the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies. Now with AR/VR added in the library, it will be able to provide support to an even larger number of audiences. CTA’s decision to include AR/VR within its free standard library is due to the ever-increasing popularity of AR/VR among the gamers across the globe. Also, the market for AR/VR accessories is quite competitive and continually improving. Brian Markwalter, senior VP of research and standards CTA, said that their first standard for AR/VR represents an important step in addressing key emerging technology areas. Brian pointed out that the reason for creating this standard is to promote the definitions created by the CTA’s AR/VR working group to spread awareness regarding different technologies and experiences. This standard helps the industry create a blueprint which can support the AR/VR technologies more effectively. The CTA-2069 publication or “Definitions and Characteristics of Augmented and Virtual Reality Technologies”,  introduces various terms based on the evolving and upcoming technologies such as Augmented reality (AR), Mixed reality (MR), Virtual reality (VR) videos and images, X reality, outside-in tracking and room-scale VR. You can find the free standards library easily online for free. This library gives you complete transparency and insight on the standards being used across the industry. Standards which cover and improve the accuracy of the key aspects of the consumer tech industry including audio, video, health, fitness, closed captioning, etc. The new standard has made it to market at the right time. CTA Sales and Forecasts report states that VR has become a $ 1 billion sector in the U.S and 4.9 million units will be sold in 2018 which is a 25 percent bump from 2017. It will also generate $ 1.2 billion in revenues. CTA accredits the boost to the growing popularity and market among AR/VR gamers within the sector. According to David McIntyre, the Senior Vice President of strategy and standards, Xperi Corporation, “Standardized, market-centric definitions are an important first step for the industry”. He also said how he’s looking forward to increased industry involvement while CTA works on other areas of XR (which is any hardware that combines aspects of AR, MR, and VR) standardization in service of the industry and consumers. For more coverage on CTA’s first AR/VR standard, check out the official CTA press release. Game developers say Virtual Reality is here to stay Adobe glides into Augmented Reality with Adobe Aero

Microsoft stepped up its tablet game by releasing the all-new Surface Go yesterday. The 10-inch Windows tablet looks exactly likes its expensive and popular counterpart, the Surface Pro device. Only smaller, less powerful and way cheaper, starting at $399. It includes features such as a 10-inch screen, front-facing camera with facial recognition, USB-C 3.1 port, and an integrated kickstand among others. Source: Microsoft Mechanics Let’s have a look at the features that make this tablet all the more alluring: Design Surface Go comes with a  built-in kickstand which includes unlimited positions. It has got corners that are slightly round as compared to the latest Surface Pro and a user familiar magnesium design surface. It weighs 1.15 lbs, making it a bit heavier as compared to the iPad but lighter than the Surface Pro. It consists of large bezels surrounding the screen which provides a place to hold the tablet. You get wider keyboard attachment with these bezels even though they make the tablet look quite dated when compared to the latest versions of the iPad. Display The Go has a smaller 3:2 aspect ratio display (1800 x 1200 pixel resolution). Its 3:2 touchscreen makes it easy for the users to use Go in landscape mode for more productivity. It also supports all the split-screen and multitasking modes that are available in Windows 10. Processor It comes with Intel’s Pentium Gold 4415Y processor with a RAM of either 4GB or 8GB. It provides storage of 64GB  eMMC or a 128GB SSD. Its processor is a dual-core seventh-generation model. According to Microsoft, this was chosen as it is able to provide the right balance between performance, battery life, and thermal properties which allows for a thin, fanless design. Battery Microsoft Surface Go has a USB-C 3.1 port which is Microsoft’s signature surface connector. This helps charge the tablet along with outputting video and data to external devices. Microsoft says the Surface Go tablet comes with up to nine hours of battery life. Additional Features Operating System: Go Tablet runs Windows 10 with S mode enabled. With Go, you can access only Edge browser and apps that are available in the Microsoft Store. Keyboard: The Surface Go consists of an additional keyboard cover which is available in four different colors, and can work with an optional Surface Pen. The Surface Go’s Type Cover provides “laptop-class typing” that comes with a scissor-key mechanism as well as 1 mm of key travel. The trackpad is much larger than the trackpad on the current Type Cover for the Surface Pro. If you add the keyboard, it will increase the price of the Go tablet to $99 or $129 ( depending on which color you choose) while the Pen adds another $99. There’s also a new $34.99 Surface Mobile Mouse. It is an ambidextrous, and two-button Bluetooth mouse which comes with a scroll wheel. It is available in colors like silver, red, and blue which matches the keyboard cover and pen. The new Surface Go is available for pre-order starting today and will start shipping in August. Leap Motion open sources its $100 augmented reality headset, North Star HTC Vive Focus 2.0 update promises long battery life, among other things for the VR headset

There is a new web application framework in town. Categorized as “Military grade” by its creator, Rich Harris, Sapper is a Next.js-style framework that is almost close to being the ideal web application framework. [box type="info" align="" class="" width=""]Fun Fact: Sapper, the name comes from the term for combat engineers, hence the term Military grade. It is also short for Svelte app maker.[/box] Sapper offers high grade development experience, with declarative routing, hot-module replacement, and scoped styles. It also includes modern development practices at par with current web application frameworks such as code-splitting, server-side rendering, and offline support. It is powered by Svelte, the UI framework which is essentially a compiler that turns app components into standalone JavaScript modules. What makes Sapper unique is that it dramatically reduces the amount of code that gets sent to the browser. In the RealWorld project challenge, Sapper implementation took 39.6kb (11.8kb zipped) to render an interactive homepage. The entire app cost 132.7kb (39.9kb zipped), which is significantly smaller than the reference React/Redux implementation at 327kb (85.7kb). Infact, the implementation totals 1,201 lines of source code, compared to 2,377 for the reference implementation. Another crucial feature of Sapper is code splitting. If an app uses React or Vue, there's a hard lower bound on the size of the initial code-split chunk, the framework itself, which is likely to be a significant portion of the total app size. Sapper has no lower bound for initial code splitting, which makes the app even faster. The framework is also extremely performant, memory-efficient, and easy to learn with Svelte's template syntax. It has scoped CSS, with unused style removal and minification built-in. The framework also has a svelte/store, a tiny global store that synchronises state across the component hierarchy with zero boilerplate. Currently Sapper is not released in version 1.0.0. Currently, Svelte's compiler operates at the component level. For the stable release, the team is looking for ‘whole-app optimisation' where the compiler understands the boundaries between the components to generate even more efficient code. Also, because Sapper is written in TypeScript, there may be plans to officially support TypeScript. Sapper may not be ready yet to take over an established framework such as React. The reason being, that the developers may have an aversion to any form of 'template language'. Moreover, React is extremely flexible and appealing to new developers. This is because of its highly active community and other learning resources, in particular, the devtools, editor integrations, tutorials, StackOverflow answers, and even job opportunities. When compared to such a giant, Sapper still has a long way to go. You can view the framework's progress and contribute your own ideas at Sapper GitHub and Gitter. Top frameworks for building your Progressive Web Apps (PWA) 5 reasons why your next app should be a PWA (progressive web app) Progressive Web AMPs: Combining Progressive Wep Apps and AMP

A 15 year old app researcher has discovered something hidden inside Snapchat's code: text that reads “Press and hold to identify an object, song, barcode, and more! This works by sending data to Amazon, Shazam, and other partners." The find, uncovered by Ishan Agarwal, who sent the tip to TechCrunch, strongly suggests that Snapchat is working on a 'visual search engine' that has some kind of link to Amazon. The remarkable find pushed up Snap Inc's value on the stock market up 3%. This underlines just how much of a big deal this could be for the social media company. The feature, which is known internally as 'Eagle', indicates that Snapchat is moving quickly when it comes to developing new features. Given Snap Inc. reported a $385 million loss last quarter, this could be the shot in the arm the company needs. Snap Inc. declined to comment on Agarwal's discovery, when requested by TechCrunch. But although nothing has been confirmed, the evidence is clear enough inside the code. How Snapchat's 'Eagle' search function works It's likely that the new feature will pull up the Amazon product page, a list of sellers and reviews for the object - or product - that is snapped by the user. You’ll probably also be able to copy that Amazon link and share the info regarding the product with your friends. However, there is an element of speculation here - we'll have to wait and see when it finally launches. The TechCrunch report, links them to Snapchat's context card feature, launched towards the end of 2017. These are essentially cards which offer detailed information about, things like restaurants, such as opening times and reviews. Snapchat has been coming up with different digital commerce tools and this feature fits the bill. This is especially true if the platform is aiming to move deeper into the eCommerce world. It's worth noting that other social media platforms like Pinterest have similar features. In fact, Pinterest has already partnered with retailers like Target. In this instance, the visual search feature is directly embedded into the Target mobile app. Google Lens also works in a similar fashion. The only difference is that Snapchat will use its third-party integration (with Amazon) for the identification process. Ishan Agarwal: the 15 year old app researcher This isn't Ishan Agarwal's first software discovery. He's uncovered a number of new Instagram features, such as video calling and focus portrait mode before they were officially launched, all of which were sent as tips to TechCrunch He's clearly a valuable asset for TechCrunch - and now, given the positive movements on the stock market, an unexpectedly valuable asset for Snap too. Follow Ishan Agarwal on Twitter: @IshanAgarwal24 Source: TechCrunch Read next: There’s another player in the advertising game: augmented reality Apple’s new ARKit 2.0 brings persistent AR, shared augmented reality experiences and more

React Native, Facebook’s framework for building native apps using React is now available as a new version.The version 0.56, is a fundamental building block towards a more stable framework: leading to a better July 2018 (0.57.0) release. This was a long-awaited release with a lot of discussion between "waiting for more stability" versus "testing led to successful results so it can push forward". The ride to release was not smooth but eventually with dedicated community communication the react native 0.56.0 release was stabilized. The major changes include: Support for Babel 7 The version 0.56 now allows support for the latest version of Babel. Babel is the transpiler tool that allows React Native to use the latest features of JavaScript. Babel 7 hosts a variety of important changes and the React team will now allow Metro, the JavaScript bundler for React Native to leverage its improvements. Modernizing Android support React Native has added updates to Android support for faster builds. It will also help developers comply with the new Play Store requirements coming into effect next month. Version 0.56 now supports Gradle 3.5, Android SDK 26, Fresco to 1.9.0, and OkHttp to 3.10.0 and the NDK API target to API 16. Interested developers can follow the discussion on Android developments in the dedicated issue list. New Node, Xcode, React, and Flow Node 8 is now the standard for React Native and React is also updated to v16.4. Version 0.56 has dropped support for iOS 8, making iOS 9 the oldest iOS version that can be targeted. Also, the continuous integration toolchain has been updated to use Xcode 9.4, ensuring that all iOS tests are run on the latest developer tools provided by Apple. They have also upgraded to Flow 0.75 to use the new error format and also created types for many more components. YellowBox is replaced with a new implementation that makes debugging easier. For the complete release notes, you can reference the full changelog. Also, keep an eye on the upgrading guide to avoid issues moving to this new version. React Native announces re-architecture of the framework for better performance Is React Native really a Native framework? React Native Performance

Nvidia has created an an AI agent that can clean 'noisy images' - without ever having seen a 'clean' one. Working alongside AI researchers from MIT and Aalto University, they have created something they've called 'Noise2Noise'. The team's findings could, they claim, "lead to new capabilities in learned signal recovery using deep neural networks." This could have a big impact on a number of areas, including healthcare. How researchers trained the Noise2Noise AI agent The team took 50,000 images from the ImageNet database which were then manipulated to look 'noisy'. Noise2Noise then ran on these images and was able to 'denoise' them - without knowing what a clean image looked like. This is the most significant part of the research. The AI agent wan't learning from clean data, but was instead simply learning the denoising process. This is an emerging and exciting area in data analysis and machine learning. In the introduction to their recently published journal article, which coincides with a presentation at International Conference on Machine Learning in Stockholm this week the research team explain: "Signal reconstruction from corrupted or incomplete measurements is an important subfield of statistical data analysis. Recent advances in deep neural networks have sparked significant interest in avoiding the traditional, explicit a priori statistical modeling of signal corruptions, and instead learning to map corrupted observations to the unobserved clean versions." The impact and potential applications of Noise2Noise Because the Noise2Noise AI agent doesn't require 'clean data' - or the 'a priori statistical modeling of signal corruptions' - it could be applied in a number of very exciting ways. It "points the way significant benefits in many applications by removing the need for potentially strenuous collection of clean data" the team argue. One of the most interesting potential applications of the research is in the field of MRI scans. Essentially, an agent like Noise2Noise could give a much more accurate MRI scan than those done by traditional MRI scan agents which use something called Fast Fourier Transform. This could subsequently lead to a greater level of detail in MRI scans which will massively support medical professionals to make quicker diagnoses. Read next: Nvidia GPUs offer Kubernetes for accelerated deployments of Artificial Intelligence workloads Nvidia’s Volta Tensor Core GPU hits performance milestones. But is it the best? How to Denoise Images with Neural Networks

Here's a weird CSS anomaly that you might have missed - Martijn Cuppens, a software engineer, has created a div that looks different on every browser. Cuppens shared his creation on CodePen - you can see the code for yourself here. Here's what they look like on different browsers: https://twitter.com/Martijn_Cuppens/status/1015169981368225793 Note: If you're looking on an iPhone the differences won't appear as all browsers on the iPhone are essentially the same - app store restrictions mean they use the same rendering engine. According to Cuppens, the most 'correct' version is Edge. He explains that he came across the discovery by saying that he "wanted to know if there is a way to inset outlines... turned out 'inset' was a outline-style and a negative outline-offset can be used to inset outlines." https://twitter.com/Martijn_Cuppens/status/1015579527379070976 What Cuppens experiment shows is how widely browsers can vary in their interpretation of CSS. On Twitter, users responded with their own versions, like this: https://twitter.com/frivoal/status/1015533567839911936 Others, meanwhile, were happy to offer droll responses to the challenges and occasional woes of working with CSS... https://twitter.com/kingreza/status/1015360236230606848 Read next Google announces Chrome 67 packed with powerful APIs, password-free logins, PWA support, and more Firefox 60 arrives with exciting updates for web developers: Quantum CSS engine, new Web APIs and more

News of the Thai cave rescue in has shocked and gripped the world. The mission has required a good deal of bravery and ingenuity to bring back members of the young football team - at the time of writing 8 of the children have been brought back to safety. But technology has also played a hugely important part in enabling rescuers to not only pinpoint the location of the missing boys, but also to eventually get them out safely. With such a complex and unique there are no simple solutions. Rescuers have been creative in exploring innovations and a huge range of technologies that can help them bring the children to safety. How rescuers located the lost football team Identifying the exact location of the missing football team was perhaps the most challenging aspect of the rescue mission. This is why the team were missing, remarkably, for 9 days before they were discovered. However, there were a number of tools that were integral to their discovery. Drones To begin with, 3 drones with powerful 30x optical zoom cameras were used to build up a detailed picture of the area where the boys had gone missing. Wired reports that this allowed rescuers to create a 3d map of the area, which acted as the starting point for the search. Once this map was created, the drones were then used to identify the numerous access points to the caves. This would allow the rescue teams to focus their efforts in specific areas. They could distribute themselves and prioritize the areas the team were most likely to be. Communication The team that made first contact with the missing boys actually used a pretty old communication tool - something called HeyPhones. HeyPhones were used by cavers in the U.K. some 20 years ago. They work because they use low-frequency waves, which mean they can pass through thick rock walls. Now the team has been located, fibre optic cables have been passed down into the chambers to improve communication - something that's going to be essential if they are all to be safely rescued. Elon Musk's innovative ideas to support the rescue mission Elon Musk has been eager to help the rescue mission. His first solution a giant inflatable tunnel that could displace the water and provide a passage back to safety. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1015105500105412610 However, Musk has now offered up a new idea: "a tiny kid-sized submarine." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1015657378140704768 Whatever you think of Musk, you can't accuse him of resting on his laurels. The 'submarine' is already being tested in LA. Musk shared videos of the tests on Twitter over the weekend: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1016110809662066688 Although Musk has been working hard, and a spokesperson has said there has been communication between SpaceX and the Thai government, it isn't clear if Musk's submarine will be sent out to south east Asia. A tale of human ingenuity and leveraging technology against the odds The incident has been remarkable - it is undoubtedly a tale of survival against all odds, but as you can see it's also a tale of human ingenuity and how technology can be leveraged to battle the elements. During a year where it's felt like technology is working against humanity's interests, it's a good reminder that when used properly, we can do stunning things with the tools at our disposal. Read next 5 DIY IoT projects you can build under $50 AI to the rescue: 5 ways machine learning can assist during emergency situations