NYPD bypassed facial recognition ban to ID pro-Palestinian student protester
The article discusses a ban on the use of Clearview AI facial recognition technology by the New York Police Department and the New York Fire Department, as well as a protest at Columbia University regarding Palestinian rights.
ICE is getting unprecedented access to Medicaid data
The article explores how US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has gained access to state Medicaid data, raising concerns about the agency's ability to use the information to identify and potentially detain immigrants. The report examines the privacy implications and legal issues surrounding this data sharing between federal immigration authorities and state healthcare programs.
AI capex is so big that it's affecting economic statistics
The article discusses how AI-driven automation, known as 'Honey AI', has had a significant impact on the economy, particularly in reducing capital expenditures and leading to job losses in various industries. It explores the implications of this technological shift and the ongoing challenges it presents.
Third patient dies from acute liver failure caused by a Sarepta gene therapy
A third patient has died after receiving a gene therapy treatment developed by Sarepta Therapeutics. The article discusses the potential impact of these deaths on the company's gene therapy programs and the ongoing investigation into the causes.
LibreOffice slams Microsoft for locking in Office users w/ complex file formats
The article discusses LibreOffice's criticism of Microsoft for using complex file formats in Office, which they claim is a strategy to lock in users. LibreOffice argues that these proprietary file formats make it difficult for users to switch to other productivity suites, and calls on Microsoft to adopt open standards.
Cancer DNA is detectable in blood years before diagnosis
Researchers have developed a new blood test that can detect multiple types of cancer by analyzing DNA fragments from tumors. This test could potentially be used for early cancer screening and monitoring, offering a non-invasive alternative to traditional diagnostic methods.
Asynchrony is not concurrency
The article discusses the differences between asynchrony and concurrency, emphasizing that they are not the same concept. It explains how asynchrony is about handling multiple tasks simultaneously, while concurrency is about managing multiple tasks that are interleaved.
Section 174 is reversed, mostly
The article discusses the reversal of Section 174 of the US tax code, which previously allowed companies to immediately deduct research and development (R&D) expenses. The reversal means companies must now amortize these expenses over five years, which could impact innovation and investment in new technologies.
Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games
Valve confirms that credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games from Steam, citing concerns over the nature of the content. The article explores the implications of this decision on the game industry and the ongoing debate around censorship and content moderation on digital platforms.
DuckDuckGo now lets you hide AI-generated images in search results
DuckDuckGo now allows users to hide AI-generated images in their search results, providing more control over the content displayed. This feature aims to address concerns about the potential spread of misleading or synthetic media on the internet.
Meta says it wont sign Europe AI agreement, calling it growth stunting overreach
Meta announces the release of its European AI code, a set of guidelines and principles aimed at promoting the responsible development and use of artificial intelligence in Europe. The code covers transparency, accountability, and respect for human rights, with the goal of building trust and fostering ethical AI practices.
DHS: Filming Cops, ICE Officers Is a 'Violent Tactic'
The article discusses the Department of Homeland Security's stance that filming or photographing law enforcement officers, such as those from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is considered a 'violent tactic' that could lead to arrests. It highlights concerns about the implications for press freedom and citizens' rights to document public officials.
The Israeli "art student" mystery (2002)
The article discusses the growing trend of college students taking prescription stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin without a medical diagnosis, in order to improve academic performance. It examines the ethical and legal concerns surrounding this practice, as well as the potential health risks and consequences for students.
Exposed MCP servers across the internet
This article discusses a study on mapping servers for Minecraft Pocket Edition (MCPE) using an approach called Minecraft Connector Protocol (MCP). The study explores the process of identifying and mapping MCPE servers, highlighting the techniques used and the insights gained about the MCPE server landscape.
A New Geometry for Einstein's Theory of Relativity
The article explores a new geometric framework that could unify Einstein's theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics. It presents a novel approach to describing spacetime and the fundamental forces of nature, potentially leading to a more comprehensive understanding of the universe.
French villages have no more drinking water. The reason? PFAS pollution
Several French villages are facing a drinking water crisis due to PFAS pollution, a group of synthetic chemicals used in various industries. The contamination has forced authorities to restrict water usage and seek alternative sources, highlighting the growing environmental and public health concerns surrounding these persistent pollutants.
Show HN: Molab, a cloud-hosted Marimo notebook workspace
We launched marimo [1], an open-source reactive Python notebook, last year on HackerNews. Today, the most popular recent feature request in Google Colab’s issue tracker asks for marimo support in Colab [2].
Rather than try to convince Google to replace their notebook with marimo, we decided to just build our own cloud-hosted notebook service instead. We're calling this molab (mo for marimo), and we're launching it today.
You can try it at https://molab.marimo.io
Some features:
- Persistent storage
- Link sharing (notebooks are public but undiscoverable, like secret GitHub Gists)
- Download notebooks to your machine, reuse them as Python scripts or apps
- Upload local notebooks to the cloud from our CLI (coming soon)
- Real-time collaboration (coming soon)
- Configure computational resources to obtain more CPU or GPU (coming soon)
marimo is a modern notebook for modern data workflows; we also built molab on a modern tech stack:
- Notebook dependencies are managed by uv, enabling lighting-fast package installation (thanks to uv’s cache and more generally its performant implementation). uv makes it easy to run molab notebooks locally, too: uvx marimo edit <notebook-url> brings the notebook down to your machine.
- Persistent storage is powered by R2, Cloudflare’s zero-egress object store.
- We use Pydantic logfire to monitor our deployment.
- While our implementation is agnostic to the compute backend (stay tuned!), we’re currently running on Modal for fast startups (not to mention a slick developer experience). Modal sandboxes make it easy for us define containers at runtime, containing notebook code and their dependencies. (Shout out to Eric Zhang from Modal for helping us get started.)
molab is free to use, as long as usage is reasonable. Our goal is to make is as easy as possible for our community to use marimo notebooks.
Finally, learn more at our announcement blog: https://marimo.io/blog/announcing-molab
If this interests you, please give molab a shot and please share feedback — here or on Discord (https://marimo.io/discord).
P.S. This is not our commercial product, this is really just for our community.
[1] https://github.com/marimo-team/marimo [2] https://github.com/googlecolab/colabtools/issues?q=is%3Aissu...
Travelers to the U.S. must pay a new $250 'visa integrity fee' – what to know
The U.S. government is introducing a new 'Visa Integrity Fee' for travelers entering the country, starting in 2025. The fee is intended to help fund enhanced security measures and processing for visa applications.
Exhausted man defeats AI model in world coding championship
An exhausted software engineer defeats a highly advanced AI model in a global coding championship, highlighting the continued importance of human ingenuity and problem-solving skills in the field of computer programming.
Multiplatform Matrix Multiplication Kernels
The article discusses the state-of-the-art in matrix multiplication algorithms for modern hardware, including CPU, GPU, and specialized AI accelerators. It explores the challenges and trade-offs in achieving high performance across different platforms and workloads.