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The article reveals a vast network of surveillance and data collection efforts by a company called X, which has covertly amassed information on millions of individuals without their knowledge or consent. The exposé highlights the extensive reach and potential abuse of such intrusive data practices by private entities.

The Bureau of Meteorology's new website project has experienced a significant cost blowout, with the final price reaching $96 million, significantly higher than the initial estimate. The article examines the reasons behind the budget overrun and the challenges faced during the website's development.

Astra is a decentralized platform that allows users to build, deploy, and manage serverless applications on the blockchain. The platform combines the power of decentralization with the flexibility of serverless computing to provide a scalable and secure solution for developers.

The article outlines CERN's general principles for the use of AI, emphasizing responsible development, transparency, and collaboration to ensure AI technologies are leveraged ethically and sustainably within the organization.

The article investigates complaints from Booking.com customers who say they found lower hotel rates by booking directly with the hotel, despite Booking.com's best-price guarantee. It highlights the difficulties customers face in getting refunds and the challenges in enforcing the guarantee.

The article discusses the upcoming change in Git 3.0 to use 'main' as the default branch name instead of 'master', reflecting a move to more inclusive language in the software development community.

Twitter has been collecting precise location data from users' devices without their consent, raising privacy concerns. The article delves into the implications of this data collection and Twitter's response to the allegations.

The article discusses a new one-minute ADHD test that can help identify the condition by assessing a person's ability to maintain focus and concentration on a simple task. The test is designed to be a quick and accessible tool for screening and potentially diagnosing ADHD in both children and adults.

The article describes the author's experience of building a real-time search engine using the Nixie open-source search engine and integrating it into their personal website, highlighting the technical challenges and benefits of this approach.

The article discusses the disconnect between the supply and demand for programming skills, highlighting the limitations of traditional computer science education in meeting the industry's needs. It explores alternative education models and the importance of practical, project-based learning in preparing students for careers in the tech industry.

The article discusses the potential impact of AI-powered social media accounts, known as 'X', on the future of online discourse. It explores the ethical and practical implications of these advanced AI entities interacting with humans in social media spaces.

Cool-Retro-Term is an emulator that makes your terminal look and feel like an old school CRT display. It aims to provide an authentic retro computing experience with customizable themes and effects to recreate the look and feel of vintage computer hardware.

China's CO2 emissions have remained flat or declined for the past 18 months, according to the analysis. This trend reflects a slowdown in the country's economic growth, increased use of renewable energy, and ongoing efforts to address climate change.

The article discusses the CEO of SunOS, a company working on AI-powered music creation tools, who claims that their text-based prompts can generate high-quality, diverse music tracks. The article explores the potential implications and challenges of this technology for the music industry.

The article discusses the decision by RWX, a software company, to remove their Dockerfiles and switch to a new deployment strategy using Nix. It explores the reasons behind this change, including the complexity and maintenance overhead of Docker, and the benefits of using a declarative, functional approach with Nix.

hey hn, i’ve been working on an api to make it easy to know who your customers are, i would love your feedback.

what it does

send an email address, the api returns a json profile built from public data, things like: name, country, age, occupation, company, social handles and interests.

It’s a single endpoint (you can hit this endpoint without auth to get a demo of what it looks like):

  curl https://api.yolodex.ai/api/v1/email-enrichment \
    --request POST \
    --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    --data '{"email": "john.smith@example.com"}'

why i built it / what’s different

i once built open source intelligence tooling to investigate financial crime but for a recent project i needed to find out more about some customers, i tried apollo, clearbit, lusha, clay, etc but i found:

1. outdated data - the data about was out-of-date and misleading, emails didn’t work, etc

2. dubious data - i found lots of data like personal mobile numbers that i’m pretty sure no-one shared publicly or knowingly opted into being sold on

3. aggressive pricing - monthly/annual commitments, large gaps between plans, pay the same for empty profiles

4. painful setup - hard to find the right api, set it up, test it out etc

i used knowledge from criminal investigations to build an api that uses some of the same research patterns and entity resolution to find standardized information about people that is:

1. real-time

2. public info only (osint)

3. transparent simple pricing

4. 1 min to setup

what i’d love feedback on

* speed: are responses fast enough? would you trade-off speed for better data coverage?

* coverage: which fields will you use (or others you need)?

* pricing: is the pricing model sane?

* use-cases: what you need this type data for (i.e. example use cases)?

* accuracy: any examples where i got it badly wrong?

happy to answer technical questions in the thread and give more free credits to help anyone test

The article discusses a six-year experiment conducted by interviewing.io, where they used blind hiring practices to evaluate engineering candidates without seeing their names or other identifying information. The experiment aimed to remove bias and increase diversity in the hiring process.

ASML, a leading semiconductor equipment manufacturer, allegedly offered to spy on China for the U.S. government, proposing to be Washington's 'eyes and ears' in the country after breaking a 'gentlemen's agreement' on limiting the sale of DUV technology to China, according to a new book.

The article discusses the Xbox 360 as the first modern console, revolutionizing the gaming industry with its online features, digital content distribution, and social networking capabilities, which set a new standard for console gaming experiences.

The article discusses the partnership between SURF, a Dutch non-profit organization, and Nextcloud, an open-source cloud storage and collaboration platform. The collaboration aims to provide educational and research institutions in the Netherlands with a secure and privacy-focused cloud solution that aligns with public values such as data sovereignty and digital autonomy.