Month: January 2025

Code Smell 287 – Unused Local Assignment

by

Are you using the returned value? TL;DR: Avoid assigning values you never use. Problems Dead code Unclear intent Maintenance overhead Hidden complexity Debugging leftovers Bad scoping Commented code Mutability Solutions Remove unused assignments. Try to avoid side effects. Context When you assign a value to a local variable but never use it, you create unnecessary … Read more

The Dawn of PolicyFi

by

Are we witnessing the dawn of PolicyFi? In an earlier article on why memecoins matter, I argued that memecoins are ushering in a new era of civic engagement by forming speculative markets in which citizens are able to trade coins tied to government policies. I suggested that holder distributions and market caps in those markets … Read more

Cardano’s Plomin Hard Fork Goes Live, Ushering in On-Chain Governance

by

Cardano, the layer-1 blockchain launched in 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, activated its highly anticipated “Plomin” upgrade on Wednesday, ushering in the ecosystem’s long-awaited move towards a decentralized governance system. With the Plomin upgrade now live, ADA token holders will be able to shape Cardano’s future, including voting on treasury measures and hard forks. … Read more

Federal workers union tells members: don’t resign via that email

by

American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union representing 750,000 federal employees, told members on Wednesday to not resign via an email sent to them by the US Office of Personnel Management. The email sent on Tuesday prompted employees to resign from service by accepting a “deferred resignation” offer in which they would be exempted … Read more

Generative AI operating models in enterprise organizations with Amazon Bedrock

by

Generative AI can revolutionize organizations by enabling the creation of innovative applications that offer enhanced customer and employee experiences. Intelligent document processing, translation and summarization, flexible and insightful responses for customer support agents, personalized marketing content, and image and code generation are a few use cases using generative AI that organizations are rolling out in … Read more

Microsoft brings a DeepSeek model to its cloud

by

Microsoft’s close partner and collaborator, OpenAI, might be suggesting that DeepSeek stole its IP and violated its terms of service. But Microsoft still wants DeepSeek’s shiny new models on its cloud platform. Microsoft today announced that R1, DeepSeek’s so-called reasoning model, is available on Azure AI Foundry service, Microsoft’s platform that brings together a number … Read more

Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC seeking $1B for new fund

by

8VC, a venture firm led by Palantir founder Joe Lonsdale, is seeking nearly $1 billion for its sixth fund, according to a regulatory filing. The Austin-based firm’s latest fund aims to raise nearly 14% more than its previous $880 million flagship vehicle, which closed in February 2023. TechCrunch has reached out to the firm for … Read more

The Future of Gamified Software Engineering Environments

by

:::info Authors: (1) Oscar Pedreira, Universidade da Coruna, Centro de Investigacion CITIC, Laboratorio de Bases de Datos, Facultade de Informatica; (2) Felix García, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (3) Mario Piattini, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Grupo Alarcos, Escuela Superior de Informatica, Paseo de la Universidad; (4) … Read more

JetBlue is the first airline to take Venmo payments

by

Venmo is now an option for paying for flights on jetblue.com. | Photo: Getty Images This month, JetBlue announced it has added Venmo as a payment option for booking a flight on jetblue.com. The company says the feature will come to the JetBlue mobile app later this year. Now, instead of entering your card details or using PayPal, you … Read more

How to set default apps on your iPhone

by

Little by little, Apple has been lessening the restrictions it previously put on iPhone customizations. For example, you can now change all of your homescreen icons to the same color and stick widgets on the lockscreen. Until recently, though, you didn’t have a lot of choice when it came to default apps. Every operating system … Read more

Watch as NASA reveals asteroid samples collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission

by

NASA curation team members, along with Lockheed Martin recovery specialists, look on after the successful removal of the sample return canister lid. | Image: NASA / Robert Markowitz NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission was launched in September 2016, and seven years later, its capsule landed in the Utah desert for NASA to collect and analyze its first-ever … Read more

NASA finds building blocks for life in the Bennu asteroid sample

by

Astromaterials processor Mari Montoya and OSIRIS-REx curation team members set the TAGSAM (Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) down in the canister glovebox after removing it from the canister base and flipping it over. Scientists from NASA and other institutions who have been analyzing the Bennu asteroid sample that returned to Earth last September found … Read more

DeepSeek might have a trademark problem in the U.S.

by

Chinese AI company DeepSeek has been accused of IP theft, faced privacy inquiries in Europe, and has been the target of an enormous cyberattack. Now, it appears the company has a new headache on its hands: a U.S. trademark conflict. On Tuesday, DeepSeek filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) seeking … Read more

What DeepSeek, China, and Trump mean for Apple ahead of its Q1 earnings

by

These days, nothing is certain about the tech market or the world at large. Even NVIDIA’s seemingly bulletproof stock took a hammering on Monday, enduring a $589 billion market cap decline after China-based DeepSeek raised questions for investors about more efficient AI models. But Apple’s stock has remained steady ahead of its first quarter earnings … Read more