TLDR 2019-07-05

Amazon has started to sell tiny homes ranging from log cabins to loft-bedroom houses. There are more than two dozen options available with prices ranging from around $5,000 to $35,000. Some of the homes have been advertised as being able to be built in two days by two people. A $19,000 ‘getaway cabin’ is reviewed, with pictures showing the design and the interior of the home. The home has bare minimal materials and only a few features, with three rooms on the main floor and an attic-level bedroom above. Amenities are sparse, and it would require extra work to set up a kitchen. To make up for the lack of electricity, the home features a window in each room for natural lighting. The kit comes with all the materials you need to build the home. However, additional work to build the home’s foundation will be required.

Ming-Chi Kuo has released a report that says that Apple will introduce new keyboard designs based on scissor switches, starting with the 2019 MacBook Air. The new design uses glass fiber to reinforce the keys and improve durability. It will also be cheaper to manufacture than the previous butterfly keyboard design. The butterfly keyboard received many complaints about stuck keys, repeated key inputs, and sound. Reverting back to the same key switch mechanism used in MacBooks before 2015 will be a change that is greatly welcomed by many users.

An independent review into the London Metropolitan Police’s use of facial recognition has found that the systems used were 81 percent inaccurate. The police conducted 10 trials using facial recognition software and out of the 42 matches in the trials, only eight were confirmed to be correct. However, the police claim that their software is only incorrect in one out of 1,000 instances. It hasn’t shared how this statistic was created. As facial recognition becomes more prevalent, fears are growing that the systems display different biases or could be incorrectly identifying people. Last month, San Francisco banned the use of facial recognition systems by public agencies.

China has revealed a prototype of a new magnetic levitation train that can reach speeds up to 600 km/hr. The country already has the fastest commercial maglev service, which runs between Shanghai’s Pudong airport and the city center at a maximum speed of 431 km/hr. A maglev service between Beijing and Shanghai travels at around 350 km/hr over the 1300 kilometer distance. The journey takes around four and a half hours by plane, but the new maglev trains may be able to complete the journey in only three and a half hours. Japan is currently building a maglev line between Tokyo and Nagoya, scheduled to be open in 2027.

This repository contains the personal notes for various computer science topics gathered by darshanime over three years. The author comments that many of the notes are not organized ‘nicely’. Topics include computing systems, architecture, various programming languages and modules, machine learning, and app deployment.

This repository contains the curriculum from the ‘Learn Natural Language Processing’ video on YouTube by Siraj Raval. The curriculum consists of video lectures, reading assignments, and projects. It is designed to be eight weeks long, assuming two to three hours of study per day. Students should have knowledge in python, statistics, probability, calculus, and linear algebra before beginning the course. Links to resources for prerequisite knowledge are available.

Tesla will be releasing an update for its Automated Emergency Braking system which will enable it to detect pedestrians and cyclists. The first version of Tesla’s AEB was introduced in 2017 for all vehicles powered by its Autopilot technology, including vehicles that were capable of autopilot but had not purchased and installed the Autopilot cruise-assist upgrade. Different implementations of these features have existed since Volvo included them with its automated braking system in 2009. However, Tesla’s AEB is expected to be more effective as there is more advanced technology used in Tesla vehicles.

Bad websites featuring spammy pop-ups, misleading patterns, or just plain poorly thought-out interfaces are probably one of the worst experiences to encounter on the internet. User Inyerface is a game that is designed to highlight bad practices when designing forms for websites. Users are asked to fill in forms full of frustrating, yet not unrealistic, design quirks. Once completed, users are rewarded with a link to Bagaar’s career page.