TLDR 2020-11-05

Hyperloop test site ๐Ÿš†, Amazon's indie competitor ๐Ÿ“š, underwater navigation ๐ŸŒŠ

๐Ÿ“ฑ
Big Tech & Startups

Virgin Hyperloop selects West Virginia to test its futuristic transport system (2 minute read)

Virgin Hyperloop One will build a $500 million certification center in West Virginia. It will act as a center for testing, developing, and validating the technology behind the hyperloop system. The hyperloop system is still theoretical and there is no fully functioning hyperloop in the world that has been tested with human passengers. Virgin Hyperloop One has reportedly sent its magnetic levitating pod through an airless tube at speeds of up to 240 mph at its test facility north of Las Vegas. The hyperloop's theoretical maximum speed is 700 mph, which the company believes can be achieved with an additional 1.2 miles of track. Virgin Hyperloop One intends to build its first hyperloop system in India.

Facebook is publicly testing dark mode in its mobile app (1 minute read)

Facebook has started public testing of dark mode in its mobile app for both Android and iOS. The feature can be accessed in the Settings & Privacy section under the Menu tab. A 34-second announcement video from Facebook is available in the article .
๐Ÿš€
Science & Futuristic Technology

GPS and water don't mix. So scientists have found a new way to navigate under the sea (4 minute read)

GPS systems are unable to work underwater as water breaks down the radio waves GPS relies on to function. MIT scientists have developed a device called an underwater backscatter localization (UBL) that can provide positioning information using acoustic signals without even using a battery. Existing underwater devices require batteries and usually act as sound emitters. The UBL reflects signals back to its source using a charge gained from the materials it is built with. Due to the method the materials use to store energy to produce a charge, its performance is random, but by using a range of frequencies, scientists can still pinpoint locations with accuracy.

Mars plays shepherd to our moon's long-lost twin, scientists find (4 minute read)

A team of scientists have found an asteroid trailing behind Mars with a composition very similar to the moon's. It could be part of the debris resulting from the impacts that formed the moon and other rocky planets in our solar system. Trojans are a class of asteroids that follow planets. It is easier to spot Mars Trojans than Earth Trojans as Earth Trojans are angled towards the sun, making them hard to see. There are several theories about the origin of the asteroid. The research from the Mars Trojan will help scientists identify Trojans associated with our own planet.
๐Ÿ’ป
Programming, Design & Data Science

Bootstrap or TailwindCSS: How to decide a framework for your next project? (4 minute read)

Bootstrap and TailwindCSS are both popular CSS frameworks. They make it easy for developers to develop compatible and responsive websites. Bootstrap's core features include its pre-built components and Utility Classes. TailwindCSS doesn't have pre-built components and only focuses on Utility Classes. It has become popular with developers as it can produce awesome things without requiring any CSS. This article provides an overview of the two frameworks and a small guide on choosing frameworks.

Helpful git commands for beginners (3 minute read)

Working with git can be daunting at first, but it is a super powerful tool and essential to everyday work as a developer. This page provides a list of basic git terminal commands and explanations for what they do.
๐ŸŽ
Miscellaneous

Silk Road bitcoins worth $1bn change hands after seven years (3 minute read)

Almost 70,000 bitcoins, worth around a billion dollars, were moved for the first time in seven years late on Tuesday night for less than a $12 fee. The funds can be traced back to the Silk Road marketplace using blockchain analysis. The marketplace was shut down in 2013 and the funds had lain dormant since. Its founder is serving a double life sentence plus forty years without the possibility of parole. It is unclear who moved the money, but it is unlikely the transaction was conducted from prison.

'This is revolutionaryโ€™: new online bookshop unites indies to rival Amazon (4 minute read)

Bookshop is an online bookseller that allows readers to buy books online while supporting their local independent bookseller. Independent bookshops can create their own shopfront on the site and they receive the full profit margin from each sale. Bookshop handles all customer service and shipping, delivering titles to customers within two to three days. More than 900 stores have now signed up in the US, and it is now open in the UK. As Bookshop is a B Corporation, it can never be sold to a major US retailer.
Get the most important tech, science, & coding news in a free daily email. Read by +1,250,000 software engineers and tech workers.
Join 1,250,000 readers for