TLDR 2020-11-30

Spotify is publicly testing its own version of Stories. Stories on Spotify was first discovered back in August 2019. It appears that Spotify is a/b testing the feature, so not all users will have access. A 13-second video is available showing the new Stories interface.

Tesla owners will be able to see through their Autopilot cameras in the new update that is likely to be pushed out around the holidays. Sentry Mode is an integrated surveillance system that uses the Autopilot cameras around the car. Several vandals that have been caught on camera have turned themselves in after their Sentry Mode videos went viral. Owners have to plug in a storage device inside their Tesla to activate Sentry Mode features. Everything is handled through the Tesla app.

Electronic skin (e-skin) could play an important role in next-generation personalized medicine, prosthetics, AI, and soft robotics. The ideal e-skin would mimic the natural functions of human skin, such as sensing and touch, while being flexible and durable. A team of scientists has developed a durable e-skin using a hydrogel reinforced with silica nanoparticles and a 2D titanium carbine MXene sensing layer bound together with highly conductive nanowires. The e-skin's conductive pathways to the sensor layer remain intact even when the material is stretched to 28 times its original size. It can sense objects from 20cm away and respond to stimuli in less than one-tenth of a second.

Hualong One is one of the world's most advanced nuclear power reactor designs. It was developed in China. The reactor is designed to operate for 60 years, with 177 reactor cores which are replaced every 18 months. It features both active and passive safety features and a double-layer safety shell. The first Hualong One nuclear reactor was successfully connected to the grid in the Fujian Province on Friday. It will undergo various tests before starting commercial operations later this year. The achievement is significant for the country's energy restructuring plan and pursuit of low-carbon development.

Stories of data loss can be embarrassing, but they help people learn useful things in case they end up in similar situations. This article tells the story of how a file was accidentally overwritten using the mv command, what the author attempted to do to fix the issue, and how the issue was fixed in the end.

k6 is a modern load testing tool that provides a clean scripting API, local and cloud execution, and flexible configuration. A GIF demo is available. k6 features scripting in ES6 JS, TLS, flexible metrics storage and visualization, and more.

32 years ago, the world was the closest it had ever been to nuclear armageddon. The KGB had constructed software to forecast if the US and its allies were planning a nuclear strike. A war game staged by the US over two weeks in November 1983 triggered the forecast. The procedures and tactics used in the war games were things that the Soviets had never seen, and to the Soviet leadership, it looked like a cover for a genuine surprise attack planned by the US. With many other factors in consideration, the Soviets had good reason to think that the US believed it would win a nuclear war. As the US military increasingly turns to machine learning, the lesson of what can happen when an algorithm gets it wrong should not be forgotten.

A hacker on a Russian-speaking underground forum is selling hundreds of C-suite level email credentials for between $100 and $1,500. The Office 365 and Microsoft accounts on offer belong to high-level executives, and sources have validated the legitimacy of the seller. Microsoft is aware of the report and will do what is necessary to support its customers. It is unclear how the hacker obtained the credentials.