TLDR 2021-07-06

Airbnb party crackdown ๐Ÿ›‘, Bezos leaves Amazon ๐Ÿ‘‹, Window 11 app store ๐Ÿ’ป

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Big Tech & Startups

Andy Jassy officially takes over as Amazon CEO from Jeff Bezos (3 minute read)

Jeff Bezos has stepped down as CEO of Amazon and is now the Executive Chair. Andy Jassy is the new CEO. Bezos has served as CEO of Amazon since its founding 27 years ago. Jassy joined the company in 1997 and has led AWS since it was founded in 2003. Bezos will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives, but he will dedicate more time and energy to other initiatives such as the Day One Fund and Bezos Earth Fund foundations, The Washington Post, and Blue Origin. He will fly to the edge of space on July 20.

Airbnb has blocked tens of thousands of bookings in party crackdown (3 minute read)

Airbnb blocked over 50,000 suspicious bookings across 15 US cities as part of a crackdown on parties during the pandemic. The platform introduced a total ban on parties last year, an expansion of existing rules prohibiting dedicated party houses. Airbnb automatically blocks bookings for certain types of customers in some locations. It provided discounted noise detection devices to hosts and created a 24/7 neighborhood support line as part of the crackdown. The ban on parties will continue until the end of summer 2021.
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Science & Futuristic Technology

A Sunscreen for Pavement Could Help Keep Cities Cool (3 minute read)

Pavement Technology Inc. has created a spray-on treatment for pavement that can lower its temperature, revitalize asphalt, and dissolve car exhaust pollution. The spray is based on titanium oxide, a photocatalyst that absorbs and disperses light and heat. Pavement Technology claims that one mile of sprayed pavement has the same air quality benefits as planting 20 acres of trees. The spray is now being tested in several municipalities in the US.

Student Builds Life-Saving Device That Can Instantly Stop Bleeding From Stab Wounds (2 minute read)

A student has developed a device that can prevent severe blood loss resulting from deep stabbing wounds or impalement. The device consists of a silicon balloon sleeve and an actuator. The balloon is inserted into the wound and inflated to create pressure. It can stop hemorrhaging in less than a minute. The device is still in its prototype stage, but the creators have filed for a UK patent and plan to make it available in a few years.
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Programming, Design & Data Science

WikipediaQL (GitHub Repo)

WikipediaQL is a query language for data extraction from Wikipedia. It can return structured data through selectors. Examples are available in the repository.

Riot Games Releases An Album of Copyright-Free Lo-Fi Music (1 minute read)

Riot Games has released a 37-track album called Sessions: VI. The album features copyright-free lo-fi music meant for online creators. It is available via Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube.
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Miscellaneous

New mystery AWS product โ€˜Infinidashโ€™ goes viral โ€” despite being entirely fictional (4 minute read)

Developer educator Joe Nash wondered whether merely mentioning a new AWS product on Twitter would be enough to see it appear in job ads. After tweeting out this idea, AWS Infinidash was born. The idea went viral, with many developers tweeting about the fake product and making songs, blog posts, service integrations, and explainer videos. Three days after Nash's tweet, Signal posted a job ad for a Server Engineer that required Infinidash experience. Examples of some of the content created for Infinidash are available in the article.

The Windows 11 app store is already more useful after just a week (3 minute read)

Some popular apps are starting to appear in the Microsoft Store on Windows 11. The Microsoft Store is changing to include traditional desktop apps. Any app can now be part of the store. Developers are allowed to use their own payment platforms and keep all of the revenue from apps if they choose to do so. The improvement to the store means that Windows users will have an easier time finding trusted installers for their apps.
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