TLDR 2022-01-12

Apple is introducing third-party payment options for iOS in South Korea. South Korea recently passed new legislation to open up the perceived monopolies of Google and Apple's app stores. Apple will charge developers a reduced fee to implement third-party payment options. The exact details, such as how much Apple will charge developers or when the new changes will begin, have yet to be announced.

Locket is an app that turns Apple's widget system into a private social networking platform. The app allows users to put live photos from friends in a widget on the iOS home screen. It was launched on New Year's Day and has since risen to the top of the App Store, with over 2 million users signed up. The creator of the app made it as a side project and credits its success to the app going viral on TikTok. A TikTok video made by the creator of the app to show off its features is available in the article.

UltraRAM is a memory technology that combines the non-volatility of a data storage memory with the speed, energy efficiency, and endurance of working memory. It can be used as both RAM and storage on devices. Scientists from Lancaster University in the UK have made a breakthrough in the mass production of the technology. The technology could help push forward the popular trend towards in-memory processing.

Apple was recently granted a patent for smart glasses or a headset that could potentially adjust its lenses to correct the wearer's vision. The company proposes to use a stack of lenses for each eye that can be precisely adjusted to control how much light passes through. An eye-tracking system could be used to provide more advanced adjustment to the user's vision. Many more details about the technology, including figures from the patent, are available in the article.

GitAlias is a collection of git version control alias settings with short aliases such as s for status, command aliases such as chart and churn, and lookup aliases such as whois and whatis. This repository contains a collection of GitAlias commands, sorted into sections such as workflow aliases, tooling aliases, and convenience aliases. An index of all the aliases in alphabetical order is available.

CSS linear gradients get washed out and muddy in the middle unless steps are taken to avoid the effect. This article teaches developers how to avoid the gray dead zone by using different color modes and calculating in-between colors. A gradient generator tool based on the information in the article is available.

Many major printer brands embed chips inside their cartridges for their printers to check the authenticity of the cartridge. Canon is having issues procuring chips, so it is telling its German customers how to defeat its printers' warnings about third-party cartridges. Users just have to press 'OK' on the menu when the error message appears after inserting toner. There should be no negative effects on printing quality, but the printer will stop giving low-toner warnings.

Petra, a San Francisco startup, has developed a semi-autonomous robotic system that can create 18-60 inch diameter tunnels through any rock. Swifty can drill through Sioux Quartzite, the hardest rock on Earth, at a rate of an inch a minute. It is the first microtunneling robot that can reverse out of its own tunnel. Swifty costs up to 90 percent less than conventional trenchless methods, making a lot of underground infrastructure projects economically feasible.