TLDR 2021-08-20

OnlyFans will ban sexually explicit material on its platform from October 1 to comply with the requests of its banking partners and payout providers. The company has yet to reveal its new rules, but nudity will still be allowed. OnlyFans is having trouble attracting investors due to its racy content. The company, founded in 2016, has 200 employees, 150 million registered users, and over 1.5 million content creators. It has paid out over $3 billion in creator earnings since its founding.

Facebook recently launched a new virtual reality remote work app where users can hold meetings as avatar versions of themselves. Workrooms is an early step by Facebook towards building the metaverse that Mark Zuckerberg has been talking about in recent weeks. Other tech CEOs have also talked recently about how their companies could shape the aspects of the metaverse. Facebook has invested heavily in virtual and augmented reality hardware to be less reliant on other hardware makers. The company recently halted sales of its Oculus Quest 2 headsets and recalled the foam face-liners due to reports of skin irritation. The recall affected about 4 million units, providing an estimate of Quest 2 headset sales.

Disney's Imagineering team's newest robotic initiative is about building extreme Marvel and Star Wars characters such as The Incredible Hulk and Yoda. Project Kiwi aims to create advanced robotics to bring characters that humans can't believably play to life. Robots won't replace cast members, but park guests will soon be able to see non-human characters walking around. Some characters will be combinations of humans with animatronics. While iconic attractions will probably stay, their old animatronics will likely be replaced with more believable and mobile ones in the future.

The Knighthawk is a drone designed for emergency response personnel. It has a 10x optical zoom camera, a thermal camera, and 55 minutes of flight time. 911 operators can place a pin on a map to direct the drone to sites within seconds of a call being made. No special hardware needs to be installed in the city for the drones to process their surroundings. The FAA has strict rules around visual line of sight for drone operators, so the company behind the Knighthawk has to collect extensive data to get operating waivers, which it has done so far for the two cities it works with.

IceFireDB is a distributed disk storage system based on the Raft and RESP protocols. It features distributed consistency, reliable LSM disk storage, a cold and hot mixed data storage structure, multiple groups of raft clusters, advanced cache implementation, and more.

FilesRemote is an SSH file manager. It can edit files as if they were local, as root via sudo. FilesRemote uses SSH auth agent when available and password based authentication otherwise. Screenshots and demos are available.

Amazon is planning to open department store-style locations, replacing the stores that it helped kill off. It plans to use locations with a footprint of around 30,000 square feet. The first stores will likely be in California and Ohio. In-person shopping allows people to try out items and gadgets before purchasing them. Amazon has opened grocery stores, bookstores, and convenience stores in recent years.

The first three episodes of Apple TV+'s adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation will premiere on September 24. New episodes will air weekly every Friday after. The series will closely follow the fundamental narrative arc of the books. Two teasers for the show have been released. The article features a gallery of images from the series. The official trailer for the show is also available.