Qashier

qashier

The Alibaba Tech Team has developed a robot that uses visual recognition technology to serve at the staff canteen Liu Yongkai(刘永凯) is a Senior Algorithm Engineer at Alibaba. Here is his story: My name is Liu Yongkai. I love two things: food and programming. One of my favorite dishes is (lamb spine hotpot) It’s a soupy dish cooked with the meat from the spine of a lamb. Once I was in the hospital for an examination when they showed me the scan of my spine. Instead of checking the scan to see what kind of shape my spine was in, I started daydreaming about lamb spine hotpot. yang xiezi . In September 2017, my love for food and programming inspired me to design a cashier robot with a group of friends. I wanted to find a way to make service at the Alibaba canteen faster. Thanks to friends and programming skills, I was able to do just that. Now, our robot could end up changing how 60,000 Alibaba employees pay for their daily meals. Inspiration strikes in the lunch queue The day I came up with the cashier robot idea, I had a big appetite, and my plate was fully loaded. The cashier was new to her job and it took her nearly 5 minutes to add up the cost of my meal. Standing there with my stomach rumbling, I started thinking about how we could make payment faster. That was when the idea flashed across my mind: Why don’t we use visual recognition technology to calculate our meal prices? At the time I was part of the Alibaba security team, which specializes in visual recognition technology. In simple terms, this technology shows robots massive amounts of pictures to teach them to recognize objects. The robots also learn to react to the pictures in certain ways according to instructions. Visual recognition technology was first used at Alibaba for a different purpose: deleting pornography. When questionable photos appeared on a network, the robot could quickly identify and delete the pornographic images. Unmanned supermarkets also use visual recognition technology. Without cashiers, robots can scan shopping baskets and tell which items are being purchased. With the technology already in place, I thought, all we needed to do was change the code, and a machine could be taught to identify steamed lamb, braised duck, roasted chicken, and pork stomach. If the machine also knew the price of each dish, meal prices could be calculated just by scanning plates, and we could all sit down to eat much faster. How the Cashier Robot was born I love two things: food and programming. Here was a food problem that could be solved with programming. I was so excited that even a year’s supply of lamb spine hotpot couldn’t have made me much happier. My enthusiasm bubbled over and I had soon recruited a small team to work with. The equipment we used was makeshift. I disassembled my home desk lamp, took its stand and attached a webcam. The webcam was connected to a cellphone equipped with a visual recognition program. We used a computer cooling pad as the base for the whole setup. We had a person responsible for testing, for going to the canteen to collect food, for photographing food, writing code, and teaching the robot to identify what twice-cooked pork was, what shredded pork in salted fish sauce was … We also had a person responsible for the algorithm that allows the robot to calculate meal prices faster. Our colleagues in the admin department brought back countless dishes from the canteen to help the robot learn. A month into the project, each of us had gained more than ten pounds. That’s not surprising when you consider we shared an average of 20 dishes per meal. Dishes are recognized during online processing A product manager also helped us develop another feature. With the aid of IoT technology, the food ingredients from the dishes we scan daily are stored in the cloud. Our daily nutrient intake is calculated in the cloud. At night, if we open DingTalk and look at the robot’s report, we will know whether to snack on a protein-filled yogurt, or to hit the gym. This idea made our whole team excited. Each dish we eat could be become useful data and could even become part of the big data that affects everyone’s health in the future. It was hard to imagine a more meaningful and interesting project. A curious foodie can change the world In the first Alibaba IoT geek contest, our cashier robot project won a gold medal, and our project is expected to go live soon at the Xixi Park canteen. (Even though I helped create it, telling the robot you know me won’t get you any discounts.) Yongkai presenting the cashier robot project at the 1st Alibaba Geek Competition Being a foodie doesn’t mean all you can do is eat. By combining my love for food with curiosity and imagination, I came up with an idea that could affect the canteen experience for thousands of Alibaba employees. If Isaac Newton had just eaten the apples that fell from trees, without ever asking why they fell, he would have never discovered gravity. It all just goes to show, just by asking the right questions, a curious foodie has the power to change the world. Alibaba Tech First-hand and in-depth information about Alibaba’s latest technology → Search on “Alibaba Tech” Facebook

Foodie Programmer’s “Cashier Robot” is a Recipe for Success

can do it, e can do it, a lot of others can do it too: interruption-free service migrations. Amazon Googl So why are so many enterprise businesses, banks, and others not able to do it? Why do I still get a notification by my bank that there will be service interruptions between Saturday 4 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. Why is there still that senior manager asking the question upon a change request: "will that change be disruptive?" 20 years ago, that might have been a reasonable question, but when was the last time you went to and got a “service down due to maintenance”? google.com I do not know why we are still talking about this. However, I do know how to do interruption-free service migrations. It’s very simple: Just watch and learn from the cashiers at your local supermarket Let’s say they have 4 counters. #1, 2, and 3 are open and have a cashier behind them. Now the cashier behind counter #2 is done for the day and needs a replacement. stop everything, take the cash drawer out, wait for her replacement, who has to put in his cash drawer, all while the whole queue of customers on that counter is waiting. Here’s what the cashier won’t do: A fourth cashier will open counter #4 and start serving customers. Next, the cashier at counter #2 will put up a sign to avoid getting more customers in the queue. She will still serve the remaining customers in her queue. Then she will close it. In fact, this is what will happen: closed Notice how this is a 4-step process: Open a new service Route traffic to the new service Serve all remaining traffic in the old service Close the old service Also, notice how this leaves all possibilities open: The cashier at counter #2 could suddenly decide to re-open, or not close at all, while the cashier at counter #4 still serves. Or the cashier at counter #4 could decide that it wasn’t a good idea, put a sign and leave after the remaining queue was served. It’s all seamless. closed Production Systems So why do we still have these nail-biting upgrade processes in production systems? These all-or-nothing-high-risk-no-rollback upgrade processes, potentially with service interruption, when those cashiers provide us with the perfect blueprint of how to do it? Okay — I do realize that production systems are a bit more complex than what I described above. But as always, the way to deal with complexity, is to break it down into small, digestible chunks. This is the hard part. Once that is done, any service upgrade can be done gradually with low-risk and rollback at any point in time, just like the cashiers could do it above. Let me try to use some examples in the following to make my point clear. Examples Changing Certificates Almost any non-trivial system needs to deal with certificates. The problem is always, how do you make sure your clients your servers get updated simultaneously? and The answer is, they don’t. Instead, the side verifying the validity of a certificate should allow a new one an old one for the transition period. and Here are the steps: add new certificate to the the list of accepted certificates on the client (assuming this is the verifying side) On server, replace old certificate with new one Wait for all requests using the old certificate to finish on client remove old certificate from client Update DB Schema Let’s say you have 1000 machines accessing an SQL database to feed a web app. A new version of the web app uses a renamed column in the database. So you need to rename that column in the database and simultaneously upgrade all your 1000 machines to the new web app version. How can you do that? You can’t. Instead, your new version must be able to understand a schema which contains both the new column name and the old column name. It must always try to use the new one first, and falling back to the old one when necessary. When writing, it should always write using the new and old column name. Here’s how you deploy: Add the new column to the database. (Open counter #4) Deploy your new web app version to your machines in staggered manner, potentially with a canary (Reroute traffic to counter #4, put up a ) closed sign Have a background job that copies all old column values to the new one. (Serve all remaining customers at counter #2) Remove the fallback mechanism in the web app and deploy again (again staggered). (Close counter #2) Optionally: Remove the old column. (Tear down counter #2 :-)) A New Storage Service Backend A very similar one as the previous. Let’s say you used S3 so far, but want to migrate to another S3 compatible storage service from another vendor. Your service may consist of thousands of machines. Again, to do this, you introduce a code change: writes now go to the new old storage service. Reads go to the new, but fall back to the old when a resource is not found. Deletes also go to both. and The migration plan goes like this: Set up the new data store. (Open counter #4) Deploy your updated system to your machines (Reroute traffic to counter #4, put up a ) closed sign Have a background that copies all your data from the old storage service to the new one (Serve all remaining customers at counter #2) Remove the code change, configure the new data store. (Close counter #2) only Note that you might need to increase the number of machines for your service temporarily, because of the more expensive data storage operations. Implications Looking at the examples, specifically the last one, one thing has become clear by now: to do migrations like these, you need to own the code. If you’re operating a system that you cannot change, you won’t be able to make changes that help interruption-free migrations. It’s for that reason probably, that newer forms of organizations, e.g. like Amazon’s two-pizza teams that follow a “You build it, you run it” culture are better suited for such interruption-free service migrations than the more classic ones where there is a strict separation between development and operations. It’s also obvious that these kinds of migration plans require teams to be able to do frequent deployments with small changes. At any point in time during such migration you must be able to stop or rollback. That’s difficult when your update contains other unrelated changes and when your deployment process is manual and slow. It also helps to have a mechanism to deploy to so-called canaries: single machines that get the update first. Only if they prove working correctly will the update be rolled out on to more machines. If you wonder what can help you do this kind of deployments, use . It probably cannot compete in scale with Amazon’s internal deployment system, . But it’s one of the most powerful you can currently get, especially being free and open source. BOSH Apollo Conclusion Cashiers at your local supermarket can give you the blueprint for doing interruption-free service migrations. Using this blueprint, you can break down your (potentially huge) migration into small changes that provide seamless, interruption-free migrations. Embracing an organizational structure that merges developers and operators helps to implement such small changes that aid the actual migration. Finally, use a powerful deployment system like to deploy the changes in an automated way. BOSH

Interruption-free service migrations: what you can learn from the cashiers at your local…

Did you hear? Despite giving people free Bitcoin, making it legal tender, and rolling out a universal BTC payment app, El Salvador’s government can’t get people to use it. https://decrypt.co/286463/salvadorans-like-bukele-but-arent-using-bitcoin-survey-says?embedable=true Does that surprise you? After all, the cryptosphere said that people will use Bitcoin once they realize how good it is. That didn’t happen. Is Bitcoin not as good as they thought? Or is something bigger going on? They ain’t changin’ for ya Last month, somebody needed to send me a lot of money. He couldn’t use Zelle, didn’t have a checkbook, and didn’t want to pay a $25 wire fee. Venmo would’ve taken many batches over many days, and I didn’t want to pay 3% to a payment processor to take his credit card. I mentioned he could open a Coinbase account and use USDC to send me the money for free, in full, instantly. He laughed. In the end, he paid $10 to overnight a paper cashier’s check through USPS priority mail. (And you think ETH fees are high!) DALL-E drew a cartoon about it: Uphill battle People are strange. They will go through all sorts of inconveniences to stick with what they know. Crypto peeps go on and on about usability and product-market fit, but that’s a big hurdle. Ask anybody who’s had to guide Aunt Sally and Uncle Morton through their iPhone settings. They can tell you it takes more than a good interface and UX. You need to give people a compelling reason to switch. (For Aunt Sally and Uncle Morton, those reasons are Facebook, Facetime, and text messages.) We’re still trying to find that killer app or service that gives people a compelling reason to switch. Like pushing an ox up a mountain For your average person, Bitcoin seems slow, expensive, complicated, and they can’t spend it on most of the things they want. Of course, you can say the same about checks, but not really. There’s a big difference. Everybody’s used to checks. They’re normal. When you handle checks, you don’t have to learn anything new. You don’t even need to know how to balance a checkbook anymore — most banks handle all the paperwork and tracking for you. In fact, banks spend a lot of time and effort to make checking as easy as possible. They design the experience so you don’t think about fees, costs, and risks. Some even throw in a complimentary starter pack when you open your account (replacement books cost $10 and up). Usually, banks include debit cards and free ATM access. That way, you never have to actually use those checks — which is good, because most businesses don’t take checks anyway. Unless you’re poor, banks will usually waive your first bounced-check fee and rarely charge to stop payment on a check. If you give them enough money, they won’t even charge maintenance fees on your account. Traditional banking has several centuries head start on Bitcoin when it comes to customer service and user experience — which isn’t saying much, as anybody who’s gone to a bank can tell you. But banking is so common that most people have no other frame of reference. Over 90% of Americans have a bank account, as does half of the rest of the world. Giving away Bitcoin only makes people wonder WTF the big deal is. Can you blame them? After all, if it’s so good, why do you need to give it away? The value of something you got for free Allow me to share three short stories about three real people who’ve gotten Bitcoin as gifts. I changed their names because somebody said I’m supposed to do that when I write about people online without their permission. Louise, the baby boomer Louise got 1 Bitcoin from her son. She keeps it in a Coinbase account on her phone. Despite multiple tutorials and lots of handholding, she still does not know how to use it. She wonders why its price goes up and down like crazy. When I asked her what she planned to do with it, she said she would keep it in her Coinbase wallet because her son says it might be worth something someday. “Who knows? It went from nothing to $70,000, it might do that again!” She doesn’t care about open, public, permissionless, borderless, neutral, censorship-resistant financial networks. Her son gave her a Bitcoin and said, “hold onto it.” She has plenty of money and did nothing to earn that Bitcoin. Why would she care about it? Oslo, the curious Oslo asked me for advice about buying Bitcoin. I helped him out. Even sent him a few thousand sats as a gift after he set up his wallet. Now that he has his coins, he complains about how hard it was to set up and that nobody else uses it. He told me he’ll keep the Bitcoin for his kids. After all, it might be useful one day and everybody says it’ll go up. Maybe his kids will appreciate him for it, but that doesn’t do anybody any good right now. Mallory, the idiot Mallory won’t mind me calling him an idiot because he’s an old friend of mine. And really, he’s not an idiot. He’s just simple. I bought him $18 worth of Bitcoin in 2018. I told him he could get his $18 back any time he wanted, on demand, any time. My gift to him. Or, keep the Bitcoin. His choice. No time limit. Didn’t set him up with a wallet or anything, just sent .0021 Bitcoin to a new wallet I created. I have the keys, ready to turn them over as soon as he asks. That Bitcoin’s still sitting in that wallet. The keys are still securely mine. At one point, the price of that .0021 Bitcoin dipped down to $7.35. He could’ve taken my $18, bought himself his own Bitcoin, and ended up way ahead. Nope. Now, that Bitcoin’s worth about $140. He doesn’t care. If Bitcoin’s price goes to $1 million like everybody says, he’ll have $2,100. Just for being my friend. I’ll bet he still won’t collect it. Why? “I don’t know how to use it” and “if you think it’ll go up, I’ll hold it.” Bitcoin isn’t good enough yet As new technology develops, it usually moves from hard, complicated, and interesting to easy, simple, and boring. Easy, simple, and boring is good. Almost every mainstream thing is easy, simple, and boring. That’s how you know your technology has arrived. Bitcoin’s not there yet. Like all new tech, it has to cross the “chasm of adoption,” as shown on this diagram of the technology adoption life cycle: Sometimes, technology falls into the chasm and dies — but usually, good technologies survive and prosper. It just takes a while to catch on. After 15 years of moving from enthusiasts to visionaries, Bitcoin has entered the chasm. Medium writer Omar M. Khateeb posits that within that chasm, there are four stages: Complacency/Marginalization, Ridicule, Criticism, and Acceptance. You can see it in that bell curve above the chasm, also shown below: If Omar’s right, we’re probably at the “criticism” stage. Should we really push people to use Bitcoin now, when it’s still slow, complicated, and you can’t do much with it? Probably not. We need to get to acceptance, but Bitcoin needs to earn that. A lot of money’s going into memecoins, smart contract platforms, Bitcoin spin-offs, and other tokens. That takes money from people who are working to make Bitcoin faster, cheaper, better, easier, and more useful. Once people lose enough money on these alternatives, the survivors will have to come back to Bitcoin. More do so with each cycle (however you define cycle). If that bothers you, look on the bright side. If Bitcoin’s really as good as everybody says it is, those people will come around. It just may take them longer than you’d like. Mark Helfman publishes the Crypto is Easy newsletter. He is also the author of three books and a top Bitcoin writer on Medium and Hacker Noon. Learn more about him in his bio and connect with him on Tealfeed. Did you hear? Despite giving people free Bitcoin, making it legal tender, and rolling out a universal BTC payment app, El Salvador’s government can’t get people to use it. https://decrypt.co/286463/salvadorans-like-bukele-but-arent-using-bitcoin-survey-says?embedable=true https://decrypt.co/286463/salvadorans-like-bukele-but-arent-using-bitcoin-survey-says?embedable=true Does that surprise you? After all, the cryptosphere said that people will use Bitcoin once they realize how good it is. That didn’t happen. Is Bitcoin not as good as they thought? Or is something bigger going on? They ain’t changin’ for ya Last month, somebody needed to send me a lot of money. He couldn’t use Zelle, didn’t have a checkbook, and didn’t want to pay a $25 wire fee. Venmo would’ve taken many batches over many days, and I didn’t want to pay 3% to a payment processor to take his credit card. I mentioned he could open a Coinbase account and use USDC to send me the money for free, in full, instantly. He laughed. In the end, he paid $10 to overnight a paper cashier’s check through USPS priority mail. (And you think ETH fees are high!) DALL-E drew a cartoon about it: Uphill battle People are strange. They will go through all sorts of inconveniences to stick with what they know. Crypto peeps go on and on about usability and product-market fit, but that’s a big hurdle. Ask anybody who’s had to guide Aunt Sally and Uncle Morton through their iPhone settings. They can tell you it takes more than a good interface and UX. You need to give people a compelling reason to switch. (For Aunt Sally and Uncle Morton, those reasons are Facebook, Facetime, and text messages.) We’re still trying to find that killer app or service that gives people a compelling reason to switch. Like pushing an ox up a mountain For your average person, Bitcoin seems slow, expensive, complicated, and they can’t spend it on most of the things they want. Of course, you can say the same about checks, but not really. There’s a big difference. Everybody’s used to checks. Everybody’s used to checks. They’re normal. When you handle checks, you don’t have to learn anything new. You don’t even need to know how to balance a checkbook anymore — most banks handle all the paperwork and tracking for you. In fact, banks spend a lot of time and effort to make checking as easy as possible. They design the experience so you don’t think about fees, costs, and risks. Some even throw in a complimentary starter pack when you open your account (replacement books cost $10 and up). Usually, banks include debit cards and free ATM access. That way, you never have to actually use those checks — which is good, because most businesses don’t take checks anyway. Unless you’re poor, banks will usually waive your first bounced-check fee and rarely charge to stop payment on a check. If you give them enough money, they won’t even charge maintenance fees on your account. Traditional banking has several centuries head start on Bitcoin when it comes to customer service and user experience — which isn’t saying much, as anybody who’s gone to a bank can tell you. But banking is so common that most people have no other frame of reference. Over 90% of Americans have a bank account, as does half of the rest of the world. Giving away Bitcoin only makes people wonder WTF the big deal is. Can you blame them? After all, if it’s so good, why do you need to give it away? The value of something you got for free Allow me to share three short stories about three real people who’ve gotten Bitcoin as gifts. I changed their names because somebody said I’m supposed to do that when I write about people online without their permission. Louise, the baby boomer Louise got 1 Bitcoin from her son. She keeps it in a Coinbase account on her phone. Despite multiple tutorials and lots of handholding, she still does not know how to use it. She wonders why its price goes up and down like crazy. When I asked her what she planned to do with it, she said she would keep it in her Coinbase wallet because her son says it might be worth something someday. “Who knows? It went from nothing to $70,000, it might do that again!” She doesn’t care about open, public, permissionless, borderless, neutral, censorship-resistant financial networks. Her son gave her a Bitcoin and said, “hold onto it.” She has plenty of money and did nothing to earn that Bitcoin. Why would she care about it? Oslo, the curious Oslo asked me for advice about buying Bitcoin. I helped him out. Even sent him a few thousand sats as a gift after he set up his wallet. Now that he has his coins, he complains about how hard it was to set up and that nobody else uses it. He told me he’ll keep the Bitcoin for his kids. After all, it might be useful one day and everybody says it’ll go up. Maybe his kids will appreciate him for it, but that doesn’t do anybody any good right now. Mallory, the idiot Mallory won’t mind me calling him an idiot because he’s an old friend of mine. And really, he’s not an idiot. He’s just simple. I bought him $18 worth of Bitcoin in 2018. I told him he could get his $18 back any time he wanted, on demand, any time. My gift to him. Or, keep the Bitcoin. His choice. No time limit. Didn’t set him up with a wallet or anything, just sent .0021 Bitcoin to a new wallet I created. I have the keys, ready to turn them over as soon as he asks. That Bitcoin’s still sitting in that wallet. The keys are still securely mine. At one point, the price of that .0021 Bitcoin dipped down to $7.35. He could’ve taken my $18, bought himself his own Bitcoin, and ended up way ahead. Nope. Now, that Bitcoin’s worth about $140. He doesn’t care. If Bitcoin’s price goes to $1 million like everybody says, he’ll have $2,100. Just for being my friend. I’ll bet he still won’t collect it. Why? “I don’t know how to use it” and “if you think it’ll go up, I’ll hold it.” Bitcoin isn’t good enough yet As new technology develops, it usually moves from hard, complicated, and interesting to easy, simple, and boring. Easy, simple, and boring is good. Easy, simple, and boring is good. Almost every mainstream thing is easy, simple, and boring. That’s how you know your technology has arrived. Bitcoin’s not there yet. Like all new tech, it has to cross the “chasm of adoption,” as shown on this diagram of the technology adoption life cycle: Sometimes, technology falls into the chasm and dies — but usually, good technologies survive and prosper. It just takes a while to catch on. After 15 years of moving from enthusiasts to visionaries, Bitcoin has entered the chasm. Medium writer Omar M. Khateeb posits that within that chasm, there are four stages : Complacency/Marginalization, Ridicule, Criticism, and Acceptance. You can see it in that bell curve above the chasm, also shown below: Medium within that chasm, there are four stages within that chasm, there are four stages If Omar’s right, we’re probably at the “criticism” stage. Should we really push people to use Bitcoin now, when it’s still slow, complicated, and you can’t do much with it? Probably not. We need to get to acceptance, but Bitcoin needs to earn that. A lot of money’s going into memecoins, smart contract platforms, Bitcoin spin-offs, and other tokens. That takes money from people who are working to make Bitcoin faster, cheaper, better, easier, and more useful. Once people lose enough money on these alternatives, the survivors will have to come back to Bitcoin. More do so with each cycle (however you define cycle). If that bothers you, look on the bright side. If Bitcoin’s really as good as everybody says it is, those people will come around. It just may take them longer than you’d like. Mark Helfman publishes the Crypto is Easy newsletter. He is also the author of three books and a top Bitcoin writer on Medium and Hacker Noon . Learn more about him in his bio and connect with him on Tealfeed . Crypto is Easy Crypto is Easy Crypto is Easy Medium Medium Medium Hacker Noon Hacker Noon Hacker Noon bio bio Tealfeed Tealfeed

You Still Think People Will Use Bitcoin Because You Give it to Them? 🤦

Crypto Trends in 2024: From Tap-to-Earn Games to Blockchain in Education

Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to a quarter of a century in prison after he and his lawyers failed to convince a U.S. district judge that the former crypto mogul was an autistic altruist who never intended to harm anybody. The judgment itself is pretty damning, and while SBF's lawyers plan to appeal, there's a lot to unpack here. First, regardless of how the appeal process plays out, Sam Bankman is probably going to prison for a long, long time. And despite attempts at maintaining his innocence, the prosecution's evidence points to the contrary. Second, Sam Bankman-Fried's fall from grace is not so much about what happened but how it happened. For those that don't remember, everything was going A-OK at Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange, FTX, until he decided to pick a fight with Binance founder and former Chief Executive Changpeng "CZ" Zhao which led the latter to (allegedly) cause a bank run that resulted in the demise of the third-largest crypto exchange in the US. Third, there is something inherently wrong with the crypto industry, as it always seems to attract some of the most dubious personalities in the world. Speaking of which, Binance's Zhao may have had the last laugh following the FTX debacle but his victory has been pretty short-lived since he has had to step down as the CEO of the world's largest crypto exchange. This decision came as part of a guilty plea with the US Department of Justice over a number of charges, including money laundering. The only exchange that has been able to weather most, if not all, of the turbulence so far has been Coinbase and its Chief Executive Brian Armstrong. Look, I don't know what it is with the Lex Luthor lookalike, but Armstrong clearly knows how to navigate through these troubling times to come out on top. Anyway, the internet did what it always does when things like these happen: pump and dump memecoins, leaving some with big wads of cash and most with a worthless token. Now, if you're wondering whether the sentence is fair, first of all, nothing in life is fair, but second: a lot of the media reports agree that things might have looked differently for SBF if he had actually managed to show some actual remorse over what happened and owned up to his mistakes. But since SBF kept skirting around the issue, and the judge in the case noticed, he's been sentenced to prison for two-and-a-half decades. I'll keep you posted on the appeal proceedings. Sorry to break your immersion, hackers. We have an important update to share. The Tech Company News Brief aka the newsletter you’re currently reading is going to go through an overhaul in the near future with a new theme and a new name. Keep your eyes peeled! We’re very excited to show you the new format (soon!). Amazon to Say Buh-Bye to Cashierless System 💸 If you were hoping to hop in-n-out of an Amazon store in the US, I've got bad news for you. The world's foremost authority on everything eCommerce has decided that it wants nothing to do with the technology (which it lovingly called Just Walk Out), at least in the US. According to media reports, Amazon will be stamping out the system from its Fresh grocery stores and replacing it with the Dash Cart instead which allows buyers to scan items as they go. Amazon ranked #9 on HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings this week. 👋 You’re reading HackerNoon's Tech Company News Brief, a weekly collection of tech goodness that combines HackerNoon's proprietary data with internet trends to determine which companies are rising and falling in the public consciousness. Subscribe here to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday. Canada Comes After Social Media Big Boys The good folks in Canada have had it with social media companies' shenanigans, so much so that they're taking them to court. The Toronto District School Board has filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, TikTok owner ByteDance, and Snapchat for allegedly creating addictive products that are harmful to a younger audience (think adolescents and teens) and has sought 4.5 billion Canadian dollars in damages (roughly $3.3 billion US). This wouldn't be the first time social media companies are blamed for a decline in youth mental health, with research, both independent and commissioned by these companies themselves, showing a clear link between the two. Whether the companies actually end up paying for the damage they've caused (or might be causing) is yet to be seen. Meta's Facebook and Instagramranked #2 and #4 this week, respectively. In Other News.. 📰 Bitcoin ETF Trading Volumes Tripled in March as the Largest Cryptocurrency Hit Record Highs — via CoinDesk
Opera allows users to download and use LLMs locally — via TechCrunch
US government review faults Microsoft for ‘cascade’ of errors that allowed Chinese hackers to breach senior US officials’ emails — via CNN
Microsoft, Quantinuum claim breakthrough in quantum computing — via Reuters
AI security is a new battle between employers and workers, survey shows — via Axios
Zoom and Salesforce stand to benefit from Microsoft’s unbundling of Teams and Office — via CNBC And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️ — Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon *All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page. Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to a quarter of a century in prison after he and his lawyers failed to convince a U.S. district judge that the former crypto mogul was an autistic altruist who never intended to harm anybody. The judgment itself is pretty damning, and while SBF's lawyers plan to appeal, there's a lot to unpack here. First, regardless of how the appeal process plays out, Sam Bankman is probably going to prison for a long, long time. And despite attempts at maintaining his innocence, the prosecution's evidence points to the contrary. Second, Sam Bankman-Fried's fall from grace is not so much about what happened but how it happened. For those that don't remember, everything was going A-OK at Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange, FTX, until he decided to pick a fight with Binance founder and former Chief Executive Changpeng "CZ" Zhao which led the latter to (allegedly) cause a bank run that resulted in the demise of the third-largest crypto exchange in the US. how Third, there is something inherently wrong with the crypto industry, as it always seems to attract some of the most dubious personalities in the world. Speaking of which, Binance's Zhao may have had the last laugh following the FTX debacle but his victory has been pretty short-lived since he has had to step down as the CEO of the world's largest crypto exchange. This decision came as part of a guilty plea with the US Department of Justice over a number of charges, including money laundering. The only exchange that has been able to weather most, if not all, of the turbulence so far has been Coinbase and its Chief Executive Brian Armstrong. Look, I don't know what it is with the Lex Luthor lookalike, but Armstrong clearly knows how to navigate through these troubling times to come out on top. Anyway, the internet did what it always does when things like these happen: pump and dump memecoins, leaving some with big wads of cash and most with a worthless token. Now, if you're wondering whether the sentence is fair, first of all, nothing in life is fair, but second: a lot of the media reports agree that things might have looked differently for SBF if he had actually managed to show some actual remorse over what happened and owned up to his mistakes. media reports media reports might But since SBF kept skirting around the issue, and the judge in the case noticed, he's been sentenced to prison for two-and-a-half decades. I'll keep you posted on the appeal proceedings. Sorry to break your immersion, hackers. We have an important update to share. The Tech Company News Brief aka the newsletter you’re currently reading is going to go through an overhaul in the near future with a new theme and a new name. Keep your eyes peeled! We’re very excited to show you the new format (soon!). Sorry to break your immersion, hackers. We have an important update to share. The Tech Company News Brief aka the newsletter you’re currently reading is going to go through an overhaul in the near future with a new theme and a new name. Keep your eyes peeled! We’re very excited to show you the new format (soon!). Sorry to break your immersion, hackers. We have an important update to share. The Tech Company News Brief aka the newsletter you’re currently reading is going to go through an overhaul in the near future with a new theme and a new name. Keep your eyes peeled! We’re very excited to show you the new format (soon!). Sorry to break your immersion, hackers. We have an important update to share. The Tech Company News Brief aka the newsletter you’re currently reading is going to go through an overhaul in the near future with a new theme and a new name. Keep your eyes peeled! We’re very excited to show you the new format (soon!). Amazon to Say Buh-Bye to Cashierless System 💸 Amazon to Say Buh-Bye to Cashierless System 💸 If you were hoping to hop in-n-out of an Amazon store in the US, I've got bad news for you. Amazon Amazon The world's foremost authority on everything eCommerce has decided that it wants nothing to do with the technology (which it lovingly called Just Walk Out), at least in the US. According to media reports , Amazon will be stamping out the system from its Fresh grocery stores and replacing it with the Dash Cart instead which allows buyers to scan items as they go. media reports media reports Amazon ranked #9 on HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings this week. 👋 You’re reading HackerNoon's Tech Company News Brief, a weekly collection of tech goodness that combines HackerNoon's proprietary data with internet trends to determine which companies are rising and falling in the public consciousness. Subscribe here to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday. 👋 You’re reading HackerNoon's Tech Company News Brief, a weekly collection of tech goodness that combines HackerNoon's proprietary data with internet trends to determine which companies are rising and falling in the public consciousness. Subscribe here to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday. You’re reading HackerNoon's Tech Company News Brief , a weekly collection of tech goodness that combines HackerNoon's proprietary data with internet trends to determine which companies are rising and falling in the public consciousness. Subscribe here to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday. Tech Company News Brief Tech Company News Brief here complete Canada Comes After Social Media Big Boys The good folks in Canada have had it with social media companies' shenanigans, so much so that they're taking them to court. The Toronto District School Board has filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, TikTok owner ByteDance, and Snapchat for allegedly creating addictive products that are harmful to a younger audience (think adolescents and teens) and has sought 4.5 billion Canadian dollars in damages (roughly $3.3 billion US). This wouldn't be the first time social media companies are blamed for a decline in youth mental health, with research, both independent and commissioned by these companies themselves, showing a clear link between the two. Whether the companies actually end up paying for the damage they've caused (or might be causing) is yet to be seen. Meta's Facebook and Instagram ranked #2 and #4 this week, respectively. Facebook Instagram In Other News.. 📰 In Other News.. 📰 Bitcoin ETF Trading Volumes Tripled in March as the Largest Cryptocurrency Hit Record Highs — via CoinDesk Opera allows users to download and use LLMs locally — via TechCrunch US government review faults Microsoft for ‘cascade’ of errors that allowed Chinese hackers to breach senior US officials’ emails — via CNN Microsoft, Quantinuum claim breakthrough in quantum computing — via Reuters AI security is a new battle between employers and workers, survey shows — via Axios Zoom and Salesforce stand to benefit from Microsoft’s unbundling of Teams and Office — via CNBC Bitcoin ETF Trading Volumes Tripled in March as the Largest Cryptocurrency Hit Record Highs — via CoinDesk CoinDesk CoinDesk Opera allows users to download and use LLMs locally — via TechCrunch TechCrunch TechCrunch US government review faults Microsoft for ‘cascade’ of errors that allowed Chinese hackers to breach senior US officials’ emails — via CNN CNN CNN Microsoft, Quantinuum claim breakthrough in quantum computing — via Reuters Reuters Reuters AI security is a new battle between employers and workers, survey shows — via Axios Axios Axios Zoom and Salesforce stand to benefit from Microsoft’s unbundling of Teams and Office — via CNBC CNBC CNBC And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️ — Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon *All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page. *All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page. *All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page. Tech Company Rankings Tech Company Rankings

Sam Bankman-(Never Getting)Fried

স্যাম ব্যাংকম্যান- (কখনও পাওয়া যায় না) ভাজা

Sam Bankman - (Never Getting) Fried

Sam Bankman-(Nunca conseguir) frito

Sam Bankman-(Ne jamais obtenir)Fried

सैम बैंकमैन-(नेवर गेटिंग)फ्राइड

サム・バンクマン - (決して) 揚げられない

샘 뱅크맨(Sam Bankman) - (Never Getting)Fried

Sam Bankman- (Nunca Ficando) Frito

Сэм Бэнкман - (Никогда не получается) Жареный

Sam Bankman-(Asla Kızartılmaz)

I despise Christmas. The city becomes like a pestering showroom, seemingly designed to provoke me. Flaunting what they have: Christmas trees, gifts, loving families gathering around the tree once a year like in the movies. I once had a family too—a beautiful wife and a lovely daughter. But I screwed it up... My wife left and took our daughter with her. They might be living in England now. I know nothing about them. I can't even be angry; after all, I was the one who drove them away. Since then, Christmas for me has been about loneliness. About how people constantly remind me of what I've lost. But this Christmas will be different. This year, I'll have a tree too. I will be the tree. I've picked out a sturdy roof beam. That's where I'll hang myself. I thought it would be easier, but I've realized that this actually requires the most courage. Being suicidal isn't simple. So, I jumped down to the store for a bottle of whiskey, to drink up some bravery one last time. The street was completely deserted. There was no sign of life, except for that one convenience store where I finally managed to get some booze. I paid for it; the cashier wished me a Merry Christmas. I just shrugged and walked out the door. Why not start drinking right now? I opened the bottle and took a big swig. The whiskey scraped its way down my throat, and then became a warmth in my stomach, which felt particularly good on this cold winter night. After a few sips, when my steps began to wobble, I decided to stop for a moment to relieve myself. That's when I noticed the homeless person on the street corner. He wore tattered white clothes, possibly burlap. Maybe he stole it from a nearby nativity scene. The light played a strange game on his body as if he was glowing. Or maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks, which wouldn't be surprising after downing half a bottle of whiskey in about fifteen minutes. Come, buddy, sit with me. — he called out. Why not, after all? I'm not in such a hurry to hang myself that I can't spare a few minutes for a half-crazed man. Want some? — I offered him the whiskey. The homeless man just nodded, then took a sip of the whiskey. That's when it hit me where I recognized this face from. No, not an old friend. The last time I saw him was in the church. A very long time ago, when I still went to such places. It was Jesus himself sitting next to me, looking exactly as he was depicted in the church. I sat there with the most influential man in the world on an empty street, sharing a bottle of whiskey. He seemed so real, but I knew it couldn't be true. For a few moments, I just stared blankly, then he broke the silence. I know what you're thinking. You think all of this isn't real. That you've gone mad and your mind is playing tricks on you. But that's nonsensical. If I'm merely a product of your mind, anything you do to prove the contrary will be unsuccessful. You can't deceive your own mind. I could say I know everything about you, but that wouldn’t prove anything; if I'm just a figment of your imagination, you obviously can't ask a question I wouldn't know the answer to. Was the shopkeeper real? Or even this whiskey? How can you know if anything is real beyond yourself? And God? What about God? — I didn’t really understand his point, but I thought discussing God would be a good start in a conversation with Jesus. If everything is just a creation of your mind, then you are God, right?! If I am God, why is my life so miserable? Because you made it that way. And if I die, does everything end? Death is overrated. If you're a butterfly in your dream and someone steps on you, do you mourn the butterfly? You just wake up. Maybe ponder for a bit about what it was like, then start a new dream. So, I'm sitting here with Jesus himself, and you're suggesting I should commit suicide? Jesus? Why do you call me that? What should I call you? Last time you called me Arnold. Arnold? Yes, Arnold, your personal assistant. Personal assistant? Yes. That's the protocol. If you stray too far off the path, you can choose to start a new life or roll back the current one. I’m a bit confused. Can you explain all this clearly? Oh, sure. In the 2050s, human technology reached the singularity. People continue to live in digital form. Great. So, you're a time traveler? Not at all. I'm just a second-generation AI. Second generation? Yes. Humans are the first generation, and artificial intelligence based on the first generation is the second. So, you're some kind of robot? Now I'm starting to understand the Arnold name. A time-traveling robot from the future. Just like the Terminator... — I said, laughing, because this all started to seem very frivolous. Not exactly. Currently, a computer is running your mind, which includes me and all other people. Essentially, you are just a part of your own larger mind. It's hard to explain in a way that you would understand, but at a higher level, we are all one entity. I see. We are God, experiencing a massive split in consciousness. Something like that. The computer running us orbits the Earth with millions of similar machines. The machines are powered by the sun and arranged in a spherical formation around the planet. Nanomachines continuously transform the Earth so that dumb matter becomes smart matter. So, everything around us isn't real? It depends on how you define reality. Currently, it's 2019. If we reach 2050, humanity will likely achieve singularity and move into simulated worlds. From that perspective, this will be reality; from here, the outer world is. But who knows if the outer world is the ultimate objective reality? This is starting to give me a headache, but I still don't understand why you're here. To offer you the choice. A new life, or a rollback? What's a rollback? Before you created this personality, you set a path that you must follow. Why? Why not just enjoy omnipotence? Because it's boring. If you irrevocably stray from the path, you have the option to return to an earlier point and continue from there. It's like a backup of your mind at a specific state. Since your mind reverts to an earlier state, you won't remember what happened afterward. So that's how fate works? Yes. You feel as if a series of random decisions guide your path. Everything seems to lead in one direction. But that's only because we roll back the bad decisions. If something is meant to happen, it will, and you can't prevent it. If you tried, something random would always interfere. At least that's how you would experience it, since every time you managed to prevent an event, the system would roll back. In a mostly deterministic world, randomness is God's only tool. If the world is deterministic, how can anything happen by chance? It's like quantum mechanics. Exciting things happen when no one is watching. The slice of reality that no one is aware of is God's territory. Here happen the big things that people just shrug off as random. So, you came to ask if I'd rather reincarnate or go back in time to correct my mistakes? You could say that. At that point, I took a big gulp of whiskey. Then I want my family back. That last gulp might have been unnecessary. I started to feel dizzy, and the world became increasingly blurry. Finally, everything melted away… I felt a pressure on my chest. Slowly, I opened my eyes and stretched widely. A fire flickered in the fireplace, and Katy, my little girl, was sitting on my stomach. Daddy, daddy! Santa has come. Let’s open the presents! I clambered out of bed and rubbed my eyes. Under the ceiling-high tree, the presents were already laid out. Annie had taken care of everything, and let me sleep until this little imp jumped on my stomach. By the time I came to my senses, Katy was already unwrapping the gifts, then suddenly stopped for a moment and turned towards me. Daddy, didn’t Santa bring you anything? Oh yes, my little girl, he did. I watched Katy unwrap the presents, and a feeling of otherworldly joy washed over me. This is my gift. I had forgotten how much I adore Christmas. If you are confused, read my very first article on HackerNoon: https://hackernoon.com/our-universe-is-a-massive-neural-network-heres-why-c14j3ze1 I wish you a very merry Christmas!

A Christmas Story (After the Technological Singularity)

BUSINESS COLLEGES

Imagine that you are a druggist in a small town

PNEUMATIC MAIL TUBES

The following chapters will furnish exercises in composition, both oral and written

Stories, News & Mentions about QASHIER

Qashier’s Stories on HackerNoon