👋🏾 Hello readers!
In today's issue, I've published the final installment of the mid-year review, where I highlight the major stories from the year so far that are important for you to know about, ranging from new GDPR updates and the Google vs. Oracle case, to the .org sale and GPT 3. In addition, I've introduced a new feature where I will highlight 10+ free public APIs every week that are not as well-known.
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Sheena
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The upcoming Chrome 86 release will include two features designed to make working with focus better, the Chrome team revealed. These include:
- A new :focus-visible pseudo-class, a CSS-selector that makes styling focus more predictable to use by making it possible for developers to opt-in to the heuristic the browser is using
- The new Quick Focus Highlight user preference, which will force the current focused element to show an indicator for two seconds, regardless of whether or not the page has disabled focus styles. As a result, all CSS focus styles will match no matter whether the user is using a keyboard, mouse, and so on.
More:
- If you want to use the new :focus-visible pseudo-class now, you can with the help of :focus-visible polyfill. After it loads, use the .focus-visible class instead of :focus-visible.
- To enable Quick Focus Highlight, type chrome://settings into the address bar, click on "Advanced" and then "Accessibility," and then turn on the toggle switch.
- While new :focus-visible pseudo-class is only supported in Chromium-based browsers, Mozilla Firefox is also working on adding such support.
- Chrome 86 will be released on Oct. 6.
CHROMIUM BLOG
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OpenAI revealed pricing details for using its GPT-3 API. The pricing structure will go into effect starting Oct. 1, 2020, but will still only be available as a limited private beta then. The preliminary pricing details are as follows:
- Explore: Free tier: 100K [BPE] tokens or, 3-month trial
- Create: $100/month, 2M tokens/month, 8 cents per additional 1k tokens
- Build: $400/month, 10M tokens/month, 6 cents per additional, 1k tokens
- Scale: Open AI says to contact them directly for details about this tier, which also includes the ability to fine-tune.
More:
For context, Open AI explains 2M tokens per month is roughly equivalent to 3,000 pages of text, adding that Shakespeare’s full collection is roughly 900,000 words, or 1.2M tokens.
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MID-YEAR REVIEW: Major Dev Stories From 2020 So Far
Today, in the final installment of the mid-year review, we're highlighting the major stories from this year that are most important for you to know.
Major Conference Highlights:
WWDC 2020:
The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference [WWDC20] took place between June 22 through June 26 and was online for the first time in its history. Here are some highlights:
- Safari 14 will not block Google Analytics from loading and running on a site, Google Developer Expert for Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager Simo Ahava says. His announcement comes after a preview of Apple's new Privacy Report feature, which highlights trackers Safari has blocked, at WWDC 2020 showed Google Analytics as one of the sites the tracker prevented.
- Safari 14 added...
Microsoft Build 2020:
- At the conference, Microsoft announced the Azure App Service now comes with a new hosting offer specifically for static web apps. The new service, Azure Static Web App, also integrates with GitHub and Visual Studio Code.
- In addition, the company revealed...
Oracle vs Google:
Oracle, which owns Java, argues Google owes them at least $8.8b for using Oracle Corp.'s software in its Android mobile operating system without a license. Here's a quick catch-up on updates so far:
July:
- The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Google vs. Oracle copyright case on Oct. 7. The news comes after the court postponed the original March 24, 2020 date because of the pandemic.
March:
- Oracle's Executive Vice President, Ken Glueck, argued many of the well-known computer scientists who signed amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs support of Google in the Google vs. Oracle copyright case did so because they received research grants, and thus money, from Google." Glueck then lists the names of just a few. Yet o some, like Joshua Bloch, called it an attack on the computer scientists who were...
- Reports Oracle copied IBM's SQL to make the first version...
February:
- Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court announced...
January:
The .Org Sale:
- In May, the ICANN board rejected....
GDPR:
- The European Data Protection Board axed two popular ways of getting consent, which means many developers are now at risk of being fined. Developers can now longer...
Mozilla Layoffs Roundup And Timeline:
- Mozilla captured headlines after...
Other Company Updates:
- IBM’s senior vice president for cloud and cognitive software Arvind Krishna replaced Virginia "Ginni" Rometty as the tech giant's CEO. Rometty...
Workforce and Education:
Workforce:
- Research suggests whiteboard technical interviews fail to sufficiently measure technical skills but instead assesses how well a candidate handles anxiety, while also favoring men over women. The study additionally found..
- Language skills, not math, are better predictors of programming ability, a new study...
Lambda School Controversy:
Lambda School constantly made headlines earlier this year over accusations the school was misleading customers about its job placement rate and more, raising larger debates about boot camps that use ISAs and more. A lot happened, so here's a brief timeline to get you up-to-date:
- Lambda School reselling ISAs to investors: It all began in early February, when Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson accidentally revealed that the Lambda School is reselling their students' Income Share Agreements (ISAs) to investors. The brains behind Ruby on Rails tweeted documents....
- Allred starts speaking out in his defense: Allred said the statistics reported on by the magazine originated from the "Risks" section of an investor memoir "written as a mock exercise for the Y Combinator Growth group" and were based...
BLACK LIVES MATTER:
Many in the dev community showed solidarity with the Black community by taking down sites temporarily, changing racially charged terms in code, and more. Here are some highlights:
GPT-3 and AI
- Intel, MIT, and the Georgia Institute of Technology announced an automated engine that can identify when two pieces of code, data structures, or algorithms perform identical or similar tasks. Such a tool...
Accessibility:
- Almost all U.S. web pages are at risk of a lawsuit...
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PHP 8 will officially include the syntax #[Attr] after the PHP community voted on an RFC to shorten the Attribute syntax. The Shorter Attribute Syntax RFC was published after the community voted in favor of an RFC proposing PHP 8 implements attributes as a form of structured, syntactic metadata to classes, functions, and more.
More:
- The new syntax will be a part of PHP 8.0.0RC1, which is expected to be released on Sept. 17.
- It will not be a part of 8.0.0beta3 as it has already been tagged and built.
- PHP 8 will be released on Nov. 26, 2020.
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Attackers are targeting a critical remote code execution bug in over 300,000 WordPress sites using a vulnerable File Manager plugin, warned Arsys researcher Gonzalo Cruz. The flaw was being used by hackers to upload malicious PHP files on vulnerable sites.
More:
- The vulnerable File Manager plugin is installed in more than 700,000 WordPress sites.
- Security firm Wordfence was able to block more than 450,000 exploit attempts targeting the vulnerability.
- WordPress fixed the bug in version 6.9 of the File Manager released on Sept. 1.
- WordPress released version 5.5.1 of its platform on Sept. 1 with 34 bug fixes.
This story first appeared in Inside Security. For more news like this, subscribe here.
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Cool Free Public APIs: Every week, I scour and list 10+ free public APIs you can use that aren't as well-known as some of the others, and then compile them into a larger list for you.
Developer-Related APIs:
- DomainDb Info: Domain name search to find all domains with particular words, phrases, and so on.
- This tool detects faces...
Coronavirus / Health:
- Flutrack: Influenza-like symptoms with geotracking
Politics:
Music, Sports:
Just For Fun/Random:
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