How Twitter is Working to Foster Healthier Conversation

The nastiness that frequently occurs on Twitter has been a hot topic of discussion for a while now. Consequently, it is a matter of concern for CEO Jack Dorsey and his team. Recode reported on Twitter’s efforts to become a healthier platform.

Everything the company seems to do — from cracking down on bots to building new conversation features — has been done in the name of a healthier Twitter. When the company’s user base started shrinking noticeably last year, Twitter said that its focus on health was at least partly to blame. Measuring the health of interactions is just one part of that broader effort, but it’s one of the more challenging and confusing parts. Removing bots and spam are technical problems. Truly understanding the health of a conversation requires things like understanding who is talking, what they’re talking about, or when someone is using sarcasm. Not all arguments, of course, are bad.

Foxconn Said to Be Developing micro-LED Tech for Apple

Foxconn is said to be developing micro-LED displays to be used in iPhones and maybe other Apple devices. 9to5Mac compiled stories emerging out of Asia and explained why the technology would be a significant step forward.

micro-LED is generally seen as a superior display panel to OLED displays, the latter is what Apple currently uses in the Apple Watch, iPhone X and iPhone XS. micro-LED screens need no backlight as the pixels themselves emit their own light, just like OLED screens. This means you can get the same rich colors and high-contrast appearance…Naturally, we would expect Apple to also want to bring the technology to its flagship iPhone line and this latest report about Foxconn’s interest corroborates that intent. Nevertheless, this technology is still firmly in the medium-term future. Do not expect micro-LED screens on mass volume products anytime soon.

Apple Poached Lead 5G Intel Developer Umashankar Thyagarajan

Just weeks before Apple and Qualcomm reached a settlement, Apple poached Intel employee Umashankar Thyagarajan.

Mr. Thyagarajan’s departure is understood to have been a setback to Intel’s efforts, forcing the company to reshuffle the 5G project. Shortly afterwards, Intel said it would not be able to release a 5G smartphone chip until 2020, more than a year after Qualcomm.

Very interesting. More and more pieces of the puzzle are being revealed.

Belgian Programmer Solves 20 Year Old Crypto Puzzle

In 1999, MIT created a puzzle designed to take 35 years to solve. Belgian programmer Bernard Fabrot has solved it early.

The puzzle essentially involves doing roughly 80 trillion successive squarings of a starting number, and was specifically designed to foil anyone trying to solve it more quickly by using parallel computing.

“There have been hardware and software advances beyond what I predicted in 1999,” says MIT professor Ron Rivest, who first announced the puzzle in April 1999. “The puzzle’s fundamental challenge of doing roughly 80 trillion squarings remains unbroken, but the resources required to do a single squaring have been reduced by much more than I predicted.”