TLDR 2021-08-18

OnlyFans TV πŸ“±, robot parkour πŸ€–, TikTok sounds 🎡

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Big Tech & Startups

TikTok Picks Streaming Service Audius to Power New β€˜Sounds’ Library (2 minute read)

Audius is a music streaming platform based on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. It was founded in 2018 and is now the largest decentralized consumer blockchain application, with over 100,000 musicians on the platform. Audius has partnered with TikTok to help streamline TikTok's current music upload and selection process. By making it easy to share tracks on TikTok, Audius is giving artists a chance to increase their exposure. 75 percent of TikTok users in the US have discovered new artists via TikTok videos.

OnlyFans pushes SFW app on iOS and Android as it tries to shake adult image (2 minute read)

OnlyFans has a mobile app called OFTV that features strictly safe-for-work content from many regular OnlyFans creators. The app was launched in January, but the company is only now starting to promoting it. OnlyFans is trying to move beyond adult content and position itself as a neutral platform like Patreon. OFTV is not monetized and the company does not currently plan to charge for access or place advertising on its content. The app currently has more than 800 videos, featuring interviews, dance and cooking lessons, vlogs, more.
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Science & Futuristic Technology

Molecular Farming Means the Next Vaccine Could Be Edible and Grown in a Plant (5 minute read)

Molecular farming uses plants to synthesize medications and vaccines. Scientists can introduce new biochemical pathways into plant cells using genetic engineering and synthetic biology, turning plants into single-use bioreactors. Plant-produced vaccines and monoclonal antibodies are far more potent than similar molecules made in chicken eggs or yeasts. Plants are cheap to grow and resist common forms of contamination. The resulting medicines are often stored in seeds or other plant cell components that can be easily dehydrated for cheap storage. Several trials using this technology are currently underway.

Boston Dynamics' robots can parkour better than you (2 minute read)

Boston Dynamics has shared a video of its Atlas humanoid robots successfully completing a parkour routine in an obstacle course. The routine took months of development and served as a useful test of the robots' abilities. Atlas can adapt its movements using visual cues. While the video looks impressive, there is still a slight chance of failure at each step of the routine. Atlas is a research model meant to push the limit of robotics and it could lead to the development of helper robots that handle a wide variety of tasks with human-like dexterity. The video is available in the article.
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Programming, Design & Data Science

Leaflet (GitHub Repo)

Leaflet is a JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps. It works efficiently across all major desktop and mobile platforms and is accessible on older browsers. Leaflet has all the mapping features most developers ever need, and it can be extended with a huge amount of plugins.

Josh (GitHub Repo)

Josh (Just One Single History) combines the advantages of monorepos with those of multirepos. It can be used for partial cloning of repositories, to simplify code sharing and dependency management, and more.
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Miscellaneous

Moderna Is About to Begin Trials for HIV Vaccine Based on COVID-19 Research (3 minute read)

Moderna will soon begin human trials for its mRNA-based HIV/AIDS vaccine. Most vaccines have proven ineffective against HIV as the disease attacks the immune system itself. mRNA vaccines create proteins that trigger an immune response in the body, allowing the body to possibly recognize new variants of a virus. The technology has been around for decades, but its use was limited until the Covid-19 pandemic. Moderna has been criticized for its lack of peer-reviewed research and other business practices.

Mastercard is phasing out magnetic stripes on its cards starting in 2024 (2 minute read)

MasterCard will phase out the use of magnetic stripes on its cards over the next decade. The transition will start in 2024 in regions like Europe where chip cards are already widely used. Magnetic stripes will be completely gone from MasterCard cards by 2033. The technology dates back to the 1960s and it was a huge improvement to how cashiers used to record card details. The global EMV chip standard was introduced in the 1990s, but the US hasn't adopted the technology to the same extent as the rest of the world. Contactless payments have exploded in popularity during the pandemic.
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