A security industry blog post traces SAML's origins as a 2002 OASIS committee standard built on XML, arguing it powered the early single sign-on industry but has since become overly complex and fragile. The piece, citing security researcher Thomas Ptacek, contends SAML's reliance on XML signature validation makes real-world implementations difficult to secure, and calls for organizations to move to newer alternatives like OpenID Connect (OIDC).
Even as OpenAI and Anthropic employees anticipate windfalls from potential IPOs, Bay Area tech layoffs hit over 14,500 workers in the year ending June, nearly double the prior year. Former Google employee Basem Istanbouli started un(PTO) in December to support unemployed tech workers, and the group has grown from three founding members to more than 1,700, with weekly hikes now drawing crowds of 80 or more.
A retrospective look at old Apple keyboards reveals that Canada had its own layout variant in the late 1990s and early 2000s, distinct from both the US and European versions. While it shared the same physical layout as the European keyboard, it used entirely different pictograms for keys like Ctrl, Alt, Tab, Caps Lock, Esc, Enter and the arrow keys.
Wax motors use a sealed volume of wax—ranging from refined hydrocarbons to plant-derived waxes like paraffin—that expands when heated and contracts when cooled to push and retract a plunger. Heat can come from electric thermistors, solar radiation, combustion byproducts, or ambient sources, while a spring or weight provides the biasing force needed to retract the plunger against seal friction.
A newly published technical handbook explains FlashAttention, the exact attention algorithm that speeds up Transformer models by minimizing memory traffic rather than reducing computation. It walks through the standard attention implementation's repeated reads and writes to GPU high-bandwidth memory, then details how tiling, online softmax, and recomputation eliminate most of that overhead across FlashAttention-1 through FlashAttention-4.
A retrospective piece traces how early IBM and other PC-era keyboards, including the Selectric typewriter and IBM 1130 computer, used pictorial symbols for functions like space, backspace, and page navigation. Over time, as computing shifted toward American office use, most of these icons were phased out in favor of plain text labels, leaving only Shift, Enter, and Tab as widely recognized symbolic holdouts on modern PC keyboards.
Apple's Surprise and Shine event is set to reveal its first foldable phone, reportedly named iPhone Duo rather than the earlier rumored iPhone Ultra, alongside the expected iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports the device will start around $2,000 for 256GB and reach $3,000 for 2TB, launching around October with Apple Pencil support at launch.
WIRED's latest label maker guide highlights Brother's PT-n25bt as a top pick, praising its simple QWERTY-keyboard operation, built-in cutter, and LCD preview screen that let users create custom tags in under a minute. The device also pairs via Bluetooth with Brother's Design&Print 2 app for expanded template and design options, and works with 17 colors of durable, laminated BTag tape rated water-, temperature-, and fade-resistant.
A developer released hrdx, an experimental open-source terminal multiplexer written in Go, designed around running multiple AI coding agents like Codex CLI and Claude Code side by side. It organizes projects as workspaces with tabs and real PTY-backed terminal panes, using status indicators to show which agents are actively working or have finished.
Poland's Wolsztyn steam-hauled passenger service, billed as Europe's last regular standard-gauge steam train, will temporarily use a diesel locomotive, the SM42 6D, from August 20 to 28, 2026, while its Pt47-65 steam engine undergoes periodic maintenance. Regular steam service runs Monday to Friday between Wolsztyn and Zbąszynek, and on Saturdays to Poznań, with no scheduled steam or diesel substitute service on Sundays and holidays. Tickets remain available through Koleje Wielkopolskie's website, station ticket counters, or the train conductor.
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