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That XOR Trick (2020)

There are a whole bunch of popular interview questions that can be solved in one of two ways: Either using common data structures and algorithms in a sensible manner, or by using some properties of XOR in a seemingly hard to understand way. While it seems unreasonable to expect the XOR solutions in interviews, it is quite fun to figure out how they work. As it turns out, they are all based on the same fundamental trick, which we will derive in a bottom-up way in this post. Afterwards we will lo

American science to soon face its largest brain drain in history

Sign up for the Starts With a Bang newsletter Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all. Subscribe From World War II until 2024, the US stood unchallenged as the scientific leader of the free world. Across practically every discipline — physics, materials science, astronomy, chemistry, biology, medicine, geology, etc. — American scientific missions and initiatives, often in collaboration with European, Canadian, Asian, and many other global partners, b

Microsoft's 'Blue Screen of Death' Dies After 40 Years: Meet Its Replacement

Like Pudding Pops and Benetton sweaters, another 1980s icon is gone. After 40 years of delivering the tragic news of a PC crash to Windows users, Microsoft's infamous "blue screen of death" is going away. A black screen of death will be replacing it, albeit without the sad face. The blue screen of death has been around since Windows 1.0 came out in 1985. Named for its bright blue color, it's a critical error screen that pops up on computers using the Microsoft Windows operating system when the

OpenAI condemns Robinhood’s ‘OpenAI tokens’

OpenAI wants to make clear that Robinhood’s sale of “OpenAI tokens” will not give everyday consumers equity — or stock — in OpenAI, the company said in a post from its official newsroom account on X. OpenAI says it does not endorse Robinhood’s effort, nor was it involved in facilitating the token sale. “These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity,” said OpenAI’s newsroom account. “We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it. Any transfer of OpenAI equity

Capital One builds agentic AI to supercharge auto sales

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Inspiration can come from different places, even for architecting and designing agentic systems. At VB Transform, Capital One explained how it built its agentic platform for its auto business. Milind Naphade, SVP of Technology and Head of AI Foundations at Capital One, said during VB Transform that the company wanted its agents to function

Two years in, Apple is now officially on Threads

It took a minute, but Apple has at last activated its official Threads account. And thanks to its massive Instagram presence, it instantly picked up nearly 5 million followers. Today’s move comes well after several Apple-related accounts joined Instagram’s alternative to X right out of the gate. Apple Music, Apple News, Apple Books, Shazam, and Beats by Dre were among the first to show up shortly after Threads launched in mid-2023, but the main @apple account remained absent until now. Instant

Physicists Start to Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) may not glitter quite like the night sky, plunked as it is between Michigan State University’s chemistry department and the performing arts center. Inside, though, the lab is teeming with substances that are otherwise found only in stars. Here, atomic nuclei accelerate to half the speed of light, smash into a target and shatter into smithereens. The collisions create some of the same rare, unstable isotopes that arise inside stars and which, through a

What James Gunn’s ‘Superman’ Tells Us About the Future of the DC Universe

It’s been years since James Gunn and Peter Safran first announced their plans for the future of the DC Universe. In that time, plans have changed slightly, and work is ongoing, but, with one exception, we have yet to see exactly how things are going to play out. That changes July 11 with the release of Superman. Not only is the film our first introduction to this brand-new, reimagined version of Superman, it’s our first look at what Gunn and Safran’s DC Universe looks like on the big screen. Sp

The Bands of ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Are Having a Charts Battle in Real Life Too

Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation’s K-Pop Demon Hunters is currently topping the streamer’s most-watched rankings, and in a funny life-imitating-art moment, the soundtrack’s leading singles from the film’s songwriter EJAE are now battling it out on the Billboard 100. In the film, the heroic Huntrix, who fight demons by stage light, are fan-favorite K-pop performers who find themselves facing a big threat when a new boy band goes viral. Unfortunately, the handsome and debonair Saja Boys also h

Xbox hit hard with layoffs: from canceled games to a shuttered studio

On July 2nd, Microsoft announced sweeping layoffs affecting as many as 9,000 employees, and they had a big impact on the company’s Xbox studios. Microsoft canceled Perfect Dark from The Initiative and closed the studio. Rare’s Everwild, announced in 2019, was canceled, too. And Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 Studios will lose more than 70 employees. “We must make choices now for continued success in future years and a key part of that strategy is the discipline to prioritize the strongest o

Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Websites that displayed legally mandated U.S. national climate assessments seem to have disappeared, making it harder for state and local governments and the public to learn what to expect in their backyards from a warming world. Scientists said the peer-reviewed authoritative reports save money and lives. Websites for the national assessments and the U.S. Global Change Research Program were down Monday and Tuesday with no links, notes or referrals elsewhere. The White House,

Blizzard is winding down support for its Warcraft mobile game

is a reporter who covers the business, culture, and communities of video games, with a focus on marginalized gamers and the quirky, horny culture of video game communities. Microsoft’s layoff of roughly 9,000 employees is continuing to have downstream effects at the company’s subsidiaries. Aftermath reports that as many as 100 developers at Blizzard have been impacted, and as a result the studio is winding down development on its mobile tower defense game Warcraft Rumble. In an announcement, B

OpenAI says Robinhood's tokens aren't equity in the company

OpenAI is distancing itself from Robinhood 's latest crypto push after the trading platform began offering tokenized shares of OpenAI and SpaceX to users in Europe. "These 'OpenAI tokens' are not OpenAI equity," OpenAI wrote on X. "We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it." The company said that "any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval — we did not approve any transfer," and warned users to "please be careful." Robinhood announced the lau

Tesla's energy storage business gets sucked into the company's downward spiral

Even Tesla’s energy storage business, which has been a small, yet notable bright spot, can’t escape the cloud that’s hanging over the company. For the second consecutive quarter, deployments of its Powerwall and Megapack stationary storage products have declined, according to stats released by Tesla. In the second quarter of this year, the company installed 9.6 gigawatt-hours of storage, down 0.8 gigawatt-hours from the first quarter. Tesla’s energy storage division peaked in the fourth quarte

Rocket Engines That Flew 22 Space Shuttle Missions Are Ready for NASA’s Next Moon Mission

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) is ready to fly with its four shuttle-era engines. The rocket, outfitted with the RS-25 engines, recently passed a critical milestone that put the integrated system to the test, using a decades-old design on a new launch vehicle. NASA teams successfully completed the RS-25 engine checkout tests at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ensuring seamless communication between the SLS core stage and its engines ahead of the first crewed mission to the lunar environm

Topics: 25 engines rs shuttle sls

How Nintendo locked down the Switch 2’s USB-C port and broke third-party docking

is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget. There’s always a reason why universal USB-C ports don’t “just work” like you’d expect. In the early days, it was incompetence or naiveté. Later, manufacturers often cheaped out. But in the case of Nintendo’s Switch 2, it appears to be intentional. With the Nintendo Switch 2, it should be easy to plug your new, more expensive console into v

Xbox hit hard with layoffs: from cancelled games to a shuttered studio

On July 2nd, Microsoft announced sweeping layoffs affecting as many as 9,000 employees, and they had a big impact on the company’s Xbox studios. Microsoft cancelled Perfect Dark from The Initiative and closed the studio. Rare’s Everwild, announced in 2019, was cancelled, too. And Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 Studios will lose more than 70 employees. “We must make choices now for continued success in future years and a key part of that strategy is the discipline to prioritize the strongest

New macOS malware targets crypto and Web3 startups with fake Zoom update

North Korean hackers are behind a new and unusually sophisticated macOS malware campaign that targets the crypto industry using fake Zoom invites. Here’s how it works. Dubbed “NimDoor” by researchers at SentinelLabs, the attack is more sophisticated than the typical macOS threat, and it chains together AppleScript, Bash, C++, and Nim to exfiltrate data and maintain access in compromised systems. Here’s SentinelLabs’ executive summary of the hack: DPRK threat actors are utilizing Nim-compiled

NimDoor crypto-theft macOS malware revives itself when killed

North Korean state-backed hackers have been using a new family of macOS malware called NimDoor in a campaign that targets web3 and cryptocurrency organizations. Researchers analyzing the payloads discovered that the attacker relied on unusual techniques and a previously unseen signal-based persistence mechanism. The attack chain, which involves contacting victims via Telegram and luring them into running a fake Zoom SDK update, delivered via Calendly and email, resembles the one Huntress manag

Amazon's Andy Jassy says AI will take some jobs but make others more 'interesting'

Bloomberg/Getty Images The adoption of artificial intelligence systems throughout the business sector will lead to "fewer people doing some of the jobs" that become automated, Amazon president and CEO Andy Jassy said in an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer this week. Jassy's understated comments about the future impacts of automation upon the job market were also optimistic: While he concedes that some people will be replaced by AI, the technology will simultaneously "make all of our jobs more

Why I no longer recommend pre-built SSDs for Windows PCs - buy this instead

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean? ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or

The 30+ best anti-Prime Day deals 2025 from Best Buy, Walmart, & more: Top sales from Amazon's competition

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean? ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or

AT&T rolls out Wireless Account Lock protection to curb the SIM-swap scourge

AT&T is rolling out a protection that prevents unauthorized changes to mobile accounts as the carrier attempts to fight a costly form of account hijacking that occurs when a scammer swaps out the SIM card belonging to the account holder. The technique, known as SIM swapping or port-out fraud, has been a scourge that has vexed wireless carriers and their millions of subscribers for years. An indictment filed last year by federal prosecutors alleged that a single SIM swap scheme netted $400 milli

Phil Spencer isn’t retiring as the chief of Xbox ‘anytime soon’

Microsoft says that Phil Spencer, Microsoft Gaming CEO and the head of Xbox, isn’t retiring “anytime soon.” The company has responded to rumors of Spencer’s retirement, which have spread online today following Microsoft’s major layoffs. “Phil is not retiring anytime soon,” says Kari Perez, head of Xbox communications, in a statement to The Verge. The denial comes after Call of Duty leaker GhostOfHope claimed “Phil Spencer will be retiring from his role as CEO of Microsoft Gaming after the launc

Behind the Scenes, Sam Altman Is Absolutely Furious

The tug of war for artificial intelligence developers between Meta and OpenAI is devolving into a knock-down, drag-out fight. In an effort to revive his crumbling AI program, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently declared open season on OpenAI's staffers. The billionaire tech mogul is said to be hand-selecting AI researchers and developers to build out a "superintelligence" AI lab, offering up to $100 million in sign-on bonuses if they leave OpenAI for a seat at Meta's table. So far, OpenAI has

How to watch Summer Games Done Quick 2025

In a mad, mad world, speedruns for charity can be a calm oasis. Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) has your fix with the 2025 edition of the marathon. You can tune in starting on Sunday, July 6. As usual, the lineup includes loads of fun games and bonkers challenges. It's fitting that this year's lineup includes a Switch 2 game. On the event's last day, the speedrunner Peas will take on Mario Kart World on the new console. Nintendo Perhaps to commemorate the new console's launch, Nintendo is ever

Former Ubisoft executives convicted in France

French video game giant Ubisoft has been embroiled in a multiyear saga regarding a toxic company culture , multiple sexual harassment investigations and harassment suits filed by former employees. In 2023, five former Ubisoft executives were arrested on various charges related to these investigations. On Wednesday, a French court sentenced three of them to suspended sentences for enabling a culture rife with sexual and psychological harassment. Former editorial vice president Thomas Francois wa

Best early Prime Day phone deals: These 15 sales are worth upgrading to

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean? ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or