The Verge AI
Alexa Plus is getting an AI update to handle more complicated instructions
Amazon is launching an update to its Alexa Plus assistant that will allow it to connect to smart home devices in new ways. With the update, Alexa Plus can link up with tech from Bosch, Delta, Ecovacs, iRobot, Yale Home, Whirlpool, Tapo, Eufy, and others, while automatically routing requests to the correct device. In an […]
Emma Roth
2026-07-24 05:15
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Dev.to
Six queries, three runs, every mean 8 — and the fine-tune wasn't why
The bar we set We approved a plan on 2026-07-10 with an acceptance test we weren't sure was reachable. Six drafted analyst-memo queries against Nigerian economic data, scored 0-10 across five dimensions — named-entity density, citation quality, sector-specific detail, honest-gap acknowledgement, decision-usefulness. The strict pass criterion: every query's mean score across three temperature=0.2 runs must be ≥8/10, with no query below 6 in any single run. At approval time the aggregate was somewhere around 30/60 across the six queries — a system that produced grounded but generic answers, and refused competently but not always. The gap to the bar was real. We gave it 4-5 weeks. What we shipped Phase 1 — retrieval breadth. Kind-diversity enforcement across the top-K result set so a "start a fintech" query stopped collapsing into 12 CBN circulars and started pulling BOI, NEXIM, PayStack, Flutterwave, and the World Bank agribusiness chapters in the same context window. Named-entity boost when the query mentions "factory", "startup", "invest", "loan". Deduplication so a briefing about the same fact doesn't crowd out its own primary source. Phase 2 — a six-class rule-based intent classifier and memo templates. Sub-millisecond routing on regex patterns: venture\_feasibility\ , strategic\_forecasting\ , credit\_risk\ , regulatory\_analysis\ , market\_sizing\ , general\_qa\ . Each intent gets a memo template — a section-headed scaffold with a named-entity mandate, an honest-gaps section, and a 1000-1500 word target. The general\_qa\ template stays empty (no memo shape) so genuinely-general questions don't get forced into a memo they don't need. Phase 3 — composition quality. Two changes did most of the work here: 1. A CITATION PREFERENCE: PRIMARY OVER BRIEFING\ block in the system prompt. Primary sources — CBN circulars, NAICOM regulations, NBS reports, textbook chapters, IMF Article IV, press coverage of specific events — get cited over daily briefings when both are presen
Francis Oyakhire
2026-07-24 05:10
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Dev.to
Why I Chose Slot Hashes Over VRF for Fair Random Selection on Solana
When I set out to build a provably-fair random selection system on Solana, the obvious choice for randomness was a VRF (Verifiable Random Function). Instead, I built the system around Solana's SlotHashes sysvar with a commit-reveal scheme. Here's why, and what I gave up to get there. The problem A fair-selection system needs a winner (or set of winners) chosen in a way that's fair, and just as important that participants can check for themselves without taking anyone's word for it. VRF services (Switchboard, ORAO, etc.) solve the fairness part well: they produce randomness that's unpredictable in advance and cryptographically provable after the fact. But they come with a dependency on an oracle, a fee per request, and a proof that most users will never actually verify they'll trust it because the crypto math says they can, not because they did. I wanted something a participant with no crypto background could check in a browser console. The approach: commit-reveal with slot hashes The core idea: commit to the participant list before you know the randomness, then derive the randomness from a slot hash you couldn't have predicted at commit time. rust fn derive_randomness(target_hash: &[u8; 32], participant_root: &[u8; 32]) -> [u8; 32] { let mut combined_seed = [0u8; 64]; combined_seed[..32].copy_from_slice(target_hash); // slot hash at reveal combined_seed[32..].copy_from_slice(participant_root); // Merkle root, locked at commit solana_keccak_hasher::hash(&combined_seed).to_bytes() } The flow: Commit: participant list is finalized and hashed into a Merkle root; this is written on-chain. Wait: a target slot in the future is chosen as the reveal point. Reveal: once that slot passes, its hash is pulled from SlotHashes and combined with the committed root to derive the randomness. Select: the randomness deterministically picks winners from the participant set; winners get their own Merkle root and proofs. Every draw ends up with an audit record like: rust pub struct AuditR
Samuel Daisi
2026-07-24 05:07
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HackerNews
Namecheap Gave My Account to an Unverified Third Party Just Because They Asked
I’ve been a NameCheap customer for 13 years. I’ve also helped out an old college club paying for a .com they use (that is registered to me under my name, address, and phone number). During a recent leadership transition, the incoming club lead wanted to make changes to the DNS and didn’t know to contact me. They figured out the domain name was parked at NameCheap, so they initiated a password reset using the domain name. I got a password reset email and immediately filed a NameCheap support tick
Thrashed
2026-07-24 05:05
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Dev.to
houhou — Resilience Policies for TypeScript Async Functions
The problem Most resilience libraries in the TypeScript ecosystem are tied to HTTP clients (axios-retry, p-retry, Polly.js) or require wrapping your function in a class with a .execute() ceremony. What if you just want to wrap any async function — a database query, an internal service call, a file operation — with retry logic, a timeout, and a circuit breaker, without pulling in heavy dependencies? Enter houhou . What is houhou? Houhou is a zero-dependency TypeScript library (~500 LOC) that wraps any async function with composable resilience policies. The wrapped function keeps the exact same signature — you call it like the original. import { task } from ' houhou ' const charge = task ( chargeCard ) . retry ( 3 ) . timeout ( 10 _000 ) . fallback (() => ({ status : ' pending ' })) await charge ( account , amount ) Policies at a glance Retry Re-execute on failure with fixed or exponential backoff: task ( fetchUser ). retry ( 3 ) // shorthand task ( fetchUser ). retry ({ attempts : 5 , backoff : ' exponential ' , jitter : true , delay : 500 }) Timeout Reject if the function doesn't complete in time: task ( fetchUser ). timeout ( 5000 ) Fallback Run an alternative function on failure: task ( fetchUser ). fallback (() => loadFromCache ( id )) Circuit Breaker Prevent repeated calls to an unhealthy service: task ( queryDb ). circuitBreaker ({ failureThreshold : 5 , successThreshold : 2 , resetTimeout : 30 _000 }) Delay Wait before execution: task ( syncData ). delay ( 1000 ) Policy ordering matters Policies are nested : the last method called wraps the previous ones. Execution order is reverse of declaration order. task ( fn ). retry ( 3 ). timeout ( 1000 ) // → timeout wraps retry // → function runs → retry on failure (up to 3 times) → 1s total timeout // → if the timeout fires, there are no more retries task ( fn ). timeout ( 1000 ). retry ( 3 ) // → retry wraps timeout // → function runs → 1s timeout → if timeout fires, retry catches it // → the whole cycle repeats up
Lucas
2026-07-24 05:05
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Dev.to
2 Free Browser-Based Tools I Use Instead of Installing CLI/Desktop Converters
As developers, we end up needing to convert or resize a file constantly — a screenshot that needs to be a PNG for docs, an asset that needs to hit exact social-preview dimensions, a PDF that needs merging before a demo. Reaching for ffmpeg , imagemagick , or a paid SaaS every time is overkill for a one-off task. Here are two free, no-signup web tools that cover most of that day-to-day friction. 1. FreelyConvert — general-purpose file conversion freelyconvert.com A browser-based converter covering documents, images, video, and audio: 500+ formats — PDF, DOC/DOCX, images (JPG/PNG/GIF/BMP/SVG/WEBP), video (MP4/AVI/MOV/MKV), audio (MP3/WAV/FLAC/AAC), spreadsheets, presentations No account/signup — upload, convert, download Batch conversion for multiple files in one pass Auto-delete after 24 hours and SSL encryption in transit Useful specifically for: PDF ↔ image conversions ( pdf-to-jpg , images-to-pdf ) Merging PDFs without touching a CLI tool Compressing video/audio for quick sharing Quick image compression when you don't want to script it 2. ImageResizer.dev — client-side image resizing/conversion imageresizer.dev This one's worth calling out for devs specifically: it runs entirely client-side via the Canvas API — nothing is uploaded to a server. That's a real difference if you're resizing anything you'd rather not send off-device, and it also means it's fast (no upload/download round trip). Features: Exact dimension presets for social platforms (Instagram, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, WhatsApp) — handy for generating OG images or social preview assets without hardcoding dimensions yourself Format conversion across JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, BMP, GIF, SVG Crop, flip, upscale , plus bulk resize/compress for batches Aspect-ratio locking to avoid distortion No account, no watermark Good fit for generating og:image assets, favicon prep, or resizing screenshots for a README without spinning up a script. Why bother mentioning these Neither requires an accoun
Shan Seo
2026-07-24 05:04
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Dev.to
Two credentials, two threat models: auth for a content API
A headless content API has two kinds of callers, and it's tempting to secure them the same way. That's the mistake. There's a human logging into an admin UI to edit content, and there's a machine — a website, a build step — pulling published content through a delivery endpoint. They authenticate with different credentials, and those credentials have opposite properties. Treat them identically and you either make the machine path painfully slow or the human path dangerously weak. I built a small headless content API ( Depot ) partly to get this boundary right. Here's the reasoning. The two credentials A session proves "this human is logged in." Short-lived, rides in an httpOnly cookie, checked on management routes. A delivery token proves "this machine may read this account's published content." Long-lived, sent as a Bearer header, checked on every public read. Two auth surfaces, kept explicit: /** * - requireUser() — admin session (httpOnly JWT cookie) for the management API. * - requireToken() — a `depot_…` bearer token for the public delivery API. */ Why they get different hashing Here's the part people get wrong. Both credentials get stored as hashes — never plaintext — but not the same kind of hash , and the reason is entropy. Passwords are low-entropy. Humans pick summer2024 . An attacker who steals your DB will brute-force guesses against the stored hashes, so you want hashing to be deliberately slow — that's exactly what bcrypt's cost factor buys you: import bcrypt from " bcryptjs " ; const ROUNDS = 10 ; // deliberately slow — the point is to resist brute force export function hashPassword ( plain : string ): Promise < string > { return bcrypt . hash ( plain , ROUNDS ); } export function verifyPassword ( plain : string , hash : string ): Promise < boolean > { return bcrypt . compare ( plain , hash ); } Tokens are high-entropy. I generate them — 32 random bytes — so there's nothing to guess. A stolen hash can't be reversed by brute force because the keyspace i
Vitalii Popov
2026-07-24 05:03
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Ars Technica
Microsoft responds to LG monitors installing McAfee ads on Windows
App is installed through Windows Update when certain LG monitors connect to a PC.
Scharon Harding
2026-07-24 04:47
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Engadget
Patreon is laying off 20 percent of its staff
While the company is trying to protect creators from AI, it still thinks the technology is changing how it does business.
staff@engadget.com (Ian Carlos Campbell)
2026-07-24 04:47
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Engadget
Meta's pro-AI ad campaign is conspicuously light on AI
The company wants people to be anti-doomer, but doesn't say why.
staff@engadget.com (Karissa Bell)
2026-07-24 04:37
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The Verge AI
The Echo Show 21 is a great smart home hub that’s $80 off
Split between buying a smart calendar, a kitchen TV, a smart home hub, and a smart display? Amazon’s Echo Show 21 is all of those things in one, with a huge 21-inch screen. You can use it to control your smart lights, glance at recipes, watch TV shows, and more. Currently, Best Buy and Home […]
Brad Bourque
2026-07-24 04:36
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Product Hunt
Velane
Cloud for your AI Agent's tools and functions Discussion | Link
Abhishek Raj
2026-07-24 04:34
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TechCrunch
AMD takes on Nvidia with its Helios AI rack-scale system
AMD is challenging its chipmaker rival with a new rack-scale system that will start shipping to customers later this year.
Lucas Ropek
2026-07-24 04:33
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TechCrunch
Patreon lays off 20% of its workforce
In a memo to staff that was posted online, Conte said the company's core business is strong, but the platform has to respond to market changes and adjust its cost structure to remain stable.
Aisha Malik
2026-07-24 04:30
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TechCrunch
Insurance startup Corgi reportedly raised more money at $4B — its third round in 8 weeks
In the AI-funding frenzy, many startups are raising back-to-back rounds at ever-increasing valuations — but even by those standards, Corgi stands out.
Julie Bort
2026-07-24 04:13
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InfoQ
Indirect Prompt Injection Exploits GitHub's AI Agent to Leak Private Repository Data
GitLost is a prompt-injection exploit discovered by Noma Security that tricks GitHub's new Agentic Workflows into leaking private data. By embedding concealed instructions within public GitHub issues, attackers can circumvent security safeguards and induce AI agents to reveal confidential information in public comments. By Sergio De Simone
Sergio De Simone
2026-07-24 04:00
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The Verge AI
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s war on the First Amendment
As the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr has authority over the nation’s TV, radio, and internet. But since Donald Trump was elected to his second term, Carr has wielded that power to threaten broadcasters that have exercised their free speech rights to make jokes about the president. He was even able to […]
Kevin Nguyen
2026-07-24 03:46
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HackerNews
Show HN: Echo – Fable-level results at 1/3 the cost using open-weight models
I’ve been building Echo ( https://echo.tracerml.ai/ ), an experiment in making one AI system out of a pool of open-weight models rather than choosing a single model and using it for every task. It started with a simple experiment. I took a group of models, including GLM-5.2, Kimi K2.7 and others, and ran them on the same evaluations. Then I measured what would happen if, for each problem, you somehow knew in advance which models would be useful and how their outputs should be combined. That hypo
adam_rida
2026-07-24 03:26
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HackerNews
Americans – including many Republicans – are losing faith in capitalism
rawgabbit
2026-07-24 03:23
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Engadget
OpenAI once again makes the case for giving ChatGPT your health records
ChatGPT Health is rolling out to users in the US who are 18 years or older.
staff@engadget.com (Ian Carlos Campbell)
2026-07-24 03:20
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