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All GitHub users can keep their code private
Historically, if you've wanted to create a private repository on GitHub, you had to be a paying user, but that's about to change. Starting today, free GitHub users will have access to unlimited private projects as long as there are three or fewer collaborators on board. For larger projects, you'll have to join a paid plan or make your code public, as GitHub isn't changing how it manages public repositories.
Microsoft's $7.5 billion GitHub acquisition is complete
It's official: Microsoft now owns GitHub. After European Commission officials approved the deal last week, it seemed only a matter of time until the $7.5 billion acquisition was completed.
EU approves Microsoft's $7.5 billion GitHub takeover
The EU has unconditionally approved Microsoft's $7.5 billion deal for GitHub, moving the acquisition another step closer towards closing. After a five-week probe, European Commission antitrust officials concluded that the takeover raises "no competition concerns because the merged entity would continue to face significant competition from other players."
Recommended Reading: The rise of 'Desus & Mero'
How 'Desus & Mero' conquered late night Jazmine Hughes, The New York Times It's nothing new for a popular podcast to make the leap to a television show or movie, but that's not stopping Showtime. This week, the network tapped Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, the stars of the Bodega Boys podcast, to host a weekly late-night show. The New York Times offers a look at how the comedic duo and what makes their work so unique.
GitHub Education is a free software development package for schools
GitHub, the online, open-source code repository recently acquired by Microsoft, has already made big moves to support future software developers. In 2012 it launched the Student Developer Pack, in 2015 it built the GitHub Classroom for teachers, and earlier this year it opened up teacher training with its Campus Advisor program. Now, it's packaging all of these tools and features together under the umbrella "GitHub Education", which will available to schools completely free of charge.
Microsoft confirms it's buying GitHub for $7.5 billion
The rumors are true: Microsoft is buying GitHub, the online, open-source repository for code, for $7.5 billion in stock. "Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation," CEO Satya Nadella said in a post on the Microsoft blog. "We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world's most pressing challenges."
Microsoft has discussed buying code giant GitHub (updated)
GitHub is practically a household name among developers looking to store, share and discuss code, but it's not in a great position when it's floundering in a bid to replace its outgoing CEO. And it appears that Microsoft might seize this opportunity. Sources talking to Business Insider and CNBC have heard that Microsoft held talks with GitHub in the past few weeks that started with a joint marketing deal, only to blossom into talks of an investment or a full-fledged acquisition.
34 major tech companies are uniting to fight cyberattacks
Cyberattacks are a global issue that can cause havoc regardless of who's involved, and key members of the tech industry are uniting in a bid to fight these attacks. A group of 34 companies has signed the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, an agreement promising to defend customers around the world from hacks regardless of where they take place or who the perpetrator might be. They're promising to boost defenses for customers (including users' capacity to defend themselves), establish more partnerships to share threats and vulnerabilities, and -- importantly -- refuse to assist governments in launching cyberattacks.
GitHub survives massive DDoS attack relatively unscathed
GitHub, a web-based code distribution and version control service, survived a massive denial of service attack on Wednesday. According to a report at Wired, a staggering 1.35 terabits per second (Tbps) of traffic hit the site at once. Within 10 minutes the company called for help from a DDoS mitigation service similar to Google's Project Shield, Akamai's Prolexic, which took over to filter and weed out malicious traffic packets. The attack, says Wired, ended after eight minutes. This may have been the largest DDoS attack ever; Wired notes the attack on domain name server Dyn in late 2016 reached 1.2 Tbps of traffic.
Crucial iPhone source code posted in unprecedented leak (updated)
Critical, top secret Apple code for the iPhone's operating system was posted on Github, opening a new, dangerous avenue for hackers and jailbreakers to access the device, Motherboard reported. The code, known as "iBoot," has since been pulled, but Apple may have confirmed it was the real deal when it issued a DMCA takedown to Github, as Twitter user @supersat noted.
DroNet's neural network teaches UAVs to navigate city streets
Scientists from ETH Zurich are training drones how to navigate city streets by having them study things that already know how: cars and bicycles. The software being used is called DroNet, and it's a convolutional neural network. Meaning, it learns to fly and navigate by flying and navigating. The scientists collected their own training data by strapping GoPros to cars and bikes, and rode around Zurich in addition to tapping publicly available videos on Github. So far, the drones have learned enough to not cross into oncoming traffic and to avoid obstacles like traffic pylons and pedestrians.
Google and Microsoft troll each other over software vulnerabilities
Google has a history of not playing nicely with Microsoft. The company has previously posted publicly about their competitor's software vulnerabilities, and understandably, Microsoft hasn't been very happy about it. But now, the company has turned the tables on Google. Microsoft found a vulnerability within the Chrome browser, and while Google patched it in beta versions, it wasn't fixed in the public release for roughly a month. However, Google posted the fix on GitHub instantly, before it was applied to the public release. While the fix for this issue doesn't out the vulnerability, according to Microsoft, that hasn't always been the case. Microsoft believes that a fix should be applied before they are public knowledge.
All Google needs to update business info is a Street View photo
Google is no stranger to using machine learning to improve its products -- or save manatees. To that end, the internet juggernaut has announced that its algorithms are capable of successfully pulling business names and phone numbers from Street View photos. In its tests, the technology was successful at "reading" French street signs over 84 percent of the time. Meaning, now a Street View car can roam the streets of a city and fill in a business' Google Maps profile automatically. It stems from Google's work using machine learning and computer vision to blur out faces and license plates.
Fans resurrect 'Tomb Raider' in your web browser
If you need a reminder of how far video games have come since the mid-90s, look no further than OpenTomb. Over the past four years, a handful of devoted developers have been rebuilding the original five Tomb Raider games from scratch, and the City of Vilcabamba level is available in your browser right now (heads up, game audio auto-plays from that link).
Tech titans back transgender student's Supreme Court case
Apple has officially signed an amicus brief in support of Gavin Grimm's case that's hitting the Supreme Court later this month. In addition, Cupertino has successfully helped convince other tech titans to support the transgender student's fight for the right to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity. According to TechCrunch, the company worked with non-profit org Human Rights Campaign to reach out to potential signatories in the tech industry. Their crusade was so successful, tech corporations ended up dominating the list of 53 companies that signed the brief.
Apple, other tech giants will support transgender student's case
Several tech titans plan to sign an amicus (friend of the court) brief in support of a 17-year-old transgender student's fight in court, according to Axios. Apple, Microsoft, IBM, PayPal, eBay, Airbnb, Box, Yelp, GitHub, Salesforce, Slack and Tumblr are expected to back Gavin Grimm's legal battle against his school board for the right to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity. The amicus brief, created by LGBT organization Human Rights Campaign, will be filed in favor of Grimm for the Supreme Court hearing scheduled to take place on March 28th.
Transgender protection rollback sparks opposition from tech
On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced that it would roll back federal protections for transgender citizens and require states and local school boards to decide how (or, more accurately, whether) they would enforce these people's civil rights. Given that Silicon Valley tech companies routinely portray themselves as paragons of diversity and tolerance, these companies would surely be equally incensed at the government's current attempts to regulate where children can pee. However, the responses so far have failed to directly address the president's recent actions, instead generally relying on passive statements that extol their valuation of diversity and inclusion.
How to get banned from Disney's Club Penguin in under 30 seconds
How do you get banned from Disney's tween-focused Club Penguin social network in under 30 seconds? Hacking. Tool-assisted speedruns have been around since the late '90s, showing off inhuman feats in games like Doom and Super Mario Bros. 3. Folks in the speedrunning community are pretty okay with it too, so long as your runs are clearly labeled as such. YouTube user Kevin Y found a way to capitalize on the zeitgeist and has employed a few scripts to get an account banned from Club Penguin (for swearing in chat) in under 30 seconds -- nine seconds faster than the current unassisted speedrun.
GitHub rallies Silicon Valley companies to oppose Muslim ban
GitHub plans to meet with a number of Silicon Valley tech companies to discuss filing an amicus brief in lawsuits targeting Trump's immigration and refugee ban.
Google I/O 2017 returns to Mountain View from May 17th - 19th
Once again, Google isn't straying too far from its home turf for its annual I/O conference. Like last year it'll be held at Mountain View's Shoreline Amphitheatre. It'll be a bit around the same time again too, running from May 17th to the 19th, according to 9to5 Google. The tech juggernaut is going about this reveal in a rather nerdy way, too.
