National Airspace System Status (Score: 150+ in 10 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tkVL
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tkVL
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tkVL
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tkVL
nasstatus.faa.gov
National Airspace System
The Federal Aviation Administration's National Airspace System (NAS) dashboard
Microsoft subtracts C/C++ extension from VS Code forks (Score: 150+ in 10 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tm4P
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tm4P
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tm4P
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tm4P
The Register
Devs sound alarm after Microsoft subtracts C/C++ extension from VS Code forks
: Cursor, Codium makers lose access as add-on goes exclusive
Scientists Develop Artificial Leaf, Uses Sunlight to Produce Valuable Chemicals (Score: 150+ in 11 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tm3x
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tm3x
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tm3x
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tm3x
Berkeley Lab News Center
Scientists Develop Artificial Leaf That Uses Sunlight to Produce Valuable Chemicals
Researchers built a device made of perovskite and copper that mimics a green leaf.
Show HN: Lemon Slice Live – Have a video call with a transformer model (Score: 150+ in 17 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/c/6tk5N
Hey HN, this is Lina, Andrew, and Sidney from Lemon Slice. We’ve trained a custom diffusion transformer (DiT) model that achieves video streaming at 25fps and wrapped it into a demo that allows anyone to turn a photo into a real-time, talking avatar. Here’s an example conversation from co-founder Andrew: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeYp5xQMFZY. Try it for yourself at: https://lemonslice.com/live.
(Btw, we used to be called Infinity AI and did a Show HN under that name last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41467704.)
Unlike existing avatar video chat platforms like HeyGen, Tolan, or Apple Memoji filters, we do not require training custom models, rigging a character ahead of time, or having a human drive the avatar. Our tech allows users to create and immediately video-call a custom character by uploading a single image. The character image can be any style - from photorealistic to cartoons, paintings, and more.
To achieve this demo, we had to do the following (among other things! but these were the hardest):
1. Training a fast DiT model. To make our video generation fast, we had to both design a model that made the right trade-offs between speed and quality, and use standard distillation approaches. We first trained a custom video diffusion transformer (DiT) from scratch that achieves excellent lip and facial expression sync to audio. To further optimize the model for speed, we applied teacher-student distillation. The distilled model achieves 25fps video generation at 256-px resolution. Purpose-built transformer ASICs will eventually allow us to stream our video model at 4k resolution.
2. Solving the infinite video problem. Most video DiT models (Sora, Runway, Kling) generate 5-second chunks. They can iteratively extend it by another 5sec by feeding the end of the 1st chunk into the start of the 2nd in an autoregressive manner. Unfortunately the models experience quality degradation after multiple extensions due to accumulation of generation errors. We developed a temporal consistency preservation technique that maintains visual coherence across long sequences. Our technique significantly reduces artifact accumulation and allows us to generate indefinitely-long videos.
3. A complex streaming architecture with minimal latency. Enabling an end-to-end avatar zoom call requires several building blocks, including voice transcription, LLM inference, and text-to-speech generation in addition to video generation. We use Deepgram as our AI voice partner. Modal as the end-to-end compute platform. And Daily.co and Pipecat to help build a parallel processing pipeline that orchestrates everything via continuously streaming chunks. Our system achieves end-to-end latency of 3-6 seconds from user input to avatar response. Our target is <2 second latency.
More technical details here: https://lemonslice.com/live/technical-report.
Current limitations that we want to solve include: (1) enabling whole-body and background motions (we’re training a next-gen model for this), (2) reducing delays and improving resolution (purpose-built ASICs will help), (3) training a model on dyadic conversations so that avatars learn to listen naturally, and (4) allowing the character to “see you” and respond to what they see to create a more natural and engaging conversation.
We believe that generative video will usher in a new media type centered around interactivity: TV shows, movies, ads, and online courses will stop and talk to us. Our entertainment will be a mixture of passive and active experiences depending on what we’re in the mood for. Well, prediction is hard, especially about the future, but that’s how we see it anyway!
We’d love for you to try out the demo and let us know what you think! Post your characters and/or conversation recordings below.
Link: https://readhacker.news/c/6tk5N
Hey HN, this is Lina, Andrew, and Sidney from Lemon Slice. We’ve trained a custom diffusion transformer (DiT) model that achieves video streaming at 25fps and wrapped it into a demo that allows anyone to turn a photo into a real-time, talking avatar. Here’s an example conversation from co-founder Andrew: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeYp5xQMFZY. Try it for yourself at: https://lemonslice.com/live.
(Btw, we used to be called Infinity AI and did a Show HN under that name last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41467704.)
Unlike existing avatar video chat platforms like HeyGen, Tolan, or Apple Memoji filters, we do not require training custom models, rigging a character ahead of time, or having a human drive the avatar. Our tech allows users to create and immediately video-call a custom character by uploading a single image. The character image can be any style - from photorealistic to cartoons, paintings, and more.
To achieve this demo, we had to do the following (among other things! but these were the hardest):
1. Training a fast DiT model. To make our video generation fast, we had to both design a model that made the right trade-offs between speed and quality, and use standard distillation approaches. We first trained a custom video diffusion transformer (DiT) from scratch that achieves excellent lip and facial expression sync to audio. To further optimize the model for speed, we applied teacher-student distillation. The distilled model achieves 25fps video generation at 256-px resolution. Purpose-built transformer ASICs will eventually allow us to stream our video model at 4k resolution.
2. Solving the infinite video problem. Most video DiT models (Sora, Runway, Kling) generate 5-second chunks. They can iteratively extend it by another 5sec by feeding the end of the 1st chunk into the start of the 2nd in an autoregressive manner. Unfortunately the models experience quality degradation after multiple extensions due to accumulation of generation errors. We developed a temporal consistency preservation technique that maintains visual coherence across long sequences. Our technique significantly reduces artifact accumulation and allows us to generate indefinitely-long videos.
3. A complex streaming architecture with minimal latency. Enabling an end-to-end avatar zoom call requires several building blocks, including voice transcription, LLM inference, and text-to-speech generation in addition to video generation. We use Deepgram as our AI voice partner. Modal as the end-to-end compute platform. And Daily.co and Pipecat to help build a parallel processing pipeline that orchestrates everything via continuously streaming chunks. Our system achieves end-to-end latency of 3-6 seconds from user input to avatar response. Our target is <2 second latency.
More technical details here: https://lemonslice.com/live/technical-report.
Current limitations that we want to solve include: (1) enabling whole-body and background motions (we’re training a next-gen model for this), (2) reducing delays and improving resolution (purpose-built ASICs will help), (3) training a model on dyadic conversations so that avatars learn to listen naturally, and (4) allowing the character to “see you” and respond to what they see to create a more natural and engaging conversation.
We believe that generative video will usher in a new media type centered around interactivity: TV shows, movies, ads, and online courses will stop and talk to us. Our entertainment will be a mixture of passive and active experiences depending on what we’re in the mood for. Well, prediction is hard, especially about the future, but that’s how we see it anyway!
We’d love for you to try out the demo and let us know what you think! Post your characters and/or conversation recordings below.
Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979) (Score: 158+ in 9 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tmx3
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tmx3
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tmx3
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tmx3
Avoiding Skill Atrophy in the Age of AI (Score: 150+ in 6 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tn8C
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tn8C
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tn8C
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tn8C
Substack
Avoiding Skill Atrophy in the Age of AI
How to use AI coding assistants without letting your hard-earned engineering skills wither away.
Writing "/etc/hosts" breaks the Substack editor (🔥 Score: 158+ in 1 hour)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnMg
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnMg
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnMg
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnMg
Substack
When /etc/h*sts Breaks Your Substack Editor: An Adventure in Web Content Filtering
An exploration of web security mechanisms and their unexpected consequences
FBI arrests Wisconsin judge on charges of obstructing immigrant arrest (🔥 Score: 163+ in 34 minutes)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tp82
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tp82
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tp82
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tp82
The $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen (🔥 Score: 166+ in 58 minutes)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tp2N
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tp2N
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tp2N
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tp2N
The Verge
Slate Truck is a $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen
Would you buy a truck this bare-bones?
A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People (Score: 150+ in 18 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tm79
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tm79
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tm79
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tm79
swissmiss
A Love Letter To People Who Believe in People
Tina on the transformative power of enthusiasm When I was eight, I made a big, hand-drawn poster that said, “Do you want to join my fan club?” and put it up in the small Swiss town where I grew up.…
What If We Could Rebuild Kafka from Scratch? (Score: 150+ in 11 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tmMN
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tmMN
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tmMN
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tmMN
www.morling.dev
What If We Could Rebuild Kafka From Scratch?
Update April 25: This post is being discussed on Hacker News, lobste.rs, and /r/apachekafka
The last few days I spent some time digging into the recently announced KIP-1150 ("Diskless Kafka"), as well AutoMQ’s Kafka fork, tightly integrating Apache Kafka…
The last few days I spent some time digging into the recently announced KIP-1150 ("Diskless Kafka"), as well AutoMQ’s Kafka fork, tightly integrating Apache Kafka…
Eurorack Knob Idea (Score: 150+ in 4 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnH2
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnH2
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnH2
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnH2
Mitxela
Eurorack Knob Idea - mitxela.com
An idea for knobs for synthesizers.
More Everything Forever (❄️ Score: 150+ in 2 days)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tgu4
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tgu4
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tgu4
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tgu4
NY Times
Go to Mars, Never Die and Other Big Tech Pipe Dreams
In “More Everything Forever,” the science journalist Adam Becker subjects Silicon Valley’s “ideology of technological salvation” to critical scrutiny.
The Policy Puppetry Prompt: Novel bypass for major LLMs (Score: 151+ in 5 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnGS
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnGS
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnGS
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnGS
HiddenLayer | Security for AI
Novel Universal Bypass for All Major LLMs
HiddenLayer’s latest research uncovers a universal prompt injection bypass impacting GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, and more, exposing major LLM security gaps.
Lossless LLM compression for efficient GPU inference via dynamic-length float (🔥 Score: 154+ in 2 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tpS9
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tpS9
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tpS9
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tpS9
arXiv.org
70% Size, 100% Accuracy: Lossless LLM Compression for Efficient...
Large Language Models (LLMs) have grown rapidly in size, creating significant challenges for efficient deployment on resource-constrained hardware. In this paper, we introduce Dynamic-Length Float...
GCC 15.1 (Score: 150+ in 10 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnns
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnns
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnns
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnns
Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney (🔥 Score: 157+ in 2 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tqCq
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tqCq
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tqCq
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tqCq
Reproducibility project fails to validate dozens of biomedical studies (Score: 150+ in 11 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tpkW
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tpkW
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tpkW
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tpkW
Nature
Huge reproducibility project fails to validate dozens of biomedical studies
Nature - Unique reproducibility effort in Brazil focuses on common methods rather than a single field ― and prompts call for reform.
Show HN: I used OpenAI's new image API for a personalized coloring book service (Score: 152+ in 19 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnhS
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnhS
I've had an idea for a long time to generate a cute coloring book based on family photos, send it to a printing service, and then deliver it to people.
Last month, when OpenAI's Sora was released for public use I (foolishly) thought I'd manually drag-and-drop each order’s photos into Sora's UI and copy the resulting images back into my system. This took way too much time (about an hour for each of the few books I made and tested with family and friends). It clearly wasn't possible to release this version because I’d be losing a huge amount of time on every order. So instead, I decided I'd finish off the project as best I could, put it "on ice," and wait for the API release.
The API is now released (quicker than I thought it'd be, too!) and I integrated it last night. I'd love your feedback on any and all aspects.
The market is mostly family-based, but from my testing of the physical book I've found that both adults and kids enjoy coloring them in (it's surprisingly cathartic and creative). If you would like to order one you can get 10% off by tapping the total price line item five times.
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tnhS
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tnhS
I've had an idea for a long time to generate a cute coloring book based on family photos, send it to a printing service, and then deliver it to people.
Last month, when OpenAI's Sora was released for public use I (foolishly) thought I'd manually drag-and-drop each order’s photos into Sora's UI and copy the resulting images back into my system. This took way too much time (about an hour for each of the few books I made and tested with family and friends). It clearly wasn't possible to release this version because I’d be losing a huge amount of time on every order. So instead, I decided I'd finish off the project as best I could, put it "on ice," and wait for the API release.
The API is now released (quicker than I thought it'd be, too!) and I integrated it last night. I'd love your feedback on any and all aspects.
The market is mostly family-based, but from my testing of the physical book I've found that both adults and kids enjoy coloring them in (it's surprisingly cathartic and creative). If you would like to order one you can get 10% off by tapping the total price line item five times.
I wrote a book called "Crap Towns". It seemed funny at the time (Score: 151+ in 5 hours)
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tqME
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tqME
Link: https://readhacker.news/s/6tqME
Comments: https://readhacker.news/c/6tqME
Substack
That joke isn't funny any more
In 2003, I wrote a book called Crap Towns. It seemed funny at the time. But plenty of people say it would not be possible to publish it today. Is that a problem?