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GitHub has just opened up a new cohort for GitHub Accelerator , which is a program that provides funding and support for selected open-source projects. The theme of this cohort will be AI in open-source.  “AI is rapidly changing the way we work and live, and open source collaboration is at the core of AI innovation,” Stormy Peters, vice president of communities at GitHub, wrote in a blog post .  “We’re seeing developers across the globe use GitHub to innovate and share openly at every level of the AI stack, from training frameworks, to models, to responsible AI and evaluation tooling … But building a successful AI business in the open comes with its challenges. On top of the time and funding obstacles we’re already familiar with in open source, the heightened expenses and ethical, security, and legal considerations are daunting. We see these challenges as a risk to global innovation and are hoping to help.” GitHub Accelerator is a 10-week program that will include group sessions, p

AWS announced updates to Knowledge Bases for Amazon Bedrock, which is a new capability announced at AWS re:Invent 2023 that allows organizations to provide information from their own private data sources to improve relevancy of responses.  According to AWS, there have been significant improvements since the launch, such as the introduction of Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition as an additional option for custom vector storage alongside other options like the vector engine for Amazon OpenSearch Serverless, Pinecone, and Redis Enterprise Cloud.  One of the new updates that Amazon is announcing is an expansion in the choice of embedding models. In addition to Amazon Titan Text Embeddings, users can now select from Cohere Embed English and Cohere Embed Multilingual models, both of which support 1,024 dimensions, for converting data into vector embeddings that capture the semantic or contextual meaning of the text data. This update aims to provide users with more flexibility and

Microsoft is sharing its roadmap for Semantic Kernel for features that will be implemented prior to the Microsoft Build conference in a few months.  Semantic Kernel is Microsoft’s tool for adding and integrating LLM technology into existing applications.  According to the company, the roadmap groups updates into three main categories: V1.0 parity across languages, additional connectors, and agents. The company explained that with the .NET v1.0 release, it promised to not introduce more breaking changes to non-experimental features. For its Python and Java libraries, it plans to reach Beta or Release Candidate status by March, and will release v1.0 by Microsoft Build.  Python and Java v1.0 will include many of the improvements in .NET v1.0, such as automatic function calling, events, YAML prompt files, and Handlebars templates.  “With the YAML prompt files, you’ll be able to create prompt and agent assets in Python and then reshare it with .NET and Java developers,” Matthew Bolaños

Voltron Data has announced the release of Ibis 8.0, an update to its popular Python dataframe API, which has been downloaded over 10 million times. Ibis enables developers to run code across various data platforms by choosing the most suitable query engine for specific tasks.  The latest version introduces the first dedicated streaming backends for Apache Flink and RisingWave, alongside its existing variety of batch execution engines. This expansion allows for a unified experience in batch and streaming data processing within a single Python dataframe API, enhancing the flexibility and capability of data analytics tasks. “Finally developers can write code once and use it across local, batch, CPU, GPU, and now real-time query engines. Ibis is leading the charge to break down the barriers between batch and stream processing execution engines. This is a big step toward a modular and composable data ecosystem across all paradigms,” said Josh Patterson, co-founder and CEO of Voltron Data.

Microsoft has announced that it is adding sudo capability in the latest Insider Preview Build of Windows 11. Sudo is a command-line command familiar to Linux users that allows you to run programs using the elevated security privileges of another user.  “Sudo for Windows is a new way for users to run elevated commands directly from an unelevated console session. It is an ergonomic and familiar solution for users who want to elevate a command without having to first open a new elevated console,” Jordi Adoumie, product manager for the Windows Developer Platform, wrote in a blog post .  According to Microsoft, its version is a Windows-specific implementation, not a fork of the Linux sudo project. As a result, certain elements will differ and scripts and documentation written for Linux sudo may not apply to Sudo for Windows.  Sudo for Windows can be enabled by visiting the “For Developers” page under the Windows Settings and toggling on “Enable Sudo.” There is also a command that can

Microsoft announced the general availability of Microsoft Graph Toolkit v4.0, which includes improvements to the developer experience and bug fixes that will be appreciated by end-users. The Microsoft Graph Toolkit users can now directly edit To Do items, view colleagues’ presence and profiles through the people picker, and benefit from the general availability of search components that are now fully supported. These updates aim to streamline tasks and improve interactions within the Microsoft ecosystem. The toolkit’s evolution reflects Microsoft’s commitment to responding to feedback from the developer community and partners, with the latest version focusing on enriching the developer experience, according to Microsoft in a blog post . The main areas of investment for this release were performance and convenience, indicating a deliberate effort to optimize the toolkit’s efficiency and ease of use for developers working on integrating Microsoft Graph functionalities into their appli

Pkl is a new programming language from Apple specifically designed for creating configuration files. Pkl aims to revolutionize how configurations are developed, addressing the limitations of traditional static languages like JSON, YAML, and Property Lists.  These conventional formats, while useful, often struggle to manage complexity effectively, leading to repetitive code and a higher likelihood of configuration errors due to their lack of inherent validation mechanisms, according to the Pkl team.  Developers have historically turned to ancillary tools that introduce special logic to handle more complex configuration needs. These tools might offer features like reference resolution to avoid repetition (DRY principles) or provide custom validation methods to prevent errors. However, these enhancements often complicate the formats, making them quasi-programming languages that are difficult to understand and write.  This makeshift approach to enhancing expressiveness and validation ca

Microsoft announced updates to Copilot, including Designer, which enables users to go beyond just creating images to customize generated images with inline editing inside Copilot, according to the company in a blog post .  “With a simple sentence or two, you will see a budding entrepreneur turn a fledgling idea for a new product into an actionable business plan, a filmmaker’s concept into a rich set of storyboards, and a fantasy football player’s team come to life with a mascot image they can edit inline,” Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft, stated. Copilot offers free features to enhance images, including color enhancement, background blurring, and various effects like pixel art.  For Copilot Pro subscribers, additional capabilities include resizing and regenerating images between square and landscape formats within the chat. Soon, Copilot will introduce Designer GPT, providing a dedicated canvas for visualizing ideas directly w

The OpenSSF is releasing a new framework that can be used to assess the security capabilities of package repositories and help plan for future improvements.  Called the Principles for Package Repository Security , the framework was a collaborative effort between OpenSSF’s Security Software Repositories Working Group and CISA. CISA published the Open Source Software Security Roadmap last year, and one of its focus areas was package manager security.  This framework defines four levels of security maturity across four feature categories. Categories include authentication, authorization, general capabilities, and command-line interface tooling.  According to the OpenSSF, package repositories are a critical point in the open source ecosystem for either allowing or preventing attacks. Simple actions like well documented account recovery policies can have a significant improvement on security. At the same time, however, these improvements need to be balanced with the resource constrai

Amplitude has announced significant enhancements to its Digital Analytics Platform, introducing Session Replay, advanced experimentation features, and a user-friendly event tagging system. Session Replay merges qualitative with quantitative data, offering companies deeper insights into the reasons behind user behaviors. It offers a visual representation of the user’s journey, highlighting areas of interest and potential obstacles, which can inform strategies to enhance conversions and overall customer satisfaction. The platform’s new experimentation capabilities are designed to assist teams in creating more personalized websites and marketing campaigns. It enables easy testing of different web elements, such as landing pages, to optimize performance and drive growth. Both Session Replay and the experimentation capabilities are expected in the first half of 2024. Additionally, the company is introducing a visual tag editor that simplifies the initial setup process for data collection

Google has announced that it is rebranding its AI search assistant Bard to Gemini, which is a multimodal AI model that the company announced at the end of last year.  “Our mission with Bard has always been to give you direct access to our AI models, and Gemini represents our most capable family of models. To reflect this, Bard will now simply be known as Gemini,” Sissie Hsiao, vice president and general manager of Gemini experiences and Google Assistant, wrote in a blog post .  Now, users are able to converse with Gemini to get answers to their questions. It is currently using the Pro 1.0 model and includes 40 languages and is available in over 230 countries. In addition to renaming Bard, Google announced other new updates in the Gemini family. It launched Gemini Advanced, which will be available in the new Google One AI Premium Plan for $19.99 per month. Gemini Advanced uses the Ultra 1.0 model, unlocking advanced use cases like complex coding, logical reasoning, following nuan

The mobile testing company Kobiton today announced that it is open-sourcing its Appium script generation tool in an effort to enable its users to contribute back and improve on it.  Appium itself is already an open-source project, providing a framework for automated testing across a variety of platforms. Kobiton’s tool provides the opportunity for more automation by allowing testers to automate the process of creating the test scripts.  According to Kobiton, using the script generation tool, developers can write a 30-step script in about 10 minutes, compared to as long as four hours if using a manual approach.  “Kobiton’s decision to open source its script generation tool is a strategic move that aligns with current trends in software development: collaboration, automation and accelerated delivery,” said Sean Barry, CEO of Kobiton. “Being the first to market with an AI-powered Appium script generator from manual test sessions and offering it via open source positions Kobiton as a

Applitools announced the addition of Autonomous to its Intelligent Testing Platform. Autonomous is an autonomous test automation platform that brings together code-based testing with codeless autonomous testing, making it accessible to all regardless of coding experience. Applitools stated that it is addressing the challenges that come with traditional testing methodologies that often don’t keep up with the rapid pace of development. Applitools’ approach combines codeless and code-based testing, allowing integration into CI/CD pipelines and offering capabilities like natural language test building and Visual AI. This enables comprehensive test coverage and reliability at scale, significantly improving delivery velocity and quality of digital experiences. “The Applitools Intelligent Testing Platform is a game-changer as it empowers tech-savvy individuals and non-developers to leverage Autonomous testing to ensure flawless digital experiences,” said Alex Berry, CEO of Applitools. “By h

OpenSilver, which is an open-source project designed to replace the defunct Microsoft Silverlight framework, has announced the availability of its new 2.1 release .  According to the project’s maintainers, this update is a significant one for the platform. It adds support for F# , which is an open-source programming language that offers advantages that enable developers to write cleaner, more maintainable code and more robust applications.  The maintainers explained that this addition allows developers to utilize the strengths of both XAML and F# togehter. “The integration of F# into OpenSilver is a paradigm shift beyond mere language addition. The functional coding approach, coupled with XAML’s rich UI capabilities, can lead to faster development times, fewer bugs, and more readable code. For the .NET community, this represents an opportunity to explore new architectural patterns and potentially innovate in web application design,” the project maintainers wrote in a press release

The Linux Foundation has recently launched the Post-Quantum Cryptography Alliance (PQCA), a collaborative effort aimed at advancing and facilitating the adoption of post-quantum cryptography in response to the emerging threats of quantum computing.  This alliance assembles diverse stakeholders, including industry leaders, researchers, and developers, focusing on creating high-assurance software implementations of standardized algorithms. The initiative is also dedicated to supporting the development and standardization of new post-quantum cryptographic methods, aligning with U.S. National Security Agency’s guidelines to ensure cryptographic security against quantum computing threats. The PQCA endeavors to serve as a pivotal resource for organizations and open-source projects in search of production-ready libraries and packages, fostering cryptographic agility in anticipation of future quantum computing capabilities.  Founding members include AWS, Cisco, Google, IBM, IntellectEU, Key