Python: Pyro Probabilistic Programming Language and More

• Pyro Probabilistic Programming Language Becomes Newest LF Deep Learning Project

  The LF Deep Learning Foundation (LF DL), a Linux Foundation project that supports and sustains open source innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL), announces the Pyro project, started by Uber, as its newest incubation project. Built on top of the PyTorch framework, Pyro is a deep probabilistic programming framework that facilitates large-scale exploration of AI models, making deep learning model development and testing quicker and more seamless. This is the second project LF DL has voted in from Uber, following last December’s Horovod announcement. Pyro is used by large companies like Siemens, IBM, and Uber, and startups like Noodle.AI, in addition to Harvard University, MIT, Stanford University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and The Broad Institute. At Uber, Pyro solves a range of problems including sensor fusion, time series forecasting, ad campaign optimization and data augmentation for deep image understanding.

• Converting Python Scripts to Executable Files

  In this tutorial, we will explore the conversion of Python scripts to Windows executable files in four simple steps. Although there are many ways to do it, we'll be covering, according to popular opinion, the simplest one so far. This tutorial has been designed after reviewing many common errors that people face while performing this task, and hence contains detailed information to install and set up all the dependencies as well. Feel free to skip any step, if you already have those dependencies installed. Without any further ado, let's start.

• Python Performance Optimization

  Resources are never sufficient to meet growing needs in most industries, and now especially in technology as it carves its way deeper into our lives. Technology makes life easier and more convenient and it is able to evolve and become better over time. This increased reliance on technology has come at the expense of the computing resources available. As a result, more powerful computers are being developed and the optimization of code has never been more crucial. Application performance requirements are rising more than our hardware can keep up with. To combat this, people have come up with many strategies to utilize resources more efficiently – Containerizing, Reactive (Asynchronous) Applications, etc.

• Webinar Recording: “Demystifying Python’s async and await Keywords” with Michael Kennedy

  Yesterday we hosted a webinar with Michael Kennedy from Talk Python To Me podcasts and training presenting Demystifying Python’s async and await Keywords. Turned out to be the highest-rated webinar in 7 years of JetBrains’ webinars. Thanks Michael! The webinar recording is now available, as well as a repository with the Python code he showed and the slides he used.

• Skipping tests depending on the Python version

  Sometimes we want to run certain tests only on a specific version of Python. Suppose you are migrating a large project from Python 2 to Python 3 and you know in advance that certain tests won't run under Python 3. Chances are that during the migration you are already using the six library. The six libraries have two boolean properties which are initialised to True depending on the Python version which is being used: PY2 when running under Python 2 and PY3 when running under Python 3.

Linux Foundation launches ELISA, an open source project for building safety-critical systems

Machines have a trust problem — particularly autonomous machines deployed in safety-critical scenarios, like industrial robots and driverless cars. In a pair of surveys published by the American Automobile Association last January and by Gallup in May, 63 percent of people reported feeling afraid to ride in a fully self-driving vehicle and more than half said they’d never choose to ride in one. Moreover, in a report published by analysts at Pew in 2017, 70 percent of Americans said they were concerned about robots performing tasks currently handled by humans. In an effort to allay those fears, the Linux Foundation today launched Enabling Linux in Safety Applications (ELISA), an open source project comprising tools intended to help companies build and certify Linux-based systems whose failure could result in loss of human life, significant property damage, or environmental damage. In partnership with British chip designer Arm, BMW, autonomous platforms company Kuka, Linutronix, and Toyota, ELISA will work with certification and standardization bodies in “multiple industries” to establish ways Linux can form the foundation of safety-critical systems across industries. ELISA’s launch follows last year’s rollout of Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) 5.0, the newest version of a Linux Foundation project aimed at bringing open source technology to the automotive industry. Previous releases focused mainly on infotainment systems, but 5.0 introduced telematics and mapping solutions that allow OEMs to share mapping data generated by autonomous cars, in addition to offering improved security and a functional safety platform. Toyota and Amazon expressed early support; the former is using AGL in its 2018 Camry. Slashdot: Linux Foundation Launches ELISA, an Open Source Project For Building Safety-Critical Systems

Security Password Managers, Updates, Intel/Linux, 5 Antivirus for Android Devices and Cisco

• Your Password Manager Has A Severe Flaw — But You Should Still Use One [Ed: Yet worse: 1) people putting password managers on platforms with back doors from Apple and Microsoft. 2) people putting all their password "in the cloud".]

  If you are an avid user of password managers, you might just be in for a surprise. A recent study by researchers at the Independent Security Evaluators found that a number of popular password managers were storing master passwords as plain text within the main memory of devices. To an expert hacker, this vulnerability is equivalent to getting the keys to multiple accounts as a text document on your computer. The master key of any password manager can be used to gain access to all usernames and passwords being managed by it.

• Security updates for Thursday

• Fun Little Tidbits in a Howling Storm (Re: Intel Security Holes)

  Some kernel developers recently have been trying to work around the massive, horrifying, long-term security holes that have recently been discovered in Intel hardware. In the course of doing so, there were some interesting comments about coding practices. Christoph Hellwig and Jesper Dangaard Brouer were working on mitigating some of the giant speed sacrifices needed to avoid Intel's gaping security holes. And, Christoph said that one such patch would increase the networking throughput from 7.5 million packets per second to 9.5 million—a 25% speedup. To do this, the patch would check the kernel's "fast path" for any instances of dma_direct_ops and replace them with a simple direct call. Linus Torvalds liked the code, but he noticed that Jesper and Christoph's code sometimes would perform certain tests before testing the fast path. But if the kernel actually were taking the fast path, those tests would not be needed. Linus said, "you made the fast case unnecessarily slow."

• 5 Antivirus for Android Devices That You Should Have in 2019

• Duo Security Digs Into Chrome Extension Security With CRXcavator