IT news March 13: Explosive growth of Internet traffic in Italy, Microsoft stops development of Visual Basic, Yandex transfers employees to a remote schedule
Quarantine in Italy caused an explosion in Internet traffic
The nationwide quarantine introduced in Italy a few days ago increased Internet traffic in the country by 70%. The main reason for this was not only the closure of schools, shops and restaurants, but also the ban on going outside unless clearly necessary. Italians are forced to spend their free time at home, including playing online video games such as Fortnite and Call of Duty. According to Telecom Italia CEO Luigi Gubitosi, traffic volumes may grow even more in the near future, since millions of children and teenagers download tens of gigabytes via the Internet when updating games. A significant increase in Internet traffic has also been recorded in other European countries. In the UK, a spokesman for telecommunications company Vodafone Group Plc has already said that the company is increasing network capacity in case the government introduces stricter social distancing measures. Source: Bloomberg
Microsoft is ending development of the Visual Basic language
Microsoft is stopping adding new features to Visual Basic. However, the language will continue to be supported in the .NET Unified Platform 5.0. “One of the main advantages of using Visual Basic is its stability over a very long time. The significant number of programmers using Visual Basic demonstrates that its simplicity and uses are still in demand. Microsoft has no plans to develop Visual Basic as a language in the future. We will continue to support Visual Basic on .NET 5.0, but will no longer add new features to it,” Microsoft said in a blog post. The Visual Basic programming language was created in 1991. Despite the fact that its support and development was provided by the world's largest software company, after 29 years the language has lost its former popularity. Microsoft's technical documentation for developers is in C#, and Visual Basic source code examples are increasingly hard to find. Source: Microsoft
GitHub releases new tools for educators
The team development service GitHub introduced new free tools for computer science teachers: Classroom and Teacher Toolbox. GitHub Classroom allows teachers to introduce their students to the collaborative process of coding on GitHub. In addition to existing features such as sharing source code and monitoring students as they complete assignments, the new tool allows for automated testing. The grade for the completed work is also assigned automatically after analyzing the mistakes made by the student. Tests are run directly on the student's repository. Students can see a test run with every commit. Source: GitHub
Yandex transfers employees to a remote schedule
The largest Russian IT company, Yandex, sent a letter to its employees in which it asked them to switch to a remote work schedule from March 16. Remote mode is being introduced in all company offices in Russia and abroad, except for those where remote work is not possible. In total, about 10 thousand employees will be quarantined. “The offices will be open, but we advise you to come to the office only if there is a real need,” Yandex said in a letter. If you need to come to the office, Yandex management recommends not using public transport during peak hours. Employees are also guaranteed compensation for taxi trips and Yandex.Drive. Source: Habr
Atlassian has released a free automation tool in Jira Cloud
Atlassian, which owns the Jira Cloud team development service, has released a no-code automation tool that can free programmers from manually performing repetitive tasks. The tool works across all Jira Cloud products and is also compatible with Slack and Microsoft Teams. According to Atlassian, Jira Cloud automation tools can save up to 6 hours of work time over the course of a month. “What's really exciting about no-code automation is that we provide this tool for free to all of our customers. If you look at the industry, automation is typically seen as a premium feature that costs a little extra,” said Matt Ryall, head of product at Atlassian. Source: Atlassian
Roskomnadzor began monitoring search engines, VPNs and proxy servers
Roskomnadzor launched an automated system for checking proxy servers, VPN services and search engines. It was created to comply with the requirements for blocking access to sites prohibited in Russia. Representatives of the department did not say what sanctions are provided for violating access to prohibited Internet resources. However, Roskomnadzor clarified that the system is intended for monitoring, not blocking. The system is currently operating in “trial operation mode.” The full launch will take place before the end of 2020, without specifying more precise dates. The development and commissioning of the new Roskomnadzor system is carried out within the framework of the law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” adopted by the State Duma in 2017. Source: TASS
A neural network is used to translate ancient clay tablets
Scientists at the University of Chicago are developing a machine learning system that will try to translate text carved into ancient clay tablets. The source, dating back to the era of the ancient Iranian Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BC), has been trying to be translated for many decades, including with the use of computers. However, all attempts are still unsuccessful. To train the model, more than 6,000 images and about 100 thousand characters from the Forsepolis Fortification archive are used. Scientists hope that with the help of a large database of primary sources, artificial intelligence will be able to decipher the inscriptions on clay tablets. According to Sanjay Krishnan, a professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, the neural network has been successfully used to decipher other ancient manuscripts. The decoding rate was 80% of the entire text. Source: The Next Web
According to Telecom Italia CEO Luigi Gubitosi, traffic volumes may grow even more in the near future, since millions of children and teenagers download tens of gigabytes via the Internet when updating games. A significant increase in Internet traffic has also been recorded in other European countries. In the UK, a spokesman for telecommunications company Vodafone Group Plc has already said that the company is increasing network capacity in case the government introduces stricter social distancing measures. Source: Bloomberg
In addition to existing features such as sharing source code and monitoring students as they complete assignments, the new tool allows for automated testing. The grade for the completed work is also assigned automatically after analyzing the mistakes made by the student. Tests are run directly on the student's repository. Students can see a test run with every commit. Source: GitHub
According to Atlassian, Jira Cloud automation tools can save up to 6 hours of work time over the course of a month. “What's really exciting about no-code automation is that we provide this tool for free to all of our customers. If you look at the industry, automation is typically seen as a premium feature that costs a little extra,” said Matt Ryall, head of product at Atlassian. Source: Atlassian
To train the model, more than 6,000 images and about 100 thousand characters from the Forsepolis Fortification archive are used. Scientists hope that with the help of a large database of primary sources, artificial intelligence will be able to decipher the inscriptions on clay tablets. According to Sanjay Krishnan, a professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, the neural network has been successfully used to decipher other ancient manuscripts. The decoding rate was 80% of the entire text. Source: The Next Web
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