processing Archives

Winsage

June 14, 2025

LibreOffice backs campaign to help users move from Windows 10 to Linux – and ditch Office, too

Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, prompting users to consider upgrading to Windows 11 or exploring alternatives like Linux. The End of 10 initiative aims to guide users toward affordable options, particularly Linux and LibreOffice, as many existing Windows 10 devices may not meet Windows 11's hardware requirements. The transition to Windows 11 may also lead to increased costs and reduced user autonomy due to its cloud-centric design. LibreOffice, an open-source productivity suite, offers essential tools without licensing fees and promotes open standards, though compatibility with Microsoft Office documents may vary. The Document Foundation suggests three steps for transitioning to Linux and LibreOffice: testing the new platform, assessing software compatibility, and providing training for users.

Tech Optimizer

June 13, 2025

Databricks opens up agentic AI pipelines, fills in Postgres-powered Lakebase

Databricks has introduced advancements at its user conference, focusing on agentic AI pipelines and a Postgres-powered Lakebase. The Lakebase streamlines data management and analytics by combining PostgreSQL with Databricks' data lake architecture. The agentic AI pipelines automate data workflows, allowing organizations to gain AI-driven insights with minimal manual intervention. Key features include automated workflows that reduce processing time, enhanced data management through a familiar relational database experience, and the ability to extract actionable insights using advanced AI capabilities.

Tech Optimizer

June 12, 2025

‘Postgres Has Won’

Databricks has launched Lakebase, a fully managed Postgres database, during the Data + AI Summit 2025. Lakebase is currently in public preview and integrates with Databricks' Data Intelligence Platform, targeting AI-driven application development. It introduces an operational layer to the lakehouse ecosystem, allowing developers to build AI applications on a multi-cloud platform. The database architecture, powered by Neon, separates compute from storage for independent scaling, ensuring low latency and high concurrency. Lakebase supports rapid deployment and a usage-based pricing model, and features include copy-on-write clones for development and testing. Databricks aims to create a new category in the database market with Lakebase, which is built on open-source Postgres and compatible with existing tools. The operational database market is valued at over 0 billion, and recent surveys indicate PostgreSQL's rising popularity among developers. The launch follows Snowflake's acquisition of Crunchy Data to enhance its Postgres offerings, indicating a trend towards PostgreSQL in the industry.

AppWizard

June 12, 2025

I tried Google’s secret, open source, offline AI app to see if it’s better than Gemini

Google has introduced the AI Edge Gallery, an application that allows users to download and run large language models (LLMs) directly on their Android devices for offline processing. The app features four distinct LLMs categorized into three functions: Ask Image, Prompt Lab, and AI Chat. Users can engage in image analysis, chat interactions, and prompt-based tasks. The installation process is cumbersome, requiring users to download the app from GitHub and create a Hugging Face account. Once operational, the app has a sleek interface and smooth functionality. It can provide travel planning advice, explain complex theories, generate recipes, rewrite text, summarize content, and recognize images, although it struggles with less common subjects like landmarks. AI Edge Gallery does not have the same level of control over devices as Google's Gemini and cannot execute commands like turning on the flashlight.

Tech Optimizer

June 12, 2025

Databricks launches Lakebase Postgres database for AI era

Databricks has launched Lakebase, a fully managed Postgres database designed for AI applications, currently in Public Preview. It integrates an operational database layer into Databricks' Data Intelligence Platform, facilitating the development of data applications and AI agents in a multi-cloud environment. Lakebase uses Neon technology within a lakehouse architecture, allowing for efficient real-time data processing and scalable operations. Key features include independent scaling of compute and storage, low latency under 10 milliseconds, high concurrency over 10,000 queries per second, rapid launch times under a second, and a consumption-based payment model. It also offers data synchronization with lakehouse tables, an online feature store for machine learning, and is managed entirely by Databricks with built-in security features. During its Private Preview, Lakebase attracted participation from hundreds of enterprises across various sectors. It is supported by a partner network including Accenture, Deloitte, and others, and will receive further enhancements in the coming months.

Winsage

June 11, 2025

Microsoft fixes Windows Server auth issues caused by April updates

Microsoft has resolved an authentication issue that arose after the April 2025 security updates on Windows Server domain controllers, primarily affecting Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025. The problem, acknowledged in early May, involved difficulties with Kerberos logons or delegations reliant on certificate-based credentials due to the April monthly security update (KB5055523). This issue could lead to authentication failures in environments using Windows Hello for Business Key Trust or Device Public Key Authentication, impacting various software solutions. Microsoft released cumulative updates to fix these issues and recommended installing the latest security updates. For those still facing problems, a temporary registry adjustment was advised. The authentication issues were linked to security enhancements addressing a high-severity vulnerability (CVE-2025-26647) that could allow privilege escalation through an input validation flaw in Windows Kerberos. Microsoft had previously addressed related authentication issues in April and issued emergency updates in November 2022 for Kerberos sign-in failures affecting Windows domain controllers.

Tech Optimizer

June 11, 2025

EDB Postgres® AI Unlocks Rapid GenAI App Delivery for the Enterprise with NVIDIA, at GTC Paris 2025

EnterpriseDB (EDB) has introduced an integration of its EDB Postgres AI platform with NVIDIA NIM microservices, enabling enterprises to easily create and deploy generative AI chatbots and applications with minimal coding. Research from EDB shows that only 13% of global enterprises have implemented comprehensive agentic AI applications, primarily due to fragmented infrastructure and integration challenges. EDB Postgres AI utilizes NVIDIA NeMo Retriever for processing multimodal enterprise data and supports a catalog of NVIDIA NIM microservices to enhance AI model capabilities. The platform is designed for secure and scalable development of agentic AI and operates natively within Kubernetes. EDB Postgres AI is characterized as the first open, enterprise-grade sovereign data and AI platform built on Postgres, integrating transactional, analytical, and AI workloads, with features such as security, compliance, and high availability.

AppWizard

June 10, 2025

Russia’s State Duma passes bill to create state messaging app as it considers blocking WhatsApp

The Russian State Duma has approved a bill to create a state messaging application, coinciding with discussions about potentially blocking messaging platforms like WhatsApp. The app is intended to enhance government service accessibility and improve information security. Key features include integration with state databases, identification and payment processing capabilities, legal equivalence for documents submitted through the app, and inclusion of educational services. The Russian government will choose a company to develop the app. This legislative move follows previous restrictions on foreign social media platforms, including the blocking of Facebook and Instagram in March 2022 and Viber and Signal in 2024. Roskomnadzor is also considering similar restrictions for WhatsApp, owned by Meta, which is labeled as an "extremist organization" in Russia. Additionally, YouTube has faced throttling of speeds, initially attributed to technical issues but later confirmed by lawmakers to be intentional.

Tech Optimizer

June 10, 2025

Why Instacart Moved to Postgres & pgvector to Boost Semantic Search

Instacart serves 14 million daily users and manages billions of products, necessitating advanced search capabilities that go beyond keyword matching to understand user intent. The search system must reflect real-time inventory changes, leading to significant workloads on the database. Instacart transitioned from Elasticsearch and FAISS to a hybrid architecture using Postgres and pgvector, improving search performance and reducing write workloads by tenfold. This normalization allowed for better storage of machine learning features and improved flexibility. Moving compute closer to storage with NVMe resulted in a twofold increase in search performance. Instacart's migration to pgvector eliminated data duplication and operational complexity, enhancing search quality and user satisfaction, evidenced by a 6% decrease in searches with zero results.

Tech Optimizer

June 9, 2025

SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL query optimization: room for improvement?

The PostgreSQL community has developed tools like AQO and sr_plan extensions to enhance migration paths from Oracle, making PostgreSQL more appealing for transitions. PostgreSQL has been noted to outperform Oracle in certain scenarios, particularly in automatic re-optimization. Migrations from Oracle to PostgreSQL are generally smooth, aided by session variable extensions. However, migrating from SQL Server to PostgreSQL presents challenges, including significant query slowdowns. For example, a query that executed in 20 milliseconds on SQL Server took weeks on PostgreSQL due to an inefficient query plan. A specific JOIN operation involving GROUP BY on small tables showed a drastic difference in execution time: PostgreSQL took 4000 seconds while SQL Server completed it in 300 seconds. SQL Server employs a Hash Join and parallelizes execution across eight threads, enhancing performance. PostgreSQL's excessive time on hash calculations and tuple comparisons during this operation was noted, as well as its limitations in parallel processing due to temporary tables not being visible to parallel workers. Adjusting PostgreSQL settings for parallel workers improved performance, allowing it to match SQL Server's execution time. PostgreSQL's selectivity estimation for JOINs with multiple conditions often leads to underestimations, while SQL Server excels in this area by collecting extensive statistics. PostgreSQL's current extended statistics capabilities are limited, but the community is working on improvements. SQL Server's advanced parameterization and caching further enhance its optimization capabilities compared to PostgreSQL.