Stephen Miran, currently the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, testifies before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee September 4, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Win Mcnamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Stephen Miran will take an unpaid leave of absence as the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors at the White House while filling the vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board if confirmed.
At a confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Banking Committee, Miran, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the open Fed Governor role, said he wouldn’t fully resign his position at the White House while serving out the Fed Governor’s term, which expires Jan. 31, 2026. He’s set to replace Adriana Kugler, who resigned unexpectedly at the beginning of August.
Miran’s appointment comes amid speculation that Trump would seek to nominate a “shadow chair” and obtain ample influence in the central bank, raising fears about the central bank’s independence. Miran keeping his White House job while serving as Fed governor could further fuel those concerns.
“I have been advised by counsel that the legal approach is to take an unpaid leave of absence from the Council of Economic Advisors, cease my activities and if council advises me otherwise, I will follow the law and follow council’s advice,” Miran said at the hearing.
“The term for which I’ve been nominated is four and a half months. If I am nominated and confirmed for a longer term than just a handful of months, I would absolutely resign,” he added.
Trump has been pushing for sharply lower interest rates, criticizing current chair Jerome Powell for staying put for too long. At the hearing, Miran repeatedly pledged to uphold the central bank’s independence, stressing that no one at the administration had asked him to commit to easing monetary policy.
The Fed’s next policy meeting takes place on Sept. 16-17.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — It doesn’t take an expert photographer to know that the steadier the camera, the sharper the shot. But that conventional wisdom isn’t always true, according to new research led by Brown University engineers.
The researchers showed that, with the help of a clever algorithm, a camera in motion can produce higher-resolution images than a camera held completely still. The new image processing technique could enable gigapixel-quality images from run-of-the-mill camera hardware, as well as sharper imaging for scientific or archival photography.
“We all know that when you shake a camera, you get a blurry picture,” said Pedro Felzenszwalb, a professor of engineering and computer science at Brown. “But what we show is that an image captured by a moving camera actually contains additional information that we can use to increase image resolution.”
The study was presented recently at the International Conference on Computational Photography and is posted on arXiv.
Images on the left were taken while the camera moved. Images on the left were enhanced using the new motion algorithm.
Digital cameras produce images by averaging the intensity of light over an array of pixels — tiny squares arranged in a grid. This sets a resolution limit: details smaller than a single pixel get smeared out across the pixel rather than precisely located within it. That causes sub-pixel details to be blurred.
The technique developed by Felzenszwalb and his team uses camera motion to produce sub-pixel resolution. When the camera moves, small points of light leave tracks that cross multiple pixels. The team’s algorithm uses those tracks as extra information to pinpoint exactly where fine details must have been, reconstructing them on a finer grid. The result is a super-resolution image with detail sharper than the original pixel array allows.
For the study, the researchers tested the technique by mounting a conventional camera to a moving stage, which enabled them to test their techniques in various movement scenarios. In some cases, the team took multiple photos while moving the camera slightly between exposures, then used their algorithm to construct a single image from the multiple shots captured by the camera between movements. In other cases, the team moved the camera during each exposure and reconstructed a higher-resolution image from a single motion-blurred shot.
In both cases, the team showed that their algorithm could harness the camera motion to produce images with far higher resolution than would be possible without the motion.
“There was some prior theoretical work that suggested this shouldn’t be possible,” Felzenszwalb said. “But we show that there were a few assumptions in those earlier theories that turned out not to be true. And so this is a proof of concept that we really can recover more information by using motion.”
The researchers envision plenty of potential applications for their technique. A moving stage setup like the one used for the experiments could be used for super-resolution archival photography of artworks or artifacts, the researchers say. The technique could also be useful for photography from moving aircraft.
The team also sees a possibility for the algorithm to one day run on commercially available cameras.
“There are existing systems that cameras use to take motion blur out of photos,” Felzenszwalb said. “But no one has tried to use that to actually increase resolution. We show that’s something you could definitely do.”
The team plans to continue developing their technique and look for industry partners to make it available to the public in the coming years.
Pneumococcal disease mortality trends changed significantly in the US following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.1 With lower rates than normal from the start of the pandemic to early 2021, followed by a spike in pneumococcus mortality in mid-2021, the study highlighted the complexities behind the confluence of respiratory viruses.
“Pneumococcus is an important bacterial pathogen that causes a range of conditions, including pneumonia, otitis media, and invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD),” wrote the authors of the study. “IPD is defined based on the isolation of pneumococcus from normally sterile sites such as blood and cerebrospinal fluid.”
As continuous research on the COVID-19 pandemic’s overall impact is released, one aspect of the phenomenon’s events is how the pandemic impacted other respiratory disease rates. According to a study published in Viruses, SARS-CoV-2 unsurprisingly became the dominant pathogen amid respiratory viruses. As a result, researchers saw influenza pathogens “virtually disappear,” while influenza A, rhinovirus, and enterovirus all experienced a resurgence in the postpandemic time period.2
Researchers explored the pneumococcal mortality rates and trends among patients 25 or older during the COVID-19 pandemic. | image credit: lllCklll / stock.adobe.com
READ MORE: PCV10 Among Children Indirectly Protected Unvaccinated Adults
With notable decreases and increases in respiratory viruses throughout the pandemic, many researchers may share the sentiment that COVID-19 significantly staggered the public’s understanding and surveillance of other respiratory diseases.
For pneumococcal diseases specifically, the trends in disease and hospitalization rates during and after the pandemic further reinforce the complexities of COVID-19. In a study from the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, pediatric IPD rates per 100,000 hospital admissions decreased dramatically following COVID-19 lockdowns.3
Despite nonCOVID-19 respiratory viruses declining during the pandemic, possibly due to countrywide shutdowns and a decreased risk of spreading diseases, there is still conflicting evidence regarding pneumococcus disease and mortality before, after, and during the pandemic.
“While prior studies have documented decreases in the rate of IPD during the pandemic, there has been little consideration for how the pandemic might have influenced rates of death due to pneumococcal disease,” continued the authors.1 “In this study, we evaluated changes in rates of deaths recorded as being related to pneumococcus during the post-pandemic period using nationwide vital statistics data from the United States and evaluated changes in the characteristics of these deaths.”
Using National Center for Health Statistics data, researchers explored the death statistics of patients 25 or older. Their primary study outcome was death from pneumococcal disease. They also further stratified the data and detailed the mortality rates from patients with pneumococcal pneumonia and nonrespiratory IPD.
From 2014 to 2022, encompassing pre- and postpandemic time periods, pneumococcal disease was responsible for a total of 8590 deaths (53% men; 26.2% aged 50 to 64 years) in US patients 25 and older. Of these pneumococcal-related mortality rates, pneumococcal pneumonia accounted for 6068 deaths and nonrespiratory IPD for 2522 deaths.
Researchers then delved into the patterns in mortality rate changes during the pandemic, as well as the additional changes observed following its peak.
“For most of 2020, including the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic when the US was experiencing lockdowns, the reported deaths were not notably different from the prepandemic period and largely followed the typical seasonal pattern,” they wrote.1 “However, at the end of 2020 and early 2021, when pneumococcal deaths would typically peak, the rates of death remained lower than normal and stayed lower than expected in the spring of 2021.”
Following these trends, pneumococcal deaths reverted in mid-2021, spiking above baseline alongside the surge of the Delta COVID-19 wave. By the time the winter season of 2021 rolled around, pneumococcal mortality rates had returned to the normal seasonal trends observed prior to the pandemic.
The researchers of this study observed unprecedented pneumococcal mortality trends triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a significant decrease followed by an immediate spike that was later reduced, data show that disease surveillance was even further impacted than experts once expected.
Reasons behind the decrease in pneumococcal carriage, according to the authors, may be how public health interventions disrupted disease transmission. For the subsequent spike that followed, researchers believe that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could be a trigger for pneumococcal disease, the same way it can trigger influenza and respiratory syncytial virus.
“In summary, pneumococcal mortality patterns changed significantly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as reflected by a marked reduction during the initial winter wave that aligned with changes in respiratory virus activity,” concluded the authors.1 “There was a notable surge of pneumococcal death coinciding with Delta wave of COVID-19 which could not be explained by influenza or RSV, suggesting the potential role of SARS-CoV-2 as a trigger for pneumococcal disease. Our findings highlighted the influence of respiratory viruses on the development and severity of pneumococcal disease.”
READ MORE: Pneumococcal Resource Center
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References
1. Shang L, Perniciaro S, Weinberger DM. Changes in pneumococcal deaths in the United States following the COVID-19 pandemic. IJID. Published online August 29, 2025:108020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2025.108020
2. Manno M, Pavia G, Gigliotti S, et al. Respiratory virus prevalence across pre-, during-, and post-SARS-CoV-2 pandemic periods. Viruses. 2025 Jul 25;17(8):1040. doi: 10.3390/v17081040.
3. Sarmiento Clemente A, Kaplan SL, Barson WJ, et al. Decrease in pediatric invasive pneumococcal disease during the COVID-19 pandemic. JPIDS. 2022;11(9):426-428. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpids/piac056
Lando Norris has insisted that he has already forgotten about the difficult end to his race last weekend in Zandvoort, with the Briton adamant that he will not change his approach to the title battle despite having lost ground to McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri.
Norris had been running in second behind Piastri throughout the Dutch Grand Prix when a technical issue struck his car during the latter stages, forcing him to pull to the side of the track and retire from the race.
Piastri went on to take victory, meaning that the Australian now has a 34-point lead over Norris in the Drivers’ Championship with nine races remaining.
While the Italian Grand Prix forms the second in a double header sequence after Zandvoort – meaning that the field are back in action only a few days after the events of that race – Norris says that he has already moved on from what happened.
“I’ve forgotten about it already,” the 25-year-old explained during Thursday’s media day at Monza. “I couldn’t care less about last weekend now. It’s behind and I have to try and make up for some points, but it doesn’t change.
“Even if I was three points behind, 10 points, 100 points, my target is to win this weekend. That’s all I can do. I feel fine and ready to try again this weekend.”
Reflecting on the positives of having another race weekend so soon after Zandvoort, Norris added: “I can try and win the race and get some points. I can’t really turn it around, it’s not that simple.
“There’s still plenty more races to try to make up for the points I lost last weekend and I’ve got to look at it that way rather than any other way, so that’s the way I’ll be doing it.”
Despite there now being more points separating him and Piastri, Norris is not planning to adopt a more ‘elbows out’ approach to his driving.
“I don’t need to change anything,” the nine-time race winner said. “Every weekend I’m trying to win, and I don’t need to change that. I think if there are those situations where we have to race, of course no one is going to want to make it easy for one another.
“Whether it’s Oscar for me or me for Oscar, but he’s still my team mate at the end of the day and we still have to respect each other a lot. I think we always race each other well and on the limit, and that’s how I’ll continue to be.”
Piastri, meanwhile, is also going to continue to take his same approach to the fight. When asked about this – and whether he had spoken with Norris about his retirement in Zandvoort – the Australian responded: “It’s obviously never nice to see that kind of thing.
“Unfortunately, it is a part of racing but we’ve not really spoken much about it. There’s nothing I can say that’s going to make it better. For me, the approach doesn’t change. I think the approach I’ve had this year has worked well, and for me there’s no reason to change anything now.
“The gap is bigger now but it is still far from being comfortable and being able to change the way I go about things, so I’m staying the same way.”
In terms of how easy it will be to continue with this approach, Piastri added: “I think it should be quite straightforward. Me and the engineers are trying to get the most out of the car, get the most out of myself and that doesn’t change whether you’re first or last.
“You’re always trying to get the best out of yourself and certainly in terms of car set-up, you’re not going to make the car slower because of the position we’re in now.
“For me that’s not going to change, and even the approach to risk I don’t think will change. I would still like to extend it even more because, like I said, there’s still a long way to go and a bigger lead is always a better thing.”
F1 Correspondent and Presenter Lawrence Barretto says..
“McLaren tell me that the power unit Lando Norris used in Zandvoort is still being checked by Mercedes HPP, but as it went into protection shutdown mode as soon as an issue occurred, the hope is that the unit will be OK to re-enter the engine pool and be used again.
“It should be noted that the issue that forced Norris’ retirement in the Netherlands was chassis-related, not an engine problem, and the team have rectified that heading into this weekend.
“Regarding power units for this weekend, both Norris and Piastri will have engine changes (these were always part of the plan and not a reaction to what happened last weekend) – with no penalties triggered.”
Amid growing concerns about how children and teens engage with AI chatbots, including a tragic suicide reportedly linked back to a teen’s use of ChatGPT, OpenAI announced plans to roll out parental controls later in September. According to the company, these tools will allow parents to set usage limits and get notifications if the chatbot detects “acute distress.”
Experts in artificial intelligence (AI) and child psychology at Virginia Tech view this more as progress, but caution that it might not be enough to prevent harm.
“The legal responsibility of these platforms is going to be a major issue moving forward,” said Cayce Myers, professor in the School of Communication. “Parental notification and control is a step in the direction toward reigning in the excesses of AI, but ultimate control over the platforms is more complex. It involves programming, user self-regulation, and access issues for vulnerable populations.”
Myers emphasized that AI is complex and unpredictable and regulation goes beyond traditional media oversight.
“As these platforms become more humanlike in their interactions, they can create complex relationships with users,” Myers said. “While this ability improves user experience and can actually help those who face social isolation and loneliness, it can also go awry, exacerbating mental health issues.”
While parental control over media has been a national conversation since the 1990s, AI use among youth is still relatively new territory.
“We don’t know a lot about the protective and risk factors associated with ChatGPT or other chatbots,” said Rosanna Breaux, a child psychologist and director of the Child Study Center. “But we do have strong evidence that parental monitoring is beneficial for children’s media use.”
Breaux said this oversight is linked to better academic performance and social functioning, largely due to reduced screen time and limited exposure to violent or negative content.
“We can expect similar benefits when parents are aware of how often and in what ways their children are using AI,” she said.
However, Breaux pointed out that parental oversight of adolescent internet use tends to be low and media restrictions alone do not necessarily curb problematic behavior.
“Notifications triggered by distressing, violent, or other potentially problematic content could help enforce oversight without parents needing to directly restrict use of AI,” she said. “But this should also be coupled with strategies like offering mental health resources when there are concerning searches.”
Beyond monitoring of media use, Breaux recommends several approaches for parents to help reduce the risk of mental health crisis and suicide in children and teens
Model healthy habits and mental health awareness: Take care of your own mental health and share coping strategies. Don’t be afraid to talk to your child about emotions, even with young children, and don’t be afraid to talk about suicide. These conversations won’t increase risk but can open the dialog for future conversations, if they do need help.
Normalize seeking support: Don’t stigmatize or judge if your child wants to seek out therapy. Encourage it as a way to manage stress or life transitions. Look for books and apps that encourage healthy coping, such as mindfulness exercises, to be used proactively.
Monitor your child: Look for major changes in mood or behavior, such as not enjoying things they used to, withdrawing or isolating themselves, being more irritable, shifts in appetite, shifts in sleep, lack of energy or motivation.
About Myers
Cayce Myers is a professor of public relations and director of graduate studies at the School of Communication at Virginia Tech. His work focuses on media history, political communication, and laws that affect public relations practice. He is the author of “Artificial Intelligence and Law in the Communication Professions,” “Profession and Money in Politics: Campaign Fundraising in the 2020 Presidential Election,” and “Campaigns Inc.”
About Breaux
Rosanna Breaux is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and is the director of the Child Study Center, as well as the CALMER (Coping skills and Learning to Manage Emotions Readily) Lab. Her research focuses on the social-emotional and academic functioning of children and adolescents, self-regulation, and understanding the role of parents in shaping children and adolescents’ social-emotional development.
Interview
To schedule an interview, contact Margaret Ashburn at mkashburn@vt.edu or 540-529-0814.
Powered by Generative AI, Vision AI Companion enables conversational experiences that takes personalized home entertainment to the next level
9/4/2025
Samsung today unveiled Vision AI Companion1 at IFA 2025, introducing the next evolution of AI-powered displays across Samsung TVs and monitors. With a smarter Bixby2 voice assistant, Vision AI Companion will deliver more natural and conversational interactions by integrating the most advanced Samsung AI features into a single, intuitive AI experience that effortlessly helps users discover content and get contextualized answers to any question.
With people around the world seeking devices that do more than just stream content, Vision AI Companion reflects the increasingly central nature of TVs in the connected home. By integrating AI into the heart of the viewing experience, Samsung is enabling personalized recommendations, smarter multi-device interactions and intuitive support for your daily life.
“At Samsung, we’re investing in technology that makes experiences more personal, more intuitive, and built for the future,” said Kevin Lee, Executive Vice President of the Customer Experience Team at the Visual Display Business of Samsung Electronics. “With Vision AI Companion, we are redefining what a TV can do, going beyond picture quality and sound to deliver an experience that understands you, interacts with you and evolves with you over time.”
Conversational and Visual Intelligence
What sets Vision AI Companion apart is its ability to answer questions and requests with intelligent responses through multiple AI agents by simply pressing the AI button on your remote control.
Powered by Generative AI, Vision AI Companion delivers a more natural and conversational experience. That understands context and follow-up questions, enabling more fluid interactions that feel like a real conversation – no commands, no menus, no typing.
Vision AI Companion enables users to ask their Samsung TV about anything that’s on the screen, such as film details, the name of a piece of artwork or travel destination recommendations. Getting answers from an AI companion has never been more visualized and comprehensive. Contextualized answers to all your questions with related video/image options to choose from makes your discovery richer and more immersive.
Vision AI Companion not only responds but also understands context and follow-up interactions, displaying all relevant information directly on the screen. Content and information spanning movies, dramas, art, food, sports and travel are presented in conversational form, creating a more fluid and natural interaction with the TV.
Vision AI Companion integrates key Samsung AI features3 into one experience, making them easier than ever for consumers to access:
Live Translate4 provides real-time translation for conversations and on-screen dialogue.
Generative Wallpaper5 offers dynamic visuals customized to the user’s preferences.
AI Picture, Active Voice Amplifier Pro and AI Upscaling Pro automatically adjust picture and sound to optimize the viewing environment across content sources.
AI Gaming Mode delivers responsive, immersive gameplay with AI-powered optimization
Copilot by Microsoft and Perplexity, available as standalone AI agent apps, enable task support and productivity directly from the TV to extend Vision AI Companion’s functionality.
By unifying these functions, Vision AI Companion eliminates the need to switch between multiple apps or menus, becoming a central hub for entertainment, productivity and connected experiences.
From Concept to Reality
The concept of Samsung’s Vision AI was first introduced at CES 2025, where Samsung outlined its ambition to enhance the home screen experience across TVs, monitors and other displays. At its core, Vision AI enhances display and audio quality, enables seamless communication between Samsung devices and delivers tailored content through advanced AI agents. Vision AI is backed by Samsung’s long-term commitment to consumers, offering seven years of free software upgrades6 through the One UI Tizen platform. This ensures that supported models will always have the latest updates and AI features as well as the latest security updates from Samsung Knox.
With the launch of Vision AI Companion, those ideas now take shape with a new level of personalization, device integration and user support. Vision AI Companion will begin rolling out as a software update in late September, starting in Korea, North America and select European markets, with additional regions to follow. To learn more, visit www.samsung.com
Check out the all-new digital race programme for the Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio d’Italia 2025, with everything you need to know about the GP weekend, whether you are attending in person or tuning in from afar.
Discover the big talking points in the paddock, the vital stats for the Monza circuit, what’s going on in the F1 Fanzone, plus what to see, do and eat when visiting this amazing region.
You can also get the lowdown on all 20 drivers and their teams, and in-depth features – including how Fred Vasseur is upbeat for Monza, Ferrari reveal a special livery for the weekend, a look at Formula 1 trophy mishaps and revisiting the best F1 cars from every decade.
View now at https://raceprogramme.formula1.com/2025/italy/
RAWALPINDI, Sep 04 (APP):Rawalpindi Waste Management Company (RWMC) has canceled holidays and deputed additional sanitary workers and officials to ensure cleanliness on 12 Rabi Ul Awwal.
The RWMC had finalized a comprehensive plan for Eid Milad-ul-Nabi (SAW) processions on the instructions of the Chief Minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz Sharif.
Chief Executive Officer RWMC Rana Sajid Safdar on Thursday said that duties of workers had been assigned in two shifts in 22 tehsils of the 6 districts of Rawalpindi division.
He said that the main procession route and its vicinity were being cleaned, besides the waste containers were also emptied.
Nullahs and drains adjacent to the procession route were also being cleared with excavators and heavy machinery, the CEO said, and added that the construction material and debris were also being removed from the procession routes and their adjacent areas.
Safdar said that relief camps would be set up at various places to carry out the cleanliness work regularly till the conclusion of the 12 Rabi Ul Awal processions, while lime powder and rose water will also be sprinkled. The CEO added that the staff had been directed that no negligence would be tolerated.
He urged the scholars, volunteers, and residents to cooperate with the RWMC staff and not to throw waste and other materials in drains and the open.
It’s easy to get developers excited to try Ruby on Rails, with its productivity, speed and efficiency … but, then comes the time it takes to set it up. “If you have a $5 a month droplet on Digital Ocean, it will probably take you 40 minutes to compile a new Ruby version from source for your droplet,” said André Arko, co-creator of Bundler for Ruby and author of The Ruby Way, third edition.
Arko added that downloads are only required at install and then when the language updates, but the download time is off-putting for new developers.
“Then they say, Wait, what?” Arko said. “It only happens once a month or once a quarter, but if you’re new to Ruby, that’s still your entire impression of the language, and that really sucks.”
Arko has developed RV, a new Rust-based tool that solves this problem.
The Problem With Dependencies
Arko first learned Ruby back in the early 2000s. He went on to create Bundler for Ruby on Rails. Until Bundler, there were no package managers. Python had Pip as a package installer; Perl had CPAN as the package installer to install Perl packages.
But there wasn’t a dependency manager that would allow developers to list every package that a project needs, in one place. Arko once spent an entire week hunting down a bug that only appeared on one of three production servers. The issue was a single, different version of a dependency.
To solve this, Arko, Carl Lerche and Yehuda Katz created Bundler, a dependency manager that introduced the concept of a lock file. This file “locks down” the exact versions of all packages and their dependencies, guaranteeing that every developer and every server gets the same code.
“It’s like a manifest of the exact version of every package, guaranteeing that they all work together,” Arko explained.
The concept of a lock file is now a gold standard in modern software development, but Arko, who still maintains Bundler, started to notice new innovations emerging from other languages.
“When I was making Bundler, I was like, Oh, we are coming up with the new innovations,” he said. “And then, as I maintained Bundler over time, I was fixing bugs, and somebody else was off coming up with new innovations for Node or new innovations for Rust or new innovations for Python.”
RV’s Inspiration: Python’s UV
Around 2015, Arko had the idea of a language manager that would be a new kind of dependency manager — he didn’t have a name for it because there was only Astral’s UV as an example of what he meant.
“The specific things that it does is it combines what we usually call a version manager — which manages the language itself, Python, Ruby, Rust, whatever — and then it also folds in the dependency manager.”
He was particularly inspired by UV, a modern Python package and project manager written in Rust. What sets UV apart is its speed and its ability to combine two traditionally separate tools: a version manager (which manages the language itself) and a dependency manager.
“It only happens once a month or once a quarter, but if you’re new to Ruby, that’s still your entire impression of the language, and that really sucks.” – André Arko, creator of RV
For most languages, those tasks are managed by different tools. For instance, Rust has Rustup as the version manager and Cargo as the dependency manager. In Ruby, a developer needs one of three version managers (RVM, rbenv, or asdf) and a separate dependency manager (Bundler). UV’s innovation was to combine these functions into one tool, making the entire process faster and more streamlined.
“UV invented this breakthrough of ‘We’re going to jam both of them together,’ which is going to unlock new things that were never possible to do before, and we’re going to make it incredibly fast,’” he said.
The version of UV 0.3 that did this innovative combination first came out approximately one year ago, he noted. Arko used the tool with his Python project and then missed it when he worked on Ruby.
“It’s so fast and it’s so useful, that during the last year, every time I’ve come back to Ruby, which is still where I spend the majority of my time, I feel frustrated that I don’t have UV available to me,” he said. In the meantime, he waited for someone else to build a tool that would bring that function to Ruby.
The Problem With Ruby
The inspiration for a combined version and dependency manager for Ruby converged with a new professional opportunity. Arko and other open source maintainers formed a collective called Spinel.coop, a consultancy that helps companies with technical problems. They needed a project to showcase their expertise, and Arko realized he could build the tool he had been dreaming of for a decade.
“Basically, these two ideas came together for me at the same time,” he said. “Basically, with the inspiration of UV, I suddenly had a reason to build a version manager, to add to a dependency manager, to create this new category of tool.”
The idea further crystallized this past July when he attended RailsConf in Philadelphia.
“I hadn’t been sure that I was going to sit down and start working on it until I was talking to other developers at RailsConf,” he said. “I basically said, ‘What do you think about this idea?’”
What he learned is that developers consistently had the problem of convincing developers to try Ruby on Rails, but then when they find out they need to wait 10 to 40 minutes to download everything so it can compile and execute, they’re turned off by the language.
“All of the Ruby version management status quo today takes seven to 40 minutes to install a new Ruby version,” Arko said. “And every time I upgrade my Ruby, I get kind of sad and frustrated knowing that it could be faster than this.”
He started to build RV.
RV Installs Ruby in Seconds
RV is still very young but out of the gate with version 0.1.1, it solve the download barrier problem and that’s already garnering attentions, Arko said.
“… every time I upgrade my Ruby, I get kind of sad and frustrated knowing that it could be faster than this.” – André Arko
Previously, on a high-end development desktop workstation, that would have taken six or seven minutes and up to 40 minutes as a droplet on Digital Ocean. That’s because Ruby version managers have had to install a ‘tarball of source code,” Arko said, that is downloaded to your machine and then it literally starts compiling that source code from scratch.
“That is what takes so long, is that every developer in the entire world is rebuilding Ruby, just for their own personal machine every time there’s a new version,” Arko said.
But it’s possible to ask GitHub Actions, CircleCI or other CI/CD systems to build Ruby and provide the finished product. RV takes the finished product, then downloads the executable and installs it instead of that tarball of source code. RV act as an intermediary, so rather than asking every user to do it individually, RV does it once in advance, turning the source code into a binary. It then installs a functional Ruby interpreter on your Linux or Mac machine very quickly. Rust also gives it a boost.
“Because Rust is very fast at downloading and installing things, it takes about one second,” he said.
What’s Next for RV
RV is a work in progress, Arko cautioned.
“We have not delivered on the overarching promises of UV yet,” Arko said. “We have released the very first possible version of RV, which to be completely clear is actually just a stripped down version manager — all that we have actually shipped so far is the version management portion of the tool.”
But in the roadmap is the dependency management portion of the tool and the higher-level combination tool that will merge version management with dependency management — a tool he doesn’t yet have a name for — are on the roadmap.
“To be clear, this is imaginary because we haven’t written it yet, but conceptually, you can say RV run Rails new, and you don’t even need to have Ruby installed. RV will install the Ruby that you need in one second, and then RV will install the Rails that you need in another second, … and one or two seconds later, Rails is now running, and that was all you needed to do,” he said.
In the meantime, he’d love to get developer feedback about that goal.
“I would just like to make using Ruby easy and straightforward and great and awesome from the company perspective,” he said. “I would love to talk to companies who want all of their developers to be faster at using Ruby and more efficient and know what they’re doing and solve their problems.”
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Loraine Lawson is a veteran technology reporter who has covered technology issues from data integration to security for 25 years. Before joining The New Stack, she served as the editor of the banking technology site Bank Automation News. She has…
