The Daily Index — Thursday, September 7, 2023 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

APPLE SPENDING “MILLIONS OF DOLLARS A DAY” ON DEVELOPING CONVERSATIONAL AI AS IT SEEKS TO MASSIVELY IMPROVE SIRI

Apple is reportedly spending millions of dollars a day on AI product research with the goal of creating a Siri that can automate tasks involving multiple steps. Most of the budget is dedicated to model training, which requires a lot of expensive hardware. The company has been working on large language models for four years, but it is unclear what it has achieved with its multi-year lead. Apple's internal chatbot apparently boasts greater capabilities than OpenAI's GPT-3.5 model, but is less intelligent than GPT-4.

superchargednews.com · 2 min

TLDR AI

APPLE IS POURING MONEY INTO SIRI IMPROVEMENTS WITH GENERATIVE AI

Apple has boosted its budget for developing artificial intelligence, emphasizing creating conversational chatbot features for Siri — allegedly spending millions of dollars daily on research and development.

appleinsider.com · 2 min

TLDR Web Dev

FOUR COMMON TYPES OF CODE COVERAGE

Code coverage is a metric that measures the percentage of source code your tests execute. It helps you identify areas that may lack proper testing. This article is a deep dive into the importance of code coverage in tests and four common ways to measure it: function coverage, line coverage, branch coverage, and statement coverage.

web.dev · 8 min

TLDR Crypto

ARK INVEST AND 21SHARES FILE WITH SEC FOR SPOT ETHER ETF

Ark Invest and 21shares have submitted an application to the SEC for the authorization of a spot ether ETF called the ARK 21Shares Ethereum ETF. If approved, the fund would give investors direct exposure to ether on the Cboe. The SEC, which is yet to approve a spot crypto fund, recently postponed decisions on the spot Bitcoin ETF applications that were filed by several funds earlier in the summer.

theblock.co · 4 min

TLDR Design

GOOGLE'S LOOKOUT APP ADDS DETAILED, AI-POWERED IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS

Google’s Lookout app is designed to help blind and low-vision users understand their surroundings. People can now also ask follow-up questions for more information about an image.

cnet.com · 3 min

TLDR

SUCCESSION MESS

This article tells the inside story of the transition between CEOs for Disney over the last few years. Bob Iger announced that he would step down as Disney's CEO in February 2020, picking Bob Chapek as his successor. Iger's plan would have him stay at the company as an executive chairman for 22 months. Chapek was fired in November 2022 and Iger became CEO again, with an extended contract through to 2026. Chapek says that his tenure at Disney was 'three years of hell'.

cnbc.com · 72 min

TLDR

THE ROOM-TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTOR THAT WASN’T

LK-99 is a complicated chemical. While it isn't a room-temperature superconductor, it has many interesting properties. This article takes a look at some of these properties to explain why LK-99 behaves the way it does. The nature of LK-99 made it difficult for scientists to determine the source of its behaviors.

arstechnica.com · 5 min

TLDR

WEIGHT-LOSS DRUGS OZEMPIC AND WEGOVY ALSO PROTECT YOUR HEART

Semiglutide was originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes. It may also reduce heart failure and provide more general cardiovascular benefits. Weekly injections of the drug can reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack by 20%. While scientists don't entirely know how the drug works, studies show that it may have many other uses, such as in reducing alcohol consumption. The manufacturer that produces the drug plans to seek regulatory approval in the US and Europe for more uses.

arstechnica.com · 5 min

TLDR

COPILOT

This article discusses how to build and scale applications that use large language models. It took GitHub three years to develop GitHub Copilot from idea to production. The team used a three-stage plan for development: they identified an impactful problem space for their LLM application, created a smooth AI product experience, and then got the application ready and usable for general availability. Further resources on developing LLM applications are provided at the end of the article.

github.blog · 14 min