The Daily Index — Friday, September 29, 2023 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE’

OpenAI is looking to use Apple former chief design officer Jony Ive's design firm LoveFrom to develop OpenAI's first consumer device. The project is aided by over $1 billion in funding from Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son. Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussed the product during brainstorming sessions at Ive's San Francisco studio. The device will aim to provide a more natural and intuitive user experience for interacting with artificial intelligence.

theverge.com · 2 min

TLDR AI

CHROMA X GOOGLE FOR BUILDING ON PALM

Chroma is a leading vector database for storing embeddings for AI applications. They've partnered with PaLM to build applications on top of the flagship Google model.

trychroma.com · 2 min

TLDR Web Dev

IS DATA STILL A MOAT?

“Data is the new oil” was a common slogan of the last decade, but this might not hold true anymore with the advent of generative AI. On one hand, quality data still matters as LLMs can be greatly influenced by training data quality. On the other hand, fine tuning models only requires ~100 data points, which can be easily curated. LLMs can also now generate great synthetic data, which lowers the usefulness of “real” data.

matt-rickard.com · 2 min

TLDR InfoSec

FAKE BITWARDEN SITES PUSH NEW PASSWORD STEALER

Fake websites have been popping up that offer a Trojan masquerading as the Bitwarden password manager that includes a new password-stealing malware dubbed ZenRAT. The malware specifically targets Windows devices and directs macOS or Linux users to the official download page. The malware uses WMI queries to acquire system information in addition to the credentials and sends them in a zip to a C2.

bleepingcomputer.com · 2 min

TLDR Crypto

CRYPTO COMPANY RIPPLE BACKS OUT OF FORTRESS TRUST PURCHASE

Ripple has decided not to proceed with its previously announced acquisition of custodian Fortress Trust following a security breach at a third-party service used by six of Fortress's customers that resulted in a reported loss of $12-$15 million in cryptocurrency. Despite the terminated deal, Ripple will remain an investor in Fortress's parent company, Fortress Financial Technologies.

archive.ph · 2 min

TLDR

MICROSOFT CONSIDERED SELLING BING TO APPLE IN 2020

Microsoft considered selling Bing to Apple in 2020 in a deal that would have resulted in Bing replacing Google as the default search engine on Apple devices. Talks between the companies were only exploratory and did not progress. Apple did not move forward with the deal due to the money it earned from Google and because it thought that Bing would not be able to compete with Google in quality and capabilities. The Apple/Google deal is currently under scrutiny due to the antitrust trial between Google and the US Department of Justice.

macrumors.com · 1 min

TLDR

NEXT WEEK

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket may be launching a spacecraft to explore the metal-rich asteroid Psyche as soon as October 5. The asteroid is estimated to be composed of up to 60% iron-nickel metals. It could be more valuable than the entire world economy. NASA has no plans to mine the asteroid. It will use data from the mission to get a more accurate idea of its potential value and learn more about what Earth's core might be like.

cnet.com · 2 min

TLDR

SOLAR-POWERED AIRSHIP WILL CIRCLE THE WORLD NON-STOP WITHOUT FUEL

Solar Airship One is a 151-meter-long airship that has its entire upper surface covered in solar film. The airship is able to run on solar power during the day and store enough extra power to continue during the night. Solar Airship One will have an average speed of 83 kilometers per hour. While it will run on renewable energy, the airship still uses 50,000 cubic meters of helium, a completely non-replaceable element.

newatlas.com · 3 min

TLDR

WIFI WITHOUT INTERNET ON A SOUTHWEST FLIGHT

Unable to access the internet during a flight because of payment portal issues, this author decided to see what data was still available on the Wi-Fi network. They found a repeating successful request that contained data for the plane's altitude, estimated time of arrival, and ground speed. This article breaks down how the author analyzed the request and used the data to find out more about their flight.

jamesbvaughan.com · 7 min