The Daily Index — Friday, October 6, 2023 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

DUCKDUCKGO REVEALED IN UNSEALED COURT TESTIMONY

Newly unsealed court testimonies reveal that Apple held talks with Microsoft and DuckDuckGo to use their search engines across Apple devices. The company even considered buying Bing. An internal email suggests that the talks were a negotiating tactic to extract more money from Google. Microsoft was aware that it was being used for leverage.

theverge.com · 2 min

TLDR AI

ARC BROWSER INTRODUCES AI-POWERED FEATURES

The Arc browser has introduced AI-enhanced features under the name "Arc Max". These features utilize OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and Anthropic’s models for functions such as renaming pinned tabs, summarizing link content, and renaming downloaded files based on their content.

techcrunch.com · 2 min

TLDR Web Dev

HOW GOOGLE WRITES CLEAN, MAINTAINABLE CODE

Google has a process called “readability” that allows it to maintain certain coding standards and best practices in its monolithic codebase. It has published its style guides online and has described the readability process in its book “Software Engineering at Google”. Readability helps Google increase knowledge sharing, maintain its codebase's health, enforce best practices, and sustain a culture of mentorship. However, readability results in slower code velocity. The article goes through some examples of clean TypeScript code using Google’s style guide.

engineercodex.substack.com · 5 min

TLDR InfoSec

LYCA MOBILE SERVICES SIGNIFICANTLY DISRUPTED BY CYBERATTACK

Lyca Mobile has confirmed that its services were significantly disrupted in recent days due to a cyberattack. The attack impacted services in all markets, except for the US, Australia, Tunisia, and Ukraine and the company is still trying to find out if it has resulted in a data breach.

securityweek.com · 3 min

TLDR Crypto

BANKS WOULD HAVE TO DISCLOSE CRYPTO HOLDINGS UNDER NEW BIS PLAN

Financial authorities are considering new regulations that would require banks to disclose crypto holdings. This comes from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which determines norms for traditional finance lenders. Its proposal follows a turbulent year in cryptocurrency markets, including the fall of crypto exchange FTX and startup-focused banks Signature and SVB.

coindesk.com · 2 min

TLDR

EXCLUSIVE-CHATGPT-OWNER OPENAI IS EXPLORING MAKING ITS OWN AI CHIPS

OpenAI is exploring making its own artificial intelligence chips. It has evaluated a potential acquisition target for the move. The scarcity of graphics processing units is making it difficult for OpenAI to solve its chip shortage issues. It may take several years for OpenAI to develop its own chip if it decides to go ahead with the plan. Success in developing a custom chip is not guaranteed - many companies, including Meta, have been building their own processors for years with limited results.

finance.yahoo.com · 3 min

TLDR

WATER

A team of engineers from MIT and China have designed a solar desalination system that passively turns seawater into drinking water. It circulates water in swirling eddies, which when combined with the sun's heat drives water to evaporate and leave salt behind. The resulting water vapor can be condensed and collected while the leftover salt circulates out of the device rather than accumulating and clogging the system. A small suitcase-sized system could produce up to 6 liters of drinking water per hour and last several years.

news.mit.edu · 4 min

TLDR

NEW 3D PRINTING APPROACH OFFERS HOPE FOR BRAIN INJURY REPAIR

Scientists from the University of Oxford have created brain tissue using human stem cells through 3D printing. They were able to replicate the structure of the brain's cerebral cortex using the technique. The technology will provide researchers with new ways to explore the workings of the brain. It also offers hopes to individuals who have brain injuries as there is evidence that the printed tissue can integrate with live brains.

interestingengineering.com · 4 min

TLDR

CLOUD COSTS EVERY PROGRAMMER SHOULD KNOW

This article contains a list of cloud costs every programmer should know with a detailed breakdown of the costs. Knowing these numbers will help programmers make quick cost estimations for a variety of different projects. They will only need an idea of the architecture and size of the completed project to calculate a ballpark cost without needing any complex cost calculator.

vantage.sh · 10 min