The Daily Index — Wednesday, November 1, 2023 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

APPLE ‘SCARY FAST’ MAC LAUNCH EVENT: THE 4 BIGGEST ANNOUNCEMENTS

Apple revealed brand new Macs with the latest version of the company's in-house chip at its Scary Fast event. Apple's M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips are the first PC chips made using the 3-nanometer process. They come with an updated GPU that supports ray tracing, mesh shading, and Dynamic Caching, a memory optimization feature. The new Macs include a 24-inch iMac, 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, and an entry-level MacBook Pro.

theverge.com · 3 min

TLDR AI

ISOMORPHIC TEASES THE NEXT VERSION OF ALPHAFOLD

AlphaFold is an amazing model for science. The new work by Isomorphic Labs (a spin off from Google) extends it beyond just proteins and improves overall performance.

isomorphiclabs.com · 8 min

TLDR Web Dev

JSON IS SLOWER. HERE ARE ITS 4 FASTER ALTERNATIVES

JSON's popularity is due to its human-readable format, language-agnostic nature, and support in web browsers and APIs. However, it can introduce performance challenges such as parsing overhead, serialization/deserialization inefficiencies, and lack of support for binary data. This article explores alternatives like Protocol Buffers, MessagePack, BSON, and Avro, and provides optimization strategies such as minimizing data size, using arrays wisely, optimizing number representations, and employing server-side caching. Real-world examples from LinkedIn, Uber, Slack, and Auth0 of these alternatives in practice show improved performance over JSON.

dev.to · 11 min

TLDR InfoSec

LOCKBIT CLAIMS IT HAS HACKED BOEING AND STOLEN SENSITIVE DATA

Lockbit ransomware group has listed Boeing on its victims list. Stolen Boeing data could have big repercussions as the company works for military clients who want their information to be confidential. Boeing is currently assessing this claim.

twitter.com · 2 min

TLDR Crypto

THESE ARE THE MARKET MAKERS LOOKING TO PROVIDE BITCOIN LIQUIDITY FOR THE BLACKROCK ETF

As BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, progresses towards launching its spot bitcoin ETF, it has revealed that Jane Street, Virtu Financial, Jump Trading, and Hudson River Trading could be potential liquidity providers. Having market makers like this is crucial, as they are responsible for creating and redeeming ETF shares, thereby maintaining the product's price. This development is another step toward the fund's potential launch, with the SEC currently reviewing BlackRock's application along with others from Fidelity, ARK Invest, and more.

thestreet.com · 2 min

TLDR

WEWORK PLANS TO FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY AS EARLY AS NEXT WEEK

WeWork plans to file for bankruptcy as early as next week as it struggles with a massive debt and hefty losses. Its shares have fallen roughly 96% this year. The company is considering filing a Chapter 11 petition in New Jersey. It had entered into an agreement with creditors for temporary postponement of payments for some of its debt, but the grace period is nearing an end.

finance.yahoo.com · 2 min

TLDR

VIRTUAL SUPERLENSING MADE A REALITY

Superlensing is a way to see things that are smaller than the wavelength of light. Two researchers from the University of Sydney Nano Institute recently developed a superlensing technique that doesn't require any actual lenses. They achieved this by using calculations on electromagnetic field recordings. While the method is not the first nor the highest resolution technique available, it is much faster and less costly than other techniques.

spectrum.ieee.org · 3 min

TLDR

OPEN-ACCESS REFORMERS LAUNCH NEXT BOLD PUBLISHING PLAN

A group of influential funding agencies called cOAlition S has been pushing for change in the scholarly publishing world over the past five years by pressuring journals to allow immediate open-access publishing. Its most recent proposal puts forward an even broader transformation in the dissemination of research. The group's new goal is to make all versions of an article and its associated peer-review reports be published openly from the outset without the authors paying any fees and for the authors to decide when and where to first publish their work.

nature.com · 11 min

TLDR

LOOKING INSIDE ROSCRIBE AND THE IDEA OF LLM-BASED ROBOTIC PLATFORM

ROScribe is an open source tool that uses large language models for software generation in robotics within the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework. This post describes how ROScribe works under the hood and explains some high level ideas behind the project. It also compares how using large language models for code generation in specific domains performs against generic domain code generation.

discourse.ros.org · 7 min