The Daily Index — Wednesday, November 15, 2023 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

SPACEX TO LAUNCH STARSHIP’S SECOND ORBITAL TEST THIS WEEKEND: WHAT TO KNOW

SpaceX may launch the second Starship orbital test as soon as this Friday. Elon Musk said on X that SpaceX will receive a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration in time for the launch. The last orbital attempt was almost seven months ago - it ended in a mid-air explosion that led to a months-long federal investigation. The FAA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service have yet to announce the completion of an environmental review for the test. The most critical part of the test flight will be hot staging, where Starship's upper stage separates from its boost and ignites its own engines.

observer.com · 3 min

TLDR AI

RETOOL STATE OF AI REPORT

Retool's State of AI report, which surveyed 1,500 tech workers, reveals generative AI's growing impact on business. MongoDB Atlas Vector Search leads in popularity among vector databases, vital for AI-powered apps enhancing productivity and customer experiences. However, challenges in AI adoption persist, notably in model accuracy and data security, with C-suite executives showing greater optimism than individual contributors.

retool.com · 35 min

TLDR Web Dev

HANDLING FORMS AND VALIDATION IN ANGULAR

This article explains the two ways of working with forms in Angular: Reactive and Template-driven forms. Reactive forms provide direct access to the underlying form object model and are suitable for applications heavily reliant on forms, offering scalability, reusability, and testability. Template-driven forms use directives within the template to create and manipulate the form’s object model and are simpler to use for basic forms. The article provides a detailed guide on creating a profile form component to demonstrate how each type of form is implemented.

blog.openreplay.com · 20 min

TLDR InfoSec

POLONIEX CRYPTO EXCHANGE SUFFERS $100M BREACH

$100M was transferred from a crypto wallet belonging to the Poloniex exchange. Blockchain security firm CertiK suggests that the incident was likely the result of a compromised private key. Poloniex is committed to reimbursing customers and has offered a 5% bug bounty to the hacker upon return of the funds.

cointelegraph.com · 3 min

TLDR Crypto

BLACKROCK SPOTLIGHTS STABLECOIN RISKS IN BITCOIN ETF FILING

BlackRock, a leading global asset manager, has called attention to the risks posed by stablecoins such as USDC and USDT in its application for a Bitcoin ETF. Although not directly allocating funds to stablecoins, the firm acknowledges the potential risks they present to Bitcoin and the crypto market as a whole. While outlining any and all risks in disclosures is simply standard practice in any filing, these statements still raised eyebrows as BlackRock provides financial products to Circle, the company behind USDC.

crypto.news · 2 min

TLDR

NOTHING PHONE SAYS IT WILL HACK INTO IMESSAGE, BRING BLUE BUBBLES TO ANDROID

Upstart phone manufacturer Nothing says its new Nothing Chats app allows Android users to use iMessage, complete with blue bubbles sent to their iPhone contacts. An early version of Nothing Chats will start rolling out on Friday. The app will only work for Nothing Phone 2 owners. Nothing claims that its setup is completely legal and that it doesn't see any scenario in which Apple could block it.

arstechnica.com · 3 min

TLDR

AI OUTPERFORMS CONVENTIONAL WEATHER FORECASTING FOR THE FIRST TIME: GOOGLE STUDY

An AI meteorology model from Google DeepMind called GraphCast significantly outperforms conventional weather forecasting methods in predicting global weather conditions up to 10 days in advance. GraphCast outperformed the world's leading conventional system in 90% of 1,380 metrics. It can predict hundreds of weather variables over 10 days at 0.25° resolution globally in under a minute. GraphCast is estimated to be about 1,000 times cheaper in terms of energy consumption compared to traditional methods.

arstechnica.com · 3 min

TLDR

SPEAKER CHIP USES ULTRASOUND TO CRACK VOLUME LIMITS

xMEMS is a five-year-old startup that specializes in making speakers from microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) silicon-and-piezoelectric chips. Its designs have many advantages over other miniature speakers. A new technology designed by the company uses ultrasonic modulation and demodulation to create pressure and generate sound. This article covers MEMS systems and explains how xMEMS' ultrasound system works.

spectrum.ieee.org · 4 min

TLDR

A DECADE OF DEVELOPING A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE

Inko is a statically typed language that compiles into machine code using LLVM. This article highlights lessons learned while developing the programming language. Inko was originally heavily inspired by Ruby and Smalltalk, but 10 years later, it's closer to Rust, Erlang, and Pony. It has been used to write meaningful applications like HVAC automation software, a Markdown parser, a changelog generator, and more.

yorickpeterse.com · 16 min