The Daily Index — Wednesday, December 13, 2023 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

APPLE SPOTLIGHTS THE TOP APPS AND GAMES OF 2023 ON THE APP STORE

Apple's top apps and games of 2023 features year-end charts localized for users in more than 35 countries and regions. It is currently available in the App Store's Today tab. The list includes the top free and paid apps and games and the best apps and games of the year selected by the App Store Editorial team. A list of the year's most downloaded apps and games in the US is available in the article.

apple.com · 2 min

TLDR AI

PHI 2 AVAILABLE IN AZURE MODEL STUDIO

Phi 2 is the next generation in the series of tiny language models from Azure trained primarily on synthetic data. The 2.7B parameter model matches the performance of 13B parameter models. The challenge here is detecting and mitigating “test set rephrasing”, but in either case, the model is quite powerful.

microsoft.com · 6 min

TLDR Web Dev

ZERO DOWNTIME POSTGRES UPGRADES

Knock’s team successfully upgraded from PostgreSQL 11.9 to 15.3 with zero downtime using logical replication and various tools. They were able to de-risk the upgrade process by monitoring it closely and having carefully planned processes in place. This article explains different options for upgrading PostgreSQL, including in-place upgrades (not suitable for zero downtime), and replication-based upgrades, which is what they chose. A replication-based upgrade involves setting up publications and subscriptions, adding tables incrementally, and carefully configuring source and destination databases.

knock.app · 29 min

TLDR InfoSec

NORTON HEALTHCARE RANSOMWARE HACK: 2.5 MILLION PERSONAL RECORDS STOLEN

Kentucky healthcare organization Norton Healthcare is informing about 2.5 million individuals that their personal information was compromised in a ransomware data extortion hack earlier this year. The organization said that it did not pay the ransom demands as the hackers leaked 4.7 TB of data. This included contact information, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health and insurance information, and medical identification numbers.

securityweek.com · 3 min

TLDR Crypto

THIS BITCOIN MINER IS SET TO BUY FOUR CANADIAN POWER PLANTS

Hut 8, a crypto mining company, is set to acquire four natural gas power plants and a Bitcoin mining site in Ontario from Validus Power Corp. The acquisition, approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and expected to close in January, reinforces Hut 8's growth strategy after its recent merger with US Bitcoin Corp. The facilities will be used to bolster energy pricing certainty, mine Bitcoin, sell energy to the market, and/or support high-performance computing, such as AI applications.

blockworks.co · 2 min

TLDR

AS CHATGPT GETS “LAZY,” PEOPLE TEST “WINTER BREAK HYPOTHESIS” AS THE CAUSE

Some ChatGPT users started to notice that the AI was becoming more lazy in late November. The chatbot was reportedly refusing to do some tasks or returning simplified results. OpenAI has admitted that it's an issue, but it hasn't identified why. People usually slow down in December and put bigger projects off until the new year - the 'winter break hypothesis' says that ChatGPT has learned this and may be getting lazier because of it. The theory has yet to be proven. OpenAI is working on a potential fix.

arstechnica.com · 4 min

TLDR

BEZOS’ BLUE ORIGIN AIMING TO MAKE LONG-AWAITED RETURN TO LAUNCH NEXT WEEK

Blue Origin has announced that it will fly an uncrewed mission as early as December 18. The mission will carry 33 science and research payloads, as well as other cargo. New Shepard has been grounded since September 2022 as it has been implementing changes recommended by the FAA. Blue Origin's license will expire in August 2025 and is limited to launches from Blue Origin's West Texas facilities only.

techcrunch.com · 2 min

TLDR

‘BIOCOMPUTER’ COMBINES LAB-GROWN BRAIN TISSUE WITH ELECTRONIC HARDWARE

Researchers have built a hybrid biocomputer by combining laboratory-grown human brain tissue with conventional electronic circuits. The biocomputer can complete tasks such as voice recognition. The study confirms some key theoretical ideas that could eventually make a biological computer possible. The technology could be used to model and study neurological disorders or integrated into artificial intelligence systems.

nature.com · 3 min

TLDR

ANNOUNCING NUEKIT

Nuekit is a static site generator and web application builder. It features universal hot-reloading for content, layouts, styling, and reactive islands. Nuekit provides client-side routing for both websites and single-page applications.

nuejs.org · 3 min