The Daily Index — Wednesday, February 28, 2024 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

AFTER A DECADE OF STOPS AND STARTS, APPLE KILLS ITS ELECTRIC CAR PROJECT

Apple has reportedly ended work on its electric car project. It will shift some of the staff to work on generative AI projects while laying off others. Project Titan, which had been in development for 10 years, was originally going to be a car with a luxurious limo-like interior and robust self-driving capabilities. Its ambitions were scaled back after multiple changes in direction and leadership. The project faced high startup costs and a difficult regulatory environment, making it hard for the company to find the profit margins it hoped for.

arstechnica.com · 2 min

TLDR AI

APPLE CANCELS SELF-DRIVING CAR PROJECT

After a decade of effort and billions of dollars, Apple is canceling its unsuccessful attempt at building a car to rival Tesla. Many of the employees are expected to move to generative AI projects.

theverge.com · 3 min

TLDR Web Dev

HOW DISCORD MOVED ENGINEERING TO CLOUD DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS

Discord successfully transitioned to a Linux-based Cloud Development Environment (CDE) to address the challenges of a growing remote engineering team. Its initial Kubernetes-based CDE solution proved problematic, and switching to a VM-based offering provided a stable and performant experience. The migration involved careful planning, early feedback, and a phased rollout.

discord.com · 8 min

TLDR InfoSec

NEW HUGGING FACE VULNERABILITY EXPOSES AI MODELS TO SUPPLY CHAIN ATTACKS

Hugging Face's Safetensors service can be compromised to hijack user models, enabling supply chain attacks via malicious pull requests to other repos masquerading as the conversion bot. Hijacked conversion models allow changes to any repo on the platform.

thehackernews.com · 3 min

TLDR Crypto

CRYPTO EXCHANGE KRAKEN UNVEILS INSTITUTIONAL SOLUTION

Kraken has launched Kraken Institutional, a platform for institutional firms seeking exposure to crypto. This one-stop shop will include spot trading, OTC trading, and staking services. The platform is aimed at institutions, hedge funds, and high-net-worth individuals. It will be led by Tim Ogilvie, who joined Kraken after its acquisition of Staked. The announcement comes amid a battle between the SEC and Kraken on whether or not it is running an unregistered cryptocurrency exchange.

pymnts.com · 2 min

TLDR

META MIGHT DEMO A PAIR OF ‘TRUE’ AR SMART GLASSES LATER IN 2024

Meta may reveal a pair of augmented reality smart glasses at its Meta Connect event later this year. Orion will be a 'true' AR device. There is a lot of internal pressure at the company to produce a high-quality demo. Company insiders are now experimenting with advanced prototypes. The glasses likely won't be available to the public until 2027.

theverge.com · 3 min

TLDR

IT TURNS OUT THAT ODYSSEUS LANDED ON THE MOON WITHOUT ANY ALTIMETRY DATA

Intuitive Machines believes that its mission to land on the Moon was a complete success, despite Odysseus toppling over after touching down. The moon lander's range finders were discovered to be inoperable a couple of hours before it was due to attempt to land on the Moon, so the company rewrote its software to take advantage of three telescopes on a NASA payload for altimetry purposes. While the patch mostly worked, Odysseus' onboard flight computer was unable to process the data in real time - its last accurate altitude reading was more than 12 minutes before touchdown. This forced the lander to rely on optical data, resulting in it coming down much faster than planned.

arstechnica.com · 5 min

TLDR

VARDA’S DRUG-COOKING WINNEBAGO WILL BE REMEMBERED AS A SPACE PIONEER

Varda's Winnebago series is designed to bring pharmaceutical research specimens back to Earth for laboratory analysis and eventual commercial exploitation. The company's business plan involves producing pharmaceuticals and other goods in low-Earth orbit inside an automated laboratory for a fraction of the cost of a human space flight mission. Some goods benefit from being produced in a microgravity environment. The success of the mission may mean that the FAA will see the same increase in demand for reentry licenses that it has seen for launch licenses.

arstechnica.com · 6 min

TLDR

THE UNWRITTEN RULES (TILL NOW) OF NEGOTIATING WITH META

Meta is hiring more engineers than any of the other FAANGs. Its centralized hiring process is completely divorced from the teams candidates might end up on. Interviews are conducted with people whom candidates might never work with again. After initial interviews, candidates will go through a team-matching phase, during which recruiters will likely down-level them. Candidates will then be made lowball offers with just a few days to make a decision. Meta will refuse to negotiate unless candidates can show other offers from comparable companies. This post shares tips on how to navigate the process and negotiate the best deal.

interviewing.io · 20 min