The Daily Index — Tuesday, March 12, 2024 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

AIRPODS PRO TO GAIN 'HEARING AID MODE' IN IOS 18

Apple's AirPods Pro will reportedly gain a new 'hearing aid mode' with iOS 18. The device already offers a Conversation Boost feature, but Apple has not advertised it as a hearing aid device as that requires FDA regulatory approval. It is unclear whether Apple will need FDA clearance to make explicit or implicit claims about the 'hearing aid mode' or whether it will adopt that exact name. The FDA approved a new category of over-the-counter hearing aids called Personal sound amplification products in August 2022 that doesn't require legal registration by manufacturers or listing with the FDA. iOS 18 is set to be previewed in June and released sometime in September.

macrumors.com · 2 min

TLDR AI

GROK FROM XAI TO BE OPEN SOURCED THIS WEEK (X POST)

Elon Musk shared on X that Grok, xAI's language model, will be open sourced in the coming days.

twitter.com

TLDR Web Dev

STREAMING HTML OUT OF ORDER WITHOUT JAVASCRIPT

Streaming HTML sends HTML from server to browser in chunks as it is generated. It took a back seat as single-page applications became the standard, but it has become more popular along with server-side rendering. A clear advantage to streaming HTML is you can render something immediately to indicate to the user that something is happening and you can start downloading assets like CSS and JavaScript earlier while you wait for the more time-consuming parts of the response to be generated.

lamplightdev.com · 5 min

TLDR Crypto

BLOOMBERG ANALYSTS SUBSTANTIALLY LOWER LIKELIHOOD OF SPOT ETHEREUM ETF APPROVAL IN MAY TO 30%

Bloomberg ETF analysts have reduced their predicted odds of a spot Ethereum ETF approval this May to 30%. The primary reason they are reducing these odds is the lack of filing changes for these products. However, the market seems to be pricing in better odds than this as Ethereum has been keeping pace with Bitcoin, surging since the launch of the spot Bitcoin ETFs in January.

theblock.co · 3 min

TLDR Product

COUNT THE DIGITS

Rich Mironov's "count the digits" method helps product managers quickly prioritize suggestions by estimating their financial impact, streamlining focus on high-value opportunities, and aligning with strategic goals for efficient decision-making.

mironov.com · 6 min

TLDR

ELON MUSK SAYS XAI WILL OPEN SOURCE GROK THIS WEEK

xAI will open source Grok this week. The move follows Elon Musk's complaint that OpenAI has deviated from its open source roots. Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI claiming that OpenAI, which was supposed to make its technology freely available to the public, has become closed-source and has shifted its focus to maximizing profits for Microsoft. Musk has long been a proponent of open source - Tesla has open sourced many of its patents. It is unclear what aspects of Grok will be open sourced.

techcrunch.com · 3 min

TLDR

COVARIANT ANNOUNCES A UNIVERSAL AI PLATFORM FOR ROBOTS

Covariant has announced a robotics foundation model that gives robots a human-like ability to reason. The 8 billion parameter RFM-1 can expand its abilities through more data consumption. It incorporates images, video, joint angles, force reading, suction cup strength, and more into its prediction engine to produce images, videos, or a series of commands for a robot. It can be used as a simulation tool, generating action sequences that are both realistic and accurate. With enough data, it could be a useful world simulation tool more capable than one built from the ground up. Covariant aims to make the model be able to do any task in any body.

spectrum.ieee.org · 6 min

TLDR

PARKINSON'S DRUG REDUCES DISEASE MARKERS IN BREAKTHROUGH TRIAL

A novel therapy for Parkinson's disease has shown promise in early clinical trials. UB-312 is designed to clear toxic clumps of a protein thought to be responsible for the disease. It has been shown to be generally safe with relatively mild side effects. There are currently no treatments that address the underlying condition of Parkinson's. The therapy's initial success is exciting as it suggests that scientists are on the right path to finding a safe and effective means of improving quality of life for Parkinson's patients.

sciencealert.com · 3 min

TLDR

TYPE UNIONS DON'T ALWAYS COMPOSE WELL

TypeScript lets developers write type unions that often feel more ergonomic compared to other languages, which may force them to tag the union. These untagged unions often lead to cleaner user-side APIs that don't require boilerplate boxing up of values. However, if you have overlaps when using them, the result type might hold less information than you think. To get the composition to actually represent something like what you get with data types in other languages, make sure there is no overlap between the types.

rtpg.co · 4 min