The Daily Index — Wednesday, May 15, 2024 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

GOOGLE IS REDESIGNING ITS SEARCH ENGINE — AND IT'S AI ALL THE WAY DOWN

Billions of Google users will soon see AI-generated summaries at the top of many of their search results. The AI Overviews are designed to take out the hard work of searching so users can focus on the important things. Google announced several other AI-powered features at its I/O developer conference, such as a feature in Lens that lets users search by capturing a video, a planning tool that can generate trip itineraries and meal plans with a single query, and suggestions within search results. While similar products have come under scrutiny for summarizing content and not directing users to the actual sources of information, Google says that early data shows that the new way of searching will actually lead to more clicks to the open web.

theverge.com · 6 min

TLDR AI

GOOGLE I/O

Google announced many new features, including Gemini Flash, Veo video generation, Imagen 3, and its newest assistant, Project Astra, at I/O 2024. In all, there are an impressive number of improvements, including 2m token context length, dramatically cheaper models, and improved multimodality.

blog.google · 9 min

TLDR Web Dev

HOW WE SAVED 10S OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS DEPLOYING LOW COST OPEN SOURCE AI TECHNOLOGIES AT SCALE WITH KUBERNETES

This author successfully replaced OpenAI's API with an open-source alternative to reduce the cost of running large-scale AI applications. They tried using Ollama on a local machine to generate text summaries, but limitations with concurrent processing led to them using vLLM (a fast inference runner). To handle large volumes of requests, the author used a Kubernetes cluster to deploy and load balance vLLM.

opensauced.pizza · 14 min

TLDR InfoSec

APPLE BACKPORTS FIXES FOR 0-DAY EXPLOITED IN ATTACKS TO OLDER IPHONES

Apple has backported a fix for CVE-2024-23296, which was disclosed in March, to older devices. The vulnerability was a memory corruption bug that allowed attackers to bypass kernel memory protections. Apple reported that the vulnerability may have been actively exploited.

bleepingcomputer.com · 2 min

TLDR Crypto

TORNADO CASH DEVELOPER ALEXEY PERTSEV SENTENCED TO 64 MONTHS

A Dutch court convicted the Tornado Cash developer of laundering $1.2 billion of crypto, with a three-judge panel sentencing him to five years and four months in prison. Co-founder Roman Storm is facing similar charges in the United States, with a federal court trial scheduled for September.

theblock.co · 1 min

TLDR

OPENAI CHIEF SCIENTIST ILYA SUTSKEVER IS OFFICIALLY LEAVING

Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's co-founder and chief scientist, is officially leaving the company. Sutskever helped lead the coup against Sam Altman and then later changed his mind. His employment status had been ambiguous since the ouster. Jakub Pachocki, the company's director of research, will be OpenAI's new chief scientist.

theverge.com · 4 min

TLDR

WEIGHT LOSS FROM WEGOVY SUSTAINED FOR UP TO FOUR YEARS, TRIAL SHOWS

A large long-term trial of semaglutide found that early weight loss from the drug is generally maintained for up to four years, with the participants in the study receiving weekly injections. The participants in the study tended to lose weight over the first 65 weeks on the drug but then hit a plateau. Semaglutide reduced participants' risk of heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular-related deaths by 20% over the span of a little over three years. 52.4% of participants who received the drug in the study moved to a lower category of body mass index during the trial.

arstechnica.com · 3 min

TLDR

NEW GEL BREAKS DOWN ALCOHOL IN THE BODY

A protein-based gel developed by researchers at ETH Zurich can break down alcohol in the gastrointestinal tract without harming the body. The gel, made from whey protein fibrils, uses individual iron atoms to convert alcohol in the intestine into harmless acetic acid. It has been shown to reduce blood alcohol levels in mice by up to 50%. The gel is only effective as long as there is still alcohol in the gastrointestinal tract, so it can't help with alcohol poisoning. While it has yet to be tested in humans, the researchers are confident it will be a success, so they have already applied to patent the gel.

ethz.ch · 5 min

TLDR

PROJECT IDX, GOOGLE'S NEXT-GEN IDE, IS NOW IN OPEN BETA

Project IDX is an AI-centric, browser-based development environment that was launched as an invite-only service in August. Over 100,000 developers have already tried the service, which is now available in open beta. Google has added an integration with the Google Maps Platform into the IDE and integrations with the Chrome Dev Tools and Lighthouse to help debug applications. It will soon enable deploying apps to Cloud Run, Google Cloud's serverless platform for running front- and back-end services, and integrate with Checks, Google's AI-powered compliance platform.

techcrunch.com · 3 min