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THE DAILY INDEX

Technology, AI, software, security, crypto and business

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

SPACEX SCALES UP STARFACTORY, AIMING TO BUILD A STARSHIP A DAY

SpaceX's Starfactory started construction back in February. The upgrade gives Starbase an extra 100,000 square feet of factory floor to help SpaceX reach its ambitious goal of producing one Starship a day. SpaceX intends to start building Starship Version 2 at the new Starfactory. Starship Version 2 is said to hold more propellant, have improved reliability and a lower dry weight, and feature aerodynamic changes. There are currently over 1,800 full-time employees at Starbase.

AI IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AT GOOGLE: PROGRESS AND THE PATH AHEAD

Google has integrated AI into its internal software development tools, with developers now using AI-based code completion for 50% of code characters. It has improved both model accuracy and user experience, and the company plans to further leverage AI in areas like testing, code understanding, and code maintenance. The industry as a whole is moving towards adding natural language as a common interface for software engineering tasks, like fixing bugs and writing new code.

SIRI IS REBORN IN IOS 18 — EVERYTHING APPLE'S VOICE ASSISTANT WILL BE ABLE TO DO

Details about Siri's new functionalities as well as prompts that Apple used to test the software have been leaked. Many of the prompts used contain natural language, often detailing descriptions of what the user is trying to do along with arguably superfluous details. Several core apps, including Notes, Photos, Safari, and Mail, will be getting enhanced Siri features in iOS 18. This article looks at all of the enhanced Siri features coming in iOS 18 and other updates that can be expected in iOS 18 and macOS 15.

A REVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY

This article discusses different ways in which biology can be hacked without gene editing. For example, scientists have used drug combinations to create planarians with two heads or two tails. The two-headed worms produce two-headed offspring indefinitely, meaning that the scientists achieved a permanent change in the structure of the worm - without changing its genes. Studies like this open up the possibility of a perspective shift in how the body works.

ARS CHATS WITH PRECISION, THE BRAIN-CHIP MAKER TAKING THE ROAD LESS INVASIVE

Competition is amping up in the brain-computer interface (BCI) space as recent advances have the field buzzing with anticipation. Precision Neuroscience is one of the startups at the forefront of the field. It has placed its device on the brains of 14 human patients so far and is hoping to at least double that number by the end of this year. The company expected to have its first BCI on the market next year. This article takes a look at the BCI space, Precision's device, how it works, future designs, and more.

SO YOU WANT TO BUILD A BROWSER ENGINE

This blog post contains advice on building a browser engine that's competitive with Chromium. Focusing on the right set of imparted and hard use cases will help a lot in the beginning. Some of these constraining use causes include site isolation, content main thread sanctity, fast JS-DOM calls, page load performance, and typing latency. The post also contains ideas on how browsers can be improved in general. For example, they could restore state after a browser reset.

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