The Daily Index — Friday, June 28, 2024 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

SPACEX TENDER OFFER SAID TO VALUE COMPANY AT RECORD $210 BILLION

SpaceX will sell insider shares at $112 each in a tender offer that values the company at close to $210 billion. The company was valued at $180 billion in December. The new valuation is a record for an American private company. It puts SpaceX on par with some of the world's largest publicly traded companies by market capitalization. Terms on the tender offer haven't been finalized - the size of the offer could change depending on interest from both insider sellers and buyers.

bloomberg.com · 1 min

TLDR AI

SNAP LENSE STUDIO 5.0

Snap has released the GenAI suite in Lens Studio 5.0 - this is a great advancement and is massively useful for developing AR applications.

ar.snap.com · 6 min

TLDR Web Dev

WHY GOOGLE SHEETS PORTED ITS CALCULATION WORKER FROM JAVASCRIPT TO WASMGC

Google Sheets initially used a Java-based calculation engine, but later switched to JavaScript for browser-based calculations. Due to performance limitations of JavaScript compared to Java, Google used WasmGC, an extension to WebAssembly that allows for efficient compilation of garbage-collected languages like Java. The initial prototype was slower than JavaScript, but optimizations like replicating JVM/V8 optimizations, using browser APIs, and making code more platform-agnostic resulted in huge performance improvements.

web.dev · 6 min

TLDR InfoSec

FRESH MOVEIT BUG UNDER ATTACK MERE HOURS AFTER DISCLOSURE

A new vulnerability affecting the SFTP module of MOVEit's software has been disclosed. With a CVSS score of 7.4, the vulnerability allows attackers to perform a forced authentication attack or upload an SSH public key to impersonate users without authentication. The vulnerability is under active exploitation.

darkreading.com · 2 min

TLDR Crypto

VANECK FILES FOR SOLANA ETF

VanEck has filed for the first U.S. Solana ETF, claiming that SOL is a commodity like BTC and ETH. This filing follows the SEC approving spot BTC and ETH ETFs, aiming to track Solana's price through the VanEck Solana Trust on the Cboe BZX Exchange.

theblock.co · 1 min

TLDR

APPLE DEVELOPING NEW WAY TO MAKE IPHONE BATTERIES EASIER TO REPLACE

Apple is reportedly investigating 'electrically induced adhesive debonding' technology to make iPhone batteries more replaceable. The technology would allow a battery to be dislodged from its chassis with a small jolt of electricity to the battery. It could debut with at least one of the iPhone 16 models this year.

9to5mac.com · 2 min

TLDR

PIPING UP AT THE GATES OF DAWN

Astronomers have found a galaxy that was already shining with intense starlight when the universe was only 290 million years old. The earliest, most distant galaxy yet found, JADES-GS-z14-0 is one of a string of discoveries enabled by the James Webb Space Telescope that challenge conventional models of how the first stars and galaxies formed. The discovery proves that luminous galaxies were already in place 300 million years after the Big Bang and are more common than what was expected. Galaxy formation models will need to address the existence of such large and luminous galaxies so early in cosmic history.

nytimes.com · 3 min

TLDR

GERMAN FIRM SYNHELION OPENS ‘WORLD'S 1ST' INDUSTRIAL SOLAR FUEL PLANT

DAWN is a project from Synhelion that aims to remove the dependency on fossil fuels from the transport sector, particularly in aviation. It uses a 65-foot-high solar tower surrounded by a mirror field that concentrates solar rays to produce synthetic fuels using solar heat. The tower has an energy storage system that allows it to generate solar fuel even when there's no sunlight. DAWN is scheduled to begin production in the latter half of the year. Synhelion says DAWN will produce several thousand liters of fuel per year.

interestingengineering.com · 4 min

TLDR

LEARNING FROM POPUP VILLAGES

Some popup villages have seen hundreds of people from the internet gather for multiple months at a time. These gatherings are long enough to build relationships but short enough to not require permanent relocation. People can join these communities for however long they want, creating an opportunity for a demand-first approach to prototyping permanent places. This essay looks at successful popup villages, why they work, and where they could go next.

words.jonhillis.com · 9 min