The Daily Index — Monday, July 8, 2024 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

GOOGLE CONSIDERED BLOCKING SAFARI USERS FROM ACCESSING ITS NEW AI FEATURES, REPORT SAYS

Convincing iOS users to use Google's own apps instead of Safari has been a challenge for Google. Google hired former Instagram and Yahoo executive Robby Stein to oversee the push from Safari. The company reportedly considered limiting its AI Overviews feature to its own apps, excluding Safari users, but ultimately decided against the move.

9to5mac.com · 3 min

TLDR AI

A HACKER STOLE OPENAI SECRETS, RAISING FEARS THAT CHINA COULD, TOO

A hacker gained access to OpenAI's internal messaging systems early last year. They accessed details from discussions in an internal online forum but did not get into the systems where the company houses and builds its artificial intelligence. Details of the incident were revealed to employees in April 2023. Executives decided not to share the news publicly because no information about customers or partners was stolen. It is believed that the hacker was a private individual with no known ties to a foreign government. OpenAI did not inform the FBI or anyone else in law enforcement about the incident.

nytimes.com · 8 min

TLDR Web Dev

HOW UBER MINIMIZES FLAKY TESTS

Uber developed Testopedia to manage its large suite of tests. It's used to track test statistics and categorize tests based on their stability. Testopedia uses a bucketing algorithm to handle test queries and uses a sliding window algorithm to identify flaky tests.

blog.quastor.org · 5 min

TLDR InfoSec

ALABAMA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SUFFERED A DATA BREACH FOLLOWING A BLOCKED ATTACK

The Alabama State Department of Education stopped a ransomware attack on June 17, but some data was accessed and services disrupted. Parents and education employees are advised to monitor their credit, as student and employee data may have been compromised.

securityaffairs.com · 2 min

TLDR Crypto

CELSIUS SUING FORMER CUSTOMERS FOR WITHDRAWING BEFORE BANKRUPTCY DECLARATION

Celsius Network filed a lawsuit in New York against thousands of its users, especially those who withdrew their funds up to 90 days before the platform declared bankruptcy. The company is now looking to claw back the withdrawals at current market rates (far exceeding the amount at time of withdrawal).

threadreaderapp.com · 1 min

TLDR

APPLE GREEN LIGHTS EPIC GAMES STORE IN RAPID REVERSAL

Apple has given approval for the Epic Games store for iOS in the EU. Epic's submission was rejected twice previously. The latest decision was reversed just hours after reports started circulating about it. Apple objected to Epic's inclusion of a download button and related copy and has asked the company to fix the buttons in a future submission of the app. Epic still has a lot of work before its app store will be ready - it plans to bring the store to iOS in the next couple of months.

appleinsider.com · 3 min

TLDR

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

ErythroMer is an experimental blood substitute developed by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. It is made from recycled human hemoglobin wrapped in a membrane to mimic a tiny cell. ErythroMer comes as a freeze-dried powder that remains usable for years. It can be reconstituted by simply mixing it with saline. ErythroMer should be safe for any blood type as its membrane doesn't include the red blood cell surface proteins that cause mismatches. It is still in preclinical testing, but it is possible that ErythroMer could be more durable and versatile than real blood.

links.tldrnewsletter.com · 25 min

TLDR

THE WORLD'S FIRST ANODE-FREE SODIUM SOLID-STATE BATTERY

The Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion has created the world's first anode-free sodium solid-state battery. The battery brings the reality of inexpensive, fast-charging, high-capacity batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage closer than ever. It has an architecture with stable cycling for several hundred cycles and is more affordable and environmentally friendly to produce than lithium batteries. Sodium, common in ocean water and soda ash mining, is an inherently more environmentally friendly battery material.

pme.uchicago.edu · 6 min

TLDR

DUCKDB COMMUNITY EXTENSIONS

DuckDB has a new extension mechanism that allows users to register new functions, support new file formats and compression methods, handle new network protocols, and more. Extensions can be published via the DuckDB Community Extensions repository. The repository makes it easier for users to install extensions using a simple syntax. Extension developers can use the repository to avoid the burdens of compilation and distribution.

duckdb.org · 7 min