The Daily Index — Thursday, September 12, 2024 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

OPENAI FUNDRAISING SET TO VAULT STARTUP'S VALUATION TO $150 BILLION

OpenAI is in talks to raise $6.5 billion from investors at a valuation of $150 billion. It is also in talks to raise $5 billion in debt from banks in the form of a revolving credit facility. The discussions are still ongoing and the terms could change. The financing will support the need for computing power and other operating expenses. OpenAI is aiming to allow employees to sell some of their shares in a tender offer later this year.

bloomberg.com · 3 min

TLDR AI

ADOBE PREVIEWS ITS UPCOMING FIREFLY VIDEO MODEL

Adobe's Firefly Video Model brings AI-powered features to video editing software like Premiere Pro. The new model, available in beta later this year, offers editors enhanced workflows to explore creative ideas, fill timeline gaps, and add new elements to footage.

blog.adobe.com · 3 min

TLDR Web Dev

SQLITE ON RAILS: THE HOW AND WHY OF OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE

SQLite out-of-the-box on Rails isn't production ready. It needs some performance improvements with the help of some Ruby gems (packages) that enable immediate transactions, manage write query queues, and release the Global VM lock while queries wait for database responses. SQLite should be used in the write-ahead-log (WAL) mode and should have separate connection pools for reading and writing operations.

fractaledmind.github.io · 19 min

TLDR Crypto

SONY'S L2 WILL CREATE A JAPANESE YEN STABLECOIN WITH SONY BANK

Sony Bank is planning to launch a Stable Yen on Sony's upcoming L2, Soneium. The experimental process to determine its legal status will last several months. The project's goal is to make money transfers faster and cheaper.

threadreaderapp.com · 1 min

TLDR Design

FIGMA HAS ADDED A PDF & JPEG EXPORT QUALITY SELECTOR

Figma has introduced a new export quality setting to give users greater control over file size and image quality when exporting frames and images as JPEGs or PDFs. The updated quality menu lets users choose between High, Medium, or Low quality for JPEG or PDF exports. Low-quality compresses images the most, resulting in the smallest file size, while High quality avoids any compression.

ux-news.com · 1 min

TLDR

GOOGLE WILL NOW LINK TO THE INTERNET ARCHIVE TO ADD MORE CONTEXT TO SEARCH RESULTS

Google Search results now directly link to The Internet Archive to add historical contexts for the links in results. It had removed its cached pages feature from Search earlier this year. The feature can be accessed by tapping on 'More about this page' through the three-dots menu that appears alongside all search results. It is still rolling out - a screenshot is available in the article.

9to5google.com · 2 min

TLDR

ORACLE IS DESIGNING A DATA CENTER THAT WOULD BE POWERED BY THREE SMALL NUCLEAR REACTORS

Oracle is designing a data center that will require more than a gigawatt of power. It will be powered by three small modular nuclear reactors. Oracle has already received building permits for the reactors but hasn't publicly disclosed the location of the data center or future reactors. There are currently three operational small modular reactors in the world, with experts in the industry generally agreeing that the technology won't be commercialized in the US until the 2030s.

cnbc.com · 2 min

TLDR

PROPOSED UNDERWATER DATA CENTER SURPRISES REGULATORS WHO HADN'T HEARD ABOUT IT

NetworkOcean launched out of Y Combinator on August 15 by announcing plans to dunk a small capsule filled with GPU servers into the San Francisco Bay. The founders say that moving data centers off land would slow ocean temperature rise by drawing less power and letting seawater cool the capsules' shells. Scientists say that the slightest heat or disturbance from the submersibles could trigger toxic algae blooms and harm wildlife. The startup has been pursuing its initial test without seeking any permits from key regulators. It intends to test its submersible for about an hour in an area it says is privately owned and not subject to regulatory oversight.

arstechnica.com · 9 min

TLDR

THE MODERN CLI RENAISSANCE

The rate at which new CLI tools are being written has picked up over the past few years after seeing relatively little activity between 1995 and 2015. This article discusses the trend where people are rewriting and rethinking staples of the command line interface, why the trend may be happening, and why the trend is a good thing. New tools have the opportunity to learn from their predecessors and build upon them. While the new tools may not be perfect, they are a result of software becoming more polished and adapted to new use cases.

gabevenberg.com · 14 min