The Daily Index — Monday, September 23, 2024 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

QUALCOMM APPROACHED INTEL ABOUT A TAKEOVER IN RECENT DAYS

Qualcomm has approached Intel about a takeover in what could be one of the largest and most consequential deals in recent years. Intel is currently suffering through one of its most significant crises in its five-decade history. Its shares have dropped roughly 60% so far this year. A deal is far from certain and it will likely attract antitrust scrutiny.

links.tldrnewsletter.com · 4 min

TLDR AI

CONTEXTUAL RETRIEVAL

Anthropic shows how to semantically chunk documents, which dramatically improves performance while only costing $1/million chunks due to caching.

anthropic.com · 12 min

TLDR Web Dev

HOW DISCORD REDUCED WEBSOCKET TRAFFIC BY 40%

Discord reduced its websocket traffic by 40% through two key optimizations. Firstly, it replaced its existing compression algorithm, zlib, with zstandard, achieving higher compression ratios and shorter compression times. It further improved performance by implementing streaming compression for zstandard, allowing it to utilize historical data for better compression of small payloads. Secondly, it introduced Passive Sessions v2, which only sends updates about changes in server information instead of sending complete snapshots.

discord.com · 17 min

TLDR InfoSec

GLOBAL INFOSTEALER MALWARE OPERATION TARGETS CRYPTO USERS, GAMERS

Recorded Future's Insikt Group is tracking a massive infostealer campaign with over 50 different variants. The campaign is targeting high-value targets in the crypto and gaming communities by spear phishing attacks impersonating job opportunities or collaborations to distribute malware. It is very sophisticated and utilizes a variety of different payloads depending on the OS of the target.

bleepingcomputer.com · 2 min

TLDR Crypto

SEC APPROVES BLACKROCK'S SPOT BITCOIN ETF OPTIONS LISTING

The SEC has approved the listing and trading of options for BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF, iShares Bitcoin Trust, on the Nasdaq. This move demonstrates further mainstream acceptance of crypto, providing institutional investors and traders with more tools to manage and increase their exposure to bitcoin.

links.tldrnewsletter.com · 1 min

TLDR

META HAS A MAJOR OPPORTUNITY TO WIN THE AI HARDWARE RACE

Meta smart glasses have succeeded where other AI wearables and smart glasses haven't and even beyond Meta's own expectations. They're expensive, but affordable compared to an Apple Vision Pro or a Humane Pin, and they have good quality speakers, microphones, and cameras. The AI is sometimes finicky and inelegant, but it works in a natural way. The device easily slots into people's lives now, with no future software update to wait for.

theverge.com · 5 min

TLDR

MICROSOFT TAPS THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR PLANT TO POWER AI

Microsoft has signed a major deal with nuclear plant operator Constellation Energy to buy power for its data centers from the energy company's Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear plant. Constellation plans to spend $1.6 billion to revive the Unit 1 plant, which was shut down in 2019 due to a lack of demand for nuclear energy, by 2028. Microsoft has agreed to purchase all of the power from the reactor, which promises a capacity of 835 megawatts once restored, over the next 20 years. The plant is expected to create 3,400 direct and indirect jobs, add $16 billion to Pennsylvania's GDP, and generate more than $3 billion in state and federal taxes.

techcrunch.com · 3 min

TLDR

AUTOMATIC TAKEOFFS ARE COMING FOR PASSENGER JETS AND THEY'RE GOING TO REDRAW THE MAP OF THE SKY

The first automatic landing system was used in 1965. Now, nearly 60 years later, Brazil's Embraer, the world's third-largest aircraft manufacturer, is introducing a similar technology for takeoffs. The E2 Enhanced Take Off system improves safety, range, and takeoff weight, allowing planes that use it to travel further. It enables planes to take off as early as possible, and more steeply, without ever incurring a tail strike. Embraer has started flight testing the system with the aim of getting it approved by aviation authorities by 2025.

cnn.com · 5 min

TLDR

MAJORITY OF REDIS USERS CONSIDERING ALTERNATIVES AFTER LESS PERMISSIVE LICENSING MOVE

The shift away from permissive open source licensing has motivated the majority of Redis users to consider alternatives. Many are considering or testing Valkey, a fork of Redis managed by the Linux Foundation and backed by AWS, Google, Oracle, and others that was prompted by the decision to switch licenses. Redis claims the decision to change licenses was made to prevent AWS and Google from charging for Redis in their database services without paying for it. It anticipated the fork, as it was exactly what Amazon did with Elasticsearch, but the company believes it is better for them to be able to innovate freely without the fear of its code being taken by cloud service providers and resold.

theregister.com · 3 min