The Daily Index — Thursday, September 26, 2024 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

META'S NEW LIGHTWEIGHT AR PROTOTYPE SHOWS A FUTURE BEYOND BULKY VR HEADSETS

Mark Zuckerberg revealed a prototype of Meta's Orion AR glasses at this year's Meta Connect keynote. While the 100g pair of see-through augmented-reality glasses won't likely be ready for consumer release anytime soon, the demo represents a new vision of lightweight, wide-ranging, see-through smart glasses. Getting the glasses down to a weight of 100 grams was a challenge - a small amount of processing is done in a 'small puck' that connects wirelessly to the glasses. The glasses use tiny projectors embedded into the arms that shoot light into specially designed waveguides instead of a screen, creating a holographic display that allows for a 70-degree field of view. Pictures and more details are available in the article.

arstechnica.com · 4 min

TLDR AI

LLAMA 3.2: MULTIMODAL

Meta has released a new suite of Llama models with vision capabilities that includes a 1B, 3B, and several new Multimodal models.

llama.com · 12 min

TLDR Web Dev

HOW WE IMPROVED AVAILABILITY THROUGH ITERATIVE SIMPLIFICATION

GitHub goes over its monitoring and observability stack, having implemented a comprehensive approach to improving availability through iterative simplification. The company utilizes a suite of tools, including Datadog, Splunk, Scientist, and Flipper, to monitor performance, analyze data, experiment with code changes, and control the rollout of new features. With these, GitHub has been able to identify and resolve performance issues proactively.

github.blog · 7 min

TLDR Crypto

PAYPAL ENABLES BUSINESS ACCOUNTS TO BUY, HOLD, AND SELL CRYPTOCURRENCY

PayPal has extended cryptocurrency capabilities to U.S. business accounts, allowing merchants to buy, hold, and sell crypto directly through their PayPal accounts, with external transfers to third-party wallets also supported. This move builds on PayPal's ongoing efforts to expand digital currency utility, including the launch of its PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoin.

newsroom.paypal-corp.com · 2 min

TLDR Design

FIGMA'S AI-POWERED APP GENERATOR IS BACK AFTER IT WAS PULLED FOR COPYING APPLE

Figma has relaunched its AI design feature as "First Draft" after refining it due to initial concerns over similarities with existing apps. The tool lets designers use generative AI to start app designs, offering options like wireframing or high-fidelity libraries. It doesn't use customer data for training. The new feature is currently available in a limited beta.

theverge.com · 2 min

TLDR

OPENAI CONSIDERING RESTRUCTURING TO FOR-PROFIT, CTO MIRA MURATI AND TWO TOP RESEARCH EXECS DEPART

OpenAI's board is considering plans to restructure itself into a for-profit business while still retaining its non-profit segment as a separate entity. The structure will make investing more straightforward and make it easier for OpenAI employees to realize liquidity. OpenAI's Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati is leaving the company after six and a half years. Research chief Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph, a research vice-president, are also departing the company.

cnbc.com · 5 min

TLDR

NASA SPACECRAFT TO PROBE POSSIBILITY OF LIFE IN EUROPA'S SALTY OCEAN

Jupiter's moon Europa possibly contains a liquid saltwater ocean that may be potentially as welcoming to life as Earth's. In 2030, NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will swoop past the moon in a series of nearly 50 flybys to remotely probe the ocean in hopes of finding a chemistry that could support life. It may even be capable of detecting microbes directly. It will be a habitability mission rather than a life search mission. If Europa is found to be habitable to life, it could fundamentally change the definition of a habitable zone around a star as it would mean that all that is required for life is ice and gravitational tides.

links.tldrnewsletter.com · 36 min

TLDR

'WORLD-FIRST' INDOOR VERTICAL FARM TO PRODUCE 4M POUNDS OF BERRIES A YEAR

The world's first farm to grow indoor, vertically farmed berries at scale is opening in Richmond, VA. The farm is designed to produce more than four million pounds of strawberries while using a fraction of the land needed for traditional strawberry production. It will not be subject to seasonal and environmental factors that limit yield. The company aims for its strawberries to be on grocery store shelves by early 2025.

newatlas.com · 4 min

TLDR

SUMMARY OF ILYA SUTSKEVERS AI READING LIST

A reading list shared on X earlier this year went somewhat viral due to claims that it was originally compiled by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and part of onboarding at OpenAI. The combined contents of this list amount to about 300,000 words of dense, technical text that requires a decent investment in time and energy for self-study. This post provides a condensed and structured summary of the readings to capture the essential key points, context, and perspective gained, free of mathematical notation. The list contains 27 reading items - papers, blog posts, courses, one dissertation, and two book chapters - all originally dating from 1993 to 2020.

tensorlabbet.com · 15 min