The Daily Index — Thursday, February 13, 2025 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

OPENAI LAYS OUT PLANS FOR GPT-5

Sam Altman published OpenAI's GPT-4.5 and GPT-5 roadmap on X on Wednesday. Altman acknowledges that OpenAI's product lineup has gotten complicated and that the company wants to simplify its offerings. GPT-4.5, which was internally called Orion, will be OpenAI's last non-chain-of-thought model. GPT-5 will integrate a lot of OpenAI's technology, including o3. Free ChatGPT users will get unlimited GPT-5 chat access at the standard intelligence setting - Plus and Pro subscribers will have access to higher levels of intelligence. It is unknown when the models will be released.

theverge.com · 2 min

TLDR AI

HARVEY RAISES $300M SERIES D

The legal AI startup Harvey raised a substantial sum in a funding round led by Sequoia to continue building tools for law firms.

harvey.ai · 3 min

TLDR Web Dev

I FAILED MY ANTHROPIC INTERVIEW AND CAME TO TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO

This developer's unsuccessful Anthropic Research Fellowship interview had three stages. The first stage was a challenging, timed automated coding test, which required him to code fast. The second stage included a LeetCode-style coding problem and reference checks. The third stage was a virtual onsite which consisted of a research brainstorm, a take-home assignment (partially completed despite cancellation), and a culture fit interview.

blog.goncharov.page · 5 min

TLDR InfoSec

SUBGROUP OF RUSSIA'S SANDWORM COMPROMISING US AND EUROPEAN ORGANIZATIONS, MICROSOFT SAYS

Microsoft has revealed that a subgroup of Sandworm has been conducting a multi-year campaign targeting strategic organizations across the U.S. and Europe. The "BadPilot campaign" focuses on sectors like energy and telecommunications, exploiting vulnerabilities to maintain access and support Russia's military objectives.

therecord.media · 5 min

TLDR Crypto

TRUMP TO TAP FORMER CFTC COMMISSIONER, A16Z POLICY HEAD BRIAN QUINTENZ FOR CFTC HEAD

Brian Quintenz, the head of policy at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), has been chosen by Trump to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Quintenz, who previously served at the CFTC from 2017 to 2021 and organized its Technology Advisory Committee, has been a strong advocate for crypto industry self-regulation, and maintains connections to Fairshake, a crypto-focused PAC that invested $140 million in the 2024 election through a16z. The nomination comes as the CFTC seeks expanded oversight of crypto markets.

coindesk.com · 4 min

TLDR

APPLE IS REPORTEDLY EXPLORING HUMANOID ROBOTS

Apple is reportedly exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid robotic form factors. The company is still in an early proof-of-concept stage. 2028 would be an optimistic timeline for mass production. The robot would be part of a future smart home ecosystem.

techcrunch.com · 3 min

TLDR

WATCH THESE GOOGLE DEEPMIND ROBOTS PLAY A GAME OF SOCCER

Google DeepMind has published a video demonstration of miniature humanoid robots playing a one-on-one game of soccer. The robots are able to understand the rules of the game and can anticipate where the ball is going or when to block shots from an opponent. The 15-second video is available in the article.

techcrunch.com · 1 min

TLDR

SEAFLOOR DETECTOR PICKS UP RECORD NEUTRINO WHILE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

A team building a detector on the Mediterranean Sea got extremely lucky recently when it picked up the most energetic neutrino ever detected. The detector was only 10% of the size it will be on completion. The neutrino originated outside of our galaxy. Once completed, the detector will be able to help scientists detect where sources of neutrinos reside.

arstechnica.com · 4 min

TLDR

THE MISSING TIER FOR QUERY COMPILERS

These days, a cheap NVME SSD can supply data much faster than a query interpreter can process it. Depending on the query, removing the interpreter bottleneck can yield several orders of magnitude speedup. The article looks at different options for compiling queries and their pros and cons. Queries might only be run once, so it's only worth spending time on optimization at compile-time if doing so will save even more time at runtime.

scattered-thoughts.net · 17 min