The Daily Index — Wednesday, December 24, 2025 · TLDR Index

Across today’s newsletters

Today’s Index

TLDR

MORAVEC'S PARADOX AND THE ROBOT OLYMPICS

Many of the things we struggle to program into computers can be learned from data, but only when that data is available. If we can't learn from data, we are forced to program it in at lower performance. Computers can learn any skill, but only with enough data, and we don't want to have to need huge amounts of data for every single task. As models get better, they will need less data to learn new tasks, and when this happens, we'll finally be able to build truly general methods that combine physical understanding and cognition.

physicalintelligence.company · 11 min

TLDR AI

TRANSFORM SOURCES INTO STRUCTURED DATA TABLES IN NOTEBOOKLM

NotebookLM has introduced Data Tables, a new feature that helps users organize and analyze information from sources in a structured format. The feature synthesizes sources into clean, structured tables ready to export to Google Sheets. It is now rolling out to all users. Screenshots of the feature are available in the article.

workspaceupdates.googleblog.com · 3 min

TLDR Dev

WE MASS-DEPLOYED 15-YEAR-OLD SCREEN SHARING TECHNOLOGY AND IT'S ACTUALLY BETTER

Helix is an AI platform where autonomous coding agents work in cloud sandboxes. Users need to watch their AI assistants work, so the team replaced WebRTC with a custom WebSocket streaming pipeline. This wasn't enough because the integration had to work on enterprise networks, which only use HTTP, HTTPS, and port 443. Eventually, the team decided to just send JPEG screenshots for individual frames.

blog.helix.ml · 11 min

TLDR InfoSec

NISSAN SAYS THOUSANDS OF CUSTOMERS EXPOSED IN RED HAT BREACH

Nissan has confirmed that data belonging to approximately 21k customers was breached via a data breach at Red Hat in September. The breached data includes full names, physical and email addresses, phone numbers, and sales data for some customers who purchased or received services at Nissan in Fukuoka, Japan.

bleepingcomputer.com · 2 min

TLDR Crypto

BITCOIN TO REBOUND PERFORM IN 2026, SAYS VANECK

VanEck's David Schassler predicts Bitcoin will be a "top performer" in 2026 after lagging the Nasdaq 100 by roughly 50% year-to-date, with the firm actively buying ahead of expected liquidity return and currency debasement acceleration. Gold surged 70% this year to $4,492, with Schassler targeting $5,000 in 2026 as funding future liabilities increasingly relies on money printing, pushing investors toward scarce stores of value. Bitcoin historically responds sharply when debasement ramps and liquidity returns, with the thesis intact despite 2025's weakness reflecting softer risk appetite and tight liquidity conditions.

coindesk.com · 5 min

TLDR

MICROSOFT WANTS TO REPLACE ITS ENTIRE C AND C++ CODEBASE, PERHAPS BY 2030

Microsoft is hiring staff to translate its codebase from C and C++ to Rust. It plans to combine AI and algorithms to rewrite its biggest code bases. The engineer will be expected to work on the tools Microsoft is building to complete the project. The candidate will have to work three days a week in Microsoft's Redmond office. The role pays between $139,900 and $274,700 a year.

theregister.com · 3 min

TLDR

SINGLE INJECTION TRANSFORMS THE IMMUNE SYSTEM INTO A CANCER-KILLING MACHINE

An Australian team has discovered a way to transform normal T cells into supersoldiers in the body. The treatment helped four people with stubborn blood cancer go into remission for up to five months. The trial marks a step towards the next revolution in CAR T therapy. CAR T cells are usually made outside the body, and making them is costly for both the body and wallet. The durability of the new therapy, its longevity, and immune side effects still need to be studied, but the trials highlight the promise of a one-and-done therapy for deadly blood cancers.

singularityhub.com · 7 min

TLDR

THE ML DRUG DISCOVERY STARTUP TRYING REALLY, REALLY HARD TO NOT CHEAT (LEASH BIO)

Leash Bio is a Utah-based startup that aims to build big datasets of small-molecules x protein interactions and train a model on it, then use the trained model to design a drug. The startup has a nearly pathological design to make sure its models are learning the correct thing. The startup has produced a lot of interesting artifacts from its line of research. This post looks at a few of the discoveries the startup has made.

owlposting.com · 33 min

TLDR

INTERVIEWING FOR ML/AI ENGINEERS

The ML Systems Design interview, as an interview type, is very easy to do badly. Some companies run a parody of the Big Tech interview process, while others clearly have thought deeply about what they want, but they still don't conduct effective interviews. The interview process should be robust enough to avoid being fooled by people who are good at talking, but still accurate enough to calibrate the candidate's level as well as willingness to push out-of-band offers. The best pitch for a candidate is to present to them a slate of talented and thoughtful interviewers who could be their future co-workers, and an interview process rigorous enough to assure them that their co-workers have been thoroughly examined.

moderndescartes.com · 16 min