TLDR 2024-02-28

AFTER A DECADE OF STOPS AND STARTS, APPLE KILLS ITS ELECTRIC CAR PROJECT

Apple has reportedly ended work on its electric car project. It will shift some of the staff to work on generative AI projects while laying off others. Project Titan, which had been in development for 10 years, was originally going to be a car with a luxurious limo-like interior and robust self-driving capabilities. Its ambitions were scaled back after multiple changes in direction and leadership. The project faced high startup costs and a difficult regulatory environment, making it hard for the company to find the profit margins it hoped for.

META MIGHT DEMO A PAIR OF ‘TRUE’ AR SMART GLASSES LATER IN 2024

Meta may reveal a pair of augmented reality smart glasses at its Meta Connect event later this year. Orion will be a 'true' AR device. There is a lot of internal pressure at the company to produce a high-quality demo. Company insiders are now experimenting with advanced prototypes. The glasses likely won't be available to the public until 2027.

IT TURNS OUT THAT ODYSSEUS LANDED ON THE MOON WITHOUT ANY ALTIMETRY DATA

Intuitive Machines believes that its mission to land on the Moon was a complete success, despite Odysseus toppling over after touching down. The moon lander's range finders were discovered to be inoperable a couple of hours before it was due to attempt to land on the Moon, so the company rewrote its software to take advantage of three telescopes on a NASA payload for altimetry purposes. While the patch mostly worked, Odysseus' onboard flight computer was unable to process the data in real time - its last accurate altitude reading was more than 12 minutes before touchdown. This forced the lander to rely on optical data, resulting in it coming down much faster than planned.

VARDA’S DRUG-COOKING WINNEBAGO WILL BE REMEMBERED AS A SPACE PIONEER

Varda's Winnebago series is designed to bring pharmaceutical research specimens back to Earth for laboratory analysis and eventual commercial exploitation. The company's business plan involves producing pharmaceuticals and other goods in low-Earth orbit inside an automated laboratory for a fraction of the cost of a human space flight mission. Some goods benefit from being produced in a microgravity environment. The success of the mission may mean that the FAA will see the same increase in demand for reentry licenses that it has seen for launch licenses.

INGESTR

ingestr is a command-line tool that can copy data between databases with a single command. It can copy data from any source to any destination without any code. ingestr supports incremental loading with append, merge, or delete+insert.

THE UNWRITTEN RULES (TILL NOW) OF NEGOTIATING WITH META

Meta is hiring more engineers than any of the other FAANGs. Its centralized hiring process is completely divorced from the teams candidates might end up on. Interviews are conducted with people whom candidates might never work with again. After initial interviews, candidates will go through a team-matching phase, during which recruiters will likely down-level them. Candidates will then be made lowball offers with just a few days to make a decision. Meta will refuse to negotiate unless candidates can show other offers from comparable companies. This post shares tips on how to navigate the process and negotiate the best deal.

WENDY’S WILL EXPERIMENT WITH DYNAMIC SURGE PRICING FOR FOOD IN 2025

Wendy's will start testing dynamic pricing and AI menu features in 2025. Dynamic pricing means that prices for food items will automatically change throughout the day depending on demand. The company will invest approximately $20 million to install digital menus capable of displaying real-time variable prices across all of its company-operated locations in the US. Dynamic pricing is a common business practice for several industries, but its application in the fast-food sector is largely untested.

WONDER, MARC LORE'S $3.5 BILLION STARTUP, HAS LAUNCHED A FOOD HALL IN WALMART

Wonder has opened its 11th location inside a Walmart in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. The company plans to open two more locations inside Walmart stores in Ledgewood and Teterboro, New Jersey. Wonder is a 'fast-fine' food startup that until last year operated high-tech food trucks. The company achieved a $3.5 billion valuation after a $350 million capital raise in 2022. Its pivot away from its curbside delivery model netted a $100 million loss.

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KLARNA SAYS ITS AI ASSISTANT DOES THE WORK OF 700 PEOPLE AFTER IT LAID OFF 700 PEOPLE

Klarna has released data that demonstrates AI's ability to handle customer communications, make shoppers happier, and drive better financial results.

WHY TIME SEEMS TO PASS FASTER AS WE AGE

The brain is a prediction device that likes to pay attention to what's new and surprising - new surprises come less often as we age, so the brain notices and memorizes less as well.

HOW AND WHY WE RIPPED OUR OS PRODUCT APART FOR A FULL REBUILD

This article tells the story of Browserless' battle with tech debt and how the company completely rebuilt its product.

THE MARKET ALWAYS WINS

Either you have something people want or you don't - you can't beat the market.

CHINA BREAKTHROUGH PROMISES OPTICAL DISCS THAT STORE HUNDREDS OF TERABYTES

Researchers in China have developed an optical disc that can store up to 200 terabytes of data.

LITESTAR

Litestar is a lightweight and flexible ASGI framework for building performant APIs.

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