TLDR 2024-05-10

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LEAKED DECK REVEALS HOW OPENAI IS PITCHING PUBLISHER PARTNERSHIPS

OpenAI has been pitching partnership opportunities to news publishers through its Preferred Publishers Program. The company has been courting premium publishers since July last year when it struck a deal with the Associated Press. It has since inked deals with Axel Springer, The Financial Times, Le Monde, Prisa, and Dotdash Meredith. OpenAI negotiates deals on a per-publisher basis rather than structuring all of its deals uniformly. While some publishers have opted to partner with OpenAI, others have sued the tech firm for using copyrighted articles without permission.

MICROSOFT'S NEW XBOX MOBILE GAMING STORE IS LAUNCHING IN JULY

Microsoft is aiming to launch its Xbox mobile gaming store in July. The company plans to bring its own first-party portfolio to the store. The store will also provide key parts of the Xbox experience, allowing players' identities, libraries, and rewards to travel across ecosystems. It is unclear how Microsoft will position the store as an alternative for games already existing on rival app stores. The store will initially be web-only.

INTUITIVE MACHINES ON TRACK FOR SECOND MOON TRIP, FOUNDER SAYS

Intuitive Machines Inc. is planning for another trip to the Moon during the last three months of 2024. The mission will aim to install a 4G network on the surface of the Moon. Intuitive Machines made history less than a year ago by setting down the first privately built lander intact on the Moon's surface. The company went public last year via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company, making its founder a billionaire several times over.

A SKEPTIC'S TAKE ON BEAMING POWER TO EARTH FROM SPACE

While the idea of space-based solar power sounds good, there are many potential problems that could doom such a project. Such a misadventure would undermine the credibility of the responsible space agency and waste capital that could be spent improving less risky methods of renewable energy. This article presents a roadmap of the potential challenges that must be overcome before orbital solar power can become truly appealing to electrical utilities.

SYMBOLICA

Symbolica is a computer algebra system. It can match complicated mathematical patterns and work with huge expressions. Symbolica features state-of-the-art polynomial arithmetic and expression optimization, a framework for numerical integration, and APIs for Python, Rust, and C++. A live demo is available.

THE SEARCH FOR EASIER SAFE SYSTEMS PROGRAMMING

Getting to a level where you're comfortable using Rust can be difficult. June is a safe systems language that can be learned as quickly as one can learn Go. It features grouped allocations, arbitrary data structures, full encapsulation, and safe memory recycling. This article introduces June and discusses its features and development. June could become a good complement to Rust once Rust has a stable ABI.

DANGEROUS PROTOCOLS

Protocols are a potential alternative to walled technology gardens. They offer a level of interoperability and customization that platforms don't. A historical look at protocols suggests that their purpose has always been to simplify coordination and communication, leading to conformity over time. Protocols are not owned or mediated by any central authority, so switching protocols isn't as easy as switching platforms. While protocols are not necessarily bad, it is important to acknowledge the dangerous implications of increasingly outsourcing more decisions to them.

LOG SCALES

This article contains a lesson on log scales. It covers the basics, like linear scales, before moving on to more advanced topics such as exponentials, symmetry, homoscedasticity, and more. The article uses many charts and graphs to help visualize the concepts it discusses. It focuses on log10, where segments represent a tenfold increase compared to the last, but there are many other types of log bases to also be aware of that offer different perspectives and may be better suited for specific situations or data types.

I WENT TO CHINA AND DROVE A DOZEN ELECTRIC CARS. WESTERN AUTOMAKERS ARE COOKED

Chinese automakers have put in a lot of effort to understand the desires of their customers, while Western manufacturers seem to just sell the cars they wanted to make.

GOOGLE BUILT SOME OF THE FIRST SOCIAL APPS FOR ANDROID, INCLUDING TWITTER AND OTHERS

Many early Android apps were written by Google as it wanted companies to adopt Android.

LLM-UI

llm-ui is a React library for large language models that allows developers to add custom components to outputs.

HOW AHREFS GETS A BILLION DOLLAR-WORTH INFRASTRUCTURE WITH A 90% DISCOUNT

Ahrefs chose colocation for its infrastructure, allowing its developers to focus on product development rather than getting caught up in a never-ending cycle of trying to optimize cloud costs.

GOOGLE CLOUD ACCIDENTALLY DELETES UNISUPER'S ONLINE ACCOUNT DUE TO ‘UNPRECEDENTED MISCONFIGURATION'

More than half a million UniSuper fund members had no access to their superannuation accounts for a week after a misconfiguration led to the financial services provider's private cloud account being deleted.

THE END OF SOCIAL MEDIA: AN INTERVIEW WITH JACK DORSEY

This interview with Jack Dorsey discusses his exit from Bluesky, how Twitter lost its way, Dorsey's strategy for ending censorship forever, Elon Musk, and the death of social media as we know it.