TLDR 2024-09-25

Swarmia today

OPENAI ROLLS OUT ADVANCED VOICE MODE WITH MORE VOICES AND A NEW LOOK

OpenAI is rolling out Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) to ChatGPT Plus and Team users. Enterprise and Edu customers will start receiving access next week. The upgrade makes ChatGPT more natural to speak with and gives the feature a revamped design. It also adds five new voices and adds some of ChatGPT's customization features, including Custom Instructions and Memory. Users will receive a notification in the ChatGPT app when AVM has been made available to them.

STAR FTX WITNESS CAROLINE ELLISON SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS IN PRISON

Caroline Ellison, the former head of FTX's sister investment firm, Alameda Research, has been sentenced to two years in prison for her role in one of the largest financial frauds in history. She pleaded guilty to seven fraud and money-laundering offices related to FTX's collapse but helped testify against her former boyfriend and boss, Sam Bankman-Fried, putting him in prison for 25 years. Ellison has been ordered to forfeit $11 billion and must give the government any income she receives from selling the rights to her story. The judge has requested that she be sent to a low-security prison near where her family lives. Her surrender date will be after November 7.

FOR THE FIRST TIME, BLUE ORIGIN HAS IGNITED AN ORBITAL ROCKET STAGE

The second stage of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket underwent a successful hot-fire test on Monday. This was the first time Blue Origin integrated and fired an orbital rocket stage. Blue Origin is tracking toward a November launch of its New Glenn rocket. Standing at 320 feet tall, New Glenn still has many potential issues that could delay its schedule, for example, a hurricane is likely to graze Florida's space coast later this week.

OCTOPUSES AND FISH CAUGHT ON CAMERA HUNTING AS A TEAM

Footage captured by divers shows how octopuses can collaborate with fish to hunt for meals. The different species adopt specific roles to maximize the success of the joint hunting expeditions. The octopus works as the decision maker, adapting and responding to different situations, while the fish provide options. In some cases, octopuses have been observed 'punching' fish to punish them or get them to leave a group.

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BUILDING A BETTER FIRST DRAFT FOR DESIGNERS

Figma's Make Designs feature has been renamed to First Draft. First Draft allows users to input design goals, then uses AI to select, arrange, and customize design system components, creating a starting point for designs. It aims to give designers more ways to explore their options and help bring ideas to life. First Draft is now available in a limited beta and will be rolled out to users gradually over the coming months.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR PRODUCT AND DESIGN TASTE

Taste, a crucial asset that designers, developers, founders, and creators rely on in their work, is one of the few qualities that manages to elude commodification. Certain types of media can be consumed to develop taste. To develop taste, read a wide variety of books, critique and digest products, and understand that there's always something to learn from experts in your field. Diversity often helps refine taste.

OPENFREEMAP

OpenFreeMap allows websites and apps to display custom maps for free. Maps can be self-hosted or hosted on OpenFreeMap's public instance. Use of OpenFreeMap's public instance is completely free, with no limits on the number of map views or requests, no registration, no user database, no API keys, and no cookies. Its data comes from OpenStreetMap. OpenFreeMap also provides weekly full planet downloads in both Btrfs and MBTiles formats.

IN THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED: WHEN NASA NEARLY GAVE BOEING ALL THE CREW FUNDING

This excerpt from the book 'REENTRY: SpaceX, Elon Musk and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age' describes a meeting at NASA headquarters 10 years ago where agency leaders met to decide which companies should be awarded billions of dollars to launch astronauts into orbit. The decision boiled down to three players: Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada Corporation. It came down to three factors, price, mission suitability, and past performance, with price being equally weighted to the latter two factors. The decision was close, with NASA officials nearly choosing only Boeing for the contract, but in the end, SpaceX was included.

case study

THE STORY OF MIKE LYNCH CONTINUES TO GET WEIRDER AND WEIRDER

This thread provides a timeline of the story of Mike Lynch, who died on a yacht due to a 'mini tornado' after being found not guilty of fraud after 12 years of criminal investigation - the yacht may have contained encrypted hard drives holding highly classified information tied to intelligence services.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ACCUSES VISA OF DEBIT NETWORK MONOPOLY THAT AFFECTS PRICE OF ‘NEARLY EVERYTHING'

The US Justice Department has sued Visa for creating an illegal monopoly over debit payments by imposing 'exclusionary' agreements on partners and smothering upstart firms, resulting in consumers and merchants paying billions of dollars in additional fees.

THE PYTHON PACKAGE INDEX SHOULD GET RID OF ITS TRAINING WHEELS

It would be hard for PyPI to survive without bandwidth donated by Fastly - this article provides a contingency plan for if corporations decide to stop offering free credits to the Python project.

WP ENGINE SENDS CEASE-AND-DESIST LETTER TO AUTOMATTIC OVER MULLENWEG'S COMMENTS

WP Engine has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Automattic asking the company and its CEO to retract their comments calling WP Engine a 'cancer to WordPress' and to stop making statements against the company.

WILL A.I. BE A BUST? A WALL STREET SKEPTIC RINGS THE ALARM

Building too much of what the world doesn't need typically ends badly.

ARC CREATOR JOSH MILLER ON WHY YOU NEED A BETTER BROWSER THAN CHROME

Arc is a ground-up rethinking of the web browser that makes running complex apps as simple as possible.