TLDR 2024-10-02

APPLE READIES NEW IPHONE SE MODEL THAT KILLS THE HOME BUTTON

Apple is nearing production of an updated iPhone SE that will become its new entry-level model. This will be the first update to the iPhone SE since 2022. It is expected to support Apple Intelligence and resemble the iPhone 14. Apple is also aiming to manufacture new iPad Air models and keyboards for release around the same time.

ANTHROPIC HIRES OPENAI CO-FOUNDER DURK KINGMA

One of the lesser-known co-founders of OpenAI, Durk Kingma, is joining Anthropic. He has not revealed which org he will be joining or leading. Kingma will be working remotely mostly from the Netherlands, but will visit the San Francisco Bay Area as frequently as possible. Anthropic has also previously recruited OpenAI's former safety lead and another OpenAI co-founder. Its CEO was once the VP of research at OpenAI.

WORLD'S FIRST 3D-PRINTED HOTEL RISES IN THE TEXAS DESERT

3D-printed architecture firm Icon is now constructing its El Cosmico campground hotel project in the Texas desert. The 3D-printed hotel will have camping areas, a central swimming pool, vacation homes, shared amenities, and some permanent residences. The permanent residences will be up for sale starting at $2.29 million. There will be some affordable 3D-printed housing for the local community. Renders of the project are available.

EARTH HAS CAUGHT A 'SECOND MOON,' SCIENTISTS SAY

Asteroid 2024 PTS, which usually orbits the Sun as part of a small asteroid belt that follows Earth, should now be orbiting Earth as a second moon. The mini-moon event will end on November 25. These gravitational capture events are quite common. 2024 PTS won't be observable to the average skywatcher. After its brief stay around Earth, the asteroid will continue to orbit the sun as part of the Arjuna family of asteroids.

more. Get the cheatsheet

OPENAI UNVEILS EASY VOICE ASSISTANT CREATION AT 2024 DEVELOPER EVENT

OpenAI unveiled four major API updates for developers on Monday at its DevDay 2024 event in San Francisco. The most notable new API feature is the Realtime API, which enables developers to build features similar to ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode into their applications. It streamlines the process of creating voice assistants so developers can handle speech recognition, text processing, and text-to-speech conversion with a single API call. The other API updates enable developers to fine-tune smaller and cheaper models from more advanced models, speed up inference by remembering frequently used prompts, and fine-tune models using images.

EVOLVING GITHUB ISSUES (PUBLIC PREVIEW)

GitHub has unveiled enhancements for GitHub Issues that make it easier to break down work, visualize progress, and categorize and find the right issues on GitHub. They include sub-issues, issue types, and advanced search for issues. This post covers the highlights. The new features are now available in public preview.

BOTS, SO MANY BOTS

More than 60% of ProductHunt's over 1 million signups are bots. Most of the comments on products now seem to be generated by ChatGPT. It is likely that some people are purchasing upvotes. This post looks at data from the site to show how much of its traffic is generated by bot activity.

HOW GOOGLE TRIED TO UNRAVEL THE DOJ'S AD TECH CASE

The Department of Justice has just wrapped up a trial where it argued that Google has created illegal monopolies in the ad tech market. Google has a variety of defenses, ranging from Supreme Court precedent to security concerns. One of its biggest arguments was that the agency doesn't understand advertising and that it was slicing up the market in a way that doesn't make sense. Google also claims the agency is ignoring Google's biggest advertising competition, social media. The trial will resume for closing arguments on November 25.

A LOCAL-FIRST CASE STUDY

This post discusses how a developer created a local-first trip-planning app.

MICROSOFT IS DISCONTINUING ITS HOLOLENS HEADSETS

SCIENTISTS FIND EVIDENCE OF ‘NEGATIVE TIME'

A team of quantum physicists from the University of Toronto observed photons exiting a material before entering it.

MICROSOFT EXEC SENDS STERN WARNING TO STAFF ABOUT RETURN TO OFFICE

Microsoft Cloud + AI Group Executive Vice President Scott Guthrie allegedly said to staff that Microsoft won't return to working in the office five days a week unless it notices a lag in productivity.

SOURCEBOT

Sourcebot is a tool that can effortlessly index and search through multiple public and private repositories in GitHub or GitLab.

IS THE WORLD REALLY RUNNING OUT OF SAND?

The world isn't running out of sand, we're just more aware of the cost involved in procuring it and taking more account for how using it affects the environment.