TLDR 2025-04-30

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META HAS FINALLY LAUNCHED ITS CHATGPT COMPETITOR

Meta has launched Meta AI, a standalone AI app built on the company's latest Llama 4 model. Its standout feature is the Discover feed, which lets users see how their connections use Meta AI. Users have full control over what gets shared, but opting out of having user data scraped to train Meta's AI is nearly impossible. The app is designed to pair with Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses - users can start a conversation via voice through the glasses and then continue in the app or web interface later.

WAYMO, TOYOTA STRIKE PARTNERSHIP TO BRING SELF-DRIVING TECH TO PERSONAL VEHICLES

Waymo and Toyota have announced a preliminary partnership to explore bringing robotaxi technology to personally-owned vehicles. The partnership could result in Waymo incorporating Toyota's vehicles into its ride-hailing fleet. Waymo has previously worked with many other automakers, but most of these partnerships only resulted in the companies producing modified vehicles for testing or for Waymo to use in its fleets. The company now serves 250,000 paid rides per week through its commercial driverless ride-hailing services in the San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin regions.

TESLA POWERWALL 3 IS DISRUPTING THE SOLAR INVERTER MARKET

Tesla was the most quoted battery brand in the second half of last year. It was also the second-most quoted inverter brand - its Powerwall 3 includes an integrated inverter that works for both solar and storage applications. Tesla's growth is lowering storage and solar prices. It is unclear whether brand backlash or equipment shortages will affect Tesla's marketplace share this year.

INTEL'S NEXT CHIP NODE, 14A, TO BOOST CPU SPEEDS WITH 'TURBO CELLS'

Intel's 14A chip node will feature a mysterious 'turbo cell' technology designed to boost CPU and GPU speeds. It will offer a 15% to 20% performance-per-watt increase over the 18A process. The 14A process will arrive in 2027 alongside a '14-E' node developed to contain additional feature extensions. The company is also currently developing another node called 18A-P, scheduled to arrive next year, designed to deliver enhanced performance to a broader set of foundry customers.

META PREVIEWS AN API FOR ITS LLAMA AI MODELS

Meta's Llama API is now available in a limited preview. The API allows developers to build Llama-driven services, tools, and applications. It comes with an evaluation suite for testing the quality of custom models. Meta says it won't use customer data from the API to train its models. Models built using the Llama API can be transferred to another host. Access to the API will be expanded in the coming weeks and months.

I USE ZIP BOMBS TO PROTECT MY SERVER

While most bots are just trying to discover new content, there are some created to spam, scrape content, or hack - one way to deal with these bots is by using zip bombs. A zip bomb is a relatively small compressed file that can expand into a very large file that can overwhelm a machine. This post walks readers through how to create a zip bomb to prevent malicious bots from accessing their servers. While zip bombs can be easily detected and circumvented, they are good enough for protecting servers from unsophisticated bots.

ALTMAN AND NADELLA, WHO IGNITED THE MODERN AI BOOM TOGETHER, ARE DRIFTING APART

The relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft has become strained. The companies' chief executive officers are increasingly at odds over the computing power Microsoft provides to OpenAI, the access OpenAI gives Microsoft to its models, and whether OpenAI's AI systems will soon achieve humanlike intelligence. The companies wield tremendous power over one another: Microsoft can effectively block OpenAI's effort to restructure into an independent for-profit company, and OpenAI's board can prevent Microsoft from accessing its most cutting-edge technology. While they helped each other become power players in generative AI, they are now preparing for independent futures.

ASK HN: AI REPLACING ENGINEERS – FIRSTHAND STORIES? (HACKER NEWS THREAD)

There are many stories about companies replacing human engineers with AI. This thread contains responses from real engineers that discuss the current industry landscape. While there is a lot of hype about AI, much of it is built on a misunderstanding of what real engineering work is. Most of an engineer's time is spent thinking and talking about the problem and solutions, not coding. The hard part of software engineering isn't making new code - a large portion of the work is dealing with people, understanding what they really want or need, and helping them understand it.

WHY PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION IS HARD WORK

Performance optimization is hard because you have to explore dozens of cases manually, iterate with inadequate tooling, and merge incompatible optimizations while dealing with both corporate greed and cultural apathy.

MICROSOFT CEO SAYS UP TO 30% OF THE COMPANY'S CODE WAS WRITTEN BY AI

The company is seeing mixed results in AI-generated code across different languages, with more progress in Python and less in C++.

GOVERNMENTS ARE USING ZERO-DAY HACKS MORE THAN EVER

Zero-day attacks are expected to continue increasing over time - the lag time before anyone notices these threats can be very rewarding for hackers.

NEW STARLINK SUBSCRIPTION DROPS HARDWARE PRICE TO $0

Starlink's new 12-month residential service plans bring the price of the dish and router down to $0 in select markets.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT APPLE'S SWITCH FROM RSYNC TO OPENRSYNC

Apple chose not to include rsync 3.x in macOS due to licensing issues, instead using a variant called openrsync, which does most of what rsync does - those who need to have the 3.x version of rsync can install it via Homebrew.

CHINA'S CLINICAL TRIAL BOOM

About a quarter of all clinical trials and early drug development now happens in China.