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A NEW WAY TO CREATE HIGH-QUALITY HUMAN IMAGES

This project introduces a new tool, UnitedHuman, that uses images from many different sources and combines them, even if they're in different sizes or focused on different parts.

LIBRARY FOR RL ON DIFFUSION MODELS

Tuning language models with RL is becoming a standard step in the model deployment pipeline. This will now be easier with diffusion models and also with the release of DRLX, which allows users to specify a reward model or use a predefined one.

A BETTER IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

This project made a new tool that helps improve the quality of pictures in a way that's easier to understand than other methods out there. The tool, called HMTF-Net, looks at different parts of a photo and figures out the best way to enhance each part.

UNRAVELING THE AI-GENERATED SPIRAL ART PHENOMENON

A Reddit user's AI-generated spiral art using Stable Diffusion and ControlNet AI tech went viral, signaling changing perceptions of AI-generated art.

IS GENERATIVE AI AN ENTERPRISE THING?

The dust is settling around the excitement around generative AI, which means people are settling in to figure out how it can be useful in the enterprise. Short story: it’s hugely beneficial. Long story: it’s going to take time.

JONY IVE IS REPORTEDLY CREATING AN AI GADGET WITH SAM ALTMAN

Apple’s former chief design officer Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are allegedly exploring opportunities to collaborate on building an unspecified artificial intelligence hardware device.

CRYPTO

SEC Chair Gary Gensler faced criticism from lawmakers regarding his crypto regulation approach during a House hearing. He was questioned about the classification of bitcoin, how that compared to other assets like Pokemon cards, and the approval of bitcoin ETFs. Lawmakers also expressed concerns over Gensler's transparency with Congress, especially regarding interactions with crypto exchange FTX.

CRYPTO EXCHANGE KRAKEN PLANS TO OFFER TRADING IN US-LISTED STOCKS

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is reportedly planning to offer trading of US-listed stocks and ETFs, a first in the company's history. Launching via a new division, Kraken Securities, the service aims to go live in 2024. The move positions Kraken to compete with players like Robinhood and Public.com in the zero-commission market. While the "crypto winter" likely pushed Kraken to pursue this new product line, the company has still managed to grow its market share on the crypto side despite the brutal market conditions.

GEVULOT

Gevulot is a fully permissionless and programmable layer 1 blockchain for deploying proof systems as on-chain programs. It features high liveness guarantees, predictable fees, and performance to match centralized provers. Gevulot allows users to deploy proof systems and interact with them as easily as they would with a smart contract.

CHAINLINK EXTENDS CROSS-CHAIN PROTOCOL TO COINBASE’S BASE

Chainlink has expanded its Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol to Base, enabling increased cross-chain communication between this up-and-coming chain and others supported by CCIP. With the inclusion of CCIP, developers can create applications that can communicate and execute transactions across multiple blockchains. The move is another step in Chainlink’s plan to boost blockchain interoperability and utilization.

WHY IS FULLY HOMOMORPHIC ENCRYPTION THE NEXT BIG THING

Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a cutting-edge cryptography method that enables computations on encrypted data, could revolutionize blockchain development. The technology allows transactions to leave a user's wallet encrypted, providing end-to-end encryption for the first time in web3. A team at Fhenix announced it is developing the first FHE-based blockchain, supported by a seed funding round led by ColliderVC and Multicoin Capital.

INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE

TON's recent sudden surge in price took many by surprise. TON is building a decentralized internet infrastructure that comprises four key components: the TON Blockchain, TON DNS, TON Storage, and TON Sites. Its ecosystem has over 800 million users worldwide. This thread looks at TON, the history behind the token, and why its potential shouldn't be underestimated.

PRODUCT-MARKET FIT

Critics argue the adoption of crypto is delayed by issues with UX. However, Li Jin, co-founder of Variant, argues that the real issue is the lack of products people genuinely want, indicating a missing product-market fit. Jin calls for crypto creators to build products that satisfy a wider variety of human needs, not solely financial ones. They believe this will facilitate wider adoption of crypto and create a richer online experience.

DECISION ON VANECK, ARK ETHER ETFS

The SEC is evaluating filings for spot crypto ETFs from Franklin Templeton and Hashdex. It has delayed decisions on VanEck's and ARK’s ether ETF applications. The regulator has until late May 2024 to rule on these applications. It has also postponed deadlines for spot bitcoin ETF submissions from Ark 21Shares and Global X.

RUNE SHOP: A POSSIBLY VALID MINTER FOR RUNES

This repo provides a simple tool for minting Runes, a new fungible token standard for bitcoin proposed by Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor.

CRYPTOCURRENCY EXCHANGE BINANCE TO EXIT RUSSIA

Binance is exiting Russia, selling its operations to newly-launched CommEX and ceasing all services in the coming months due to compliance issues, with no ongoing revenue shares or buyback options post-sale.

CRYPTO LENDER BLOCKFI GETS COURT NOD FOR PLAN TO REPAY CUSTOMERS

A US Bankruptcy Court approved BlockFi's liquidation plan, moving closer to repaying customers. However, the final payout still depends on BlockFi's legal outcomes with FTX and other firms.

IDRIS ELBA IS READY TO TALK ABOUT CRYPTO

Idris Elba, cautious about the crypto frenzy during the bull run, recently partnered with Stellar Development Foundation to explore crypto's potential for financial inclusion.

ALTMAN

Apple's former chief design officer Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are allegedly considering a partnership to build a hardware device powered by AI. It's unclear what kind of device it will be or if OpenAI or a third-party manufacturer will create it.

CONCEPTS THAT TRANSFORM HUMANITY

The Red Dot Award for Design Concepts celebrates the power of conceptualization, showcasing designs that embody creativity, collaboration, and impeccable execution. This year's edition features a clock that displays the time using Styrofoam grains resembling snow, an intelligent rotary stove, a design toolkit for saving the Earth designed for kids, and many other exciting projects.

CENTERS

Google is celebrating its 25th anniversary with the most fun and exciting facts about its offices and data centers across over 200 cities worldwide. The list includes Google's desert office, the company's sticky-note art gallery, and its first office on the moon (!).

DESIGN SYSTEMS: AVOIDING COMMON PITFALLS

Problems like reduced creativity and exploration can be solved by starting designs in lower fidelity. Rigid ruling can be solved by shifting the nature of the design system from “rule-based” to “principle-based.” A lack of context on when a component should be used and how can be solved by starting with basics and getting those right first.

HOW TO MAKE THE CASE FOR DESIGN SYSTEMS

The benefits designers get from a design system include a flexible tool that facilitates their focus on solving user problems, a useful set of constraints when starting new, nebulous work, freedom from designing the same things over and over again, and a higher likelihood of consistent execution of their designs. Engineers get a UI that's DRY, waste less time on specific one-off UI bugs, and spend more time building meaningful features and quality UI with less effort.

HOW TO CHOOSE FONTS FOR RESPONSIVE WEB INTERFACES

When choosing a font for responsive web interfaces, consider the platform needs, the languages that need to be supported, how the design system might grow, and how its needs might change. When it comes to font personality, evaluate font legibility and readability, how they look when set at a small size, the fonts’ numbers, and lean towards functionality instead of expression.

TRENDY COLOR PALETTES AND GRADIENTS

Effective color choices always consider what needs to be communicated and reinforced. Spectrum Art brings the latest color trends and briefly explains what they help achieve. It shows a full-page composition using the color palette for each color detail page.

ANIMATED ICON COLLECTION

This fantastic collection includes 1,490 free animated icons. Lordicon offers several customization options depending on the icon family and allows users to download them in multiple formats like GIF, Lottie, and MP4.

COLLABORATIVE DESIGN TOOL FOR ARCHITECTS AND DESIGNERS

Rayon is a browser-based collaborative design tool for the architecture, engineering, and construction industries. The Paris-based startup wants to improve the design process by making it more collaborative and accessible to teams and stakeholders. The platform can also be used as a central object library repository compatible with the most popular image formats, PDF, and CAD documents (DWG, DXF).

FIVE TAKEAWAYS FROM MY MICROSOFT DESIGN INTERNSHIP

Every task must have a purpose, and more importantly, an understanding of how it will evolve. The only thing stopping you from doing a better job is yourself. Don’t ask for permission but be proactive and ask for forgiveness if things go wrong. Encourage stakeholder's expertise and involvement and let them drive the initiative.

The tactile experience of flipping through a beautifully designed magazine remains unmatched. For graphic designers especially, print magazines offer a source of inspiration that's tangible and immersive and presents content in a completely different visual way to digital. This article features the best magazines for graphic design inspiration, including Eye Magazine, Communication Arts, Idea, Creative Review, Slanted, Typeone, and Wallpaper.

HOW LINEAR BUILDS PRODUCT

It's rare to hear about successful product teams that don't have a product manager, ditch metrics, are fully remote, and don't run A/B tests. Linear's unique story helps shine some light on alternative formats and workflows for creating a superb product without following the usual script.

A GAME OF SHAPES AND STRATEGY

Halfsies, a new game from Brilliant, will test your cutting skills. Let's see if that designer's eye of yours is as powerful as you claim!

INTERFACE QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS

Small user interface adjustments can significantly improve user experiences. This simple but effective list teaches or reminds you about these low-hanging fruits.

THE 10 HEURISTICS OF CONTENT DESIGN: UNLEASHING ITS POWER

Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics for user interface design are well-known in the design community. However, there's no equivalent in content design. Jas Deogan wants to change that by proposing 10 heuristics to guide how designers deal with content.

DEVICES

Meta’s push on generative AI was ever so evident at its 2023 Connect conference. The company unveiled several new AI and VR tools, including an AI chat assistant available in different celebrity voices, new AI image editing tools on Instagram, generative AI stickers, and a new AI studio that allows businesses to create their own AI engagement systems to reflect their own branding.

PACKAGE

X may soon charge a different rate for users to remove ads from their main timeline entirely. The app currently generates around $12 USD per user per month based on ad exposure alone. This means an ad-free tier would likely be more expensive than the current $8 X Premium plan. 0.5% of X’s user base is currently paying to use the app.

9 ULTIMATE GROWTH HACKING STRATEGIES + EXAMPLES

Growth hacking involves quickly testing various marketing techniques to identify opportunities for rapid expansion. This article contains 9 strategies for growth hacking, including referral marketing, content marketing to convey product value, influencer outreach for brand awareness, and building pre-launch email lists.

UNIQUE VALUE

Most positioning exercises focus on the functional advantages of a particular product vs. the competition. The T-Shaped framework goes further. It expands the concept of advantages into 3 buckets: unique functional value, added convenience, and brand value. This post explains each element in more detail and provides examples of how all 3 together translate into a stronger strategy.

GROWTH EXPERIMENTS: A SIMPLE FRAMEWORK TO BUILD THEM

Conducting growth experiments without a clear structure and process can get messy. This guide covers a framework for planning, executing, and learning from growth experiments. A “Growth Hacking Process” Notion template is available.

SPOTIFY: INTRODUCING VOICE TRANSLATION FOR PODCASTERS

Spotify has started piloting Voice Translation for podcasts, a feature powered by AI that translates podcasters’ voices into Spanish, French, and German. It's aiming to expand access to more creators and languages in the near future.

IS YOUR INTERNATIONAL GROWTH STRATEGY A HOT MESS?

Companies see internationalization as an exciting growth initiative, only to receive a disappointing lack of impact from it. This is often due to a lack of adequate preparation and not fully understanding the new markets. This guide includes several best practices for international growth, including rethinking product-market fit in each new market, building a cross-functional team that owns multiple levers along the user journey, and starting with a small set of tier 1 markets before expanding further.

TOP 5 GAME-CHANGING INFLUENCER CAMPAIGNS

This article analyzes 5 great influencer campaigns from Toyota, McDonald’s, Hilton, Essence, and TIAA. It brings a detailed behind-the-scenes look into what made them successful, looks at key metrics, and shares best practices from the campaigns.

BEST PRACTICES FOR OUTSOURCING CONTENT WRITING

The Content Marketing Institute shares that 57% of the top content marketing performers rely on content outsourcing. However, 65% of B2B marketers struggle to find partners with adequate topical expertise. This guide covers platforms to source content partners from, best practices for onboarding, and how to provide feedback to ensure high quality of work is maintained.

26% OF THE TOP 100 WEBSITES ARE NOW BLOCKING GPTBOT

At least 26 of the top 100 most popular websites—and 242 of the top 1000—are now blocking OpenAI’s web crawler, including Stack Exchange, Pinterest, and Indeed.

PROS/CONS OF WHITELISTING

This post shares 5 different types of whitelisting for direct-to-consumer brands and provides the pros and cons of each option.

IMPACT OF META BLOCKING NEWS IN CANADA FOR 1+ MONTH

Meta’s usage numbers have not been impacted by the blocking of news in Canada. However, publishers are seeing a decline in referral traffic and revenue.

STORAGE CHALLENGES IN THE EVOLUTION OF DATABASE ARCHITECTURE

A team of Postman engineers tackled a storage issue with the Sync service, which had been running since 2014 and was facing physical storage limitations on an AWS RDS Aurora cluster. The team initially attempted to prune older records to free up space but found that it didn't work as expected due to certain constraints. They then devised an approach to free up tables without compromising system reliability, resulting in 60TB of space freed.

SPEEDING UP YOUR CODE WHEN MULTIPLE CORES AREN’T AN OPTION

Parallelism is the practice of using multi-threading or multiprocessing to take advantage of multiple CPU cores for improved performance. There are still many optimizations you can make to lower-level code when parallelism isn’t available. This article explores various optimizations, including simplifying rounding operations, reducing memory usage by reusing arrays, and minimizing conditional statements.

10 LESSONS FROM INDIE HACKERS AND SUCCESSFUL SIDE VENTURES

Indie hacking and side hustles are more common for software engineers today due to the recent state of the tech market, the advent of AI, and inflationary pressures. This author interviewed seven indie hackers and software engineers with side ventures who make over 20k a month and distilled the learnings. Software engineers who have successful side ventures got there by focusing on the intersection of their unfair advantages and passions and maintaining non-negotiable consistency.