Despite mandating that office workers start working in the office five days a week starting in January, Amazon still doesn't have enough office space to accommodate its employees. The company has delayed return-to-office dates for personnel in at least seven cities. Some offices won't have sufficient space until April or May. Amazon claims that most employees will have office space by January 2 and that most of the pushed-back return-to-office days are related to buildings being laid out differently for part-time workers rather than insufficient physical space.
Flipboard's team has been overhauling the Flipboard platform over the last year or so to make it part of the social web, or the fediverse. It plans to transition into a fully decentralized way to discover and read stuff from across the internet. Flipboard's Surf app is a browser for the social web. It helps users discover and explore feeds across the fediverse. Surf is now rolling out in beta to some curators and creators.
1-800-CHATGPT (1-800-242-8478) allows anyone in the US to call to talk to ChatGPT via voice chat for up to 15 minutes for free - people outside the US can send text messages to the same number for free using WhatsApp.
yadm is a tool for managing dotfiles based on Git, with a full range of Git's features, that supports system-specific alternative files or templated files, encryption, customizable initialization, and customizable hooks.
In an era where AI is reshaping how businesses operate, the journey of building an early-stage startup [4] has never been more dynamic—or complex. How do founders navigate finding product-market fit, delegation, and scaling, all while adapting to technological innovations?
Nvidia is introducing a $249 version of its Jetson computer, which is essentially a portable brain mostly designed to allow developers of robots, industrial automation, and other hardware to run sophisticated AI computations without connecting to a remote data center. The Jetson lineup makes it easier for small companies, hobbyists, and students to try creating new products that integrate AI functions. The $249 Orin Nano Super nearly doubles the speed and efficiency of the previous device and can process about 70% more computational tasks. Despite trade restrictions, it will be available in China through local distributors.
Databricks has quietly become one of the fastest-growing startups in Silicon Valley. It is now valued at $62 billion after securing $10 billion from investors. Databricks' software is used by data scientists at some of the US' largest companies to analyze the large volumes of information they collect. CEO Ali Ghodsi says the company's success is thanks to the 'strategic surgeries' he performed to keep the company healthy. This article looks at how Ghodsi turned the company around and made it what it is today.
The first batch of 10 Internet satellites for China's Guowang megaconstellation launched Monday on the country's heavy-lift Long March 5B rocket. The fleet of up to 13,000 spacecraft will beam low-latency high-speed Internet signals using an architecture similar to SpaceX's Starlink network. China hasn't published many details about the satellites other than their intended use as broadband Internet relay stations. Guowang is managed by a secretive company called China SatNet, which was established by the Chinese government in 2021.
Towana Looney, a 53-year-old grandmother from Gadsden, Ala, volunteered to become the first living person in the world to get a kidney from a new kind of genetically modified pig. Looney's operation took place on November 25 and she seems to be in good condition. While there are some risks to the procedure, such as the organs spreading pig viruses to people, as well as other ethical concerns, the technology may one day provide an unlimited supply of organs for transplantation and save thousands of patients every year.
Application developers now have access to OpenAI's full o1 model through the API. The new API is more accurate in its use of structured outputs and has improvements in its use of internal function calling. The o1 model uses 60% fewer thinking tokens than o1-preview and it generates better results. Access to the $200/month o1 Pro model is promised to be coming soon.
OpenAuth is a standards-based auth provider for web apps, mobile apps, single-page apps, APIs, or third-party clients currently in beta. It can be deployed as a standalone service or embedded into existing applications. OpenAuth works with any framework or platform and can be employed on Node.js, Bun, AWS Lambda, or Cloudflare Workers. It comes with a prebuilt themeable UI that developers can customize or opt out of.
This article presents a deep analysis of 'Founder Mode' from the lens of another CEO. Brian Chesky could have reached a wider audience if he had told his story in a different way. The way he told the story, the problem was always everyone else, and the solution was always more Brian Chesky, while ignoring the fact that Chesky created the problems by being bad at running the business. Being a CEO is hard and making mistakes is expected, but it's important to be able to hold yourself accountable.
While Klarna's CEO says that the company essentially stopped hiring a year ago due to generative AI, the company has not completely stopped hiring. It is currently hiring for more than 50 roles around the globe according to job postings on its website. Klarna managers said that they were actively hiring or growing their teams at least half a dozen times throughout 2024 according to posts on LinkedIn. The company has recently filled roles on its policy, software engineering, and global partnerships teams. A Klarna spokesperson said that the company is not actively recruiting to expand but only backfilling some essential roles.
What if your phones were manned by a dedicated Sales Department for a fraction of the cost of a salaried employee? How about Customer Support that never sleeps? Operations staff that never make mistakes?
Apple has released a list of top apps and games for 2024. Temu was the most downloaded free app in the US App Store. TikTok made the list at No. 3 behind Threads. ChatGPT made the list at No. 4 - it didn't make the top 10 last year. The full lists can be found on the App Store's Today page.
T-Mobile has open registration for the beta of its T-Mobile Starlink service, which will enable text messaging via satellites in dead zones not covered by cell towers. The service uses Starlink's low-Earth orbit satellites to provide coverage. SpaceX has so far launched over 300 satellites with direct-to-cell capabilities. The beta will begin in early 2025. It will be open to all T-Mobile postpaid customers for free, but capacity is limited.
The EU's IRIS2 constellation is expected to come online by 2030. The Starlink competitor will provide secure connectivity to Europe and bring high-speed internet to dead zones. SpaceRISE, a consortium led by European satellite network operators and supported by European satcom subcontractors, has been given a 12-year concession contract to develop, deploy, and operate the IRIS2 constellation. The EU's partnership with SpaceRISE is intended to demonstrate the power of public-private collaboration in driving innovation and delivering tangible benefits to all Europeans.
Samsung's yet-to-be-launched The Premiere 8K projector is the industry's first recipient of the 8K Association's new certification and logo. The projector excelled across all key categories. There aren't many details available about the upcoming premium ultra-short-throw projector, but Samsung has released a few official images. Samsung will likely reveal more details, including pricing and availability, at CES 2025.
Large language models are becoming a part of software engineering. The technology could replace a lot of engineers, so younger engineers may feel like they need to find a way to future-proof their careers. The technology is still very new and can't produce professional code. There's also a lot more to being an engineer than coding, so many senior developers feel confident that it will be a while until AI can replace software engineers, if ever.
Cyphernetes is a Kubernetes query language. It uses a mixture of ASCII-art, SQL, and JSON to let developers express graph operations in an efficient way that is also fun and creative. Cyphernetes allows developers to query and mutate Kubernetes resources in a natural way. It works out-of-the-box with CRDs and supports multi-cluster queries.
TikTok has asked the Supreme Court to temporarily block the law that would effectively ban it in the US. The company claims the law violated its First Amendment rights and those of its 170 million American users. TikTok has urged the justices to maintain the status quo while they decide on whether to hear an appeal.
Amazon is a leading indicator of a new era of flattening in corporate structure. Its slashing of manager roles isn't just about cost cutting, but a glimpse into the future of work. Amazon is targeting an increase in the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025 across all divisions. It is estimated that the company could cut as many as 14,000 management positions, which would result in $2 billion to $4 billion in savings.
WordPress has added a compulsory checkbox on its login page possibly as a response to a decision made by a federal district judge that granted a preliminary injunction against Matt Mullenweg and Automattic.
A new version of Tesla's HW4 onboard self-driving computer is failing, possibly due to a battery short-circuiting the computer during the camera calibration process.
TLDR [4] isn't just a newsletter—it's a trusted part of the daily routine for developers, founders, and decision-makers across tech. With millions of readers [4], it's the perfect place to get your brand noticed by an engaged, influential audience.
Apple hopes to release a foldable 18.8-inch creaseless iPad by about 2028. Its industrial design group has reportedly managed to create prototypes of the device. It is unknown whether the device will be able to run Mac apps, but rumors say that iPadOS should be advanced enough to run macOS apps by 2028. A foldable iPhone is still apparently in the works.
Claude has become the chatbot of choice for a crowd of savvy tech insiders. These people claim Claude provides more human-sounding answers and that it is helping them with things such as legal advice, health coaching, and therapy. Claude apparently seems more insightful and good at helping people spot patterns and blind spots. It is roughly comparable to the most powerful models from OpenAI, Google, and others on benchmark evaluations, but its fans say its emotional intelligence sets it apart.
A transatlantic tunnel connecting the UK to the US may be possible, but it would be extremely expensive, with estimates of almost $20 trillion for the project. It would take many years for the 3,000-mile tunnel to be completed - it took six years to build the 23.5-mile Channel Tunnel linking England and France. Developments in vacuum tube technology have made the concept more viable. A vehicle traveling in a hyperloop system could theoretically reach speeds of more than 3,000 mph, making the journey between London and New York barely an hour long.
Scientists will be able to create a microbe that could cause an unstoppable pandemic within a few decades. 38 prominent biologists have issued a warning and called for a ban on research that could lead to the synthesis of such an organism. The molecules that serve as the building blocks of DNA and proteins typically exist in one of two mirror-image forms, but living cells rely on just one form. A 'mirrored' cell would have proteins that are much harder to break down as natural enzymes are targeted at un-mirrored proteins. Scientists have already created mirror proteins and are experimenting with them to create longer-acting drugs. Creating mirror cells would mean creating a second tree of life.