AWS' S3 Tables brings native support for Apache Iceberg to S3. This post takes a look at the new offering, which is an exciting development for the data analytics ecosystem. S3 has now launched three major features in 12 months, suggesting that something material has shifted in S3's development culture. The fact that AWS chose to call the new feature 'S3 Tables' and not 'S3 Iceberg' could mean that the company is open to supporting other table formats in the future.
Amazon's new large language models are mainly competitive with the Google Gemini family. They are extremely inexpensive and can handle quite large contexts. The two larger models can handle images, video, and PDFs. This article takes a look at the Amazon Nova family of models, specifically its pricing and capabilities, how to access the models from the terminal, and how to use multi-modal prompting with images and documents.
This post introduces The Journey to Synergy Collaboration Model, a framework for measuring professional relationships and where one stands in those relationships. The framework outlines seven states, moving from a competitive, zero-sum mindset to one of shared identity. The post also discusses practical ways to move relationships forward. Working in isolation creates significant limitations - we are at our best when we are collaborating well with others.
Sam Altman says that AI technology will be able to mirror human capability sooner than most people realize, but that this would matter much less than many have predicted. He recently claimed that the company would be able to achieve artificial general intelligence in the next few years at a conference in New York City. He has downplayed the rising tensions between him and Elon Musk, especially concerning due to Musk's increasingly close relationship with President-elect Trump, saying that it would be profoundly un-American to use political power to hurt competitors and advantage Musk's own businesses.
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If you're building B2B SaaS, chances are you've already run into WorkOS — the API that lets you easily add enterprise-ready features to your app (SAML, SSO, SCIM, audit logs…).
Amazon, AMD, and several other startups are starting to offer credible alternatives to Nvidia's chips. Nvidia's rivals are proving they can deliver faster speeds at lower prices for some crucial AI tasks. Many are emulating Nvidia's tactic of building complete computers so that customers can gain maximum power and performance out of their chips. Spending on computers without Nvidia chips by data center operators is expected to grow 49% this year to $126 billion.
Meta is turning to nuclear energy to support its data centers and the communities around them. It recently announced a 'request for proposals' for developers that can bring nuclear reactors online starting in the early 2030s. The company is open to many ideas on the size and type of reactors, the locations, and other details. It is seeking initial responses by February 7.
E11 Bio has been working for the past three years to develop techniques to make brain mapping better, cheaper, and faster. One of these approaches involves making the brain label itself by injecting it with viruses that cause neurons to make special proteins that act like barcodes. The approach reduces the amount of brain slicing required and creates more accurate wiring maps that require less proofreading. E11 is now shifting from proof-of-concept mode to building out its imaging infrastructure so it can tackle an entire mouse brain.
The USC Rocket Propulsion Lab at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering has broken the international altitude record with its Aftershock II rocket. The rocket reached an altitude of 470,000 feet, higher than any non-governmental and non-commercial group has ever flown before. Aftershock II, at 330 pounds with a height of 13 ft and 8” diameter, reached a velocity of 5,283 ft/s and Mach 5.5. A video of the launch is available in the article.
A quick video is worth a dozen emails. Loom [10] lets you easily record and share video messages with your teammates and customers — and if you need it in writing, you can use Loom AI to instantly turn your video into a document, a ticket, or a written message. Join a
Amazon's new Aurora DSQL is a serverless, globally distributed database that is highly available, multi-regional, Postgres compatible, and fast. This post looks over its features to see if the product works as advertised. Aurora DSQL is still very new - the service is only available in two US regions at the moment. It is still missing a lot of features from Postgres and uses an unusual authentication method that involves using a URL-like token to connect to the database.
Skia Canvas is a browser-less implementation of the HTML Canvas drawing API for Node.js. It produces very similar results to Chrome's canvas element. Skia Canvas is best used on desktop machines that can render hardware-accelerated graphics to a window or on a server where it can output a variety of image formats.
More than half of US workers are watching for or actively seeking a new job. Job satisfaction has fallen to its lowest level in recent years. The cooling job market is causing employees to feel more stuck and frustrated. While employers can worry less about turnover, they risk employee burnout rising if workers feel stuck.
AdGrok's founders received notice that their company was being sued by Adchemy, a former employer, in September 2010. The legal action was not unexpected as the former employer had told them they were unhappy with the founders leaving and starting a new company. AdGrok had gone through Y Combinator. Its relationship with the accelerator program and Sam Altman resulted in the lawsuit being dismissed. Adchemy was attempting to court funding from Microsoft - Altman had a contact at Microsoft tell Adchemy that it would be problematic if the company was embroiled in litigation while discussing the deal, so Adchemy dropped the suit
Samsung plans to preview its smart glasses, which will work similarly to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, in January alongside the Galaxy S25 - the actual release will be in the third quarter of 2025.
SpaceX is in discussions to sell insider shares. The sale could boost the value of the company to around $350 billion. Conversations about the sale are still ongoing and the details of the transaction could change depending on interest from insider sellers and buyers. The $350 billion valuation puts SpaceX on par with some of the world's largest publicly traded companies in terms of market capitalization.
Intel's Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger has resigned abruptly. Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, general manager of Intel's client computing group, have been named interim co-CEOs. Intel has fallen behind rivals in building semiconductors to power the artificial intelligence boom. The change in leadership indicates that Intel's board wants to move in a new direction.
World Labs has unveiled an AI system that can generate video game-like 3D scenes from a single image. Its technology allows anyone to step into any image and explore it in 3D. It can also apply interactive effects and animations to scenes. Movement is limited to a small area, but the model is still in early preview. A demo of the model is available on World Labs' website.
Near Space Labs has launched a fleet of balloon robots to monitor and assess disaster-prone areas in the US. The balloons carry AI-powered robots called Swifts. These robots form a network to capture detailed aerial images. The image resolution is expected to rival or exceed traditional aerial surveys conducted by planes or helicopters at lower altitudes. They will be able to map large disaster zones in detail within hours rather than weeks and help insurance companies, urban planners, and government agencies assess properties and perform risk evaluations.
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Steel is an open source browser API for AI agents and apps. It makes it easy to build AI apps and agents that interact with the web. Steel features built-in stealth capabilities, text-to-markdown session management, a UI for viewing/debugging sessions, and full browser control through standard automation frameworks like Puppeteer, Playwright, and Selenium.
LaTeX.css is an almost class-less CSS library that turns HTML documents into websites that look like a LaTeX document. Developers only have to write semantic HTML and then add the CSS file. LaTeX.css supports dark mode and support for LaTEX math and syntax highlighting can be added through scripts.
Dia is a new browser by The Browser Company that focuses on AI tools. It is set to launch in early 2025. The browser is able to complete actions on users' behalf, like adding items from an email to an Amazon cart. A video from The Browser Company introducing Dia is available in the article.
A Delaware judge has upheld the ruling that Elon Musk's 2018 CEO pay package of $56 billion was improperly granted. The ruling said that Musk had individually controlled Tesla and dictated the terms of his compensation to a board that didn't fairly negotiate. A $345 million attorney fee award was approved for the lawyers who successfully sued on behalf of Tesla shareholders. Despite the legal setback, Musk has seen his net worth jump considerably in recent weeks - he is more than $43 billion richer since the election.