Search the archive

OPENAI IN THROES OF EXECUTIVE EXODUS AS THREE WALK AT ONCE

OpenAI's Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, and Research VP Barret Zoph are leaving the company.

BIGGER AI CHATBOTS MORE INCLINED TO SPEW NONSENSE — AND PEOPLE DON'T ALWAYS REALIZE

The bigger versions of three major artificial intelligence chatbots are more inclined to generate wrong answers rather than admit ignorance - people aren't great at spotting the bad answers.

REWRITING RUST

The Rust programming language feels like a first-generation product - progress on the language has slowed, with the Rust RFC process now a graveyard of good ideas.

AN INTERVIEW WITH META CTO ANDREW BOSWORTH ABOUT ORION AND REALITY LABS

In this interview, Meta's Chief Technical Officer Andrew Bosworth, who created Facebook's News Feed, built out its ad product, and leads Meta Reality Labs, talks about his history at Meta, Meta's Orion smart glasses, and the competition between Apple and Meta in the space.

META'S NEW LIGHTWEIGHT AR PROTOTYPE SHOWS A FUTURE BEYOND BULKY VR HEADSETS

Mark Zuckerberg revealed a prototype of Meta's Orion AR glasses at this year's Meta Connect keynote. While the 100g pair of see-through augmented-reality glasses won't likely be ready for consumer release anytime soon, the demo represents a new vision of lightweight, wide-ranging, see-through smart glasses. Getting the glasses down to a weight of 100 grams was a challenge - a small amount of processing is done in a 'small puck' that connects wirelessly to the glasses. The glasses use tiny projectors embedded into the arms that shoot light into specially designed waveguides instead of a screen, creating a holographic display that allows for a 70-degree field of view. Pictures and more details are available in the article.

OPENAI CONSIDERING RESTRUCTURING TO FOR-PROFIT, CTO MIRA MURATI AND TWO TOP RESEARCH EXECS DEPART

OpenAI's board is considering plans to restructure itself into a for-profit business while still retaining its non-profit segment as a separate entity. The structure will make investing more straightforward and make it easier for OpenAI employees to realize liquidity. OpenAI's Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati is leaving the company after six and a half years. Research chief Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph, a research vice-president, are also departing the company.

NASA SPACECRAFT TO PROBE POSSIBILITY OF LIFE IN EUROPA'S SALTY OCEAN

Jupiter's moon Europa possibly contains a liquid saltwater ocean that may be potentially as welcoming to life as Earth's. In 2030, NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will swoop past the moon in a series of nearly 50 flybys to remotely probe the ocean in hopes of finding a chemistry that could support life. It may even be capable of detecting microbes directly. It will be a habitability mission rather than a life search mission. If Europa is found to be habitable to life, it could fundamentally change the definition of a habitable zone around a star as it would mean that all that is required for life is ice and gravitational tides.

'WORLD-FIRST' INDOOR VERTICAL FARM TO PRODUCE 4M POUNDS OF BERRIES A YEAR

The world's first farm to grow indoor, vertically farmed berries at scale is opening in Richmond, VA. The farm is designed to produce more than four million pounds of strawberries while using a fraction of the land needed for traditional strawberry production. It will not be subject to seasonal and environmental factors that limit yield. The company aims for its strawberries to be on grocery store shelves by early 2025.

may impact organic reach. Follow Dan for more marketing tips.

WEBJSX

WebJSX is a minimal library for building web applications with JSX and Web Components. It provides two core functions: createElement, which creates virtual DOM elements using JSX, and applyDiff, which efficiently applies changes to the real DOM by comparing virtual nodes. Examples and an API reference are available.

SUMMARY OF ILYA SUTSKEVERS AI READING LIST

A reading list shared on X earlier this year went somewhat viral due to claims that it was originally compiled by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and part of onboarding at OpenAI. The combined contents of this list amount to about 300,000 words of dense, technical text that requires a decent investment in time and energy for self-study. This post provides a condensed and structured summary of the readings to capture the essential key points, context, and perspective gained, free of mathematical notation. The list contains 27 reading items - papers, blog posts, courses, one dissertation, and two book chapters - all originally dating from 1993 to 2020.

WHY MARK ZUCKERBERG THINKS AR GLASSES WILL REPLACE YOUR PHONE

This is an interview with Mark Zuckerberg where the CEO discusses new developments in VR, AI, and the fast-growing world of consumer smart glasses. It also includes a bit with Verge's deputy editor Alex Heath that talks about the Orion smart glasses demo he experienced at Meta's headquarters, some of the context around Meta's AR efforts, and how Zuckerberg is approaching his reputation as a leader and the public perception of Meta as a whole. A link to the full podcast is available.

91% OF POLLED AMAZON STAFF UNHAPPY WITH RETURN-TO-OFFICE, 3-IN-4 WANT TO JUMP SHIP

A staff poll suggests that Amazon's recent return-to-office mandate has not gone down well. Of the over 2,500 Amazon employees polled, only nine percent said they were happy with the order. 73 percent are now considering moving jobs. Amazon is reportedly having trouble hiring staff since the policy was announced, with employees at other companies agreeing that the policy meant Amazon was off their list of potential employees.

OPENAI TO REMOVE NON-PROFIT CONTROL AND GIVE SAM ALTMAN EQUITY

The plan, if approved, will allow for the OpenAI non-profit to continue to exist and own a minority stake in the for-profit company.

NIST PROPOSES BARRING SOME OF THE MOST NONSENSICAL PASSWORD RULES

Some of the most vexing password requirements include mandatory resets, required or restricted use of certain characters, and the use of security questions.

DISABLING SCHEDULED DEPENDENCY UPDATES

Scheduled updates allow dependency updates and issues to be addressed while continuing to work with maintained versions, but they can create a lot of noise.

WORDPRESS FILES TO TRADEMARK ‘MANAGED WORDPRESS' & ‘HOSTED WORDPRESS'

If the trademarks are approved, the commercial use of these terms by web hosts and plugins without prior permission will be limited.

ELIMINATING MEMORY SAFETY VULNERABILITIES AT THE SOURCE

Safe Coding for new code quickly reduces the overall security risk of a code base while being scalable and cost-effective.

ASK HN: PLATFORM FOR 11 YEAR OLD TO CREATE VIDEO GAMES? (HACKER NEWS THREAD)

Game design and programming are separate skills - there are tools for learning game design without focusing on programming, allowing students to express their ideas with less friction.

Swarmia today

OPENAI ROLLS OUT ADVANCED VOICE MODE WITH MORE VOICES AND A NEW LOOK

OpenAI is rolling out Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) to ChatGPT Plus and Team users. Enterprise and Edu customers will start receiving access next week. The upgrade makes ChatGPT more natural to speak with and gives the feature a revamped design. It also adds five new voices and adds some of ChatGPT's customization features, including Custom Instructions and Memory. Users will receive a notification in the ChatGPT app when AVM has been made available to them.

STAR FTX WITNESS CAROLINE ELLISON SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS IN PRISON

Caroline Ellison, the former head of FTX's sister investment firm, Alameda Research, has been sentenced to two years in prison for her role in one of the largest financial frauds in history. She pleaded guilty to seven fraud and money-laundering offices related to FTX's collapse but helped testify against her former boyfriend and boss, Sam Bankman-Fried, putting him in prison for 25 years. Ellison has been ordered to forfeit $11 billion and must give the government any income she receives from selling the rights to her story. The judge has requested that she be sent to a low-security prison near where her family lives. Her surrender date will be after November 7.

FOR THE FIRST TIME, BLUE ORIGIN HAS IGNITED AN ORBITAL ROCKET STAGE

The second stage of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket underwent a successful hot-fire test on Monday. This was the first time Blue Origin integrated and fired an orbital rocket stage. Blue Origin is tracking toward a November launch of its New Glenn rocket. Standing at 320 feet tall, New Glenn still has many potential issues that could delay its schedule, for example, a hurricane is likely to graze Florida's space coast later this week.

OCTOPUSES AND FISH CAUGHT ON CAMERA HUNTING AS A TEAM

Footage captured by divers shows how octopuses can collaborate with fish to hunt for meals. The different species adopt specific roles to maximize the success of the joint hunting expeditions. The octopus works as the decision maker, adapting and responding to different situations, while the fish provide options. In some cases, octopuses have been observed 'punching' fish to punish them or get them to leave a group.

Take the interactive tour

BUILDING A BETTER FIRST DRAFT FOR DESIGNERS

Figma's Make Designs feature has been renamed to First Draft. First Draft allows users to input design goals, then uses AI to select, arrange, and customize design system components, creating a starting point for designs. It aims to give designers more ways to explore their options and help bring ideas to life. First Draft is now available in a limited beta and will be rolled out to users gradually over the coming months.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR PRODUCT AND DESIGN TASTE

Taste, a crucial asset that designers, developers, founders, and creators rely on in their work, is one of the few qualities that manages to elude commodification. Certain types of media can be consumed to develop taste. To develop taste, read a wide variety of books, critique and digest products, and understand that there's always something to learn from experts in your field. Diversity often helps refine taste.

OPENFREEMAP

OpenFreeMap allows websites and apps to display custom maps for free. Maps can be self-hosted or hosted on OpenFreeMap's public instance. Use of OpenFreeMap's public instance is completely free, with no limits on the number of map views or requests, no registration, no user database, no API keys, and no cookies. Its data comes from OpenStreetMap. OpenFreeMap also provides weekly full planet downloads in both Btrfs and MBTiles formats.

IN THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED: WHEN NASA NEARLY GAVE BOEING ALL THE CREW FUNDING

This excerpt from the book 'REENTRY: SpaceX, Elon Musk and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age' describes a meeting at NASA headquarters 10 years ago where agency leaders met to decide which companies should be awarded billions of dollars to launch astronauts into orbit. The decision boiled down to three players: Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada Corporation. It came down to three factors, price, mission suitability, and past performance, with price being equally weighted to the latter two factors. The decision was close, with NASA officials nearly choosing only Boeing for the contract, but in the end, SpaceX was included.

case study

THE STORY OF MIKE LYNCH CONTINUES TO GET WEIRDER AND WEIRDER

This thread provides a timeline of the story of Mike Lynch, who died on a yacht due to a 'mini tornado' after being found not guilty of fraud after 12 years of criminal investigation - the yacht may have contained encrypted hard drives holding highly classified information tied to intelligence services.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ACCUSES VISA OF DEBIT NETWORK MONOPOLY THAT AFFECTS PRICE OF ‘NEARLY EVERYTHING'

The US Justice Department has sued Visa for creating an illegal monopoly over debit payments by imposing 'exclusionary' agreements on partners and smothering upstart firms, resulting in consumers and merchants paying billions of dollars in additional fees.

THE PYTHON PACKAGE INDEX SHOULD GET RID OF ITS TRAINING WHEELS

It would be hard for PyPI to survive without bandwidth donated by Fastly - this article provides a contingency plan for if corporations decide to stop offering free credits to the Python project.

WP ENGINE SENDS CEASE-AND-DESIST LETTER TO AUTOMATTIC OVER MULLENWEG'S COMMENTS

WP Engine has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Automattic asking the company and its CEO to retract their comments calling WP Engine a 'cancer to WordPress' and to stop making statements against the company.

WILL A.I. BE A BUST? A WALL STREET SKEPTIC RINGS THE ALARM

Building too much of what the world doesn't need typically ends badly.

ARC CREATOR JOSH MILLER ON WHY YOU NEED A BETTER BROWSER THAN CHROME

Arc is a ground-up rethinking of the web browser that makes running complex apps as simple as possible.

> Request a preview of your docs on Fern

THE MAN TASKED WITH REBOOTING AMAZON AI

Rohit Prasad, one of the chief architects of Amazon's Alexa, is leading the company's effort to catch up in the AI race. Prasad is leading a new team of thousands of people to develop AI products for an Alexa upgrade and other businesses. Amazon is expected to unveil a new Alexa with AI as early as next month, but company insiders say Amazon's proprietary models are still behind those of its biggest competitors. Amazon prefers to develop its own technology to have full control over its products and services, but it has increasingly leaned on partnerships as the AI race has progressed.

HOW SONOS BOTCHED AN APP AND INFURIATED ITS CUSTOMERS

Sonos' app launch in May was one of the most disastrous software releases by any consumer technology company ever. The app was released with plenty of bugs and missing core functionality. Sonos predicts that it will fall $200 million short of its annual revenue target. It has postponed two new products until the problems are fixed, which is still expected to take months. The issues were caused by the company ignoring tech debt, disregarding employee warnings, and cutting costs.

THE INTELLIGENCE AGE

People have become dramatically more capable over time - this trend is not new, but it will soon be accelerated. We are now more capable than our ancestors because we benefit from the infrastructure of society. Our ancestors contributed to the scaffolding of human progress. AI will give people tools to solve hard problems and help them add new scaffolding. Progress will continue - our children will be able to do things we can't.

SPACEX PLANS 5 UNCREWED STARSHIP MISSIONS TO MARS BY 2026, CREWED BY 2028

SpaceX plans to launch five uncrewed missions to Mars in two years, which is when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. The success of the flights will determine the timeline for human-boarded flights to Mars, which could be as early as 2028. SpaceX is still waiting for FAA approval for Starship's fifth test flight. It is expected to be issued in late November.

CLOUDFLARE'S NEW MARKETPLACE WILL LET WEBSITES CHARGE AI BOTS FOR SCRAPING

Cloudflare plans to launch a marketplace in the next year that will allow website owners to sell access to AI model providers to scrape their site's content. It is part of the company's plan to give publishers greater control over how and when AI bots scrape their websites. The company launched free observability tools for customers on Monday as part of this plan, giving website owners a dashboard to view analytics on why, when, and how often AI models are crawling their sites for information. It is also letting customers block AI bots from their sites with a click of a button.

SWAPY

Swapy is a simple JavaScript tool that converts any layout into a drag-to-swap one with just a few lines of code. It is framework agnostic and there are examples in the repository for how to use it with React, Vue, and Svelte. Swapy can listen to swap events and layouts can be as complex as users desire. An interactive example is available on the website linked in the repository.