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APPLE LAYS OFF EMPLOYEES WORKING ON BOOKS AND NEWS

Apple is cutting 100 jobs in its digital services teams - laid off employees have 60 days to find another job in the company.

META REPORTEDLY PLANS ULTRALIGHT HEADSET WITH TETHERED PUCK FOR 2027

Codenamed 'Puffin', the headset will achieve its remarkably light weight by offloading both the battery and computing hardware to an external tethered puck small enough to fit in users' pockets.

MIDJOURNEY SAYS IT'S ‘GETTING INTO HARDWARE'

Midjourney's hardware efforts may be related to its AI models for video and 3D generation.

WHAT IS IT TO SOLVE THE ALIGNMENT PROBLEM? (2 HOUR READ)

Solving the alignment problem means avoiding a bad form of AI takeover while building the dangerous kinds of superintelligent AI agents and gaining access to the main benefits of superintelligence from those agents.

ASK HN: DID YOU REGRET STAYING AT A JOB FOR TOO LONG? (HACKER NEWS THREAD)

Some engineers are worried that staying in one job too long might restrict their growth, but there are ways around that.

OPENAI'S CONVERGE 2 PROGRAM HAS BEEN SHROUDED IN MYSTERY

Sources confirm that OpenAI's Converge 2 startup accelerator program did indeed take place, but the details about what happened inside the program are scarce.

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CHATGPT AND GPT-4 COULD GET A SWEET UPGRADE THIS FALL

OpenAI is reportedly planning to launch a new AI as part of a chatbot this fall. Codenamed Strawberry, the AI has advanced mathematical reasoning, programming, and other skills that allow it to answer questions on more subjective topics, like marketing strategies. It can be used to generate high-quality synthetic training data for training large language models. The model could help OpenAI obtain the data it needs to train the GPT-4's successor.

ELON MUSK: CELLULAR STARLINK WILL OFFER FREE EMERGENCY SERVICE TO ALL PHONES

SpaceX's Starlink system for mobile phones will be free for users connecting to emergency services. The company is currently waiting for approval from the Federal Communications Commission to let it commercially operate its 'direct to cell' Starlink technology. Providing free emergency services access would benefit public safety communications and first responders. There aren't many details about how Starlink's system will work, but it will likely be similar to Apple's Emergency SOS feature for iPhones, which is free for the iPhone 14 and up.

SPACEX POLARIS LAUNCH POSTPONED AFTER HELIUM LEAK IS DETECTED

SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission has been delayed until later this week at the earliest due to a helium leak. The mission will send four private citizens (billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott “Kidd” Poteet, and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Meno) to space on a mission that will include the first spacewalk carried out by a civilian crew. It was scheduled to lift off early Tuesday. Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned space flights funded and organized by Isaacman and SpaceX.

COMPUTE MOONSHOTS: HARNESSING NEW PHYSICS

Digital computing is reaching relative maturity, with traditional electronics well into the final phase of their S-curve and GPUs in the middle of theirs. The demand for compute is showing no sign of slowing. Next-gen approaches will need to harness entirely different materials systems with more amenable physics. This article looks at some of the possible technologies that may bring the industry to the next level.

VANILLA PRIME

Vanilla Prime is a spiritual successor to VANILLA TODO with no frameworks, no bundlers, and no required dependencies. It aims to provide a simpler, more sustainable way of web development. While it is less ergonomic than a fully integrated framework, it produces websites that are performant, lightweight, independent, hackable (in a good way), and respects users' and the world's resources. Vanilla Prime can be difficult to get into and hard to master, but the outcomes can be incredibly rewarding.

PREDICTING THE FUTURE OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

There are significant changes happening with distributed systems. These changes will influence how systems are operated and how they are programmed. This article shares insights into the changes in transactional and analytical systems, especially around object storage and programming models. There are many possible disruptive technologies, so it is challenging to pick the winners and losers.

THREE-QUARTERS OF FOUNDERS IN THE LATEST Y COMBINATOR COHORT ARE WORKING ON AI STARTUPS

Of the 208 startups currently listed in Y Combinator's S24 startup directory, 156 are working on AI-related products. Nearly half of all US venture capital investment went to AI companies last quarter. It is unclear whether Y Combinator is deliberately selecting startups that are working in the space, if more founders are choosing to work in AI, or if startups are just saying that their product is AI-related because they think that's what investors or customers want to hear. Only 33 Y Combinator startups were related to crypto and Web3 in 2022, when the technology was the hottest thing to work on.

UBER WILL WIN SELF-DRIVING

While Lyft has been working on innovative features for riders, Uber's focus in the US has been on supply. With self-driving cars, the platform power shift will be in the direction of who controls the demand - most people who own self-driving cars will rent out their cars to the platform that has the most demand for it. Uber will have the most types of vehicles available and more flexibility in terms of how much it can charge. It owns the most demand worldwide today, and self-driving will make it even more dominant.

CEREBRAS SYSTEMS THROWS DOWN GAUNTLET TO NVIDIA WITH LAUNCH OF ‘WORLD'S FASTEST' AI INFERENCE SERVICE

Cerebras' AI inference service can deliver 1,800 tokens per second for the open-source Llama 3.1 8B model.

YOU'RE NOT MATURE ENOUGH TO RELEASE YOUR FIRST VERSION AS V1

It's difficult to define 'stable', and once you've stabilized, you're on the hook for maintaining it.

BOOM SUPERSONIC TAKES BABY STEPS TOWARD BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER

Boom Supersonic has completed the second test flight of its XB-1 demonstrator, reaching an altitude of 10,400 feet and a speed of 266 mph.

STARLINER IS SUCH A DISASTER THAT BOEING MAY CANCEL THE ENTIRE PROJECT

Starliner's failure is only the tip of the iceberg - Boeing's contributions to NASA's Moonbound Space Launch System are many years behind and way over budget.

THAT WHICH DOESN'T KILL YOU…

Diseases can still have long term effects even if you survive them, and this has implications for how we understand how the immune system works.

ASK HN: WHY IS STACK OVERFLOW FADING AWAY? (HACKER NEWS THREAD)

Stack Overflow has been a cornerstone of developer communities for years, but it seems to be losing its prominence due to several issues, including over-moderation, a toxic community, and how difficult it is for new users to start out on the platform.

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APPLE WORKING ON NEXT-GEN HUMANLIKE AI ‘PERSONALITY' THAT'S NOT SIRI

Apple is reportedly developing an AI personality entirely separate from Siri for future Apple robotics devices. The company's first robotics projects are not expected to debut until 2026 or 2027. Apple will ship a brand new Apple Intelligence-fused Siri in iOS 18.1 later this fall. However, many of Siri's most powerful new capabilities aren't scheduled to arrive until sometime in 2025.

APPLE'S IPHONE 16 LAUNCH EVENT IS SET FOR SEPTEMBER

Apple's next big event will be on September 9 at 1 PM ET at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park. The company is expected to launch the iPhone 16 lineup during the show, which has the tagline 'It's Glowtime'. Apple Intelligence features will likely be a big part of the event. The company is also rumored to launch the Apple Watch Series 10 and two versions of AirPods.

FOR HIS SECOND TRIP TO SPACE, BILLIONAIRE HAS GRANDER, RISKIER ASPIRATIONS

Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman is scheduled to head into space for the second time later this week. The itinerary for the trip includes the first ever spacewalk by private astronauts. The mission will travel farther than anyone has traveled since the Apollo 17 mission went to the Moon in 1972. It will pass through regions of intense radiation while testing new technologies and gathering data on the effects space has on the human body.

HOW DO YOU 3D PRINT GLASS?

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana are working to adapt artisan glass-blowing techniques to a robotic platform. They have developed a technique that uses a laser to heat the surface of a glass rod so it can be deformed to create 3D shapes. It is able to create the transparent solid structures needed in optical, microfluidic, and photonic devices. The method can deposit glass at 15 cubic millimeters per second. A picture of the glass 3D printer is available.

here → auth0.com/startups/tldr

FIXING A BUG IN GOOGLE CHROME AS A FIRST-TIME CONTRIBUTOR

This post presents an overview of the process of submitting a bug fix to Chromium/Google Chrome from beginning to end. It aims to give some perspective for developers looking to try it. The post covers how the bug was discovered and fixed, testing and code review, and more. The process can take a while and a good bit of effort, but it is a valuable experience in seeing how software gets built at Chromium's scale.

SPARROW

Sparrow enables efficient data extraction and processing from various documents and images. It can handle forms, invoices, receipts, and other unstructured data sources. Sparrow has a pluggable architecture, so users can easily integrate and run data extraction pipelines using other tools and frameworks. Sparrow can be used to build independent LLM agents for various use cases.

'PRESSURE COOKER': WHY MILLIONAIRE NVIDIA EMPLOYEES ARE STILL WORKING UNTIL 2 A.M.

Many of Nvidia's employees are millionaires because of the company's growth. Despite this, the company still has a 'pressure cooker' culture with long working hours, yelling and fighting at meetings, and company politics. Some employees work every day, including weekends, late into the night. Employees who work less than the norm are called out at company-wide meetings. The company maintains a low turnover rate, likely due to the way it gives its employees access to stock grants and its 'flat' hierarchy, which could make the company an appealing choice.

WHY SHOULD ANYONE BOOT *YOU* UP?

Google researchers recently published a paper detailing a scanning process that can yield a geometric model of the brain's wiring at nanometer resolution. Further development of the method could result in technology that can scan a person's brain and recreate them far into the future. However, the amount of data needed to store all of the information from just one human brain is infeasible with current technology. The biggest problem in digital immortality might not be technical, but economical.

CHINA'S AI ENGINEERS ARE SECRETLY ACCESSING BANNED NVIDIA CHIPS

Chinese AI developers are working with brokers to access computing power overseas - US sanctions don't restrict Chinese companies or their foreign affiliates from accessing US cloud services using Nvidia chips.

ELON MUSK UNVEILS TESLA'S NEW ‘CORTEX' SUPERCOMPUTER, BUT IT'S NOT READY QUITE YET

Elon Musk recently shared a video of a small section of Tesla's new Cortex cluster, which is still currently being completed.

ANTHROPIC PUBLISHES THE ‘SYSTEM PROMPTS' THAT MAKE CLAUDE TICK

Anthropic plans to make this sort of disclosure a regular thing as it updates and fine-tunes its system prompts.

AI TO GO NUCLEAR? DATA CENTER DEALS SAY IT'S INEVITABLE

Current electric grids are struggling to keep up with demand, so Big Tech is now looking at nuclear power to meet the incredibly hefty demands of generative AI.

MY LUKEWARM TAKE ON GLP-1 AGONISTS

No treatment is without side effects - people who take these drugs should be aware that there are currently a lot of unknown unknowns, especially if they aren't in a demographic for which the drug is mainly prescribed.

THE REAL PROBLEM WITH THE JOB MARKET

The current disruption in the job market is due to a mass delusion about the nature of work.

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BOEING STARLINER RETURNING EMPTY AS NASA TURNS TO SPACEX TO BRING ASTRONAUTS BACK FROM ISS

Boeing will return its Starliner capsule without the NASA astronauts that it delivered to orbit. The two astronauts will return via SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft on a mission launching on September 24. They will stay at the International Space Station for about six more months before flying home in February. The test was originally intended to last about nine days. This decision was made due to NASA's commitment to safety - Starliner's crew flight test faced problems, most notably with its propulsion system. NASA officials still support Boeing and Starliner will likely be able to launch with a crew again someday.

SHOCKER: FRENCH MAKE SURPRISE ARREST OF TELEGRAM FOUNDER AT PARIS AIRPORT

French authorities have detained Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messaging app. They plan to hit him with charges related to abetting terrorism, fraud, money laundering, and crimes against children. There is a near-total lack of moderation on the platform, making it a top tool for organized crime. Durov's arrest has led to widespread panic in Russia - Telegram is used by Russian forces to communicate, and Western intelligence services may be able to obtain sensitive information about the Russian military if they gain access to it.

WORLD-FIRST LUNG CANCER VACCINE TRIALS LAUNCHED ACROSS SEVEN COUNTRIES

BioNTech has begun trials for BNT116, an mRNA lung cancer vaccine, in 34 research sites across the UK, US, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain, and Turkey. The vaccine works by presenting the immune system with tumor markers to prime the body to fight cancer cells expressing those markers. It aims to strengthen a person's immune response to cancer while leaving healthy cells untouched. The treatment is simple to deliver - patients receive a round of shots every week for six consecutive weeks and then every three weeks for 54 weeks.