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"WE RAN OUT OF COLUMNS" - THE BEST, WORST CODEBASE

The world of 'professional development' is not always what you'd expect.

TESLA DOJO: ELON MUSK'S BIG PLAN TO BUILD AN AI SUPERCOMPUTER, EXPLAINED

Elon Musk recently said that Tesla's team is going to 'double down' on Dojo as the company gets ready to reveal its robotaxi in October.

GREENMASK

Greenmask is a utility designed for logical database backup dumping, obfuscation, and restoration that offers extensive functionality for backup, anonymization, and data masking.

EX-GOOGLE ENGINEERS WHO FOUNDED CHARACTER.AI REJOIN COMPANY WITH NEW AI PARTNERSHIP

Character.AI will provide Google with a nonexclusive license for its technology and Google will provide increased funding for Character.AI to continue growing.

ARRIVAL-TIME

arrival-time is a time estimation tool for drawing progress in the command-line, web, or mobile.

RAW INTUITIONS ABOUT STARTUPS

Insights on startups and how to build them from a first-time founder.

MICROSOFT SAYS OPENAI IS NOW A COMPETITOR IN AI AND SEARCH

Microsoft added OpenAI to its list of competitors in its latest annual report. OpenAI is listed as a competitor in AI offerings, search, and news advertising. The companies have a long-term partnership, with Microsoft being OpenAI's biggest investor. OpenAI says that nothing about the relationship between the two companies has changed as their partnership was established with the understanding that they would compete.

INTEL IS LAYING OFF OVER 15,000 EMPLOYEES AND WILL STOP ‘NON-ESSENTIAL WORK'

Intel is downsizing its workforce by over 15 percent as part of a new cost savings plan for 2025. The $10 billion cost saving plan will mean a headcount reduction of greater than 15,000 roles. Intel plans to reduce its R&D and marketing spending by billions each year through 2026, reduce capital expenditures by more than 20 percent this year, restructure to stop non-essential work, and review all active projects and equipment to make sure it's not spending too much. The company recently reported a loss of $1.6 billion for Q2, which is substantially more than the $437 million it lost the previous quarter.

FULLY-AUTOMATIC ROBOT DENTIST PERFORMS WORLD'S FIRST HUMAN PROCEDURE

An AI-controlled autonomous robot has performed an entire dental procedure on a human patient for the first time. The system uses a hand-held 3D volumetric scanner that builds a detailed 3D model of the mouth using optical coherence tomography, cutting X-ray radiation out of the process. The robot surgeon plans out the operation after the human dentist and patient agree on what needs to be done. It can prepare a tooth for a dental crown in 15 minutes, a procedure that usually takes two hours split into two visits. Video of the robot is available in the article.

A PROTEIN CALLED REELIN KEEPS POPPING UP IN BRAINS THAT RESIST AGING AND ALZHEIMER'S

A key protein called Reelin appears to protect the brain from Alzheimer's and other diseases of aging. Studies suggest that the protein helps maintain thinking and memory in ailing brains. The research has inspired efforts to develop a drug that boosts Reelin or helps it function better. The discovery of Reelin was aided by the cooperation of about 1,500 members of an extended Colombian family that carries a gene that almost guarantees the development of Alzheimer's in middle age.

WHY CSV IS STILL KING

CSV is simple, resilient, and seemingly impossible to kill off. The standard developed naturally as a simple way to store data in tables when storage was very limited. It has become crucial for business data - companies use it to share financial data, import customer information, and exchange data between different systems. While it has its problems, the format will likely remain king, as its core simplicity will keep it relevant for years to come.

LIMBO

Limbo is an in-process OLTP database engine library. It started as a research project to build an SQLite-compatible in-process database in Rust with native async support. Limbo is compatible with SQLite and the developers are working on JavaScript/WebAssembly bindings.

ZUCKERBERG SAYS META WILL NEED 10X MORE COMPUTING POWER TO TRAIN LLAMA 4 THAN LLAMA 3

Meta believes it will need significantly more computing power to train models in the future. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the company's second-quarter earnings call that he would rather risk building capacity before it is needed rather than too late given the long lead time for spinning up new inference projects. The company is considering different data center projects, which may increase capital expenditures in 2025. India is currently the largest market for Meta's AI chatbot.

ELON MUSK'S LITTLE COMPANY TOWN IS GETTING A SCHOOL, IF REGULATORS ALLOW IT

Elon Musk plans to launch an experimental private school called Ad Astra in September ahead of the 2024 to 2025 school year. Ad Astra will be based in Bastrop, Texas, a rural community that has been transformed into somewhat of a hub for several of Musk's companies. Musk previously founded another school in 2014 after pulling five of his children from public school. His nonprofit, the Foundation, plans to eventually build a futuristic university in Texas. Ad Astra is now accepting applications for kids between the ages of 3 and 9.

GITHUB MODELS GIVES DEVELOPERS NEW POWER TO EXPERIMENT WITH GEN AI

GitHub Models provides developers with direct access to a wide range of AI models, allowing them to experiment with and integrate Gen AI models into their applications.

EXCITING NEWS FROM CHATBOT ARENA!

Google Gemini has claimed the number one spot on Chatbot Arena for the first time, surpassing GPT-4o and Claude-3.5.

JUST DISCONNECT THE INTERNET

This post discusses why just disconnecting systems from the internet for security or reliability purposes isn't always a viable solution.

HOW GOOGLE HANDLES JAVASCRIPT THROUGHOUT THE INDEXING PROCESS

Google quickly discovers and indexes sites regardless of JavaScript complexity or rendering delay.

THERE ARE 2,000-PLUS DEAD ROCKETS IN ORBIT — HERE'S A RARE VIEW OF ONE

Astroscale's ADRAS-J (Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan) spacecraft photographed the first publicly released image of space debris captured from another spacecraft using rendezvous and proximity operations.

THE DEATH (AGAIN) OF THE INTERNET AS WE KNOW IT

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A FIRST LOOK AT APPLE INTELLIGENCE AND ITS (SLIGHTLY) SMARTER SIRI

Siri received a big update in iOS 18's latest developer preview. The update comes with meaningful improvements to language understanding. Future updates will add features like awareness of what's happening on users' screens and the ability to take actions on users' behalf. This article takes a look at the updated Siri and the other AI features introduced in the developer preview.

TIKTOK IS THROWING $20 MILLION A MONTH AT OPENAI VIA MICROSOFT

TikTok has been spending $20 million a month to purchase OpenAI models through Microsoft. The purchases make up about 25% of Microsoft's AI revenue. TikTok's parent ByteDance is reportedly building its own AI models - if successful, TikTok would no longer need OpenAI or Microsoft. Other companies reportedly purchasing OpenAI models through Microsoft include AT&T, Coca-Cola, Fidelity, Volvo, and Walmart.

AUSTRALIA STARTS WORLD-FIRST PEANUT ALLERGY TREATMENT FOR BABIES

Eligible babies with peanut allergies in Australia will be offered treatment to build immunity under a world-first program. The babies will be given gradually larger doses of peanut powder each day for at least two years to reduce sensitivity. The program will be extended to more hospitals and potentially other food allergies if it is found to be effective and safe. Families are advised not to try oral immunotherapy at home unsupervised.

THE SILICON VALLEY STARTUP USING AI TO SCOUR THE EARTH FOR COPPER AND LITHIUM

KoBold is using artificial intelligence to scour the earth for copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt. The company says that machine learning allows it to collect and analyze more sophisticated data about deposits than conventional exploration methods. It attained a valuation of more than $1 billion in 2023 and is currently looking to raise funds at a valuation of at least $2 billion. The company has more than 60 exploration projects in North America, Africa, and Australia.

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NGTOP

ngtop is a command-line program for querying request counts from nginx's access.log files. It can count requests from various time periods, count requests to URLs matching a pattern, show top visited URLs matching a pattern, and more.

DICEDB

DiceDB is a drop-in replacement of Redis with SQL-based real-time reactivity. It is multithreaded and follows a shared-nothing architecture. DiceDB enables clients to listen to SQL queries and get notified in real-time whenever something changes. It currently only supports a subset of Redis commands and is not yet ready for production.

REDDIT CEO SAYS MICROSOFT NEEDS TO PAY TO SEARCH THE SITE

Reddit's CEO is calling on Microsoft and other companies to pay if they want to continue scraping the site's data. The site is now blocking companies that haven't signed agreements about how its data will be used or not used. Companies like Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity have refused to negotiate. OpenAI's SearchGPT will be able to show Reddit results as the two companies reached a deal earlier this year.

80% OF DEVELOPERS ARE UNHAPPY. THE PROBLEM IS NOT AI, NOR IS CODING

Stack Overflow's most recent annual Developer Survey showed that a majority of developers hate their jobs. Reasons for the dissatisfaction include failed expectations, technical debt, hustle culture, bureaucracy, and uncertainty and fear when it comes to career prospects. While most developers are in favor of using AI tools, many don't consider the tools reliable. 70% of professional programmers don't see AI as a threat to their work - many are instead worried about the spread of misinformation and misguided tasks.

HOW I COMPUTER IN 2024

A look at how the VP of Engineering at Canonical uses his computer - it covers which applications he uses, how he sets up his desktop environments, and more.

WHY SOFT DELETES ARE EVIL AND WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

Soft deletes create far more problems than they solve - use audit logs instead.

AMD IS BECOMING AN AI CHIP COMPANY, JUST LIKE NVIDIA

Nearly half of AMD's sales are now data center products.

T-MOBILE HAS A NEW SIDE GIG: FIBER INTERNET

T-Mobile has pieced together at least five partnerships with fiber-optic internet providers, putting the company on the cusp of becoming a major home internet provider in its own right.

XBOX CONSOLE SALES CONTINUE TO CRATER WITH MASSIVE 42% REVENUE DROP

While hardware sales are down, Microsoft's gaming content and services revenue are up a healthy-sounding 61 percent year-over-year.

10 CHARTS THAT CAPTURE HOW THE WORLD IS CHANGING

This article looks at emerging trends, such as the rise of ketamine, the decline of churches, and AI, and how they are set to change the world.

Find out how you can invest in VenHub (round closes soon)

OPENAI STARTS ROLLING OUT ITS HER-LIKE VOICE MODE FOR CHATGPT

OpenAI has started to roll out its advanced voice mode to a small number of ChatGPT Plus subscribers. The feature was previously criticized for sounding similar to Scarlett Johansson and was delayed for safety reasons. OpenAI has implemented four preset voices trained with voice actors. The new mode will likely be available to all ChatGPT Plus users in the fall.

META'S NEW AI STUDIO HELPS YOU CREATE YOUR OWN CUSTOM AI CHATBOTS

Meta's new AI Studio allows users to create, share, and discover AI chatbots. Creators will be able to create AI chatbots as extensions of themselves - no technical skills required. The feature has started rolling out to Instagram Business accounts in the US and will expand to all Meta users over the next few weeks. It will be accessible through the web, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

YOUR NEW AI FRIEND IS ALMOST READY TO MEET YOU

'Friend' is an AI Friend designed to be supportive, validating, encouraging, and accessible to users all the time. The Friend device is a round glowing orb that can be worn around the neck or clipped onto clothes or accessories. The orb can record prompts, but it can only communicate back through text via the Friend app on mobile. The Friend device will ship next January for $99 with no ongoing subscription fee.

NEURALINK RIVAL SYNCHRON'S BRAIN IMPLANT NOW LETS PEOPLE CONTROL APPLE'S VISION PRO WITH THEIR MINDS

Neurotech startup Synchron has connected its brain implant to Apple's Vision Pro headset, allowing patients with limited physical mobility to control the device using only their thoughts. The company is building a brain-computer interface to help patients with paralysis to operate technology with their minds. It has implanted its device in six patients in the US and four in Australia. The device still needs approval from the US Food and Drug Administration before it can be commercialized more broadly.