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THE AFTERMATH OF THE SUPREME COURT'S NETCHOICE RULING

The NetChoice decision by the Supreme Court last week is poised to affect a host of tech legislation still being developed as well as current lawsuits, including the pending First Amendment challenge to the TikTok 'ban' bill. The decision states that tech platforms can exercise their First Amendment rights through their content moderation decisions and how they choose to display content on their services. It has clear ramifications for laws that attempt to regulate platform algorithms. This article looks at how the decision will influence legislation and its impact on current lawsuits.

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TAU

Tau is a framework that provides an amazing developer experience for building low maintenance and highly scalable cloud computing platforms.

STARLINK MINI NOW WIDELY AVAILABLE IN US, WITH ROAM DOWNLOAD SPEEDS OF 50MBPS

The Starlink Mini costs $599 and comes with a 30-day trial - customers will have two plans to choose from.

APPLE VISION PRO U.S. SALES ARE ALL BUT DEAD, MARKET ANALYSTS SAY

The Apple Vision Pro has yet to sell 100,000 units.

SILICON VALLEY WINS FEW GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

The total amount of awards received by the top security startups in the US is less than half of what venture capitalists have invested.

POKER IS A BAD GAME FOR TEACHING EPISTEMICS. FIGGIE IS A BETTER ONE

Figgie is a trading card game designed by Jane Street to train interns in the skills of trading.

WHY DOESN'T ADVICE WORK?

Sometimes, the same issues that make someone need your advice also make them unable to use it.

OPENAI BOARD SHAKE-UP: MICROSOFT OUT, APPLE BACKS AWAY AMID AI PARTNERSHIP SCRUTINY

Microsoft and Apple will no longer have representatives in non-voting observer roles on OpenAI's board. Microsoft withdrew from the role while Apple opted not to take the position. OpenAI plans to update business partners and investors through regular meetings instead of board representation. The changes are likely a reaction to regulators in the EU and US increasing their scrutiny of Big Tech's investments in AI startups due to concerns about stifling competition.

SAMSUNG LAUNCHES THE GALAXY RING — A FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND PRODUCT FOR THE TECH GIANT

Samsung has launched its first foray into smart rings. The Galaxy Ring is a lightweight ring equipped with sensors designed for health monitoring 24 hours a day. It uses AI software to offer a comprehensive picture of wearers' health. The ring, which weighs between 2.5 grams and 3 grams depending on the size, has a battery that can last up to seven days. It comes in three colors and will be available on July 24 starting from $399.99.

MUSK SAYS NEXT NEURALINK BRAIN IMPLANT EXPECTED SOON, DESPITE ISSUES WITH THE FIRST PATIENT

Neuralink plans to implant its system into a second patient within the next few weeks. The company is aiming to implant its device in 'high single digits' of patients this year. While only around 15% of the channels in the first patient are still functional, the patient is still about to use the device to watch videos, read, and play chess or other video games, sometimes up to 70 hours per week. Neuralink will be making changes to address the hardware problems it encountered with its first participant, with a focus on mitigating retraction.

NEW HIV PREVENTION DRUG SHOWS 100% EFFICACY IN CLINICAL TRIAL

A twice-yearly injection of a new pre-exposure prophylaxis drug was shown to provide young women total protection from HIV infection in a large clinical trial performed in South Africa and Uganda. The drug, lenacapavir, works by interfering with the protein shell that protects HIV's genetic material and the enzymes needed for replication. Gilead Sciences plans to submit the drug for approval with a number of country regulators within the next couple of months. It will offer licenses to companies that make generic drugs to help get prices down.

Real-World Container Usage (PDF)

HOW TO INTERVIEW AND HIRE ML/AI ENGINEERS

Hiring well requires running effective interviews. Interview systems should be reliable, valid, and contain minimal noise. This article discusses how to interview candidates for machine learning and AI roles. It covers what technical and non-technical qualities to assess and how to calibrate phone screens, run the interview loop, and debrief. It also provides tips for interviews and hiring managers and looks at what traits make for a good hire.

POSTING

Posting is an HTTP client that can be used over SSH. It enables efficient keyboard-centric workflows. Posting stores requests locally in simple, easy to read and version control YAML files. Notable features include jump mode navigation, an environment/variables system with autocompletion, syntax highlighting powered by tree-sitter, Vim keys, and more.

INTERVIEWING META CTO ANDREW BOSWORTH ON THE METAVERSE, VR/AR, AI, BILLION-DOLLAR EXPENDITURES, AND INVESTMENT TIMELINES

Meta's CTO Andrew Bosworth joined Facebook in 2006 as the company's ~10th engineer. He helped build the original News Feed, Messenger, Groups, and many early anti-abuse and infrastructure systems. Bosworth ran the Ads and Business Platform product group and he is currently also the Head of Reality Labs. In this interview, Bosworth discusses Meta's metaverse strategy, VR/MR headset sales, the specs of his dream headset, Meta's spending on Reality Labs, and much more.

BIG TECH JOBS ARE NOT WHAT THEY WERE

Today's big tech job options offer great compensation, incredible platforms for scale and impact, and slow but consistent growth over time. However, the kind of growth most companies experienced over the last few decades simply cannot happen again, rocket-ride careers are largely over, and there is increasing bureaucracy in the industry. Most of big tech is still laying off or not hiring and there is increasing return to office pressure. Working with big tech would suit people looking for stability, new graduates, and those looking for a path to retirement. Those who can afford higher risk, people who have already received credentials from a big tech job, and anyone who cannot stand being part of a large, slow system should look elsewhere.

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IN BID TO LOOSEN NVIDIA'S GRIP ON AI, AMD TO BUY FINNISH STARTUP FOR $665M

AMD is buying Finnish AI startup Silo AI for $665 million in an all-cash acquisition expected to close in the second half of this year.

THE PERPETUAL QUEST FOR A TRUTH MACHINE

While humans have an amazing ability to make meaning from the world, create stories to construct understanding, and search for patterns that may reveal larger truths, these mental efforts are often flawed, arbitrary, and incomplete.

APPLE IS RAMPING UP FOR A BIG IPHONE 16 SALES BOOST THANKS TO APPLE INTELLIGENCE

Apple expects that iPhone 16 shipments will be about 10% higher than its 2023 figures.

SPOTIFY IS NO LONGER JUST A STREAMING APP, IT'S A SOCIAL NETWORK

Spotify's recent launch of comments on podcasts is another step towards making the app a social network centered around audio.

OPENAI PARTNERS WITH LOS ALAMOS TO STUDY AI IN THE LAB

The first experiment involves using AI to help someone unskilled in molecular biology perform basic biomedical tasks.

HOW WIKIPEDIA ADMIN DAVID GERARD LAUNDERS HIS GRUDGES INTO THE PUBLIC RECORD

Wikipedia administrator David Gerard goes out of his way to provide interviews to journalists who write on topics he's passionate about - then he adds just the right quotes from those sources to Wikipedia articles about those topics and protects those additions from any who might question them.

CHINESE DEVELOPERS SCRAMBLE AS OPENAI BLOCKS ACCESS IN CHINA

Chinese attempts to lure domestic developers away from OpenAI will now be a lot easier as OpenAI has blocked users in China from accessing its tools and services. The tool was already blocked through the government's firewall, but developers were previously still able to use virtual private networks to access OpenAI's tools. OpenAI has not elaborated on the reason for its sudden decision. The decision may result in an acceleration of development by Chinese AI companies.

TESLA'S SHARE OF U.S. ELECTRIC CAR MARKET FALLS BELOW 50%

Tesla accounted for just under half of all battery-powered vehicles sold in the US in the second quarter of this year. The sales of battery-powered cars have surged to a new record, climbing 11.5 percent from a year earlier, with Tesla losing ground to General Motors, Ford Motor, Hyundai, and Kia. This is the first time Tesla's market share has fallen below 50 percent in a quarter. There are now over 100 electric vehicle models available in the US. Intense competition has led to lower prices, helping push adoption slowly higher.

DOCTORS RESTORING BLOODFLOW IN LEGALLY DEAD BODIES TO RETRIEVE DONOR ORGANS

A highly controversial procedure called normothermic regional perfusion, which involves pumping blood through a deceased person's body, can help doctors retrieve donor organs even if patients have already been declared dead. The procedure greatly increases the chances of obtaining functional donor organs and could save a lot of lives. It stops organs from being damaged by keeping up the circulation of oxygen-rich blood. There are concerns that the procedure may be able to restore limited brain activity, but there are ways to stop blood from reaching the brain.

ROBOTAXIS SHOULD BE A WAKEUP CALL FOR CITIES

The biggest hurdles currently facing the robotaxi industry are economic and regulatory, not technological. Robotaxi companies will need to be able to compete on price, convenience, and comfort before their vehicles become a more accepted travel option. If they are successful, there could be significant traffic and labor impacts. Robotaxis will likely make roads safer and create demand for new types of buildings with no parking.

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PYSKYWIFI: COMPLETELY FREE, UNBELIEVABLY STUPID WI-FI ON LONG-HAUL FLIGHTS

A developer discovered a way to access the internet for free while clicking through an airline's Wi-Fi payment menu. This article discusses how they exploited this discovery to develop a tool that allowed them to access the full internet for free, albeit at a very slow pace. The exploit involves editing data on the developer's airmiles account to send and receive HTTP requests and responses.

MAELSTROM

Maelstrom is a suite of tools that can run tests in hermetic microcontainers locally or distributed across arbitrarily large clusters. It currently has test runners for Rust and Python, with more on the way. Maelstrom is reliable, easy to use, fast, and scalable. The project is currently Linux-only and relies on namespaces to implement containers.

THE AI SUMMER

ChatGPT happened incredibly fast, reaching 100 million users in just 2 months. A lot of its growth was due to the infrastructure built over the last few decades - users could easily access the service on devices they already owned. Most of the people who tried out ChatGPT when it was first released have not returned. It's now easy for people to try out new products, which makes for some interesting charts, but keeping these users is another story. AI may be able to swallow most or all of existing software and automate new classes of tasks, but not this year.

EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM IS STUMBLING. CAN “MORAL AMBITION” REPLACE IT?

Moral Ambition is a new movement that aims to create a new standard of success by shifting ambition away from money and toward finding solutions for the world's most pressing problems. It aims to restore faith in human agency and ingenuity. The blend of socially conscious activism and capitalist entrepreneurship encourages a willingness among young people to use their talent and ambition for the common good instead of personal profit and status. Unlike Effective Altruism, which is grounded in guilt, Moral Ambition is built on enthusiasm, compassion, and problem-solving.

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A16Z IS TRYING TO KEEP AI ALIVE WITH OXYGEN INITIATIVE

VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has secured thousands of AI chips to exchange for equity.

GOOGLE CHROME GIVES ALL *.GOOGLE.COM SITES FULL ACCESS TO SYSTEM/TAB CPU USAGE, GPU USAGE, AND MEMORY USAGE

While Google is likely not using the API for anything malicious, it provides them more information than their competitors, which may be a violation of the EU's Digital Markets Act.

THE DEVELOPERS SUING OVER GITHUB COPILOT GOT DEALT A MAJOR BLOW IN COURT

A judge has tossed out 20 of the 22 claims made against GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI in a copyright lawsuit filed in 2022, saying that Copilot's suggested code isn't close enough to original sources.

TESLA INSIDERS SAY ELON OPTIMIZED FULL SELF-DRIVING ROUTES FOR HIMSELF AND INFLUENCERS

Reports from current and former Tesla workers say that the company has been optimizing its self-driving neural nets specifically for routes taken by CEO Elon Musk and Tesla influencers producing Full Self-Driving content.

QUORA'S POE NOW LETS USERS CREATE AND SHARE WEB APPS

Poe has launched a feature called Previews that lets people create interactive apps directly in chats with chatbots.

GUIDE TO ATTENDING A SPACE LAUNCH IN PERSON

A good way to get a feel for what it's like to attend a space launch in person is to watch someone vlog about their experience.

TESLA'S UPCOMING MODEL Y, PROJECT JUNIPER, SPOTTED WITH FRONT BUMPER CAMERA; COMING IN 2025

A Reddit user recently snapped a picture of a covered-up Model Y thought to be the refreshed Model Y codenamed Juniper. Engineering test vehicles have been spotted near Giga Texas and the Fremont factory in California. The vehicle appears to be following a trajectory for an early to mid-2025 launch. It is expected to be released in China first before launching in North America and Europe.

CHATGPT MIGHT RULE THE AI CHATBOTS — BUT IT CAN'T BEAT GOOGLE SEARCH

Google's global search market share bumped up to 91.1% in June while ChatGPT's web visits fell 12%. Rising ad revenue from Google Search helped boost the company's profits by nearly 60% in the first quarter. Google's AI overviews may be helping Google Search grow its footprint. Integrating AI into its products will likely help drive higher usage and increase monetization across Google.

THE MISSION FOR EUROPE'S NEW ROCKET: CHALLENGE SPACEX

Europe is preparing to test launch a new single-use rocket, the Ariane 6 rocket, from French Guiana today. Development of the rocket was aimed at reducing the EU's reliance on SpaceX. Europe's satellites and military intelligence have come to depend on SpaceX. Officials fear that Europe and its armies may need to rely on the US company even during warfare.