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PEARL

A Production-ready Reinforcement Learning AI Agent Library brought by the Applied Reinforcement Learning team at Meta.

MULTI-CONDITIONAL DIFFUSION MODEL FOR SCENE SYNTHESIS

Scene creation, guided by factors like human movement or room design, gets a fresh angle by integrating textual prompts. This repo introduces a novel approach, a multi-conditional diffusion model, that efficiently merges text, movement, and existing objects.

EXCUSE ME, BUT THE INDUSTRIES AI IS DISRUPTING ARE NOT LUCRATIVE

Google's Gemini AI model, despite an impressive demo video, saw only a minimal stock increase for Google, reflecting skepticism about its real-time capabilities as the demo used pre-recorded footage and edited responses. This skepticism mirrors broader concerns in the AI industry, where companies create high expectations but face challenges in translating AI capabilities into substantial economic gains, with current AI models excelling in areas that don't necessarily yield high financial returns.

RUNNING LLMS LOCALLY WITH OLLAMA

Ollama is like a package manager around llama cpp models. It has quality-of-life usability features and makes it easy to run models, even on a CPU. This example shows how to run two great models, Dolphin and Samantha, which are excellent unfiltered models useful for conversational tasks.

LLM VISUALIZATION

This site looks at how the nano-gpt model, which has 85,000 parameters, sorts a sequence of six letters into alphabetical order.

illustrations by Jared Reser Ph.D. Read the paper (free, ungated)

FTC LOOKING INTO MICROSOFT’S INVESTMENT IN OPENAI

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is inspecting Microsoft's relationship with and investment in OpenAI.

GISKARD

The testing framework for ML models from tabular to LLMs.

LIQUID AI, A NEW MIT SPINOFF, WANTS TO BUILD AN ENTIRELY NEW TYPE OF AI

Liquid neural networks are much smaller than traditional AI models and require far less compute power to run.

YOUR REFERRAL LINK - https://tldr.tech/ai?ref=2613930

FIDELITY HELD MEETING WITH SEC ABOUT SPOT BITCOIN FUND, SUBMITTED PRESENTATION ABOUT ETF WORKFLOWS

Fidelity reportedly met with the SEC again to discuss its proposed spot Bitcoin ETF. In this meeting, Fidelity provided a detailed explanation of the "In-Kind" creations and redemptions model. The company argued that physical creations and redemptions are crucial for trading efficiency and market pricing. The amended S-1s by the companies vying for these spot Bitcoin ETFs are stacking up, and analysts are suggesting that this means progress is being made toward the approval of these ETFs.

CRYPTO MEDIA SITE DECRYPT MERGES WITH DECENTRALIZED MEDIA FIRM RUG RADIO

Crypto-focused news company Decrypt announced its plans to merge with decentralized media firm Rug Radio. This marks the third significant crypto media consolidation within a month, following the majority stake sales of The Block and CoinDesk. This merger would bring Decrypt deeper into the web3 ecosystem and provide Rug Radio with improved access to the journalistic brand. Both will maintain their brand and independence under a yet-to-be-named holding company and they plan to collaborate on advertising deals.

PUDGY PENGUINS TO LAUNCH WEBKINZ-LIKE VIRTUAL WORLD IN 2024

Pudgy Penguins announced it will soon enter the online gaming industry with "Pudgy World," an interactive digital playground expected to launch in early 2024. The platform will offer varied gameplay options, and it aims to provide more opportunities for Pudgy Penguin fans to interact with the brand. The NFT project has been a standout in 2023, becoming one of the most sought-after PFP projects in the space, and its toy line that debuted on Amazon and in Walmart stores this year is on track to do more than $10 million in sales in the second half of the year.

XION: THE GENERALIZED ABSTRACTION LAYER

This whitepaper details a new protocol called XION, a Generalized Abstraction layer that integrates user experience into a blockchain at the protocol level. XION simplifies the blockchain experience by integrating complex functionalities at the protocol level to enhance security, interoperability, and user experience. It also incorporates a modular design of meta accounts, parameterized fee layer, and signature agnostic implementation for a user-centric platform. XION’s architecture looks to bridge the gap between technical complexities and mainstream appeal.

SOLANA - YOUR ALL-IN-ONE GUIDE TO THE MOST USER-FRIENDLY CHAIN

This robust guide for beginners provides a thorough introduction to the Solana blockchain, from joining a DAO to increase knowledge and develop skills to leveraging various strategies to make a profit, either with or without starting capital. The writer emphasizes the importance of getting connected to others in the Solana ecosystem, highlights notable airdrop opportunities, and suggests key figures to follow on X.

CRYPTO TAX OPTIMIZATIONS

This post outlines some potentially helpful tax strategies to optimize crypto gains. It suggests using loans to avoid needing to sell for fiat and in cases where you expect prices to draw down. Incorporating as a business can result in tax benefits and rights to write-offs. It is important to speak with a tax lawyer to plan for these types of events and understand how they are treated in your jurisdiction.

L1S VS. L2S, ROLLUPS VS. INTEGRATED, GENERAL-PURPOSE VS. APP-SPECIFIC

This blog post explores the differences between L1s and L2s, rollups vs. integrated systems, and app-specific vs. general-purpose architectures. There is a need for an increased understanding of what and when to build, to avoid unnecessary complexity and poor user experiences. Rollups/L2s are not inherently bad for user experience, but fragmented ones are. You need to carefully consider the target market and the architecture's functionality before deciding which one fits your use case.

ETHEREUM LAYER-2 STARKNET REVEALS STRK TOKEN AIRDROP

Starknet, an Ethereum scaling network, announced that it will distribute over 1.8 billion STRK tokens to its community members and stakeholders. Allocation criteria are yet to be disclosed. In addition to these tokens, the foundation will deliver 50 million tokens to encourage DeFi activity on the network.

TIPS FOR NEWER CRYPTO ECOSYSTEM PARTICIPANTS

This post provides some helpful tips for newer entrants into the space.

BINANCE FOUNDER CHANGPENG 'CZ' ZHAO STUCK IN U.S. UNTIL SENTENCING

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who is facing sentencing for a Bank Secrecy Act violation, is not going to be allowed to return to the UAE in accordance with a federal judge’s ruling late last week.

LEDGER LIVE USER TRACKERS

This post outlines how Ledger Live extensively tracks user activity with analytics embedded in critical functions and raises concerns about its intensive data collection practices in the crypto community.

BIPARTISAN ANTI-CRYPTO TERROR FINANCING BILL HEADS TO U.S. SENATE

New US legislation is aiming to expand sanctions against foreign entities aiding terrorist groups through cryptocurrency transactions.

YOUR REFERRAL LINK - https://tldr.tech/crypto?ref=2613930

DESIGNERS UPDATE THE UN LOGO TO REFLECT RISING SEA LEVELS

A group of designers and creatives have come together to redesign the UN’s logo according to the organization’s projections for the rise of the sea level. The coastlines of continents have been retracted or reshaped, while some countries, like the Maldives, have been entirely deleted from the illustrated map of the world that the UN has used as its logo since 1946.

FIGMA’S 2023 HANDOFF

Figma is bidding farewell to 2023 by reflecting on its most significant moments, ideas, launches, and lessons learned. From the top things it shipped this year to the joy of mechanical keyboards, the Figma 2023 Handoff presents a year-end celebration of the big plays and deep learnings to carry into the next season.

PEACH FUZZ IS PANTONE'S COLOR OF THE YEAR, AND MOTOROLA RAZR'S NEW HUE

Peach Fuzz, the color of the year according to Pantone, is velvety, gentle, and embodies togetherness, community, and collaboration. Motorola’s Razr+ phone is coming in Peach Fuzz in an exclusive partnership.

COMMUNICATION PRACTICES FOR INCREASING UX MATURITY

To improve an organization’s UX maturity, designers should establish foundational alignment with UX goals and communication channels, essential UX understanding of UX processes and vocabulary, and become “collaboration ready” with UX toolkits and research results.

USING FIGMA VARIABLES FOR BREAKPOINTS

Figma’s biggest new feature from 2023 — local variables — can be used for creating interactive prototypes and automatic switching between dark and light modes. However, designers can go beyond that — they can use the local variables to set up breakpoints and make their designs responsive, for example.

WHY CAROUSELS DON'T WORK

Carousels need to engage users effectively, overwhelm them, and be inaccessible. Once you determine what's essential and establish the proper hierarchy, better alternatives will become evident.

ANIMAKER, MAKES ANIMATED VIDEOS WITH AI FOR FREE

Start with a prompt for the AI generator and combine it with a template from a range of more than 1,000 prebuilt prompts to quickly create animated videos.

MAKING SVG LOADING SPINNERS: AN INTERACTIVE GUIDE

SVG spinners are a great visual cue when elements are loading or data is being fetched. They are practical, scalable, and can enhance user experience. This guide walks through how they can be implemented using only simple SVG attributes like stroke-dasharray and stroke-dashoffset.

ALL-IN-ONE PALETTE GENERATOR, EDITOR AND MANAGER FOR FIGMA

Easily create harmonious, accessible-first palettes and save countless hours getting colors for your design system.

DESIGN TOOLS SURVEY 2023

AI has dramatically changed design tools in 2023. The latest tools survey shows that 65% of designers already use AI in their work, while 13% aren’t and aren’t interested in doing so. Figma still dominates the UI design tools market, followed by Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sketch.

SCROLL FADING 101

Scroll fade, a new design pattern, is an animation triggered by scrolling: new elements or content fade in or out once the user scrolls down to a certain point on the page. It can cause serious usability issues when misused. Used sparingly at relatively fast speeds, it can draw user attention, improve brand perception, speed up page loading, and divide your content into smaller, digestible nuggets.

LOST IN DALL-E 3 TRANSLATION

Models such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney tend to amplify stereotypes about race, gender, and national identity. Likewise, DALL-E 3 has its share of biases and stereotypes. This article reveals the language-specific variations of DALL-3 and explores how it navigates diversity and transparency.

EMAIL DESIGN TRENDS FOR 2024

2023 witnessed a rise in email design trends that will continue to evolve in 2024: Interactive emails, gamified experiences, dark mode, creative typography, hyper-personalization, and less generic emails, to name a few.

THE 14 WORST FONTS IN THE WORLD

Some common reasons make graphic designers dislike a typeface. This list features the most misused/overused, ugly, boring, clichéd, and dated fonts.

YOUR REFERRAL LINK - https://tldr.tech/design?ref=2613930

THE DEATH OF A VENTURE FUND

OpenView Venture Partners, a 20 year old fund with $2.4m AUM, recently announced it was closing its doors to much surprise. This article explores the reasons that cause funds to collapse and the often slow death that takes place considering they’re still holders of illiquid assets.

7 WAYS THE INTERNET WILL GET WEIRDER

A fascinating teardown of the features on the internet that would seem incredibly odd to previous generations. From online best friends to the future of video, AI is going to play a huge role in how the makeup of our work and play evolves over the coming decade.

WHAT’S THE NUMBER ONE MISTAKE SALES LEADERS MAKE?

Sales is a people business, and the biggest failure is around recruiting the right people to help you build and run the engine.

EXPERTISE IS PLENTIFUL OUTSIDE VENTURE FIRMS

An interesting take on entrepreneurship and raising money. Given that venture capital has not had the best year, and the rules are changing in startup financing in general, taking on venture might not mean you have your outcomes aligned. Think twice and know there are plenty of other places to find market expertise.

OVERAGES: THE OVERLOOKED PROBLEM IN USAGE-BASED PRICING AND HOW TO FIX IT

Usage-based pricing is more interesting than ever in the age of AI. A lot of companies and sectors don’t want to commit to SaaS-type upfront pricing as they don’t see the value or it doesn’t align with how they do business. Finding a balance of upfront vs usage-based pricing, as well as leaving room to make sure whatever you put in place isn’t a hindrance, is the key to success.

AYRAA (PRODUCT)

Your personal search engine for work.

GO INDEX ME! (PRODUCT)

Get indexed and stay indexed by Google.

OUTBUNDLY (PRODUCT)

AI-powered cold email outreach.

THE DEATH OF THE CREATOR ECONOMY

The creator economy was valued at $104 billion in 2021. In 2022, the funding for creator economy startups saw a precipitous drop from a high of over $2.5 billion in 2021 to around $123 million in early 2023. Much like venture, power law exists across the creator economy. A minor subset of creators make up the majority of the value harvested.

A CONVERSATION WITH CHARLIE MUNGER AND JOHN COLLISON (100 MINUTE PODCAST)

Charlie Munger shares his ingredients for long-term business success and the rise of Berkshire Hathaway over the years in this conversation with Stripe's John Collison recorded last year. Munger passed away in late November, and this is an excellent recount of his wisdom acquired over the years.

THE WHERE, WHEN, AND HOW OF AI

Leading founders and venture investors talk about what's happening in AI, from the application of LLMs to enterprise innovation. If the pace of “things you should know about AI” is somewhat overwhelming, this is a good quick recap.