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DEPLOYING FIBER IN THE HOME

Wiring a connection to a building entrance is not enough - this post documents a DIYer's experience of upgrading their building's wiring directly to their home.

CALIFORNIA GIVES WAYMO THE GREEN LIGHT TO EXPAND ROBOTAXI OPERATIONS

Waymo has been given permission to operate its self-driving robotaxis on highways in parts of Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Its cars will be allowed to drive at up to 65 mph on local roads and highways in approved areas. Waymo has no immediate plans to extend service to highways. The company's expansion has been put on hold until June following protests from several San Francisco city agencies and other groups.

ELON MUSK SUES OPENAI AND CEO SAM ALTMAN OVER CONTRACT BREACH

Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, among others, claiming that they abandoned the company's founding mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. Musk, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, stepped down from the firm's board in 2018. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI's focus on maximizing profits for Microsoft breaks its agreement to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity. Its aim is to compel OpenAI to adhere to the Founding Agreement and return to its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity.

HOW SCIENTISTS ARE USING SOUND WAVES TO HACK THE BRAIN

Researchers in South Korea have found a way to influence the formation of connections between neurons using ultrasound stimulation. Ultrasound waves can penetrate deep into the brain with surprising precision. The technique mimics brain waves common during learning and memory processes. It could lead to new medical treatments and make learning easier for everyone.

A FEW SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS ARE SHAPING AI

An analysis of more than 8,000 AI and ML papers found that papers shared by two specific influencers had a median citation count two to three times higher than those from a control group. Academic citations affect decisions like research funding and tenure at academic institutions. The correlation between influencer tweets and citation count points to a shift in how the community finds and reads papers. The overwhelming volume of papers published daily makes it impractical for individuals to sift through feeds, so the community is relying on curators to highlight noteworthy papers.

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DAFT

Daft is a distributed query engine for large-scale data processing designed for the cloud. It features a familiar interactive API, a powerful query optimizer, data catalog integrations, a rich multimodal type system, and more. Daft was designed to be able to process any data. It is built for interactive developer experiences on large clusters of machines with thousands of CPUs/GPUs.

WHAT WE LEARNED IN 6 MONTHS OF WORKING ON A CODEGEN DEV TOOL GPT PILOT

GPT Pilot is an AI developer that creates plans for how apps and features should be built before coding. It can do most of its work autonomously, asking for clarification or help when required. The project aimed to create a framework of thinking that gets AI to continuously work by revising its previous actions using a feedback loop that determines what it should do next in order to finish the end goal. This article contains lessons learned by its creators during development.

AI STARTUPS REQUIRE NEW STRATEGIES: THIS TIME IT’S ACTUALLY DIFFERENT

The typical dynamics between startups and incumbents that applied in previous technology revolutions like mobile and the Internet do not apply in AI. Incumbents are spending historic amounts of money and time embracing AI technology - they have the data, talent, and funding. There isn't really an 'AI market' - the market for chatbots and SEO tools is the same as before, just with more competition. AI startups that don't embrace this reality will likely fail.

APPLE TO ANNOUNCE NEW PRODUCTS THIS WEEK

Apple reportedly plans to announce new products this week. The company is rumored to be releasing new iPad Pro, iPad Air, and MacBook Air models along with new Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil accessories for select iPads. It may also announce new color options for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone cases, and Apple Watch bands. The products will be announced on Apple's website and through a series of videos and marketing campaigns.

INTRODUCING JSR - THE JAVASCRIPT REGISTRY

The JavaScript Registry (JSR) is a package registry optimized for TypeScript that only supports ES modules - it works with Deno and npm-based projects.

GOOGLE IS BLOCKING RCS ON ROOTED ANDROID DEVICES

THREADS SAYS IT WILL MAKE ITS API BROADLY AVAILABLE BY JUNE

Meta's Threads API is designed to enable creators, developers, and brands to manage their Threads presence at scale and easily share content with their communities from their favorite third-party apps.

DISILLUSIONED WITH DENO

Deno is great for tasks that only require the standard library or standard tooling, but problems start to occur when the task requires more.

GOOGLE PREPARES TO LAUNCH NEW APP STORE CALLED “APP MALL” FOR CHROMEOS

Google's new App Mall, designed for Chromebooks, aims to simplify app discovery and enhance the user experience by providing a centralized location for users to explore and install a wide range of apps optimized for ChromeOS.

A DEEP DIVE INTO THE UNDERLYING ARCHITECTURE OF GROQ'S LPU

Groq's tensor streaming processor is very different from a conventional CPU or GPU chip - its architecture makes it more deterministic.

OPENAI WANTS TO MAKE A WALKING, TALKING HUMANOID ROBOT SMARTER

Humanoid robots could be working alongside human manufacturing workers in only a few short years. Figure, a prominent company in the humanoid robot space, recently raised $675 million and struck a new agreement with OpenAI to develop next-generation AI models for its robots. The funding, which was reportedly over $150 million more than the amount Figure had initially sought, will help scale up the company's AI training, robotic manufacturing, and add on new engineers, speeding up the company's timeline for making its product available commercially. OpenAI's technology will help improve Figure's robots' semantic understanding, making them more useful in work scenarios.

TESLA STANDS TO EARN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR BY OPENING U.S. CHARGING STATIONS TO DRIVERS OF FORD AND OTHER EVS

ASTRO MECHANICA HAS INVENTED A NEW KIND OF JET ENGINE

Astro Mechanica's new jet engine is efficient at every speed. It uses electric motors to drive a compressor, allowing it to spin at any speed. The jet engine could be used in the first stage of an orbital vehicle to get payloads to orbit dramatically cheaper than other all-rocket systems. A video of a demonstration from last year is available in the thread - Astro Mechanica is already working on a new engine with 10x the thrust.

HIGH-SPEED HUMANOID FEELS LIKE A STEP CHANGE IN ROBOTICS

Sanctuary AI's Phoenix humanoid robot has robot hands that work totally autonomously at near-human speeds. The robot's hands are hydraulically actuated - while hydraulics technology is expensive to develop, it enables the robotic hands to gain a combination of precision, speed, and strength. Sanctuary AI trained Phoenix by using teleoperation to show it how to do things and then letting it figure out more in simulations. A video showing Phoenix manipulating objects is available in the article.

IN PRAISE OF NUSHELL

Nushell is a non-POSIX shell for working with structured data. It features redefined common shell commands that output structured data. Nushell's commands and pipes allow users to transform data from within the shell. It is able to replace many database query tools.

VERSIONFOX

VersionFox is an extendable cross-platform tool for managing SDK versions. It allows users to quickly install and switch between different versions of SDKs using the command line. VersionFox supports Global, Project, and Session scopes when switching versions. It has a simple plugin system for adding language support.

ASK HN: DID YOU ENCOUNTER ANY LEAP YEAR BUGS TODAY? (HACKER NEWS THREAD)

An extra day in the year can have interesting consequences. This Hacker News thread discusses bugs that users observed on February 29. Bugs were seen in card payment systems, parcel delivery websites, and daily post bots. China's app for scheduling marriage certificates apparently has a leap-year bug that prevents people born on February 29 from making appointments as it marks them as too young to marry legally.

CAN WE GET MORE DECENTRALISED THAN THE FEDIVERSE?

The fediverse will likely become as decentralized as email: a bit, but not that much. Personal instances will be pretty rare. This article explains why the fediverse won't be distributed and examines ideas for a distributed social system. It may be possible to get more decentralized than the fediverse using a simple extension on RSS, which can already incorporate a lot of popular content. Compared to the fediverse, RSS has a lower barrier to entry and cleaner separation of concerns and responsibilities.

MONEY BUBBLE

AI/ML will eventually be able to do some useful things, maybe even a lot of useful things, but it likely won't generate the kind of profit explosions required to justify the current bubble.

STACK OVERFLOW OPENS API TO GOOGLE’S GEMINI

The Overflow API will be previewed at Google's upcoming Cloud Next conference in April and made available within the first half of 2024.

HOW TO BUILD AWS-COMPATIBLE APIS: AWS SIGV4

Implementing AWS Sigv4 as a middleware allows developers to emulate AWS APIs and AWS-compatible services.

ROCKETLAB SAYS ITS SPACEX COMPETITOR ROCKET WILL FLY IN DECEMBER

While RocketLab's executives are optimistic about the self-imposed deadline, federal officials think the company will not be ready in time.

YOU’VE JUST INHERITED A LEGACY C++ CODEBASE, NOW WHAT?

This post shows readers how to get a legacy C++ codebase to an acceptable state in terms of security, developer experience, correctness, and performance with the least amount of effort.

BIG POST ABOUT BIG CONTEXT

Large context sizes for AI models will significantly change how people work with them.

ELON MUSK’S BOLD CLAIM: TESLA’S ROADSTER TO HIT 0-60 MPH IN LESS THAN ONE SECOND

Elon Musk claims that the Tesla Roadster, which he plans to unveil by the end of 2024, can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in less than a second. The current record holder for a production car's fastest 0-60 mph is the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170, which can do it in 1.66 seconds. If Musk's claims are true, the Tesla Roadster will be faster than the speed of sound. Tesla aims to ship the car in 2025, four years after its original 2020 target.

ADOBE’S NEW PROTOTYPE GENERATIVE AI TOOL IS THE ‘PHOTOSHOP’ OF MUSIC-MAKING AND EDITING

Adobe's Project Music GenAI Control is a prototype tool that allows users to generate and edit music using text prompts. It has controls for customizing results and remixing sections of audio. The tool can generate audio based on a reference melody and extend the length of audio clips. It is unclear whether the tool will allow uploads of any audio as reference material or how long clips can be extended for. The tool isn't available to the public yet and no release date has been announced.

MAN IN REMISSION FROM BLOOD CANCER AND HIV AFTER REMARKABLE TREATMENT

A Californian man who contracted blood cancer while living with HIV is in remission from both. The patient's treatment involved receiving a transplant of stem cells with a rare genetic mutation that provides resistance to HIV. The treatment targeted the blood cancer - HIV resistance was an extra benefit. The patient is the fifth person ever to overcome both illnesses.

VARDA CAPSULE REENTRY - FIVE MINUTES FROM LEO TO EARTH (6 MINUTE VIDEO)

Varda Space Industries' W-1 spacecraft successfully landed in Utah on February 21. This was the first time a commercial company landed a spacecraft on US soil. The spacecraft reentered the Earth's atmosphere at speeds over Mach 25 before safely deploying its parachute and landing. Varda has released a video from a camera onboard the W-1 spacecraft showing it orbiting the Earth in low-Earth orbit, smoothly separating from Rocket Lab's satellite bus, and then reentering Earth's atmosphere.

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*Valid through 11:59 PM PT on 02/29/2024 or until sold out.*

WHAT’S ON THE AGENDA: genAI [11] deep dives; 500+ sessions

across 10 different tracks; new AI demos [12] and trainings; [13] and expert-led builder sessions including AI coding challenges.

PINGORA

Pingora is a library for building fast, reliable, and programmable network services. It has been used to serve more than 40 million Internet requests per second at Cloudflare for more than a few years. Pingora features customizable load balancing and fail over strategies, support for a variety of observability tools, gRPC and websocket proxying, and TLS over OpenSSL or BoringSSL.

PIPELINED QUERY LANGUAGE

pql (pipelined query language) is a pipeline-based query language, inspired by Microsoft's Kusto Query Language, that compiles into SQL. The generated SQL is database agnostic. pql is designed to make developing queries simple by piping the result of each statement into the next. Examples are available.

APPLE SPENT MORE THAN $10 BILLION ON APPLE CAR BEFORE CANCELING PROJECT

Apple spent more than $10 billion working on the Apple Car since the project first launched in 2014. The money was spent on research and development, with thousands of engineers and car experts working on the project. Apple was never able to find the right leader for the project - the project had four different leads over its course of 10 years. Most of the more than 2,000 employees who worked on the car project will be redistributed, while some will be laid off. Apple will apply its learnings from the car project to other devices.

ASK HN: SLOW THINKERS, HOW DO YOU COMPENSATE FOR YOUR LACK OF QUICK-WITTEDNESS?

This Hacker News thread contains tips for slow thinkers to overcome and compensate for their lack of quick thinking ability. Many slow thinkers have potential, but they lose their capacity when forced to make quick decisions or generate arguments on the spot. Ways to get around this include taking your time to answer questions and preparing for situations in advance. Finding and acknowledging weaknesses, and then finding specific techniques or processes to overcome them, will significantly improve most outcomes.

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BITCOIN’S SO HIGH, IT CRASHED COINBASE TODAY

Bitcoin's recent surge to $60,000, close to its all-time high last seen in 2021, caused Coinbase's app to show some of its customers a zero balance across their accounts - customer funds are safe.

NVIDIA GEAR RESEARCH GROUP CREATED TO DEVELOP AI ROBOTS AND NPCS FOR PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL WORLDS

Nvidia's Generalist Embodied Agent Research (GEAR) group will further advance and build capable AI-based entities that can operate with skill in both the virtual and physical worlds.

STRIPE VALUATION SURGES TO $65BN AS IPO SPECULATION GROWS

Stripe has signed agreements with investors to provide liquidity to its current and former employees for a tender offer.

INTEL PUTS 1NM PROCESS (10A) ON THE ROADMAP FOR 2027 — ALSO PLANS FOR FULLY AI-AUTOMATED FACTORIES WITH 'COBOTS'

Intel's 10A process will begin development but not enter high-volume manufacturing in 2027.

WHY I USE FIREFOX

Firefox is very customizable, runs on its own browser engine, and has the best support for extensions on Android and a great picture-in-picture player, webpage translation is completely private, and Mozilla can't decrypt user data on its servers.