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ON THE PROPOSED CALIFORNIA SB 1047

This article looks at the proposed California SB 1047, a bill designed to regulate AI from a state level, examining the impact that it will have on the industry.

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SAM ALTMAN SEEKING TRILLIONS FOR AI CHIP FABRICATION FROM UAE, OTHERS

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in talks with investors to raise up to $7 trillion for AI chip manufacturing. The project aims to address GPU scarcity as the chips are crucial for training and running large language models. Potential investors include sovereign wealth funds and government entities, which may raise geopolitical concerns. The US has been cautious about allowing foreign control over the supply of microchips - it recently announced a $5 billion investment in R&D to advance US-made semiconductor technologies.

OPENAI'S NEXT AI PRODUCT COULD BE AFTER YOUR JOB (AGAIN)

OpenAI has been reportedly developing two types of AI agent software for over a year. The first type can be used to automate complex tasks by taking over a customer's device. The second AI agent class handles web-based tasks and can gather public data. It is unclear when the company plans to release these agents.

WITH DISNEY’S MAGIC, FORTNITE IS POISED TO WIN THE METAVERSE

Epic Games and Disney are designing an entertainment universe text full of Disney-flavored games to play and things to buy. The project will use Epic's technology and Fortnite's social gaming ecosystem to bring Disney characters to life. Disney has invested $1.5 billion into Epic as part of the deal. While Meta has been busy trying to make the Oculus a mainstream consumer product, companies like Epic have been building avatar-driven virtual worlds that are widely available and hardware agnostic.

HOW TO FAKE A ROBOTICS DEMO FOR FUN AND PROFIT

Developments in robots and CGI are making it harder and harder to tell what's real. Even if the footage is real, video demos are often the best-performing clips - behind every video is likely hours and hours of video that didn't make it into the final cut. CES lacked cool robotic demos, yet there are many amazing videos out there. Viewers should approach these videos with discernment and skepticism. This article covers several ways that robotics videos can be enhanced or faked.

Learn more about their 90-day pilot.

(ALMOST) EVERY INFRASTRUCTURE DECISION I ENDORSE OR REGRET AFTER 4 YEARS RUNNING INFRASTRUCTURE AT A STARTUP

This article looks at some of the core decisions that an infrastructure lead had to make for a startup over the past four years. It notes whether they recommend or regret the decision and provides details on why. The decisions covered areas such as AWS, processes, SaaS, software, and more.

TOOLONG

Toolong is a terminal application for viewing, tailing, merging, and searching log files and JSONL. It features live tailing of log files, syntax highlighting for common web server log formats, pretty printed JSONL files, support for .bz and .bz2 files, and merging via auto detection of timestamps. Screenshots and video demos are available in the repository.

ALL MY THOUGHTS AFTER 40 HOURS IN THE VISION PRO

This article takes a look at the Apple Vision Pro: its hardware, operating system, and applications. It covers each part of the device, explaining how they work and how they affect the experience. While the technology feels incredible to use, there's currently not that much to do on the device. As the technology gets better, the amount of content will multiply and its value proposition will improve.

THOUGHTS ON TECH EMPLOYMENT

Tech companies are typically best at adopting new technology, leading to productivity gains. Some roles at tech companies are highly leveraged, like systems, engineering, and design, and the rest of the company exists to support these roles. Businesses wanting to be more efficient will cut inefficiencies in their support roles, especially when technologies exist that can replace them. Tech allows fewer people to create more value for society - it might be time to start finding alternative ways to provide for all living beings.

SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE GETTING STINGY WITH THEIR DATA, LEAVING THIRD-PARTY DEVELOPERS IN THE LURCH

Social networks have realized the value of the data they are sitting on - the walls they have put up to access their data have resulted in some developers moving to decentralized platforms.

RSS IS STILL PRETTY GREAT

RSS feeds are the best way to consume a curated list of high-quality information with very little noise.

WHO MAKES MONEY WHEN AI READS THE INTERNET FOR US?

New forms of browsing enabled by AI allow people to get information without having to visit websites, removing the incentive for content creators to make content - how creators monetize web pages needs to evolve.

MIRACODE

Miracode is a readable version of Monocraft, a font based on the typeface used in the Minecraft UI.

OPENAI HITS $2 BILLION REVENUE MILESTONE

OpenAI believes it can more than double this figure in 2025.

APPLE VISION PRO COULD TAKE FOUR GENERATIONS TO REACH 'IDEAL FORM'

The team working on the Vision Pro says there's much to be done before the device can be considered refined enough for customers to use on a day-to-day basis.

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GOOGLE LAUNCHES GEMINI ULTRA, ITS MOST POWERFUL LLM YET

Google has retired the Bard name and rebranded it to Gemini for the launch of Gemini Ultra, its most capable large language model yet. Gemini Ultra is available through a new $20 Google One tier that also includes 2TB of storage as well as the rest of Google One's feature set. The feature will work in Google Workspace apps. More information about API access for the Ultra model will be shared in the coming weeks.

SPACEX TESTS USING DRONE SHIPS TO SUPPORT STARLINK COVERAGE AT SEA

SpaceX is using its drone ships, designed to act as landing pads for rockets, as gateway stations to bolster Starlink's cover at sea. The company applied for a temporary FCC license last month to test operating up to 12 earth station antennas over the drone ships. SpaceX hasn't revealed details about how the drone ships will serve as backhaul without dedicated fiber connections. The FCC is still weighing the application.

THE MOST PROMISING AI SMART GLASSES ARE FROM A BRAND YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF

Brilliant Labs' Frame smart glasses feature an integrated multimodal AI assistant. It lets users navigate and interact with the physical world with multimodal generative AI agents. The glasses use a wide range of AI models to answer questions. Frame has a front-facing sensor to capture images to answer questions, but it discards the data shortly after. It requires a smartphone with an internet connection to operate. A video introducing the device is available in the article.

ALL NEURAL NETWORKS. ALL AUTONOMOUS. ALL 1X SPEED

LLRT

Low Latency Runtime (LLRT) is a JavaScript runtime designed to address the growing demand for fast and efficient Serverless applications. It offers up to over 10x faster startup and up to 2x overall lower cost compared to other JavaScript runtimes running on AWS Lambda. LLRT only supports a fraction of Node.js APIs and is not a drop-in replacement for Node.js. It conserves both CPU and memory resources by not incorporating a JIT compiler.

INTRODUCING SUDO FOR WINDOWS!

Sudo for Windows is a new way for users to run elevated commands directly from an unelevated console session. Microsoft has open-sourced the project and added the feature to the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26052. The feature currently supports three configuration options (In a new window, Input closed, and Inline) that can be set through a drop-down menu in the Settings page for the feature. A link to gsudom, an alternative implementation of sudo with additional functionality, is available.

THE ONE-PERSON BILLION-DOLLAR COMPANY

OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman recently said that a one-person billion-dollar company may soon emerge. This will supposedly be made possible with AI tools as work could be outsourced to an army of artificial intelligence agents. The size of the distribution required, coupled with the ability of anyone to make anything with the same AI tools, makes the one-person billion-dollar company incredibly challenging if not impossible. There's a significant opportunity for ambitious people to build solo businesses in the $1-10 million ARR range, but after that, it's probably best to hire people to help grow anyway.

HOW GOOD IS GOOGLE GEMINI ADVANCED?

Gemini Advanced, recently rebranded from Bard Advanced, is a $19.99/month service (with a two-month free trial) available in 150 countries in English. It is multimodal and has data analysis capabilities and improved reasoning compared to Gemini Pro, the free version of the model. Gemini Advanced is a GPT-4 class model, but it doesn't obviously blow away GPT-4 in the benchmarks. It is better than GPT-4 in some cases, but GPT-4 is still more sophisticated about using code and accomplishes a number of hard verbal tasks better. Both models still fail and hallucinate at times.

AN INTUITION FOR DISTRIBUTED CONSENSUS IN OLTP SYSTEMS

This post shares learnings from working with distributed consensus in transactional databases.

OPENAI COMPATIBILITY

Ollama now has built-in compatibility with the OpenAI Chat Completion API.

ON WHETHER WE’RE LIVING IN A SIMULATION

There's no point in worrying if we're living in a simulation.

MOZILLA PIVOTS TO AI, INTERNET SAFETY: ANNOUNCES NEW CEO

Mitchell Baker, one of the co-founders of the Mozilla Project, is stepping down as CEO to focus on AI and internet safety initiatives - the CEO role will be temporarily held by Laura Chambers until a longer-term successor is found.

GOOGLE SAVES YOUR CONVERSATIONS WITH GEMINI FOR YEARS BY DEFAULT

Google has released a new support document that outlines the ways in which it collects data from Gemini users.

WHEN "LETTING IT CRASH" IS NOT ENOUGH

Durable execution is an approach to dealing with failure that stores the minimal amount of data needed to reconstruct an application's state at any time, making local variables indestructible.

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APPLE ACTIVELY DEVELOPING FOLDABLE CLAMSHELL IPHONE PROTOTYPES, FOLDING 8-INCH IPAD

Apple has been exploring foldable iPhones as early as 2018. It currently has at least two active clamshell prototypes. Apple is also developing a larger form-factor foldable iPad. The company recently discussed component orders with manufacturers in Asia. The project may still be canceled if the final product cannot meet Apple's design standards.

DISNEY INVESTS $1.5B IN EPIC GAMES, PLANS NEW “GAMES AND ENTERTAINMENT UNIVERSE”

Disney has announced plans to invest $1.5 billion into Epic Games for an equity stake. The partnership will see the companies collaborate on an all-new games and entertainment universe. Disney has attempted to enter the gaming industry several times - this is its biggest attempt yet. The announcement video is available in the article.

EUROPE’S DEEPEST MINE TO BECOME GIANT GRAVITY BATTERY

The Pyhäsalmi Mine, an abandoned mine in Finland, is set to be transformed into a giant gravity battery to store renewable energy. The 1,400-meter-deep mine holds the potential to store up to 2 MW of energy. Gravity batteries are charged by lifting heavy weights - these weights are then released, and energy from the drop is used to power a turbine. The technology offers a potential future for mines approaching the end of their original service lives. Studies suggest that gravity batteries in abandoned mines could store enough energy to meet global electricity demands.

MOMENTARY FUSION BREAKTHROUGHS FACE HARD REALITY

A new paper has confirmed the National Ignition Facility's claim that they finally achieved a breakeven fusion reaction. While there is still considerable work to be done, the achievement signals a major milestone in fusion science. It demonstrated that there is nothing fundamentally limiting scientists from being able to harness fusion in the laboratory. The team has since carried out six more experiments, four of which generated significantly more energy than in the breakthrough experiment.

JQUERY 4.0.0 BETA!

The jQuery 4.0.0 beta features bug fixes, performance improvements, and some breaking changes, like the removal of support for IE<11. Other breaking changes include the removal of previously deprecated APIs, internal-only parameters to public functions, and support for some magic behaviors that were overly complicated. A comprehensive upgrade guide will be published before the final release. This article covers some of the highlights of the jQuery 4.0.0 beta.

SCRIPTISTO

Scriptisto is a language-agnostic shebang interpreter that enables developers to write scripts in compiled languages. It combines a scripting development experience with the performance of strongly typed native languages such as C, C++, and Rust. Scriptisto can build in Docker, so there is no need to have a compiler on users' machines - static binaries can be linked in the container that has all the tools.

MORALE PLUMMETS AT GOOGLE AS WORKERS COMPLAIN BOSSES ARE 'INEPT' AND 'BORING'

Google staff morale is suffering badly and workers are increasingly vocal about the slump. The company and its work culture are being described as overly corporate and generally aimless. There is a growing rift between leadership and employees. While executives seem excited about the company's future, employees are much less enthusiastic as they feel they might get laid off at any time.

MEET ME IN THE ETERNAL CITY

A network state is the idea that an online community could eventually move offline into the real world, with the purchase of land and a community of inhabitants, and become large enough that at least one pre-existing government is moved to offer diplomatic recognition. There are many possible ways the idea can play out, but states must be based on something like a moral innovation or a 'one commandment'. There are several network-state-inspired projects underway. This article looks at the concept of the network state and the projects that are building towards it.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM PAYMENTS STARTUPS

This post contains a collection of thoughts and lessons learned from working at a number of payments companies and startups.

JAVASCRIPT IN SVGS

SVG is an XML-based format, so it is possible to use tags like CDATA, which allows the embedding of JavaScript code within XML documents, to create SVGs that interact with APIs.

YOUTUBE TV IS THE US’S 4TH-BIGGEST CABLE TV PROVIDER, WITH 8 MILLION SUBS

YouTube TV bundles over 100 channels into one of the most expensive streaming subscriptions at $73 a month.

MEET ‘SMAUG-72B’: THE NEW KING OF OPEN-SOURCE AI

Abacus AI's Smaug-72B, technically a fine-tuned version of Qwen-72B, a powerful language model released by a team of researchers at Alibaba Group, surpasses GPT-3.5, Mistral Medium, and Qwen-72B in several of the most popular benchmarks.

NODE.JS COMMUNITY DEBATE INTENSIFIES OVER ENABLING COREPACK BY DEFAULT AND POTENTIALLY UNBUNDLING NPM

Enabling Corepack, which allows developers to use Yam, npm, and pnpm without having to install them, could eventually lead to the uncoupling of Node.js releases and npm releases.

DATA INDUSTRY PRIMER

This article looks at the history of data platforms, what a modern data platform looks like, and important companies in the data ecosystem.

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