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INFLATION BITES U.S. ENGINEERING SALARIES

Inflation has outpaced growth in US engineering salaries for the second year in a row.

THE RASPBERRY PI 5 IS FINALLY HERE

The Raspberry Pi 5, starting at $60, is the first Raspberry Pi to come with in-house silicon.

OPEN SOURCE DOES NOT WIN BY BEING CHEAPER

Open source companies either have to surpass their competitors or need to have a concrete reason for why they are open source.

MARK ZUCKERBERG CAN’T QUIT THE METAVERSE

Mark Zuckerberg talked about how the technologies that combine the physical world and the physical world are still being built and how they will result in the concept called the metaverse at Meta Connect 2023.

The next iPhone SE, which will allegedly come out in 2025, will use the iPhone 14 as a basic template.

RAY-BAN SMART GLASSES, AND META AI

AI DEVICE

POWERFUL NEW EV CHARGER STARTS FIELD TESTS IN ARIZONA THIS WEEKEND

MICE

BINDIFF

BinDiff is a comparison tool for binary files. It is able to quickly find differences and similarities in disassembled code. BinDiff helps researchers identify and isolate fixes for vulnerabilities in vendor-supplied patches and can be used to port symbols and comments between disassemblies of multiple versions of the same binary, making tracking changes over time easier and allowing organizations to retain analysis results.

VERTICALIZE

MARK ZUCKERBERG ON THREADS, THE FUTURE OF AI, AND QUEST 3

CHATGPT CAN NOW SEARCH THE WEB IN REAL TIME

NETWORK

Workers AI is an AI Inference-as-a-Service platform powered by a global network of GPUs that enables developers to run AI models with just a few lines of code.

COMPUTER SCIENCE IS NO LONGER A SAFE MAJOR

MISTRAL AI MAKES ITS FIRST LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL FREE FOR EVERYONE

LIVE NEAR YOUR FRIENDS

PERHAPS AI IS MODERN ALCHEMY. AND THAT’S NOT A BAD THING

MICROSOFT IS GOING NUCLEAR TO POWER ITS AI AMBITIONS

Microsoft plans to use next-generation nuclear reactors to power its data centers and AI ambitions. It has posted a job listing for a principal program manager to lead its nuclear energy strategy. Data centers use a ton of energy. Nuclear technology can provide the clean energy required for the company to hit its climate goals. Microsoft is specifically looking for someone who can roll out a plan for small modular reactors.

$90 BILLION

OpenAI is reportedly in discussions to sell shares. The sale could boost its valuation from $29 billion to over $80 billion. Employees will be allowed to sell existing shares. OpenAI said in late August that it expected to reach $1 billion in revenue this year.

FARMERS TURN TO TECH AS BEES STRUGGLE TO POLLINATE

BloomX, an Israeli tech firm, has created a plant-pollinating machine that works by dislodging pollen. The mechanism is similar to how bees pollinate plants. BloomX aims to reduce farmers' dependence on commercial honeybees. Bees are said to account for 75% of the pollination of fruits, nuts, and vegetables in the US, but their populations are under pressure due to climate change, habitat loss, and the use of pesticides.

ARRAY LABS: 3D MAPPING EARTH FROM SPACE

A real-time 3D map of the world is the Holy Grail of Earth Observation. Such a map would enable new applications and technologies and improve climate monitoring, disaster response, construction management, and urban planning. It could confer significant strategic and economic advantages to whoever possesses it. This article looks at Array Labs, a company that thinks that it is time to build the map, and the technology required to build it.

WHY ARE CLOUD DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS SPIKING IN POPULARITY, NOW?

Cloud Development Environments (CDEs) are spiking in popularity. This article looks at why CDEs are trending and what startups should look for in the space. CDEs are gaining popularity because codebases are getting larger, monorepos are getting more popular, laptop power is plateauing, connections are improving, and due to remote work. If the industry continues on this trend, most developers at large and mid-sized tech companies may be building software on remote machines within two to three years.

VIZRO

Vizro is a toolkit for creating modular data visualization applications. It enables users to create customized dashboards in minutes without the need for advanced coding or design experience. Vizro supports configurations written in Pydantic models, JSON, YAML, Python dictionaries, and more. Extensions are available.

MAINTAINS MONOPOLY

The FTC and 17 state attorneys general are suing Amazon, claiming that the company illegally maintains monopoly power. They claim that Amazon uses a set of punitive and coercive tactics to unlawfully maintain its monopolies. The lawsuit aims to hold Amazon accountable for its practices and restore competition. It could result in the breaking up of the company. Amazon claims that the lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law.

ALTERNATIVE’

Apple says it made Google the default search engine because it believes it was the best choice.

BUN: LESSONS FROM DISRUPTING A TECH ECOSYSTEM

Large companies have some motivation to innovate, but also a strong disincentive as well, as innovation risks undermining existing products - Bun started with a clean slate and it can make decisions that Node doesn't have the luxury of making.

IS THIS THE PRODUCTION TESLA CYBERTRUCK?

A recent drone video shows new Cybertrucks coming out of Gigafactory Texas - the video is available in the article.

DOABLE BY 2030

John Carmack says that the present state of AI might only be possible due to his work on Quake as the game sparked the demand for GPUs.

EXEC DAVE LIMP

Bob Smith will remain with Blue Origin until January 2, after which Dave Limp will take over.

MULTI-MODAL AI IS A UX PROBLEM

There's a huge opportunity to develop the user experience for multimodal AI.

YOU CAN NOW PROMPT CHATGPT WITH PICTURES AND VOICE COMMANDS

OpenAI is rolling out a version of ChatGPT that allows users to prompt the AI by speaking aloud or uploading a picture. It will be available for paying customers in the next two weeks and for everyone else soon after. The image search feature will include a drawing tool to help make queries more clear. Users will be able to prompt the bot to refine answers.

AMAZON TO INVEST UP TO $4 BILLION IN AI STARTUP ANTHROPIC

Amazon has agreed to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic, an AI startup. It will initially invest $1.25 billion with the option to increase its investment up to a total of $4 billion. Google, which is also an investor in Anthropic, plans to raise its investment by up to $5 billion over the next two years. Anthropic will use AWS as a primary cloud provider for mission-critical workloads as part of the deal. It will provide AWS customers with early access to unique features for model customization and fine-tuning capabilities.

SPOTIFY USING AI TO CLONE AND TRANSLATE PODCASTERS’ VOICES

Spotify has unveiled a new AI-powered feature that translates podcasts into multiple languages using the same voices as those in the show. The feature uses OpenAI's new voice generation technology, which only needs a few seconds of audio to replicate a voice. Voice-translated episodes from select creators are now available on Spotify. A list of all the translated shows currently available can be viewed on Spotify's Voice Translation hub, which is linked to in the article.

JAPAN PHARMA STARTUP DEVELOPING WORLD-FIRST DRUG TO GROW NEW TEETH

A team of scientists led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup has developed a drug that stimulates the growth of new teeth. It aims to put the drug on the market by around 2030. The drug inhibits the protein that suppresses the growth of teeth. Clinical trials for the drug are expected to begin in around July 2024. A trial for children between two and six years old born without some or all permanent teeth is planned for 2025.

MINUM

Minum is a minimalistic experimental web framework. It features an in-memory database with disk persistence, server-side templating, a logging and testing framework, HTML parsing, and more. Minum's compiled size is just 150 kilobytes and it only has 3,757 lines of production code, including required dependencies.

SOFTWARE PACKAGING IS A NIGHTMARE

The most common methods for distributing software packages and creating environments to run them in are Share Everything and Share Nothing. Share Everything is the classic model for software environments, but it can be extremely limiting. The Share Nothing approach is more likely to produce consistently working software, but it can lead to a ton of bloat. This article looks at these methods of distributing software packages and lays out an ideal build system approach.

THE OPPENHEIMER OF OUR AGE

Sam Altman claims that the AI that his company is building could destroy humanity. By his own assessment, we should feel good but not great about him being our AI leader. He says that he's neither emotionally nor demographically suited for the role. This article takes a look at who Sam Altman is to give readers a better idea of the kind of person he is. According to Silicon Valley's favorite Buddhist monk, Sam Altman has a 'pure heart'.

TECHIES ARE RENTING THEM

A pod is a group house structured like a pod hotel - a type of sleeping space invented in Japan designed to cater to travelers on a budget. A recent post by a tech entrepreneur went viral after he posted pictures of the pod he was living in for $700 per month in San Francisco. While the room is very small, it allows the startup founder to live close to the action. Pictures of the pod are available in the article.

REDDIT WILL START PAYING YOU REAL MONEY FOR GOOD POSTS

Reddit has announced a contributor program that allows eligible users to convert Reddit gold and karma into fiat currency.

INSIDE THE RACE TO STOP A DEADLY VIRAL OUTBREAK IN INDIA

Nipah is a deadly zoonotic virus that has a fatality rate in humans of between 40% and 75%.

THE MUSK ALGORITHM

Elon Musk's algorithm involves questioning every requirement, deleting any part or process if possible, simplifying and optimizing processes, accelerating cycle times, and automating last.

THE FIRST FOLDABLE PC ERA IS UNFOLDING

An overview of the current foldable laptop technologies available and a look at what is yet to come.

DITCH THE BELL

Ditch The Bell is a desktop notifier for RSS/Atom feeds that allows users to closely configure features of the freedesktop notification specification to unlock the most customizable feed notification experience possible on Linux.