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WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON LIES TOLD BY WEB DEVELOPERS? (REDDIT THREAD)

Developers commonly say yes to things when asked if they can do them, then figure out how to actually do them after saying yes.

REPRODUCING SOME D3 CHARTS WITH SWIFT CHARTS

A developer recreated common D3 charts in Apple's Swift Charts library.

3 PM EST

other in-demand frameworks

* How automation tools like Vanta [4] can get you there faster and with much less hassle

GOOGLE CONSIDERED BLOCKING SAFARI USERS FROM ACCESSING ITS NEW AI FEATURES, REPORT SAYS

Convincing iOS users to use Google's own apps instead of Safari has been a challenge for Google. Google hired former Instagram and Yahoo executive Robby Stein to oversee the push from Safari. The company reportedly considered limiting its AI Overviews feature to its own apps, excluding Safari users, but ultimately decided against the move.

APPLE GREEN LIGHTS EPIC GAMES STORE IN RAPID REVERSAL

Apple has given approval for the Epic Games store for iOS in the EU. Epic's submission was rejected twice previously. The latest decision was reversed just hours after reports started circulating about it. Apple objected to Epic's inclusion of a download button and related copy and has asked the company to fix the buttons in a future submission of the app. Epic still has a lot of work before its app store will be ready - it plans to bring the store to iOS in the next couple of months.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

ErythroMer is an experimental blood substitute developed by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. It is made from recycled human hemoglobin wrapped in a membrane to mimic a tiny cell. ErythroMer comes as a freeze-dried powder that remains usable for years. It can be reconstituted by simply mixing it with saline. ErythroMer should be safe for any blood type as its membrane doesn't include the red blood cell surface proteins that cause mismatches. It is still in preclinical testing, but it is possible that ErythroMer could be more durable and versatile than real blood.

THE WORLD'S FIRST ANODE-FREE SODIUM SOLID-STATE BATTERY

The Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion has created the world's first anode-free sodium solid-state battery. The battery brings the reality of inexpensive, fast-charging, high-capacity batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage closer than ever. It has an architecture with stable cycling for several hundred cycles and is more affordable and environmentally friendly to produce than lithium batteries. Sodium, common in ocean water and soda ash mining, is an inherently more environmentally friendly battery material.

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PONGO

Pongo is Mongo on Postgres with strong consistency benefits. It treats PostgreSQL as a document database with JSONB support, adding significant performance and storage efficiency. Pongo takes the MongoDB API and translates it to native PostgreSQL queries. Using JSONB means that data is preparsed, allowing faster read and write operations. JSONB retains the flexibility of storing semi-structured data while allowing users to take advantage of PostgreSQL's robust querying capabilities.

DUCKDB COMMUNITY EXTENSIONS

DuckDB has a new extension mechanism that allows users to register new functions, support new file formats and compression methods, handle new network protocols, and more. Extensions can be published via the DuckDB Community Extensions repository. The repository makes it easier for users to install extensions using a simple syntax. Extension developers can use the repository to avoid the burdens of compilation and distribution.

A NEW AGE OF MATERIALS IS DAWNING, FOR EVERYTHING FROM SMARTPHONES TO MISSILES

Composite materials have the advantage of being lighter than the metal parts they typically replace while being just as strong and requiring fewer resources to make. The labor-intensive nature of their manufacturing has made them expensive and limited their application to a handful of areas. New manufacturing techniques that can churn out composite parts quickly and cheaply are changing the field. This article takes a look at emerging composites technologies and the materials and products they are creating.

HERE'S HOW QUALCOMM'S NEW LAPTOP CHIPS REALLY STACK UP TO APPLE, INTEL, AND AMD

Microsoft's 12-year-long attempt at making Windows on Arm happen is starting to pay off. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips are turning Windows on Arm into a viable platform. While the chips don't outright beat Apple's M3 chip in every benchmark, this is the closest Microsoft has been able to compete so far with MacBooks in price, performance, and battery life. Microsoft's new lineup could make Intel and AMD scramble to catch up.

a demo

SOMETHING HAPPENS TO EVERYONE

You or someone you love will inevitably go through a tragic situation at some point - knowing this reminds us that suffering is a universal human experience, not a personal failing or unique misfortune.

HOW AND WHY WE BUILT OUR STARTUP AROUND SMALL TEAMS

Small teams enable a startup to scale while retaining the culture and speed of an early-stage startup.

NEW AI TRAINING TECHNIQUE IS DRASTICALLY FASTER, SAYS GOOGLE

Google's DeepMind researchers have developed a new AI training method that significantly reduces the computation resources and time needed to do the work.

I'M FUNDING LADYBIRD BECAUSE I CAN'T FUND FIREFOX

An open web requires a healthy system of several competing browsers where each has enough market share that no one vendor has de facto control over web standards.

WHY HAVEN'T BIOLOGISTS CURED CANCER?

There are signs that feedback loops are getting slower and fewer in number in medicine and upcoming regulations may mean that the US will spend less on drug development.

SYNCHRONIZATION IS BAD FOR SCALE

Synchronization locks create synchronization points, which are typically bad for scaling horizontally.

A HACKER STOLE OPENAI SECRETS, RAISING FEARS THAT CHINA COULD, TOO

A hacker gained access to OpenAI's internal messaging systems early last year. They accessed details from discussions in an internal online forum but did not get into the systems where the company houses and builds its artificial intelligence. Details of the incident were revealed to employees in April 2023. Executives decided not to share the news publicly because no information about customers or partners was stolen. It is believed that the hacker was a private individual with no known ties to a foreign government. OpenAI did not inform the FBI or anyone else in law enforcement about the incident.

FIGMA PULLS AI TOOL AFTER CRITICISM THAT IT RIPPED OFF APPLE'S DESIGN

Figma's "Make Designs" AI feature was temporarily pulled amidst concerns it generated designs too similar to Apple's apps. CEO Dylan Field attributes the similarity to third-party models and a design system the company commissioned, rather than training on Figma's own content. Figma plans to ensure future AI features align with quality standards and user privacy choices.

AI RESURRECTS DECEASED ACTORS' VOICES TO READ AUDIOBOOKS

AI company ElevenLabs has launched a Reader app featuring voice-overs by digital versions of deceased celebrities, stirring questions of morality and legality in AI's use in media. While partnerships with estates enable monetization, concerns about authenticity and ethical implications persist. The emergence of such technologies heralds a potential expansion in markets such as audiobooks, where celebrity voices drive demand.

OPTIMIZING SUB BILLION PARAMETER MODELS

Thorough and interesting paper by Meta that shows how to train small models to be as performant as possible.

CAPPA TRAINING REPORT

The CapPa vision model trained by Craiyon shows state-of-the-art performance on a number of challenging vision benchmarks.

MEDICAL IMAGING

Researchers have developed a new generative model to improve MRI image translation between different sequences without requiring paired samples.

SDXL TRAINED FROM SCRATCH WITH A FULL LLM EMBEDDER (HUGGING FACE HUB)

A great and open alternative diffusion model with strong text understanding.

POINT CLOUD COMPLETION

EGIInet introduces a new approach to point cloud completion by effectively combining two modalities through geometric task guidance.

REAL-TIME 3D RECONSTRUCTION FOR SURGERY

An SfM-free method for 3D reconstruction of surgical scenes has been introduced, addressing the limitations of previous approaches that struggled with minimal textures and photometric inconsistencies.

FUN AUDIO GENERATION AND UNDERSTANDING

The Tongyi speech team released extremely strong audio understanding and generation models.

SUPERINTELLIGENCE—10 YEARS LATER

A decade after Nick Bostrom's influential book "Superintelligence," AI advancements have brought the possibility of AGI and its risks into mainstream discussions. The AI research community is now urgently addressing AI safety, with 2024 marking a pivot toward ensuring control and alignment with human values. The field grapples with ethical and safety challenges previously considered speculative as AI technologies rapidly progress.

GOOGLE SMART PASTE

Google's core code tooling team has trained a smart paste model that adjusts code pasted in based on the context. They found a 42% acceptance rate for 6% of all copied code.

QUALITY PROMPTS

This library consolidates a growing set of standard prompting tricks into a single place and can automatically apply them to your prompts to optimize them.

APPLE M5 CHIP'S DUAL-USE DESIGN WILL POWER FUTURE MACS AND AI SERVERS

Apple will reportedly use a more advanced System on Integrated Chip (SoIC) technology for its M5 chips.

APPLE INTELLIGENCE AND A BETTER SIRI MAY BE COMING TO IPHONES THIS SPRING

Apple's Siri is set to improve with the iOS 18.4 update releasing in Spring 2025, which will introduce new features like advanced photo searching and possibly AI-driven emoji and writing tools.

CELSIUS SUING FORMER CUSTOMERS FOR WITHDRAWING BEFORE BANKRUPTCY DECLARATION

Celsius Network filed a lawsuit in New York against thousands of its users, especially those who withdrew their funds up to 90 days before the platform declared bankruptcy. The company is now looking to claw back the withdrawals at current market rates (far exceeding the amount at time of withdrawal).

2024 ELECTION: THE ROLE OF CRYPTO

A Harris Poll survey conducted for Grayscale reveals a growing interest in cryptocurrency among U.S. voters as the 2024 election approaches. Nearly one-third of American voters are now more inclined to invest in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies following the approval of a Bitcoin ETF. This shift is driven largely by macroeconomic factors like inflation, with many voters expecting or wanting to include crypto in their investment portfolios.

GRASS OPEN SOURCES A DATASET WITH OVER 600 MILLION REDDIT POSTS AND COMMENTS

The Grass ecosystem has open-sourced over 600 million Reddit posts and comments for public AI training, providing developers with unprecedented access to data and reducing entry barriers. The dataset, UpvoteWeb-24-600M, is anonymized and includes language detection and token counts. It is filtered for safe content.

INTRODUCING PUFFERUNIFI - PUFFER'S BASED ROLLUP

Liquid restaking protocol Puffer has announced its plans for a based rollup. It will be sequenced by an L1 and use preconfirmations from Puffer's restaked validators. Puffer enables synchronous composability, allowing UniFi transactions to communicate with other based rollups directly. L2 contention fees return to ETH validators, and the unifiETH gas token generates native yield and enables gasless transactions.

LAYERZERO BREAKDOWN

LayerZero helps facilitate secure and efficient communication between different blockchains by using Ultra-Light Nodes, Oracles, and Relayers. This setup allows blockchains, which are otherwise "isolated like separate islands", to share information and resources smoothly, solving the problem of interoperability in the blockchain ecosystem.

THE HOT START PROBLEM: WHEN SPECULATION IS A FEATURE VS A BUG

The hot start problem is when the introduction of a token limits the window of time a startup has to find PMF and facilitate organic growth before users and liquidity decline. It is better than the cold start problem for highly competitive markets, like LRTs, and networks with passive supply-side participation, like L1s with staking or DePIN. Though tokens are valuable tools for bootstrapping networks, they require serious consideration into how to properly reward organic users and drive proper incentives across the protocol.

SOLANA ORIGIN STORY

Daniel Albert, CEO of Solana, shared insights on the blockchain's journey from its early days in a San Francisco basement to becoming a leading network. Key highlights include the unique consensus mechanism enabling high transaction speeds, the upcoming Firedancer project aimed at further performance optimization, and advancements in token functionality with the new token extensions.

LIQUIDITY & UTILIZATION OF LIQUID RESTAKING TOKENS (LRTS) - JUNE

As June ends, the focus is shifting from airdrop incentives to the forthcoming AVS rewards for liquid restaking tokens (LRTs), which promise higher staking rewards. Key updates include EigenLayer's testnet rewards trial and notable events like Renzo's fundraise and product launches, EtherFi's buyback, and Pendle's maturing markets. Despite a slight liquidity dip, LRTs saw increased trading volume and continued growth in TVL, signaling ongoing interest and the importance of LRTs in DeFi's future.

TON'S PLAN TO ONBOARD 500M USERS

TON hopes to achieve 500 million users by 2028 by using Telegram's large user base and integrated Web3 functions like user-friendly wallets and mini apps.

DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT DECENTRALIZATION?

Decentralization is a principle that enthusiasts encourage but is ignored by the general public, who only care about a great UX.

MAXIMUM VIABLE SECURITY (MVS): A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR ETHEREUM ISSUANCE

Ethereum's goal of being a global neutral settlement layer requires security and independence, specifically resisting double-signing, censoring, and government attacks.