Search the archive

ART 3D: GAUSSIAN SPLATTING FOR TEXT-GUIDED ARTISTIC SCENES GENERATION

Generating artistic 2D images is a fun and creative use of AI. This work brings that capability to 3D with Gaussian Splatting guided by textual input.

3D GROUNDED SCENE UNDERSTANDING

Understanding where things are in a 3D scene is challenging. By using language-guided 3D understanding, you can pinpoint semantic labels for objects in 3D space.

FAST VISION TRANSFORMERS WITH LEARNABLE META TOKENS

LeMeViT is a new approach to reduce computational costs in Vision Transformers by using learnable meta tokens. These tokens efficiently capture key information, improving inference speed.

are pictures of cats. Get the white paper here.

DEVON

An open-source pair programmer.

LLAMA 3 FROM SCRATCH

It is easy to download language model weights and run them with a variety of tools. However, it is harder to know exactly what is going on in the code itself. This great tutorial shows every step of reconstructing Llama 3 and running the trained weights.

4D PANOPTIC SCENE GRAPH GENERATION

PSG-4D is a new representation that helps AI understand the 4D world of space and time.

BACKDOOR ATTACK ON VISION TRANSFORMERS

Researchers have discovered a new security threat for Vision Transformers, a popular AI model. The attack, named SWARM, uses a "switch token" to secretly activate backdoor behavior in a model, making it highly stealthy and dangerous for users.

WHAT'S UP WITH LLAMA 3?

Meta's Llama 3-70B language model has surpassed rivals in the English Chatbot Arena, excelling at open-ended creative tasks but struggling with more technical prompts. Analysis reveals that Llama 3's win rate decreases as prompts become more challenging and that it is particularly strong with friendly, conversational responses. While Llama 3's approachability may contribute to its success, its overall competitive edge needs further study.

PERPLEXITY CEO ARAVIND SRINIVAS TAKES SHOTS AT GOOGLE

Perplexity AI's CEO Aravind Srinivas is unfazed by Google's AI-driven summaries, suggesting they could harm Google's ad-reliant business model. In this post, he critiques Google's frequent rebranding in response to AI competition while highlighting his company's user-focused approach to ads.

GOOGLE STILL HASN'T FIXED GEMINI'S BIASED IMAGE GENERATOR

Google's AI chatbot Gemini remains unable to generate images of people, months after pausing the feature due to inaccuracy concerns and racial stereotyping.

SOUNDHOUND AI AND PERPLEXITY PARTNER

The SoundHound Chat AI assistant will leverage Perplexity to provide accurate, up-to-date responses to web-based queries that static LLMs cannot currently answer.

STABILITY AI DISCUSSES SALE AMID CASH CRUNCH

Stability AI has engaged in talks with potential buyers amid a cash crunch.

ETHER JUMPS 10% TO $3.4K AFTER BLOOMBERG UPS ODDS OF SPOT ETF APPROVAL

Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart announced that they are hearing that the ETH ETFs could be approved on May 23rd, and upped their odds from 25% to 75%. The approval of an ETH ETF is being seen as an increasingly political issue, especially after the move to overturn the SEC's SAB 121 ruling about crypto custody passed the House and Senate. Upon the news, ETH has increased by over 17%.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE SPOT BTC 13F FILINGS

Any entity with over $100 million in assets must file a 13F each quarter with their holdings. The Q1 filings show that ~3% of the ETF market cap is held by investment advisors, ~10% by hedge funds, and ~85% by retail investors – the average ETF is 35% owned by investment advisors. The ETFs appeared to hurt Coinbase's retail volume, as its retail volume is 50% of what it was in 2021. This author, a macro investment researcher, sees the ETFs as “orange FOMO poker chips” and says that the goal of a decentralized financial system should not be pushing money into ETFs.

SP1 GPU – A NEXT-GENERATION PROVER FOR SP1

Succinct Labs' SP1 prover already achieves state-of-the-art performance in precompile-heavy proving, with the GPU bringing cost and latency down 10x. Its benchmarks demonstrate that GPU can accelerate proving by up to 20x. It is working with hardware teams to implement the GPU with its prover network and plans to add support in the coming weeks.

LAYERZERO LABS CEO ANNOUNCES PAUSE OF SYBIL 'BOUNTY-HUNTER' PROCESS AFTER INFLUX OF REPORTS

LayerZero's CEO, Brian Pellegrino, announced that the Sybil hunting phase of their airdrop program would pause for a couple of days to fix the design. The protocol's highly-anticipated airdrop tasked users with Sybil hunting, finding clusters of wallets owned by the same entity, and reporting them for 10% of their token rewards. Since the start of the program, LayerZero has received over 3,000 bounty reports and 30,000 appeals. Going forward, it may introduce a .02 ETH bond and other design changes to reduce spam reporting.

THOUGHTS ON KEEPING UP WITH WHAT'S HAPPENING IN CRYPTO

Incentives drive onchain activity. In 2020, Compound's liquidity mining program increased protocol TVL from $100M to $600M in a week, sparking DeFi summer. In 2021, Polygon's joint liquidity mining programs with DeFi protocols like Aave led to Polygon's TVL increasing from $100M to billions. In 2024, Layer 2 solutions like Mode seem to be imitating Blur/Blast's points incentive program. Mode's TVL jumped $100M in a day during a “3X points event”. Future incentives will follow a similar pattern, innovating and being widely adopted until exhausted.

NEW LAUNCHES (PART 1) - PRIVATE CAPTURE, PHANTOM PRICING

Private markets and VCs have recently captured most of the upside of new tokens, primarily led by high FDVs and a poor regulatory environment. Though ICOs had downsides, they allowed for retail investors to get in early and for organic price discovery. Memecoins and investors' rejection of new projects is beginning to cause a rethinking of the proper launch strategy. If a project is valued at the top of its sector at launch, it would require a market-wide expansion to increase in value further.

CRYPTOPUNKS ANNOUNCES SUPER PUNK WORLD

Nina Chanel, in collaboration with CryptoPunks for the Punk in Residence program, has created a 500-piece collection titled "Super Punk World," featuring hybridized 3D sculptures that challenge and transcend race and gender norms. It integrates CryptoPunks' early-internet aesthetics with her distinctive abstract and colorful art style. This has been a controversial announcement for CryptoPunks - Crypto Twitter's reaction to this has been fairly negative so far.

DEDOLLARIZATION IS REINDUSTRIALIZATION

Dedollarization could lead to reindustrialization by reducing the U.S.' reliance on printing dollars and emphasizing domestic manufacturing. The U.S. must shift from printing money to building factories to compete globally, particularly with China, which has developed a robust industrial base (low-skilled to high-skilled labor) over the past 45 years. This might require an improvement in robotics, and resistance from regulatory bodies could pose challenges.

BINANCE TO START LISTING PROJECTS WITH LOWER VALUATIONS

After many recent complaints about “low float, high FDV” projects, Binance invited new projects to apply for listing on the site.

NEW YORK AG REACHES $2B SETTLEMENT WITH GENESIS

The settlement also effectively prohibits Genesis from operating in New York.

STEPS FOR ETH ETF APPROVAL

The SEC must approve two forms for the ETH ETFs to begin trading.

GRAYSCALE CEO RESIGNS

Peter Mintzberg, head of strategy in Goldman's asset management division, will replace Michael Sonnenshein in August of this year.

JUSTIN DRAKE DISCLOSES ROLE IN EIGENLAYER

Prominent Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has taken an advisory role at the EigenLayer Foundation in exchange for millions of dollars in EIGEN tokens vesting over three years.

AFTER ADOBE COLLAPSE, FIGMA DEAL ALLOWS EMPLOYEES TO SELL SHARES AT $12.5 BILLION VALUATION

Current and former Figma employees will have the chance to sell shares in the company as part of a tender offer that values the company at $12.5 billion. This is up 25% from the valuation the company raised in 2021 but below Adobe's unsuccessful acquisition attempt of $20 billion. a16z, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins are among the 25 existing and new investors who support the tender, which is expected to be worth $600 million to $900 million.

ADOBE FORCES VIDEO GAME EMULATOR TO IMMEDIATELY CHANGE ITS LOGO

Adobe has filed a claim against game emulator Delta over its logo's similarity to Adobe's stylized 'A.' Delta quickly responded by temporarily changing its logo into a broken version of itself to avoid legal repercussions. Despite the playful response, Delta plans to release a final version of its new logo soon.

REDEFINING PRODUCTIVITY

The new Outlook for Windows emphasizes personalization, craftsmanship, and intelligence to enhance user experience. It aims to balance advanced professional features with user-friendly customization by integrating Copilot features, refined motion design, and customizable themes. Its new design focuses on reducing cognitive load, providing intuitive interactions, and leveraging AI for smarter email management.

WHAT TELEPHONES CAN TELL YOU ABOUT GOOD DESIGN

Bell Labs designed the touch-tone phone keypad in the 1950s to increase accuracy and reduce connection time. The layout aligned with natural writing patterns and placed frequently used keys for optimal hand positioning based on Fitt's Law. This design, used around 40 trillion times, has saved approximately one million person-years and underscores the importance of understanding user preferences and cognition in product design.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS AND THE DETAILS SELL

Small interactions can significantly impact user experience and differentiate a product. Examples like simplified link creation in Notion, natural language date input in Things, and predictive text in Gmail illustrate how small details can enhance usability. These seemingly minor features become essential as users rely on them, building loyalty and setting apps apart, making them more appealing and competitive.

DESIGN INTERVIEWS

Designers should introduce themselves lightheartedly to stand out in interviews. They must describe the project context, including the deadline, team size, and responsibilities. They should highlight research methods, share sketches and solutions, and discuss constraints, user advocacy, and lessons learned to showcase their problem-solving and adaptability.

DESIGN TOKENS NAMING PLAYBOOK

An interactive guide and playbook for naming tokens.

DESIGN BEAUTIFUL PATTERNS FROM ENDLESS VARIATIONS

PatternPad is a free tool for creating customizable patterns for branding, presentations, social media posts, and product customization. It offers unlimited design variations with easy-to-use features, including hand-picked color palettes and export options in SVG, PNG, and JPG formats.

AI PROMPTS MADE AND SHARED BY THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY

Kreated.ai provides free AI-generated visual prompts created and shared by the community.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR UX DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Creating UX design principles helps teams align, ensuring consistent, high-quality work. The process involves running a workshop to define and prioritize values, refining these into clear principles, naming and formatting them, and setting criteria to measure success. Visualizing the principles and driving their adoption across the organization ensures they become integral to the design process, fostering a cohesive and user-centered approach to design.

ON LEADING MARKETING AND DESIGN

Combining Marketing and Design enhances end-to-end user experience and should be unified under one leader for efficient decision-making. Companies should focus on customer experiences from awareness to product championing, fostering collaboration, and "Yes, and..." thinking across departments.

CAN AI DESIGN TOOLS REPLACE HUMAN DESIGNERS?

AI design tools, like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Adobe Sensei, enhance the design process by handling repetitive tasks, analyzing data, and generating ideas. While they offer speed and efficiency, they lack the human touch needed for emotional and cultural nuances. The future of design lies in blending AI's capabilities with human creativity, allowing designers to focus on strategic and creative aspects and creating more impactful and emotionally resonant work.

THIS APPLE PENCIL PRO SECRET UI TOOL IS GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU GRIN

The new Apple Pencil Pro includes an innovative and hidden feature: a squeeze-to-select pen tool and an AI-generated shadow that matches the selected pen tool on the display.

EXPLORE THE STUNNING GRAPHIC DESIGN OF ADOBE SUMMIT 2024

The Adobe Summit 2024, designed by Damon xart and Oddfellows, showcases innovative graphic design with vibrant visuals and dynamic animations, highlighting Adobe's commitment to pushing digital design boundaries.

OMNOM'S CHOCOLATE SCULPTURES UNITE DESIGN, TASTE, AND SUSTAINABILITY FROM BEAN TO BITE

Showcased at Iceland's Design March festival, Omnom's chocolate sculptures repurpose cacao husk, drawing inspiration from Icelandic nature and culture.

MARKETING BUDGETS ARE DOWN 15% YOY

Marketing budgets aren't what they used to be. They're down 15% from 2023 to 2024 on average in the US and Europe. Search advertising represented the largest mean percentage of digital channel budgets, followed by social, digital display, and SEO. As for offline channel budgets, event marketing had the highest mean percentage, followed by sponsorships and linear TV. Over 75% of CMOs say that Gen AI is an investment priority for this year and expect it to eliminate costly drudge work and solve productivity challenges due to shrinking budgets.

HOW SELL-SIDE CURATION IS RESHAPING THE POST-COOKIE SUPPLY CHAIN

The phasing out of third-party cookies is driving the adoption of sell-side curation, where supply-side platforms use first-party data to create targeted audience segments for advertisers. This development is transforming the ad tech landscape by reducing demand-side platforms' dominance in audience curation and increasing the strategic importance of supply-side platforms and data management platforms.

5 TACTICS FOR BETTER ONBOARDING

The initial onboarding experience for users is frequently overlooked as a one-time checklist. This often becomes stale as products, messaging, and GTM tactics evolve. To reduce friction and accelerate time-to-value, set up reverse trials directly into the highest-tier plan, use social proof throughout the onboarding flow, push for team usage, and create action-triggered onboarding emails.

HOW TO SELL LIKE APPLE: THE OUTRAGEOUS POWER OF A MINIATURE STORY

We don't notice we're being sold to when we read a good sales story. We pay attention to the story, and that's what makes a product seem more valuable. This author breaks down an effective sales story that Apple published on the sales page for the iPhone 13 Pro. The opening sentence arouses curiosity and promises readers they'll learn something. The story then effectively combines technical language and a description of Hollywood cinematographers to sell readers on a more creative life — which in effect sells the product.

playbook

TOME: MAKE DEALS, NOT DECKS

Tome is an AI-powered research and presentation platform for sales and marketing teams. It can be used for sales pitches, landing pages, and sales enablement. The paid plans include AI-generated presentations created with a prompt, which provides an outline and 4 variations of each page. The free plan provides access to static deck templates.

60+ SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS

This report includes 60+ charts of interesting findings on how 1,900+ marketers are currently using social media. It covers all of the major social platforms, organic and paid activities, video marketing, and more. A few stats include FB (86%) and IG (79%) being the top 2 platforms used by marketers, visual content being the top content type (87%), and a significant 44% of marketers having no plans to increase their TikTok organic activities over the next 12 months.