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FEDS SEIZE SINBAD CRYPTO MIXER ALLEGEDLY USED BY NORTH KOREAN HACKERS

The FBI and Dutch authorities seized Sinbad, a crypto mixer used by North Korean hackers and cybercriminals, following a Treasury Department sanction.

BINANCE ENDING SUPPORT OF BUSD STABLECOIN IN DECEMBER

Binance is ending support for the BUSD stablecoin on Dec 15, following US authorities' order to Paxos to stop issuing the token.

INTRODUCING A NEW HOMEPAGE VIEW IN GOOGLE DRIVE

Google Drive's new streamlined homepage makes it easier and faster for users to find files that matter most. The homepage will now present personalized file and folder suggestions based on machine-learning algorithms, filter chips to narrow down searches, and a more modern design in line with Google Material Design 3.

ONE UI 6'S BEST FEATURE IS SAMSUNG'S NEW EMOJIS

Samsung's Android 14 update, One UI 6, contains a significant visual overhaul of emojis, making them more modern and user-friendly. The update replaces the dated and less intuitive emojis with more recognizable and aesthetically pleasing designs, improving usability with better contrast and larger details.

AI CAN NOW RECREATE A WEBSITE'S CODE FROM JUST A SCREENSHOT

AI is rapidly transforming web design, with the latest innovation being a tool that converts screenshots into functional HTML and CSS. This tool, called Screenshot-to-Code, utilizes GPT-4 Vision and DALL-E 3 to generate code and images. While some see its potential for revolutionizing web design, others express concerns about job displacement and potential misuse.

COOKIE PERMISSIONS 101

Cookie permissions must follow the law and balance, respecting user privacy and being user-friendly. Designers should make the cookie options clear and available immediately, avoid using deceptive UI patterns, use plain language, use bullet points to describe each cookie, minimize the size of cookie overlays, and only use one overlay at a time.

DESIGN SYSTEMS ARE AN INVESTMENT

Organizations must realize that investing in a design system pays off in the long run. By investing in your design system now, you'll gain more consistency, productivity, better code quality, fewer bugs, and less maintenance.

THE ROLE USER-CENTERED DESIGN (UCD) SHOULD PLAY IN AI DEVELOPMENT

As teams explore how AI can improve services, they must learn more about their customers and users. Those with user-centered design skills are uniquely positioned to assist teams in this endeavor.

AI TEXT PROMPT TO SVG

Svg.io is a free-to-use online text prompt to SVG tool that doesn’t require signing up, doesn’t add watermarks, and has no limits on how many SVGs can be generated.

UNDERSTANDING USABILITY

This thoughtful guide covers the essential aspects and best practices of accessibility as applied to color, typography, animations, and images.

LOCALIZE YOUR DESIGNS RIGHT IN FIGMA (FIGMA PLUGIN)

Test your designs in other languages, catch localization layout issues quickly, bring your designs to new locales, and communicate with international team members in Figma and FigJam documents.

HOW PHOTOROOM HELPS DESIGNERS FOCUS ON THE FUN PARTS OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS

The PhotoRoom team believes that AI apps like PhotoRoom will help enhance the work of designers rather than replace them entirely. Rather than get bogged down in dull, labor-intensive tasks, such as cutting, cropping, and comping, creatives can hand these jobs to PhotoRoom to do and, in turn, have more time to think and experiment.

USABILITY LABS: COOL OR OLD SCHOOL?

Usability laboratories have played a key role in much of history's most crucial user research. This article illustrates the historical overview of the transformation of usability labs, from dedicated spaces to Zoom calls, and explores if they're still relevant in 2023.

THE CREATIVE PART OF DESIGN ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS

The creative part of design, or any work for that matter, is doing everything necessary to determine what needs to be done and knowing exactly how the work should be executed. It's about understanding the inputs and setting a vision and direction for others to follow.

MARBLA

Marbla is an experimental display typeface exploring the possibilities of variable fonts to change the mood and personality of a typeface. Starting with a friendly regular style, the letterforms can be modified via the axes Inktrap, Balloon, and Curve.

STOP USING AI-GENERATED IMAGES

By choosing AI-generated images over those made by humans, editors are taking away one of the only sources of income available to those entering the illustration field. As a result, fewer people will choose to train in the profession.

GOOGLE CAVES, AGREES TO PAY NEWS COMPANIES FOR CONTENT IN CANADA

Google struck a deal with Canada, agreeing to pay news publishers around $74 million for shared content, addressing concerns regarding the Online News Act. The agreement reduces Google's expected expenses from $127 million CAD to roughly $100 million CAD.

THE 5 NEXT BIG TECH INNOVATIONS IN MARKETING AND ADVERTISING FOR 2023

This list of companies consists of honorees in Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2023. It includes fighting digital advertising fraud, using AI to lower the cost of creative ads, and a new generative AI platform that makes scalable content for enterprise brands in their own voice.

SHOW VALUABLE SECTIONS ABOVE ‘RELATED PRODUCTS’ ON PRODUCT PAGES

Users usually stop scrolling after seeing related products because they think the page has ended. Ensure customer images, UGC, product details, and benefits are included above the related products section. One section that’s appropriate to show below related products is reviews. Many users click on the ratings link near the product title and get auto-scrolled to see that section.

CONTENT MARKETING CHEAT SHEET

This cheat sheet includes tips, tactics, and best practices for tackling your 2024 content marketing plan. It covers content planning, topic prioritization, on-page optimization tips, and contains a content update checklist. Save the image for better legibility.

FULL FUNNEL GROWTH SKILLS TEST

This 20-question test was built to help you evaluate your overall Growth knowledge and identify areas for improvement. The test is divided into 4 categories: loops/experimentation, acquisition/CRO, activation/engagement/retention, and pricing/monetization. It takes 10-15 minutes to complete the test.

14 FREE MARKETING COURSES

Most social platforms provide educational resources that are great for brushing up your knowledge or learning something new. This list includes free courses from HubSpot, WordStream, Canvas, and Pinterest Academy.

93 ONLINE ADVERTISING STATISTICS YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR 2024

This article includes a broad array of stats related to mobile advertising, specific social media platforms, and more.

WHY WEWORK DIED: LESSONS FROM THE PLIGHT OF A $47B LANDLORD

Despite positioning itself as the office space equivalent of Uber, the “taxi company that owns no cars,” WeWork was operating under a different – and unsustainable – business model. As it grew rapidly, it wracked up liabilities in the form of 15-year leases that were funded by fluctuating short-term tenancy. This was largely hidden until they filed to go public, after which their newly exposed financial statements drew widespread criticism. WeWork also suffered from overdiversification and a subsequent loss of focus on the core business.

RESHAPING THE TREE: REBUILDING ORGANIZATIONS FOR AI

This article traces the historical evolution of organizational structures in response to technological advancements. It highlights the prevalence of “shadow AI use”, where individuals are incorporating AI into their work without official approval. The author suggests that companies should empower teams to experiment with AI and act swiftly to stay ahead in AI-driven work processes.

10 B2B CONTENT MARKETING EXAMPLES

This article outlines ten notable B2B content marketing examples, highlighting strategies used by prominent brands. From Zendesk's customer-centric approach to Adobe's visual content creation, it emphasizes the power of community-building, thought leadership, and user-generated content. It also encourages brands to focus on authenticity, engagement, and valuable content creation to foster growth.

STRATEGIES TO REACH PROFITABILITY WHILE KEEPING CUSTOMERS HAPPY

What to do when customers like your product and it’s growing, but it isn’t profitable.

NOT ALL SEO ISSUES ARE WORTH FIXING

Google Search Console sometimes flags things that actually aren't problems at all and are a waste of time to “fix.”

MOST PROFITABLE COMPANIES IN 2023: U.S. VS. THE REST OF THE WORLD

The U.S. Postal Service generates more profit than Exxon Mobil or Samsung.

hours to minutes using Postman Collections.

TAILWIND CSS HAS A SCALABILITY PROBLEM. HOW CAN WE SOLVE THAT?

Tailwind CSS is known for its focus on class-based design, but the emphasis on classes can pose scalability challenges. These scalability issues arise from complex, dynamically generated class strings for components and conflicting styles due to the unpredictable order of class insertion. There are two solutions for addressing these problems: Class Variance Authority (CVA) and tailwind-merge. CVA introduces a Variants API for Tailwind, allowing developers to define variants and compound variants, which are activated based on specific prop combinations. Tailwind-merge resolves class conflicts by merging class sets and removing duplicates, ensuring that custom class overrides work as intended.

AUTOMATICALLY UPDATE NPM PACKAGE DEPENDENCIES WITH DEPENDABOT

Dependabot is a GitHub feature that automates dependency updates via pull requests. Users can configure Dependabot to update certain dependencies at desired frequencies, which can be useful for targeted dependency updates in large projects or libraries with numerous dependencies. Combining Dependabot with automated testing tools like GitHub Actions ensures that updates do not break existing code.

WHAT’S NEXT BESIDES JAVA/REACT?

After getting proficient in languages and frameworks, the next step to growing your career is working on soft skills. These soft skills include being a team player, breaking down complex problems, focusing on software quality, developing a business mindset, and enhancing communication skills.

INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS, YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF DORA METRICS

Tracking and measuring developer productivity is an age-old problem and DORA metrics attempt to solve it by honing in on 4 key metrics: deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and time it takes to restore service. This article challenges the efficacy of measuring productivity using DORA metrics and outlines some of the bottlenecks it presents, such as measuring velocity properly. It also offers tips that will help you successfully work on a team that relies on DORA metrics.

DO IT, DELEGATE IT, DITCH IT: YOUR NEW APPROACH TO TASK MANAGEMENT

It can be hard to manage an overwhelming workload of tasks as a developer. The “Do it, delegate it, ditch it” model offers a solution. It involves categorizing tasks into those that require personal attention, those that can be delegated, and those that are unnecessary and can be discarded.

AWS-LITE

Aws-lite is an extensible Node.js client for interacting with AWS services. It’s faster than the official AWS v3 SDK. Aws-lite features simple semantics, customizability, detailed errors with stack traces and line numbers, built-in pagination, a debug mode, and more.

JAQ

jaq is a tool for processing JSON data quickly. It has a fast startup time, compact package size, and a focus on correctness.

HYSP

Hysp is an independent package manager for Unix and Linux. It can be used just like any other package manager through the command line.

HOW TO TACKLE THE UNRELIABILITY OF CODING ASSISTANTS

This article shares helpful tips for using LLMs effectively as coding assistants. It considers factors like the speed and reliability of feedback loops, the margin of error, the longevity of the code, and the recency of information needed, giving advice on each factor. Setting a time limit for using AI input and creating a persona for an AI assistant can help to better manage expectations and usage.

PYTHON IS EASY. GO IS SIMPLE. SIMPLE != EASY

Python is an incredibly popular language. Its amazing readability makes it a common starting place for students and new developers. Despite this, it’s not a simple language. Building with Python can lead to issues with runtime and dependency management. Go, on the other hand, is much simpler. This article uncovers in more detail the strengths of both languages and how they can be used in tandem to support each other.

NODE.JS MONTHLY DOWNLOADS

A website showing Node.js Monthly Downloads by version and by operating system.

THE ‘HANGING-PUNCTUATION’ PROPERTY IN CSS

This article introduces the ‘hanging-punctuation’ property in CSS and shows when and how to use it with code samples included.

CARE BEYOND CODE: 7 BEST DESIGN PRACTICES FOR FRONTEND DEVELOPERS

Seven best practices that will help frontend developers create better designs, improve UX, and bring added value to the products they work on.

MLCOMMONS ALGOPERF TRAINING BENCHMARK COMPETITION

META AI INTRODUCES CICERO

Meta’s CICERO is the first AI agent to achieve human-level performance in the strategy game Diplomacy.

STABILITY AI RELEASES SDXL TURBO

Stability AI has released a new model that can generate high resolution images in 207ms. It doesn’t use LCM, which is what most of the field has moved towards. Instead, it uses a novel distillation technique called Adversarial Diffusion Distillation. Its weights and code have been used for research.

ENHANCING PRIVACY IN SIGN LANGUAGE VIDEOS

DiffSLVA is an innovative method for anonymizing sign language videos while preserving linguistic content. This technique, which uses pre-trained diffusion models and a specialized module for facial expressions, overcomes previous limitations by not requiring precise pose estimation.

ENHANCING DATASET DISTILLATION WITH GENERATIVE DIFFUSION TECHNIQUES

A new method using generative diffusion techniques has been developed to create surrogate datasets that are more representative and diverse while requiring significantly less computational resources.

ADVANCED VIDEO SUPER-RESOLUTION THROUGH DIFFUSION MODELS

StableVSR is a novel approach to video super-resolution (VSR) that leverages Diffusion Models and a Temporal Conditioning Module to enhance the quality of upscaled videos.