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HOW TO GROW PRODUCTS QUICKLY

Maximize your product's growth, especially in SaaS, by onboarding the right creators at the top of the funnel, offering a generous affiliate cut with a free trial, and creating a gamified user experience.

THE FORCES THAT CHARGE A PRODUCT MANAGER’S INTUITION

Product intuition is a skill that can be cultivated with experience. This piece provides 7 tips for PMs to develop this ability over time.

HOW TO WRITE A PRD

To overcome the challenge of stakeholders not reading lengthy PRDs, you should create two PRDs – an initial detailed version for the product team and a concise 1-page executive summary for stakeholders. This will lead to improved alignment and a more effective product development process.

THE 4 TYPES OF PRODUCT MARKET FIT

This post defines 4 types of product market fit, categorized by customer segment variety and product offering comprehensiveness. It suggests that depending on the stage of product-market fit you're in, strategically releasing features to achieve a comprehensive state could be an effective product strategy.

PRODUCT DEBT

The costs of hidden product debt, how to identify it, and what to do about it.

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HOW TO BUILD A SCALABLE NOTIFICATION SERVICE

Razorpay faced challenges like database bottlenecks and slow customer responses to webhooks when it scaled its notification service. To address these, it implemented prioritized queues, asynchronous database writes, and better quality of service for webhooks. The company prioritized notifications based on customer response times.

CACHES: LRU VS RANDOM

A random eviction policy performs surprisingly well for large caches. It often outperforms LRU in terms of miss rate, especially when cache size increases. This may mean that different approaches may suit different cache levels. Combining LRU for smaller caches and 2-random for larger ones might be promising. The “random” principle applies to various scenarios beyond cache eviction, like load balancing and data distribution.

A GUIDE TO ENABLING PARTIAL PRE-RENDERING IN NEXT.JS

With incremental static regeneration (ISR), Next.js enables the pre-rendering of pages containing dynamic data during the build time. This article is a comprehensive guide on enabling partial pre-rendering in Next.js 14, which lets you control which parts of a page are pre-rendered.

BACKLOG SIZE IS INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO HOW OFTEN YOU TALK TO CUSTOMERS

This author built a successful event/ticket service for comics by prioritizing customer feedback over assumptions. He believes that having a large backlog means that you don’t talk to customers often enough. Along with recommending talking to customers more, the author also recommends simplifying UI, observing user usage more, focusing on loyal customers, and creating more MVPs for learning.

HOW TO DRIVE MEETINGS

Meetings are crucial for senior engineers, but poorly run ones can hurt productivity. Before a meeting, set a clear agenda with shared pre-work. During the meeting, guide the conversation, manage time, and redirect if needed. After the meeting, finalize follow-ups, clearly assign ownership, and share meeting highlights with relevant parties.

HEAT.JS

Heat.js is a lightweight JavaScript library that generates customizable heat maps to visualize date-based activity and trends. It’s similar to GitHub’s yearly contribution heatmap that is displayed on user’s profiles.

BRIG

Brig is a user interface toolkit for Node.js. It’s used to load and play QML files, which are used in graphical applications to render objects.

SHIPPING BLENDED DIFFS

The Split Diff view was launched on GitHub back in 2014. The engineer who shipped it is now looking to ship a new way to review diffs: blended diffs. Instead of showing 2 lines of changes for a single line change (one for the deleted line and one for the added line), blended diffs show the final file view and use AI to generate diff summaries. This article is an interesting read on how a team found a problem, designed a solution, went through design iterations, and implemented the solution with a team of engineers.

THE OPEN SOURCE SUSTAINABILITY CRISIS

For open source to be more sustainable, companies need to contribute more to open source contributors through financial support. Today, most open source contributors need to spend extra time on securing sponsorship or taking on extra work to support themselves. Open source maintainers often burn out as a result, leading to a lower velocity of improvement on open source software.

READING QR CODES WITHOUT A COMPUTER

QR codes have different parts, like finder patterns, separators, timing patterns, and format information. Mask patterns hide data and improve readability. Encoding modes specify how data is stored (e.g., numeric or alphanumeric). To decode a QR code, one can use a cheat sheet to identify the mask pattern, read the encoding mode, follow the reading order, find the total number of content bytes, and decode the content using a table. This guide takes readers through this process step-by-step with visuals.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ABOUT RIOT’S FUTURE

Riot Games has laid off 11% of its staff, offering a minimum of 6 months of severance, a commitment to pay out their annual bonus, health benefits, and more.

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW C?

A short, 5-question quiz that tests you on your C knowledge - with a twist.

MACHINE LEARNING ENGINEERING OPEN BOOK

A free online resource to help with the successful training of large language models and multi-modal models.

BIOME.JS ROADMAP 2024

Biome.js is a fast formatter for JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, and JSON that can even format malformed code. In 2024, Biome.js maintainers hope to help more users move to Biome, expand Biome’s language support, and deepen Biome’s existing capabilities.

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NOW OPENAI CEO SAM ALTMAN WANTS BILLIONS FOR AI CHIP FABS

OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman is reportedly seeking billions in capital to build out a network of AI chip fabs. The project would fund the construction and operation of chip factories around the world to support the growing demand for neural network accelerators. It aims to build enough assembly lines to ensure there is enough supply of AI processors to meet demand. Altman has previously expressed concerns that there aren't enough processors to go around.

SAMSUNG’S SMART RING MIGHT SIGNAL THE START OF A NEW WEARABLE ERA

Samsung ended its Unpacked event with a tease of its Galaxy Ring. There were few details given onstage besides a flashy reel of a sparkly ring with a few visible sensors on the inside of the band. A Samsung spokesperson said that the ring was designed to empower people to manage their health by providing consistent and accurate tracking data. The rings will reportedly come in three finishes and in sizes up to 13 and will be available later this year.

ALPHAFOLD FOUND THOUSANDS OF POSSIBLE PSYCHEDELICS. WILL ITS PREDICTIONS HELP DRUG DISCOVERY?

Researchers have used AlphaFold, a protein-structure-prediction tool, to identify hundreds of thousands of potential new psychedelics. The predictions show that AlphaFold can be used for fast drug discovery, a process that can take years using conventional methods. While some scientists are skeptical of the potential of the technology to change the field of drug discovery, there is evidence that the tool has strong potential to help scientists find new drugs. Isomorphic Labs, DeepMind's drug-discovery spin-off, recently announced deals worth up to $2.9 billion to hunt for drugs using machine-learning tools such as AlphaFold.

NASA REVEALS INCREDIBLE X-59: A UNIQUE, EXPERIMENTAL SUPERSONIC JET

NASA's X-59 is a supersonic aircraft designed to minimize the sonic boom it creates when it crosses the speed of sound. It can fly at 1.4 times the speed of sound. The project, a joint effort with Lockheed Martin, aims to revolutionize air travel by producing a new generation of commercial jets that can travel faster than the speed of sound. A picture of the research aircraft is available in the article.

TART

Tart is a virtualization toolset for building, running, and managing macOS and Linux virtual machines on Apple Silicon. It uses Apple's own Virtualization.Framework for near-native performance. Tart can push/pull virtual machines from any OCI-compatible container registry. It easily integrates with any CI system.

THE BUN SHELL

The Bun Shell is a new experimental embedded language and interpreter in Bun that allows developers to run cross-platform shell scripts in JavaScript and TypeScript. It allows developers to use JavaScript variables in shell scripts. All template variables are escaped for security. The Bun Shell works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is designed as a drop-in replacement for simple shell scripts.

THE VISION PRO’S FIRST KILLER APP IS THE WEB, WHETHER APPLE LIKES IT OR NOT

It's increasingly clear that the early success of the Vision Pro will depend on Safari. The open web is Apple's best chance at making its headset a winner - developers aren't exactly jumping to build new apps for Apple's new platform so far. This could be a big win for the future of the internet as developers will spend more time on web apps. Apple recently added more features to Safari and there are platform-specific features for Safari on visionOS. Apple may have to let go of some of its App Store control to help the Vision Pro get off to a good start.

HOW I’M (RE)LEARNING MATH AS AN ADULT

Math Academy is a platform that focuses on helping kids learn math, with tools built-in for parents to help their kids be successful. It covers math from middle school through university graduate level and the courses are fully accredited. Adults who haven't done much math since grad school can use the platform to gain a much better understanding of stats and probability, linear algebra, and calculus. The lessons are self-paced and interactive, with most lessons around 10 minutes long, making it easy to squeeze in sessions within a busy life.

JAPAN BECOMES THE FIFTH NATION TO LAND A SPACECRAFT ON THE MOON

Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) made a successful landing quite close to its target on the Moon on Friday - a power system problem threatens to cut short its mission.

EXPO SDK 50

Expo SDK 50 includes React Native 0.83 and introduces Expo Dev Tools Plugins, new and improved SQLite and Camera APIs, and much more.

THE SERENDIPITY MACHINE

This guide shows new X users how to onboard onto and use the platform, with many tips for how to use X to learn, make friends, and meet people in your niche.

MY HOT TAKE: GOOGLE DOES NOT HAVE ONE SINGLE VISIONARY LEADER

Google has not launched a single successful executive-driven thing in years - the company relies on its employees to come up with the cool stuff, but it has been rolling layoffs throughout the company for the past year.

WE'VE FINALLY PUT OUT A DETAILED IEEE/ACM PAPER ON GOOGLE'S MULTI-YEAR EFFORT TO EASE THE BURDEN OF CODE REVIEW WITH ML

Large language models make great demos, but it's hard to trust them for complex tasks - Google engineers resolve 7.5% of all code review comments with an ML-suggested edit.

THE CONSCIOUSNESS WARS: CAN SCIENTISTS EVER AGREE ON HOW THE MIND WORKS?

Understanding consciousness could help doctors diagnose awareness in people who are unresponsive and help researchers know what it would take for machines to become conscious.

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OPENAI CEO RAISING MONEY FOR DISTRIBUTED CHIP MANUFACTURING COMPANY

Sam Altman is reported to be raising money for a resilient and distributed system of AI chip manufacturing factories. The current AI chip supply chain is strongly tied to geopolitical conflicts and is at risk of disruption.

GOOGLE DEEPMIND SCIENTISTS IN TALKS TO LEAVE AND FORM AI STARTUP

A pair of scientists at Google's artificial intelligence subsidiary DeepMind is in talks with investors to form an AI startup in Paris, highlighting how in-demand top AI minds are at the moment.

THE AI PHONES ARE COMING

Samsung is set to unveil new AI-focused phones, highlighting the evolution of AI in mobile technology, exemplified by Google's Pixel 8 Pro and the popular Rabbit R1 from CES 2024.

DEEPDIVE: TEXT-TO-VIDEO

Generating video from text descriptions is an active area of research with many powerful models coming in the last few weeks. This blog from the Hugging Face team outlines the task, current challenges, and the state of the research. It isn’t completely comprehensive, but will give a great starting point for further reading.

A MODEL FOR ALL KINDS OF IMAGE AND VIDEO SEGMENTATION

OMG-Seg is a new model that can perform various image and video segmentation tasks using a single efficient system. Unlike traditional methods that use different models for each task, OMG-Seg handles everything from image semantics to interactive video segmentation, making it a one-stop solution with reduced complexity and enhanced performance.

OPEN-VOCABULARY VIDEO INSTANCE SEGMENTATION

Researchers have developed BriVIS, a method that improves open-vocabulary Video Instance Segmentation (VIS). By using a technique called Brownian Bridges, BriVIS maintains the context of object movements across video frames, leading to a more accurate alignment between video and text.

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LIBRARY FOR 3D PARALLELISM

HuggingFace has released Nanotron, a small and powerful library for training models with 3D parallelism. This means it splits the data, the model, and the layers/tensors in the model. The first two types of parallelism are well supported in libraries like PyTorch. However, splitting the model tensors is custom to each model and hard to implement in general. This library provides useful primitives to make that process easier and less error-prone.

LIBRARY FOR DATA FILTERING

HuggingFace has released Datatrove, a library for filtering large text datasets. It has many useful primitives and full parallel pipelines for text filtering. Examples using Gopher quality filters in C4 are available.

IMAGE CAPTIONING SOFTWARE

Simple software that can be used to add captions to your images for AI training.

HOW MICROSOFT FOUND A POTENTIAL NEW BATTERY MATERIAL USING AI

Microsoft and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found a new battery material using AI and large-scale cloud computing. The material is a new kind of solid-state electrolyte. It could lead to batteries that are less likely to burst into flames compared to lithium-ion batteries. While the material still needs to be tested to see whether it is a viable alternative to lithium-ion batteries, the finding demonstrates AI's potential for speeding up material discovery.

CLEARER REMOTE SENSING IMAGES

RSHazeNet is a new framework designed to remove haze from remote-sensing images. The tool uses innovative modules to better understand and preserve important details in images, making them clearer and more useful for analysis.

BOOSTING VISION FOUNDATION MODELS

The new ViSFT method enhances vision foundation models, like those used in image-text training, by applying a two-stage process similar to fine-tuning in language models.