DeBridge has introduced Interoperability-as-a-Service (IaaS), a service enabling total cross-chain interoperability for EVM and SVM blockchain ecosystems, with Neon Labs as its first user. The IaaS addresses three pillars of interoperability: cross-chain asset custody, authenticated message transfers, and high-performance value exchange. Operating on a subscription basis, the service can make any blockchain instantly accessible from any EVM or SVM chain.
Cubist has launched its new "wallet-as-a-service" product, CubeSigner, co-developed by professors from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California San Diego. CubeSigner is designed to provide security for account keys, preventing accidental leaks or thefts. The new service, modifiable for any blockchain, is intended to help developers easily launch wallets.
Sponsored
SwissBorg’s Smart Engine [9] is the fastest way to go from fiat to crypto with the best liquidity and rates. With the integration of Solana’s leading decentralised exchange [10], Orca, and the newly launched, Phoenix, SwissBorg has become the first platform to combine the power of Centralised (CEX), Decentralised (DEX), and Foreign Exchange (FX) platforms, all in one easy to use interface - what SwissBorg refer to as the world's first Meta-Exchange or MEX. Discover
The traditional measure of blockchain throughput, Transactions per Second, is increasingly unreliable due to bundled transactions. User Operations per Second (UOPS) captures the number of user operations within each transaction, whether they're individual tasks or grouped within bundles. This method may offer a more accurate comparison of blockchain utilization across different platforms and technologies, given the variety of architectures and data models that are now starting to pop up across different chains.
Injective has been gaining steam lately. This report attempts to break down both the good and bad in the ecosystem. Injective’s Token Burn 2.0 initiative is creating supply scarcity, showing a promising tokenomic model. On the other hand, the platform currently lacks a thriving DeFi ecosystem, causing a potential issue with user retention. The report provides ideas about how the protocol could capitalize on its strengths and improve some of its weaknesses.
This blog post discusses the parallels between the evolution of the internet and the ongoing development of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. The author points out the similarities in network structures, the struggle for open vs. closed systems, and the potential for a financial bubble. The post further emphasizes the importance of key historical internet figures, such as Marc Andreessen, in shaping the future of tech innovation, including the world of crypto.
Blockchain technology can be intimidating for beginners due to complex account setup and management processes. This article discusses the challenges posed by Externally Owned Accounts and the use of Seed Phrases. It proposes Account Abstraction as a solution that simplifies blockchain use, making it more accessible to a wider range of users. With increased security and flexibility, Account Abstraction can improve the user experience, thus hastening mass blockchain adoption. The article provides examples of the application of Account Abstraction in sectors like gaming, investment, and corporate businesses.
Solana has been on a tear, up around 80% in 3 weeks. This thread breaks down some of the fundamentals and analyzes whether they reflect the same growth as the price of the token.
MicroStrategy reported its earnings, which included an update on additions to its Bitcoin treasury (now sitting at 158,400 bitcoins), putting its total unrealized profits at over $900m.
HSBC has launched a tokenization platform for gold, offering digital tokens representing physical gold holdings. Yet another example of growing interest in real-world asset tokenization.
Small Brain Games has launched Drawtech, a fully on-chain mobile game that allows players to color tiles on a shared canvas and earn rewards based on the tiles they own.
Part of the design for the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro includes the introduction of a new blue shade called Bay, a striking hue that came from a color strategy developed during the pandemic. The matte back is back and it gives the devices a subtle grip and silky feel and is great at preventing fingerprints. The Pixel 8 and 8 Pro are also less boxy than their predecessors, with thinner bezels to reveal more of the glass display.
When the Touch Bar launched, it felt like touching the future. It was an OLED strip that recognized touch and replaced the function row of keys on the 2016 MacBook Pro. The problem was the Touch Bar never quite got out of the proof-of-concept phase, despite being in the majority of MacBook Pros made between late 2016 and 2019. Due to its low interest among developers and low usage among Apple’s laptop users, the TouchBar has been discontinued in the new line of MacBooks.
The tvOS 17.2 beta introduces a redesigned Apple TV app that focuses on Channels and app navigation. The update includes a new sidebar with improved content sorting, dedicated pages for Channels and apps, and a more integrated experience for services like Disney+. While some apps like Netflix still operate separately, the redesign aims to enhance ease of use and encourage more apps to join Apple TV Channels, making Channels and apps more equal within the TV app ecosystem.
Switching VoiceOver and Voice Control is cumbersome if you are in the process of testing an app or website. Siri can make this easier. You can invoke VoiceOver by using the command “Hey Siri, VoiceOver on”. Switching VoiceOver off works by issuing “Hey Siri, VoiceOver off.” These and other accessibility features can also be enabled by a shortcut, from the control center, with a back tap, or with the action button.
People make thousands of decisions every day, with some sources suggesting upwards of 35,000 decisions per day, though this number is somewhat suspect as it is difficult to estimate something predicated on personal bias. Understanding how and why people interact with products and employing persuasive design principles based on that information can ease decision-making anxiety and improve overall user experience.
The design team at Slack explored many different concepts and approaches to improve user focus, including a literal focus mode. In the end, the optimal tab set included Messages, Activity, and Later. They kept the number of tabs as small as possible, requiring that each addition provide a place to focus on a certain task.
Choose a base style, then customize it with colors, filters, and transforms. Each pattern style has its unique transforms. Once done, you can export your patterns as SVG, CSS, or PNG.
A collection of free sans serif, serif, monospaced, and display typefaces.
With Componly, you can easily distinguish which components in a project come from your design system and which do not. This empowers you to monitor usage and performance, strengthening your system's value for wider adoption.
In 2019, DoorDash restructured its payments to drop the controversial “tipped wage” method and pay a base rate with 100 percent of tips going to drivers. However, this resulted in orders without tips being less appealing to drivers. DoorDash has added a pop-up in its app warning customers that orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered. According to DoorDash, this is something that it's currently testing to help create the best possible experience for all members of its community.
Magic Write is a generative AI tool that allows students and teachers to access quick actions from a dropdown menu, including summarizing text, expanding short text into longer formats, rewriting text, and changing the tone. Another feature, Magic Animate, allows students and teachers to turn static text into moving text and automatically add transitions to presentations. Magic Grab automatically detects separate elements and objects within an image — say text within a classroom handout or diagrams — and lets the user automatically move, resize, and reposition them, even if they were not separate elements to begin with.
This survey gathers usage data from thousands of designers each year. Many of the design companies you know and love use this data to better understand the design tools industry.
Shutterstock’s new Magic Brush feature lets you tweak images by brushing over areas and describing what you want to change. You can also use the AI-powered background removal tool and smart resizing features to resize an image to your desired dimensions automatically. Shutterstock is updating its AI image generator, which it launched in beta in January, with OpenAI's DALL-E text-to-image generator.
The European data regulator plans to extend a ban on "behavioral advertising" on Facebook and Instagram from Norway to all 30 European Union countries. This is a setback for Meta Platforms. A violation could lead to fines of up to 4% of its global turnover. Meta has said it will offer users in the EU the option to consent and introduce a subscription model in November to comply with regulatory requirements.
Google is rolling out new tools to help businesses maximize their sales potential in the holiday push, including small business tags to improve discovery, new AI creation tools for product images, and additional Knowledge Panel info.
Americans’ gift-buying intentions in October point to less robust holiday sales this year than last. Consumers plan to spend an average of $923 on gifts this season—a 1% decrease from the year before. Nearly 9 in 10 adults say they will spend something on Christmas or other holiday gifts this year.
Early adopters provide valuable feedback, word-of-mouth, and social proof. Ways to incentivize early adopters to use your product include granting exclusive access, providing discounts or rewards, soliciting feedback and testimonials, and delivering value through gamification, education, or personalization. User communities are also a great way to co-create the product together with customers.
This guide provides an extensive list of best practices and recommendations to help marketers reduce bounce rates and increase conversions. It contains 101 tips including best practices for optimizing landing pages, mistakes to avoid, and tips on measuring performance.
Blog posts are effective at bringing in additional SEO traffic, but getting them to rank can be a challenge. This 23 item checklist ensures your blog post has the best chance of ranking. It includes 5+ internal links, submitting to GSC, frontloading critical information, and nailing search intent.
A visual comparison of what GTM looks like with or without product marketing. The flowcharts show that when product marketers work alongside product managers and have a seat in building product roadmaps, it leads to better customer LTV, lower CAC, and higher lead-to-win rates.
This article describes how Growth as a discipline has developed since 2018 and how it’ll evolve in the future. No longer are growth teams just a single individual. Instead, the majority of growth teams have up to 20 members. The AARRR funnel framework has been gradually supplanted by the growth loops framework. The future of Growth will rely on robust growth models, where AI and no-code empower individuals, but the core principles of Growth will remain unchanged.
This think piece explores the complex world of SEO and how it has evolved over the years. It delves into the history of SEO practices, the role of major search engines like Google, and the ethical and practical challenges SEO professionals face. It also questions the potentially negative impact of SEO on online information and user experience.
Failing to fully understand its growth problem led to Reddit building a feature that ultimately got canned.
87% of consumers said they are more likely to return at other times throughout the year after buying from a small business during the holidays.
Sponsored
PostHog is the developer-first alternative to 7+ tools [5] companies use to ship new features, analyze user behavior, and optimize their product. Analyze, test, observe, and deploy new features [5] from a single platform while keeping full control of your customer data.
Designing REST APIs using best practices can improve their usability. This guide goes over multiple tips and examples of how to do so, such as using plural nouns for collections in URLs, avoiding unnecessary path segments, and refraining from adding extensions like ".json" to URLs. It also recommends not returning arrays as top-level responses, avoiding map structures in JSON responses, using strings for all identifiers, and more.
Performance scores from Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools are sometimes different from Google’s PageSpeedInsights (PSI). This is because PSI uses real life data pulled from Chrome user experience reports, while Lighthouse uses different data. This post takes a closer look at how various performance tools audit and report on performance metrics like core web vitals, why the metric values could be different across different reports, and what that means about your website's real performance.
Bear does not use client-side JavaScript for privacy reasons. Instead, when a user hovers their cursor over a page, it triggers a CSS rule that makes a URL request to log the page hit. The code then checks the user-agent to verify if it's not a bot, extracts browser and platform information, and hashes the IP address with the date to create a unique page "read."
Joining a startup at the Series A, B, or C stages offers a balanced risk-reward profile. Startups backed by top VCs tend to have better exit odds and valuation growth. To prove this, this article looks through over 14,000 data points of US-based startups that raised funds. Employees who joined Instacart during Series C or later rounds would probably have earned more money if they had opted for a FAANG company instead or received their compensation entirely in cash and invested it in the stock market.
This author shares their journey of quitting their job as a programmer and reflects on their career in the field. They discuss valuable lessons learned, such as the importance of having opinions on technical decisions, the distinction between writing code and debugging, and the significance of a clean, understandable Git history. They also emphasize the importance of understanding hardware, even in a world of abstractions.
VSCode Extension Tester is a package aimed at facilitating UI testing of Visual Studio Code extensions using selenium-webdriver. It can obtain a suitable version of ChromeDriver, package and install extensions into a test VSCode instance, and execute tests.
Rspress is a fast static site generator. It features fast startup times due to a Rust-based build tool. It also supports Markdown, has built-in full text search, and offers a plugin system for custom themes.
Google's 2023 Accelerate State of DevOps Report reveals that teams with faster code reviews experience a 50% improvement in overall software delivery performance. Additionally, other benefits of faster code reviews include improved code quality, reduced developer stress and burnout, and enhanced developer satisfaction. Various methods for speeding up code reviews include pair programming, goal setting and benchmarks, continuous merge techniques, and the use of AI for code review automation.
2023.11.02·devinterrupted.substack.com·5 min read·TLDR Web Dev This is a detailed guide for engineering managers on organizing their week to balance various responsibilities. It gives tips on how you can establish daily routines for consistency, time management, and stress reduction. It suggests starting with a review of daily agendas and ensuring time for reflection and connection with the team. The article also highlights the importance of 1:1 meetings and standup meetings, stressing to adapting their frequency based on team feedback and needs.
Hacker News commenters discuss Express and alternatives for building Node.js backends.
A comprehensive list of common Node.js errors with solutions, such as common ReferenceErrors, unhandled exceptions in streams, and more.
GitHub is now using secret scanning to scan all public packages on npm for leaked secrets. If a potential secret is detected, the service provider that issued the secret will be notified, not the package maintainer.