Snap's camera drone 📷, Microsoft VPN 📶, Redis 7 released 🧱

If you don't want to receive future editions of TLDR, please click here to unsubscribe.

TLDR

Daily Update 2022-04-29

Engineering metrics for high-performing teams (Sponsor)

Swarmia gives engineering teams metrics and visibility into their workflow and possible bottlenecks.

“Swarmia gives us the perfect overview of engineering productivity. I can quickly see how we're doing in terms of cycle time and pull requests, which helps me report back to the business.”

Roland Fiala, SVP of Engineering at Productsup

Start shipping faster today!

If you would like to sponsor TLDR, please let me know by replying to this email or check out our sponsorship page!

📱

Big Tech & Startups

Snapchat’s flying camera (7 minute read)

Snap has released a camera drone called Pixy. The drone weighs just 101 grams and is small enough to fit in a pants pocket. It can follow users around to capture photos or videos. Pixy's battery can last for five to eight flights at around 10 to 20 seconds each. The footage is synced wirelessly to Snapchat for editing and can be shared directly in the app or elsewhere. A video explaining the Pixy is available in the article.

Microsoft Edge is getting a built-in VPN powered by Cloudflare (2 minute read)

Microsoft Edge Secure Network is a feature recently discovered on a Microsoft support page. It provides a service similar to a proxy or VPN that encrypts browsing data and prevents online tracking. Users will get 1GB of free data per month. The feature has not been released yet, but it is likely to be available soon. A screenshot of the feature is available in the article.

🚀

Science & Futuristic Technology

New diamond wafers made in Japan can store 1 billion Blu-Ray discs of data (1 minute read)

A Japanese company and researchers from Saga University have developed a new method to mass-produce two-inch wafers made of diamond. The ultra-high-purity diamonds could be used for quantum computing, which requires diamonds with less than three parts per billion of nitrogen atoms. Previous attempts at creating these diamonds resulted in crystals that were only about four millimeters square. The company plans to commercialize the diamonds in 2023.

From seawater to drinking water, with the push of a button (5 minute read)

MIT researchers have developed a portable desalination unit that can remove particles and salts to generate drinking water. The water it produces exceeds World Health Organization quality guidelines. Weighing less than 10 kilograms, the device requires less power to operate than a cell phone charger. Using electrical power lowers its maintenance requirements, allowing the device to be deployed in remote and severely resource-limited areas. The machine can produce 0.3 liters of water per hour using 20 watts of power per liter.

💻

Programming, Design & Data Science

Zag (GitHub Repo)

Zag is a JavaScript API that implements common component patterns using the state machine methodology. It can be used to build UI components in React, Solid, or Vue without worrying about the logic. Zag can adapt components to multiple frameworks with a focus on accessibility.

Redis 7.0 Is Out! (2 minute read)

Redis 7.0 is now available. It adds almost 50 new commands and options. The most notable improvements are Redis Functions, AVLv2, command introspection, and Sharded Pub/Sub. A lot of development was focused on making Redis more performant, stable, and lean. More details about the update are available in the article.

Automate the Debugging Process With Airbrake (Sponsor)

Airbrake Error and Performance Monitoring automates the process of finding bugs quickly. When you install Airbrake, you’ll be alerted to any errors within your application, right down to the exact line of broken code. Add Airbrake to your tech stack, today! Learn more.

🎁

Miscellaneous

With Lens Cloud, Snap offers backend services for its developer platform (3 minute read)

Snap has launched Lens Cloud, a server-side component for its developer platform that will help developers build dynamic, multiplayer experiences. Lens Cloud will let developers take advantage of multi-user services, use location-based services to anchor Lenses to places, and store assets on Snap's servers and load them on demand. Lenses are augmented reality apps that can be accessed in Snapchat. The storage service will launch in the coming months. Lens Cloud is free for Snap AR developers.

Genetics goes to the dogs, finds there’s not much to breed behavior (8 minute read)

Many dog breeds are about appearance, but plenty of others are devoted to specific tasks. A team of US-based researchers conducted a study on around 18,000 dogs to study dog behavior and its underlying genetics. With a few exceptions, most behaviors are only loosely associated with specific breeds. Many modern breeds only originated about 150 years ago, and complicated behaviors are shaped by many factors.

I also write TLDR Crypto, a newsletter that follows tech and innovation in the blockchain ecosystem. If this is something you would be interested in, please sign up here.

If you enjoy TLDR, I would really appreciate you spreading the word by sharing the link https://tldr.tech/signup

If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email!

Thanks for reading,
Dan

If you don't want to receive future editions of TLDR, please click here to unsubscribe.

Snap's camera drone 📷, Microsoft VPN 📶, Redis 7 released 🧱

Older messages

Apple Self-Service Repair 📱, inside Netflix's collapse 🎥, service robots 🤖

Android 13 beta 🤖, Apple delists old apps 📱, floating city prototype 🏝️

Elon buys Twitter 🐦, Meta's hardware store 😎, scientists capture giant squid 🦑

Meta hiring freeze 🥶, tracking NSA spies 🕵️, SpaceX inflight WiFi customer ✈️

Tesla WiFi 🌐, Amazon Prime everywhere 🚚 , Twitter app platform 🐦

You Might Also Like

Youre Overthinking It

eBook: Software Supply Chain Security for Dummies

The 5 biggest AI prompting mistakes

An interactive tour of Go 1.24

Spyglass Dispatch: Bromo Sapiens

The $1.9M client

⚙️ Federal data centers

Post from Syncfusion Blogs on 01/15/2025

The Sequence Engineering #469: Llama.cpp is The Framework for High Performce LLM Inference

3 Actively Exploited Zero-Day Flaws Patched in Microsoft's Latest Security Update