Top Widgets iOS app hits #1 📱, Uber hacked 🚗, how to fix a bad code base 👨‍💻

Daily Update 2022-09-19

It Might be Time to Re-Evaluate Your Privacy Posture: Discover the Top 5 Reasons (Sponsor)

Your company already has a privacy posture - a set of systems, rules, and principles dictating how you govern and protect sensitive information. But is it effective?

Whether or not your privacy posture is explicitly defined, there are times when you should take a step back and ask: do our data architecture and processes adequately safeguard stakeholder data?

This on-demand presentation by Skyflows’s Head of Solutions, Harsh Karmarkar, will help you identify 5 tell-tale signs that your privacy posture needs to be improved. You’ll also learn the best ways to improve it. Watch Harsh's presentation here.

📱

Big Tech & Startups

Uber was breached to its core, purportedly by an 18-year-old (4 minute read)

A hacker claiming to be 18 years old breached Uber's internal network. The attacker likely gained access by contacting an employee over WhatsApp. It is unclear what data the hacker had access to or what they may have done to the system. The hacker announced the attack on the company's Slack channels and sent screenshots documenting the breach to several parties. Uber has shut down parts of its internal network and it is investigating the extent of the breach.

‘Top Widgets’ soars to No 1 on the App Store (4 minute read)

Top Widgets has taken the No. 1 spot on the US App Store's top free apps list. The app was first released in August 2020 to capitalize on the introduction of Home Screen widgets. The new support for Lock Screen widgets gained the app approximately 1.3 million downloads in the two days following the launch of iOS 16. Top Widgets allows users to create custom widgets. App Store rankings are increasingly being influenced by TikTok-based marketing efforts.

🚀

Science & Futuristic Technology

The race to reinvent the space station (13 minute read)

NASA is funding a competition for privately owned replacements for the ISS when it is decommissioned. The winners of the competition, to be selected around 2025, could expect an estimated $1 billion in annual revenue to deliver space station services. The contenders are hoping to become the go-to platform for the rapidly emerging space economy. A commercial space station would have more capabilities than the ISS, which is a research lab. Transitioning to commercial platforms would free up a significant portion of NASA's budget.

A new, genetically modified purple tomato may hit the grocery market stands (3 minute read)

The USDA has approved a genetically modified tomato for sale in stores in the US. The purple tomatoes contain anthocyanin, a pigment that gives the plant its purple color. The anthocyanin-rich tomatoes may have health benefits. They also have double the shelf life of red tomatoes while tasting exactly the same. The purple tomatoes will be sold in limited markets starting in 2023.

💻

Programming, Design & Data Science

Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it? (Hacker News Thread)

Some multi-million dollar companies run old and badly written software. This article discusses what to do when joining one of these companies. It is best to encourage small changes and get the company and team on board with upgrading their tech. Fixing and modernizing tech is an expensive and challenging task for established companies. Creating solid tests and setting up a proper development process will help the transition immensely.

Coroot (GitHub Repo)

Coroot is a monitoring and troubleshooting tool for microservice architectures. It features eBPF-based service mapping, log analysis without storage costs, cloud topology awareness, advanced Postgres observability, a built-in Prometheus cache, and more. Screenshots are available.

It’s about time! Use InfluxDB’s time series database as a service (Sponsor)

InfluxDB is a developer favorite and the #1 time series database according to DB-Engines. With serverless InfluxDB Cloud, you can build software on InfluxDB without provisioning infrastructure and managing clusters, and easily collect metrics with Telegraf or pre-configured templates. Try it for free on AWS, Azure, or GCP.

🎁

Miscellaneous

Adobe’s Figma acquisition is a $20 billion bet to control the entire creative market (6 minute read)

Adobe recently announced a $20 billion deal to acquire Figma. The acquisition takes a major competitor off the market. Adobe says that Figma will retain complete autonomy and that both companies' roadmaps will remain the same. While the purchase is not necessarily an antitrust concern, it may fall under scrutiny by regulators. The acquisition is expected to close sometime in 2023.

Here's Why Craigslist Still Looks the Same After 25+ Years (6 minute read)

Craigslist launched in 1995 and it has continued to connect strangers through its free platform over the years even as rivals emerged with advanced features and slick interfaces. The platform has all but refused to modernize and it still upholds its unmistakable '90s look and feel. This article features an interview with Craigslist's founder, Craig Newmark. Newmark stepped down as CEO of Craigslist in 2000 and he currently works on philanthropy full time.

⚡

Quick Links

Live Masterclass: Must Know Principles of Dynamic Programming (Sponsor)

Master Dynamic Programming with Scaler's MAANG veterans by learning how to solve complex problems & understanding its applications.

Slack Machine (GitHub Repo)

Slack Machine is a powerful and extendable Slack bot framework with an intuitive plugin system that lets developers build bots quickly.

The $300bn Google-Meta advertising duopoly is under attack (6 minute read)

Companies like TikTok, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon are taking up more of the ad revenue market.

Measuring CPU core-to-core latency (GitHub Repo)

This repository contains measures of latency between CPU cores for various CPUs.

It sure seems like Google is struggling to invent the future (6 minute read)

Google may be letting go of its big bets and experimentation to focus on essential services and projects that make money.

You can’t solve AI security problems with more AI (5 minute read)

Adding more AI to combat prompt injection attacks probably won't work because it is easy to come up with counter-attacks that subvert the new layer of protection.

IHP (GitHub Repo)

IHP is a web framework for building type safe web apps.

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Top Widgets iOS app hits #1 📱, Uber hacked 🚗, how to fix a bad code base 👨‍💻

Daily Update 2022-09-19

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Older messages

Adobe buys Figma 🖼️, TikTok's VR headset 😎, tech exec job market survey 👨‍💻

Starlink's laser internet 🛰️, Blue Origin rocket explodes 🚀, how QR codes work 👨‍💻

Amazon's new Kindle 📖, SpaceX superfans 🚀, accuracy of predictions about future 🤔

iOS 16 launches 📱, Google's secret hi-speed internet project ⚡, how to learn Rust 👨‍💻

Google Pixel fold 📱, Tesla's lithium refinery 🪨, AI text to video 🤖

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