Twitter's super subscription 🐦, Google ends Hangouts 💬, building a perfect memory 🧠

Daily Update 2022-11-02

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Big Tech & Startups

RIP Google Hangouts, Google’s last, best chance to compete with iMessage (8 minute read)

Google Hangouts has been shut down. Hangouts data has been moved to Google Chat. Google still doesn't have a competitive messaging platform. Hangouts was designed to unify Google's messaging portfolio, allowing users to access all of their communications within a single messaging app in one easy-to-use interface. It could have been a good competitor against iMessage, especially with its wide cross-platform compatibility.

Elon Musk floats $8 Twitter subscription that includes verification, long-form video and audio posting and fewer ads (2 minute read)

Elon Musk has suggested an $8 per month subscription for the new Twitter Blue service. The price of the subscription will be adjusted according to country, suggesting that it will be launched globally. The new plan will include features such as fewer ads, the ability to post longer videos, and priority in replies, mentions, and search. Musk has set very aggressive deadlines for the revamp.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

AlphaFold’s new rival? Meta AI predicts shape of 600 million proteins (4 minute read)

Researchers at Meta have used a large language model to predict the structures of around 600 million proteins. The data offers the potential for great insight into biology. Large language models are a type of AI that can predict text. Proteins can be expressed as chains of amino acids, so the model basically learned how to 'autocomplete' proteins. Meta's model is less accurate than OpenAI's AlphaFold, but it is about 60 times faster at predicting structures. The predictions and the code underlying the model are available for anyone to use.

Meta’s AI-powered audio codec promises 10x compression over MP3 (3 minute read)

Meta's EnCodec can reportedly compress audio 10 times smaller than the mp3 format with no loss in quality. It uses a neural network for audio compression and decompression. The technology could be used to improve call quality and eventually deliver rich online experiences without high bandwidth requirements. It is still in the research phase.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

refine (GitHub Repo)

refine is a React-based framework for web application development. It eliminates repetitive tasks and provides industry-standard solutions for critical components. refine offers unlimited styling and customization options. It excels in making data-intensive applications and it can power customer-facing applications like storefronts.

DevOps Roadmap for 2022 (GitHub Repo)

This repository contains a step-by-step guide on how to become a DevOps engineer. It aims to guide developers on what to learn next rather than to encourage them to pick what is hyped and trendy. Downloadable versions are available. The repository provides links to (mostly free) learning resources for DevOps engineers.

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Miscellaneous

Rewind wants to revamp how you remember, with millions from a16z (4 minute read)

Rewind is a startup that wants to help people with their memory. Its technology records activity on Apple Silicon devices to create a searchable record of what happened and when. The recordings are stored locally and only users have access to their data. Rewind is currently free, but the startup plans to move to a freemium monthly subscription in the future.

Five years later, is eSIM finally ready to take on the world? (6 minute read)

It's been five years since the eSIM was introduced, but adoption is still very low. Recent reports suggest that awareness about eSIMs is only 17% in the US and even lower in other markets. This article looks at eSIM adoption and why it has been so slow. Phone carriers have been making it difficult to set up eSIMs and many customers are not educated about the technology.

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Quick Links

Akeero Serverless is a free tool to design secure AWS serverless infrastructures (Sponsor)

Now every engineer can build secure by default. Akeero understands your infrastructure, so you can build it right, first time.

Sign Language in Virtual Reality Actually Looks Kinda Awesome (3 minute read)

Members of the deaf community are taking advantage of advances in hand tracking to use sign language in virtual reality.

Why functional programming should be the future of software development (11 minute read)

Functional programming is harder to learn, but it results in code with fewer nasty surprises.

China launches final module to complete Tiangong space station (3 minute read)

The Mengtian module will be used for experiments related to microgravity, fluid physics, materials science, combustion science, fundamental physics, and more.

OpenSSL 3 patch, once Heartbleed-level “critical,” arrives as a lesser “high” (3 minute read)

OpenSSL 3.0.7 fixes a critical-level vulnerability that affects all OpenSSL 3.x installations.

Road to Artificial General Intelligence (7 minute read)

This article defines a roadmap for artificial general intelligence, broken down into milestones of progressive difficulty.

New EU Law Could Force Apple to Allow Other App Stores, Sideloading, and iMessage Interoperability (3 minute read)

The new Digital Markets Act that came into effect in the EU on November 1 could compel Apple to make major changes to how the App Store, Messages, FaceTime, and Siri work in the EU.

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Twitter's super subscription 🐦, Google ends Hangouts 💬, building a perfect memory 🧠

Daily Update 2022-11-02

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

Older messages

Elon reboots Vine 📱, reinventing the browser 🌎, what devs 30 years ago did 👨‍💻

Elon's Twitter takeover 🐦, iPhone 15 may ditch buttons 📱, what your manager doesn't know 👨‍💻

Musk buys Twitter 🐦, Apple's app store crackdown 📱, deep dive into Redis 👨‍💻

Apple confirms USB-C iPhone ⚡, Meta's earnings disaster 📉, Elon enters Twitter HQ 🐦

Amazon adds Venmo 💸, Apple's new ad tax 📮, MrBeast seeks $1.5B valuation 📈

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