Meta considers Twitter competitor 📝, creative uses of ChatGPT 🤖, Linux with Apple GPUs 💻

Daily Update 2022-12-08

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Big Tech & Startups

Twitter’s Rivals Try to Capitalize on Musk-Induced Chaos (8 minute read)

Twitter's rivals are getting ready to dethrone the platform and capitalize on the chaos of its ownership under Elon Musk. Former Twitter workers and companies like Meta, Post, Mastodon, Hive Social, and Tumblr are working on projects that could be the next Twitter. Some services are presenting themselves as less toxic versions of the platform, while others are positioning themselves as heralds of a new era in social media. While many big names have threatened to leave the platform, Musk claims that Twitter use is currently at a high.

Apple adds end-to-end encryption to iCloud device backups and more (2 minute read)

Apple's new Advanced Data Protection feature will add end-to-end encryption to most of iCloud. It will not encrypt calendar or mail due to interoperability issues. Advanced Data Protection is now available for US-based participants in the Apple Beta Software Program. It will roll out to other US users by the end of the year and globally sometime in 2023. Apple is no longer working on the controversial system intended to identify child sexual-abuse material on users' iPhones.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

Jabal: the new wheat scientists say can withstand extreme heat and drought (3 minute read)

Jabal is a new drought-tolerant variety of durum wheat created as part of a program that aims to boost climate resilience in food. Prices for durum wheat soared last year due to widespread drought and unprecedented heatwaves. Crop Trust's wild relatives project uses genetically diverse crop varieties to develop crops that can withstand erratic and extreme weather conditions. Farmers in Morocco will be the first to start growing Jabal when it becomes commercially available.

Startup unveils $179 houseplant engineered to purify your air (3 minute read)

Neoplants' Neo P1 is a houseplant that is up to 30 times more effective at removing volatile organic compounds from indoor air than the most efficient plants found in nature. The concentrations of VOCs in indoor areas can be 10 times higher than in outdoor areas and getting rid of them can be difficult. The Neo P1 will cost $179 and come with three months' worth of a solution containing microorganisms that boost the plant's air purifying performance. It is unclear how the plant compares to ventilation or an air exchanger.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

Remote Development Even Better (7 minute read)

The Visual Studio Code team has announced an enhanced code CLI and updates to improve remote development. The updated CLI can launch VS Code and connect to machines remotely. It is available for standalone install, so developers can use it to connect to any computer even without VS Code Desktop installed. Tunneling through the VS Code UI is now available.

New npm features for secure publishing and safe consumption (4 minute read)

The npm team has introduced two new security features, granular access tokens and a code explorer. Granular access tokens allow publishers to create tokens with limited access. The code explorer enables users to view the contents of an npm package directly from the npm portal so they can evaluate it before using it. It was previously a paid feature, but it is now free.

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Miscellaneous

Five creative ways people are using ChatGPT (3 minute read)

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot from OpenAI that is capable of providing detailed responses to text prompts. This article looks at five ways people are using ChatGPT. ChatGPT is being used to plot movies, brainstorm side hustles, tell jokes, create weight loss plans, and generate prompts for other AI models.

Computer Science Students Face a Shrinking Big Tech Job Market (11 minute read)

Computer science graduates in the US are struggling to find work in the technology industry due to an excess of students seeking jobs and a slowdown in hiring. The number of students majoring in computer science more than tripled from 2011 to 2021. Layoffs and hiring freezes are affecting the prospects of a generation of computer and data science students. Tech executives have blamed the economic downturn for the slowdown.

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Quick Links

Podcast: Bringing the Modern Data Stack to Engineering Operations — Vitaly Gordon, CEO of Faros AI (Sponsor)

Vitaly explains how to connect the dots between engineering data sources—ticketing, source control, CI/CD—to understand dev work. Listen to (or watch) the full episode

Microsoft Teams adds free communities feature to take on Facebook and Discord (3 minute read)

The new community feature allows users to create and organize groups using Microsoft Teams' calendar, meeting, and chat features.

Four-person dev team gets Apple’s M-series GPU working in Linux (2 minute read)

Asahi Linux now has GPU drivers for Apple Silicon that provide desktop hardware acceleration.

Get Rid of Your Old Database Migrations (8 minute read)

This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of viewing database migrations more like Git commits than code.

This year’s roundup of the top Google searches includes super local trends (2 minute read)

Google's Year in Search report allows users to see what people in specific areas searched for this year.

Abstraction is Expensive (10 minute read)

Abstraction misalignment is where a majority of resources are spent on many computer systems.

Theranos exec Sunny Balwani sentenced to 13 years in prison for defrauding patients and investors (3 minute read)

Ramesh 'Sunny' Balwani was sentenced to 155 months in prison and three years of probation after being found guilty on all twelve criminal charges.

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Meta considers Twitter competitor 📝, creative uses of ChatGPT 🤖, Linux with Apple GPUs 💻

Daily Update 2022-12-08

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

Older messages

Chrome '@' shortcuts ⚡, remote work killing offices 🏢, job market for laid off workers 👨‍💻

Google infinite scroll 🔎, SpaceX Starshield 🛰️, ChatGPT's impact on devs 👨‍💻

Apple's China exodus 📱, OpenAI ChatGPT's capabilities 🤖, PyTorch 2.0 launches 👨‍💻

Inside Amazon Air ✈️, ChatGPT vs Google 🤖 , Stable Diffusion on Apple Silicon 👨‍💻

OpenAI ChatGPT 🤖, Neuralink show and tell 🧠, resources for engineering management 👨‍💻

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