Google Pixel Fold leaks 📱, Amazon TikTok-style shopping 🛍️, historical analogies for language AI 🤖

Daily Update 2022-12-09

Remembering the LAN (Sponsor)

The LAN was a magical place to learn about computers. You could do things that would be unthinkable on today’s internet: permissionless file sharing, experimental servers with no security, and shared software where one machine could easily bring down the network.

In this classic blog post by Tailscale Co-founder David Crawshaw, he recalls the childhood magic of the local area network — including his non-programmer father building business software for 486 computers, and why the same would be much harder to do today.

Can we have a 90’s LAN-like experience again, along with the best parts of the 21st-century internet? Tailscale thinks we can.

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Big Tech & Startups

Amazon is adding a TikTok-like feed of shoppable content to its app (2 minute read)

Amazon's new Inspire feed shows photos and videos of items users can purchase in a TikTok-like format. It is set to roll out this month to select US shoppers. Shoppers can purchase items directly from photos and videos on the feed. Amazon has been recruiting influencers to produce videos for the feature. TikTok is expanding its business to become more like Amazon's. The company is working on creating its own fulfillment centers in the US.

Pixel Fold renders arrive with detailed size and spec rumors for Google’s foldable phone (2 minute read)

New renders of Google's long-rumored foldable phone have been leaked. The images show a phone with a 5.79-inch cover screen and a larger 7.69-inch inner screen, with a large bar along the backside containing three cameras and an LED flash. The phone is expected to be powered by Google’s Tensor G2 chip and come in two colors, silver and black. It will likely be released in May 2023 and cost $1,799.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

New kilonova has astronomers rethinking what we know about gamma-ray bursts (4 minute read)

Scientists have determined the source of a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected around a year ago that lasted nearly two minutes. The kilonova was triggered by the merger of two neutron stars. Neutron star mergers usually only produce short GRBs, so the discovery surprised scientists. The discovery is changing what scientists know about GRBs and will make them much harder to classify.

DeepMind’s latest AI project solves programming challenges like a newb (8 minute read)

Google's DeepMind has developed an AI system that can produce code in response to programming challenges. The system can produce code that scores near the top half of participants on an average coding challenge. While it can produce code without being given any information about algorithms or programming languages, it has difficulties with problems that require more code. The system was trained on over 700GB of GitHub code and then fine-tuned on a series of programming challenges.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

GitHub rolls out Copilot for business, experiments with voice control for Copilot (2 minute read)

GitHub has launched Copilot for business. It has also unveiled a feature called 'Hey, GitHub!' that enables voice-based interactions with Copilot. Copilot for business will allow businesses to purchase and manage seat licenses for GitHub Copilot for their employees. Developers can sign up to a waitlist to test out 'Hey, GitHub!'. Codespaces is now free for up to 60 hours every month for all users.

Experiment: The hidden costs of waiting on slow build times (6 minute read)

The cost of hardware is one of the most common objections to providing more powerful computing resources to development teams. However, while faster build times may come with higher upfront costs, the increase in productivity is worth it. It is cheaper and less frustrating for developers to have better hardware. The cost of hours in lost productivity outweighs the upfront cost of faster hardware.

Free eBook: Understanding Databases - Extended Edition (Sponsor)

Learn how to release a Django project to production in a scalable and sustainable way by using Github Actions, Docker, Terraform, and Ansible. This combined eBook and video series by Linode + Coding for Entrepreneurs has everything you need to deploy Django to Linux using a managed MySQL database. Download the intro instantly

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Miscellaneous

Google’s cost-cutters come for Waze, will lose status as independent company (2 minute read)

Google is merging its 500-person Waze team with its Google Maps 'Geo' division. Waze's CEO Neha Parikh will step down after a transition period and will not be replaced. The integration of the two divisions is part of Google's recent cost-cutting drive. Waze will remain a stand-alone service.

Historical analogies for large language models (7 minute read)

Nobody knows how large language models will change the world, but we are able to see how other technological developments have changed things throughout history. This article presents 13 examples of technological innovations that have changed the world and looks at how they affected they way people work. Many technologies have made it possible to create more value with less effort, but there is almost always a demand for high quality, human-created work.

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Quick Links

Keep your personal data from being sold with Incogni (Sponsor)

Data brokers make you jump through hoops to get your personal information off their databases. Incogni automates the entire process. Plans start at $5.79 — protect your online identity now.

Chrome gets memory and energy saver modes (2 minute read)

Memory saver reduces Chrome's memory usage by up to 30% and energy saver limits background activity and visual effects when battery level drops below 20%.

EU sets December 28th, 2024 deadline for all new phones to use USB-C for wired charging (2 minute read)

The new rules apply to phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, and handheld video consoles.

Phlex (GitHub Repo)

Phlex is a framework for composing web views in pure Ruby.

The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has been knocked offline for more than a month (3 minute read)

The newly elected government in Vanuatu is unable to use any government computing services and has been forced to turn to pen and paper.

Codon (GitHub Repo)

Codon is a high-performance, zero-overhead Python compiler that compiles Python code to native machine code.

What I learned from pairing by default (10 minute read)

Pair programming resulted in a shared codebase, more humility in teams, smoother onboarding of team members, and many other benefits.

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Dan

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Tailscale Cofounder David Crawshaw permissionless file sharing classic blog post Neutron star mergers slow build times powerful computing resources powerful gammaray burst faster build times Pixel Fold renders local area network two neutron stars latest AI project average coding challenge higher upfront costs Sponsor Daily Update new Inspire feed rumored foldable phone

Google Pixel Fold leaks 📱, Amazon TikTok-style shopping 🛍️, historical analogies for language AI 🤖

Daily Update 2022-12-09

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

Key phrases

Older messages

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

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 👨‍💻

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