Google's search chatbot 🔎, ChatGPT Pro 🤖, Google lays off 12000 👨‍💻

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Big Tech & Startups

Google is freaking out about ChatGPT (3 minute read)

Google plans to unveil more than 20 projects powered by artificial intelligence this year. One of the projects will be a version of its search engine with chatbot features. The company recently announced that it will lay off more than 12,000 employees and focus on AI as a domain of primary importance. Some of the AI projects are set to debut during Google's annual I/O event in May.

ChatGPT users spot $42 Professional Plan with perks (2 minute read)

An 'Upgrade plan' option has been spotted by users on the ChatGPT web interface. Clicking on the option brings up a prompt that shows a free plan and a 'Professional Plan' that costs $42 a month. The Professional Plan provides access even when demand is high, faster response speeds, and priority access to new features. The free plan allows users to continue using the service as they have been so far.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

WiFi Routers Used to Produce 3D Images of Humans (3 minute read)

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University were able to create full-body images of subjects using simple Wi-Fi routers. The technology could revolutionize healthcare, security, gaming, imaging, and many other industries. However, it could present many privacy issues as the technology can monitor people's movements through walls without their knowledge or consent. The technique involves analyzing the amplitude and phase of Wi-Fi signals to find interference and then using AI algorithms to produce an image.

Gravity batteries in abandoned mines could power the whole planet (2 minute read)

Gravity batteries store excess energy from the grid by raising a mass to generate gravitational potential energy. The mass can be dropped to convert potential energy into electricity through an electric generator. Using abandoned mines to operate gravity batteries could provide enough energy to match the entire planet's current daily electricity consumption. There are likely millions of abandoned mines around the world that can be relatively cheaply converted into gravity batteries.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

git-sim (GitHub Repo)

git-sim provides visual simulations of Git operations. Its command syntax is based directly on Git's command-line syntax. git-sim can be used to understand the effects of Git commands, prevent unexpected states, create static Git diagrams, and help visual learners understand how Git commands work. Example visualizations are available.

SRE Checklist (GitHub Repo)

This repository contains checklists for people practicing Site Reliability Engineering. It aims to provide teams and individuals with an idea of what to take into consideration and what to aspire for in the SRE field. The checklists cover teams, production, and technologies.

Get the tools — and tips — you need to build secure applications quickly (Sponsor)

Need to improve your code security? Follow Snyk’s 5 “no experience needed” tips to find and fix vulnerabilities as you code — and increase your application security knowledge along the way.

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Miscellaneous

TikTok confirms that its own employees can decide what goes viral (2 minute read)

Some TikTok employees have the ability to sidestep the algorithm and boost videos by putting selected videos into users' For You pages. The 'Heating' feature is aimed at introducing celebrities and emerging creators to the TikTok community and to diversify the content experience. TikTok claims that only around 0.002% of videos in For You feeds are heated, but an external report claims that heated videos make up around 1-2% of total daily video views.

Is AI the new crypto? (13 minute read)

AI is flourishing while many tech sectors have entered into a deep freeze. This article looks at the history of venture capital investment into crypto and makes comparisons with the crypto boom and bust and current trends in AI. AI has long capital feedback cycles, keeping expectations in check, and its consumers are benefitting from the technology even in its early years. While the hype will die down, AI will likely escape the downfall of inflated expectations.

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Quick Links

Remofirst lets you employ talent in 150+ countries - affordably and legally (Sponsor)

Find out how Remofirst can manage your international HR at the best possible price, without needing additional entities. TLDR readers get 2 months free on their first EOR hires + a free contractor plan.

Jets (GitHub Repo)

Jets is a Ruby Serverless Framework that includes everything required to build an application and deploy on AWS Lambda.

Google to lay off 12,000 people — read the memo CEO Sundar Pichai sent to staff (4 minute read)

Google will offer laid-off US-based employees 16 weeks of severance pay plus two weeks for each additional year they've worked at the company.

Techniques to improve reliability (35 minute read)

This article shares techniques for improving the reliability of large language models on complex tasks.

Script Kit (Website)

Script Kit makes it easy to create and run scripts that solve daily problems.

Job Hunting in 2022 (16 minute read)

One person's experience with finding a software engineering job after leaving Meta.

Twitter is down to fewer than 550 full-time engineers (2 minute read)

Twitter now has around 1,300 full-time employees.

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Jobs

oBundle - Junior eCommerce UX Designer (Remote, $35-$50/hr)

oBundle is hiring an eCommerce UX Designer to help design and optimize the user experience for our ecommerce clients.

eJAmerica - IAM/SSO Engineer (Norfolk, Virginia, US, $120k - $130k)

eJAmerica is hiring an Identity Access Management (IAM) SSO Engineer to help our clients develop access management solutions.

Prerender - Product Marketing Specialist (Remote, $60k - $70k)

Prerender is hiring a product marketing specialist, we enable JavaScript sites to be crawled by search engines.

eJAmerica - SCCM Administrator (Springdale, Arkansas, US, $90k - $95k)

eJAmerica is hiring an SCCM Administrator with PowerShell scripting and AD Group Policy experience.

Over a dozen more jobs like these are posted every day on our job board, you can also set alerts to be notified when jobs are posted that fit your exact criteria. If your company would like to hire through our free job board, please sign up here.

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Google's search chatbot 🔎, ChatGPT Pro 🤖, Google lays off 12000 👨‍💻

Daily Update 2023-01-23

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

Jobs

Older messages

Netflix CEO steps down 📺, China's successful hyperloop 🚆, ex-Tesla head of AI's free neural net course 🧠

Microsoft plans $10B OpenAI investment 💰, CRISPR meat 🥩, subjects for 1-on-1s 👨‍💼

Apple touchscreen MacBooks 💻, Microsoft unlimited vacation 👨‍💻, tips for faster web browsing 🌐

Samsung Galaxy leaks 📱, FTX founder launches blog 👨🏻, GitHub Code Brushes 👨‍💻

Tesla's 30% price drop 🚗, Twitter shuts down API 🖥️, inside a startup's cloud spend 👨‍💻

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