Apple Pay Later 💳, Google's coding AI 🤖, browser notifications launch 👨‍💻

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Big Tech & Startups

Apple Pay Later is finally launching (2 minute read)

Apple has launched its buy now, pay later service. Apple Pay Later allows users to apply for loans between $50 to $1,000 via the Apple Wallet with no fees or interest. Users will have six weeks to repay the loan amount through four payments. Although Apple claims Pay Later loans won't affect users' credit, the fine print warns that loan and payment history may be reported to credit bureaus and could impact credit. The service is currently available for randomly selected users in the US for in-app and online purchases on iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4.

Google Partners with AI Startup Replit to Take on Microsoft’s GitHub (4 minute read)

Google is partnering with Replit, a startup with software that helps computer programmers write code. The partnership will see Google combine its artificial intelligence language models with Replit's Ghostwriter, which has 20 million users. Ghostwriter will rely on Google’s AI to suggest blocks of code and answer developers' questions. Replit will expand its use of Google's cloud services and aims to attract more corporate customers. Google will distribute Replit's software as part of the partnership.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

Scientists Created a New Recyclable Plastic Not Made From Crude Oil (3 minute read)

Researchers at Boise State University have developed a new plastic called PECA made from the same monomer used to make Super Glue. Small-scale lab experiments suggest that 93% of the plastic can be recycled into clean starter materials, even if mixed together with other types of plastic waste, paper, or aluminum. PECA plastic thermally 'cracks' at 210 °C. The resulting monomers can be distilled for reuse. If introduced on an industrial scale, PECA plastic could replace polystyrene plastics that are typically non-recyclable.

These scientists are probing secrets of squid camouflage by hacking human cells (6 minute read)

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have replicated the properties of squid skin cells in human cells in the lab. The team introduced squid-derived genes that encode reflectin into human cells. Reflectin is a protein that clumps together into nanoparticles to scatter light. The study focused on understanding the characteristics of the protein and its ability to self-assemble into structures. The resulting human cells were able to create reflectin structures that were very similar, and with comparable refractive indices, to those in squid cells.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

Push notifications are now supported cross-browser (3 minute read)

Safari for macOS now supports standard push notifications. Safari for iOS and iPadOS supports push notifications in version 16.4, but only for Home Screen apps. An example of how to implement push notifications in JavaScript is available in the article.

Announcing Openflamingo: An Open-Source Framework For Training Vision-Language Models With In-Context Learning (5 minute read)

OpenFlamingo is an open-source reproduction of DeepMind's Flamingo model. It enables the training and evaluation of large multimodal models. OpenFlamingo features a Python framework for training Flamingo-style LMMs, a large-scale multimodal dataset, an in-context learning evaluation benchmark for vision-language tasks, and the OpenFlamingo-9B model based on LLaMA.

Monitor GPT application usage in New Relic (Sponsor)

It feels like everyone is building something on OpenAI. If you're already using or plan to use GPT-3.5, GPT-4, or the ChatGPT APIs at scale, it's important to monitor metrics like average request time, total requests, and total cost. Learn how New Relic enables this with its industry-first MLOps integration. Read the blog post

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Miscellaneous

Generative AI set to affect 300 million jobs across major economies (3 minute read)

Research by Goldman Sachs suggests that AI could automate a quarter of the work done in the US and eurozone. The technology could spark a productivity boom that could raise annual gross domestic product by 7% over a 10-year period. It will likely bring significant disruption to the labor market and affect an estimated 300 million full-time workers. Around 7% of workers in the US are in jobs that could be completely replaced by AI.

The Accidental Consumer Tech Company; ChatGPT, Meta, and Product-Market Fit; Aggregation and APIs (11 minute read)

ChatGPT may have started out as a demo, but it is now on its way to being the next major consumer tech platform. The integration of plugins last week signaled a major shift in ambition. It could mean that OpenAI may eventually kill its API in favor of the ChatGPT platform. While this is unlikely, startups building on OpenAPI's API should consider alternatives.

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Quick Links

Map and mount S3 storage as a local virtual drive (Sponsor)

S3 Drive is a powerful utility that enables you to connect and work with any S3 compatible service as a local drive. Download the FREE Starter Edition

Interaction Nets, Combinators, and Calculus (9 minute read)

This post covers Interaction Nets, Combinators, and Calculus at a medium level, with just enough depth to see how the pieces fit together but without too many details.

TikTok ban backup plan? ByteDance-owned Instagram rival Lemon8 hits the U.S. App Store’s Top 10 (4 minute read)

Lemon8's quick rise to the top may be due to paid user acquisition.

Gene Hackers Create Meatball From Resurrected Mammoth Meat (2 minute read)

Vow has grown meat in the lab using mammoth DNA, but it won't be available to consumers any time soon.

Amazon Invites Developers to Test Sidewalk and Build the Next Billion Connected Devices (3 minute read)

Amazon Sidewalk, a network that covers more than 90% of the US population, is now open for developer testing.

Elon Musk says Twitter’s For You page will only recommend verified accounts (2 minute read)

Starting on April 15, only verified accounts will be recommended on Twitter's For You page.

Facebook Parent Plans Lower Bonus Payouts for Some Staff (3 minute read)

Meta will also more frequently assess employee performance.

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Jobs

Pinata - Principal Software Engineer (Fully Remote, $180,325 - $197,185)

Pinata is hiring a Principal Software Engineer to make the experience of creating and distributing media easier through client-side tools and applications for a company that is building the tools and infrastructure for a more free and empowering web3 generation through IPFS.

Taskray - Senior Salesforce Engineer (Fully Remote, $120,000 - $160,000)

Taskray is hiring a Senior Salesforce Engineer to be responsible for guiding and aligning the engineering and product team on high-level architectural design choices, technical standards, tools, and platforms for a company on a mission to ensure that businesses get off to a great start with a flawless customer experience.

Sojern - Principal Software Engineer, Data Architect (Fully Remote)

Sojern is hiring a Principal Software Engineer to work closely with the product, data science, and SRE teams to design, build, and deploy highly scalable and efficient core platform services for a travel marketing platform that serves thousands of hotels, attractions, airlines, and destinations worldwide.

You may also like to see more jobs or hire through our free job board.

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Dan Ni

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artificial intelligence language models context learning evaluation benchmark TLDR Daily Update clean starter materials comparable refractive indices Home Screen apps large multimodal models largescale multimodal dataset average request time industryfirst MLOps integration Boise State University Smallscale lab experiments GPT application usage squid skin cells standard push notifications New Recyclable Plastic resulting human cells AI Startup Replit

Apple Pay Later 💳, Google's coding AI 🤖, browser notifications launch 👨‍💻

Daily Update 2023-03-29

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

Jobs

Key phrases

Older messages

Twitter code leaks 🐦, big tech's AI strategy 🤖, AI native code editor 👨‍💻

Apple's demos headset 🥽, GPT productivity hacks 🤖, secret history of OpenAI 🧠

ChatGPT Plugins 🤖, Cash App fraud allegations 💰, engineering job market slowdown 📉

Mozilla's open AI project 🤖, GitHub Copilot upgrades 👨‍💻, TikTok fights ban 📱

Bing's DALL-E integration 🖼️, injectable brain implants 🧠, Bill Gates on AI 🤖

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