Google Passkeys 🔑, Europe's Starlink competitor 🛰️, Chrome WebGPU released 👨‍💻

Sign Up|Jobs|Advertise|View Online TLDR TLDR 2023-05-04 📱 Big Tech & Startups Passwordless Google accounts are here—you can now switch to passkey-only (4 minute read) Google has enabled passkey-only Google accounts. Passkeys are an authentication method that uses the device's operating system to directly swap public-private keypairs with websites. They are synced via the operating system ecosystem, so syncing with other operating systems currently requires tedious workarounds. Google's passkey support is rolling out now for consumer devices and soon for Google Workspace business users. Gmail is adding a blue checkmark to better verify senders (1 minute read) Gmail is adding a blue checkmark to emails. The system will be based on the Brand Indicators for Message Identification standard, which uses strong authentication to identify legitimate senders. It will help users and email security systems to identify and stop spam and enable senders to leverage brand trust. The checkmark is rolling out now and will be available to all users over the coming weeks. 🚀 Science & Futuristic Technology Europe’s major satellite players line up to build Starlink competitor (3 minute read) A consortium of nearly every major European satellite company announced Tuesday that it plans to bid for a proposed satellite constellation to provide global communications in response to a request for help made by the European Union. The satellite constellation will be able to offer global coverage from low-Earth orbit, which is similar to SpaceX's Starlink. The project is estimated to cost around 6 billion euros, with the EU providing 2.4 billion euros. The EU's goal is to have the satellites ready for launch by 2027. European officials view the need for the creation of the constellation as a way to guarantee communications security and to lessen reliance on services such as SpaceX's Starlink or Amazon's Project Kuiper. New Alzheimer's drug slows disease by a third (3 minute read) A new drug named donanemab developed by Eli Lilly has shown success in slowing Alzheimer's by around one-third, providing hope for a potential breakthrough in Alzheimer's treatments. Donanemab works like lecanemab, another Alzheimer's drug that made headlines this year. It uses antibodies to clean a build-up of beta-amyloid in the brain. Brain swelling is a common side effect of donanemab, with up to 1.6% of patients at risk of dangerous swelling. The swelling resulted in the direct death of two volunteers and potentially a third. Eli Lilly will begin the process of having its drug approved for use in hospitals in the next few months. 💻 Programming, Design & Data Science I want to talk about WebGPU (33 minute read) WebGPU is the new way to draw 3D in web browsers. It could replace Canvas and Vulkan as well and become just the standard way to draw from any programming language. WebGPU went live this week in Chrome 113. This article explores what WebGPU means for programmers. It presents a history of graphics APIs and talks about what WebGPU is like and how to use it. New in Chrome 113 (3 minute read) This article looks at what's new for developers in Chrome 113. Chrome 113 introduces WebGPU, which allows for high-performance 3D graphics and data-parallel computation on the web. Devtools can now override network response headers. A feature that allows organizations to declare related sites has started to roll out with Chrome 113. Chrome 113 also brings an unprefixed image-set type, new media features, and an origin trial for WebGPU WebCodecs integration. Introducing New Relic Grok, the world’s first generative AI assistant for observability (Sponsor) New Relic Grok makes it easy for you to get the insights you need without having to make sense of tons of data. It leverages OpenAI’s large language models (LLMs) so that any engineer can use plain language and a familiar chat interface to ask questions and get insights, without prior observability experience. Observability is now as simple as asking, “Why is my cart not working?” or “Instrument AWS.” 🎁 Miscellaneous But is Bluesky really superior and would it have been better to build the #fediverse on top of this protocol, instead? (4 minute read) Bluesky consists of two layers: speech and reach. Users retain complete control over their personal data repository, but they may not be able to reach out to other users unless they are properly indexed. While the platform is technically an open ecosystem, there are barriers to entry that give Bluesky a significant advantage. This will pose a challenge for competitors who seek to enter the market as they will be playing catch up. Bluesky is aiming to become the next Google rather than Twitter 2.0. State of Private Markets: Q1 2023 (13 minute read) The venture capital industry faced significant declines in both capital raised and deal count in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year. The quarter saw the slowest capital raised and deal count since 2017. There was a decline in total rounds across all stages. Other notable Q1 events include a spike in down rounds and an increase in startups opting for bridge rounds. There was a 20% increase in the number of venture-backed companies acquired or merged with another company with the majority of those deals valued at $10 million or less. ⚡ Quick Links Andreessen Horowitz saw the future — but did the future leave it behind? (12 minute read) Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has invested in many supposedly revolutionary companies that have failed despite their initial promise. Google will retire Chrome’s HTTPS padlock icon because no one knows what it means (2 minute read) The padlock icon will be retired starting in Chrome 117, which will be released in September along with a larger refresh of the Chrome interface. Microsoft is forcing Outlook and Teams to open links in Edge, and IT admins are angry (3 minute read) Microsoft has started notifying IT admins that links from Microsoft Outlook and Teams will ignore the default browser setting and open in Microsoft Edge instead. Gratitude For a Web That Tries Not to Break (2 minute read) The web's guiding principle around compatibility, 'don't break the web', means that older features aren't removed, even if it would be convenient for developers. Chinese VCs Lived the Silicon Valley High Life. Now the Party’s Over (8 minute read) Years of investment from Chinese venture Capitalists has come to a near-total stop with the US government being deeply suspicious of Chinese technology and China throttling the flow of money and talent into the US. OpenLLaMA (GitHub Repo) OpenLLaMA is a permissively licensed open-source reproduction of Meta's LLama large language model. Want more TLDR? We also write newsletters covering AI, crypto, and web dev! TLDR Talent is our exclusive community where we help world-class tech talent and get intros to companies of their choice, along with a number of exciting startups and tech companies curated by TLDR. We give you full control of the process, you can specify if you’re actively searching or passively interested only if something amazing comes along. Set your preferred compensation, seniority/title/role, specific companies (or types of companies) you’d like to work for and more. Click here to apply. 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