Winter Gloom, Moonlighting, & Goliath Battle 🪖

On this wild journey of tech evolution, we first had floppy disks, then CDs waltzed into the scene, followed by hard drives strutting their stuff, and finally the mysterious cloud, hanging out like a digital superhero. 

Now, brace yourself for the next act. Biomemory, the French startup, is on a mission to transform your DNA into a storage wonderland. 

That's right, your very own body blueprint is becoming the superhero lair for your data, according to Wired.

How does it work?

• Users feed their data into Biomemory’s website where it’s converted from binary code (zeros and ones) to DNA code (A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s). 
• Then, Biomemory constructs a DNA strand using the custom sequence.
• The strand is synthesized in solution, dried to increase shelf life, and sealed inside a chip in a silver card. 
• When customers are ready to access their data, they can simply mail in one of their cards back to Biomemory where it’ll be rehydrated before it’s read by a sequencing machine. The customer can then translate it into text using the company’s website.

Why do we need this? 

Our data game is blowing up, and we're running out of space to stash it all. A tiny bit of DNA can squeeze in around 36 million copies of Avengers: Endgame, per research. That's like a whole movie stash in something smaller than your pinky nail. Plus these DNA data cards can last for about 150 years. Compare that to our usual storage buddies. Hard drives give us about five years of life, and flash drives, a bit more at around 10 years. 

Now, think about the planet. Data centers are chugging up ~1.5% of the world's electricity. But DNA storage doesn't hog any energy until you need your stuff back. It’s like giving a high-five to Mother Earth.

What’s the catch?

So far, Biomemory’s silver card can only hold about 1kb of data (which seems like a joke) and costs $500. So it’s obviously not very practical (yet), especially to store songs or movies that you can easily access on Netflix or Torrent. 

But in future, it could be a great option for sentimental, important information you want to keep safe.

Is your favourite AI refusing to do some of your tasks or returning simplified results? 

It may be because of the unproven “winter break hypothesis”. 

In late November, some ChatGPT users began to notice that ChatGPT-4 was becoming more “lazy," returning answers that were over-simplified or badly written. OpenAI has admitted that it's an issue, but it hasn't identified why. 

The answer may be what some are calling "winter break hypothesis." 

What’s that? People usually slow down in December and put bigger projects off until the new year. And now it seems that ChatGPT has learned this and may be getting lazier because of it.

While unproven, the fact that AI researchers are taking the hypothesis seriously shows how weird the world of AI language models has become.

Why entertain such a weird supposition? Because research has shown that large language models like GPT-4 respond to human-style encouragement, such as telling a bot to "take a deep breath" before doing a math problem or telling an LLM that it will receive a tip for doing the work.

No matter how meritorious, this experience and hypothesis is a window into the unfolding world of LLMs and the largely unknown computer science territory. 

One minute you've never heard of an up-and-coming startup, and then suddenly it's everywhere. This appears to be the case for the viral shopping app Temu that has become the No. 1 iPhone App of 2023. 

What plucked Temu from near obscurity might be a long analysis. But there’s one thing that’s unmissable - its tiff with Shein. Battling against a Goliath of a brand like Shein is a sure shot way to get people talking about you. Over the last year, the Asian e-commerce giants sued and countersued each other. 

Temu launched in the US in September 2022. Here’s a quick timeline of the events that transpired since then. 

Dec 2022:  Shein drags Temu to US federal court, accusing it of contracting social-media influencers to make disparaging remarks about Shein in their promotions. This is the first legal battle between the two.

Apr 2023:  The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission explicitly calls out Shein and Temu, citing “exploitation of trade loopholes and use of forced labor.”

July 2023:  Temu sues Shein for binding manufacturers in exclusivity contracts, and levying fines for working with its rival.

Nov 2023:  Shein files paperwork to kickstart its IPO process in the US. Meanwhile, Temu parent company PDD sees its e-commerce market valuation surpass long-time leader Alibaba’s. 

Why is Temu a threat to Shein? 

• Shein’s valuation fell by $30 billion following the US entry of Temu.
• Temu’s US sales in November were 3x that of Shein’s. 

The cost of Temu’s aggressive growth tactics? $3.65 billion. Its dirt-cheap prices and free shipping without spending minimums are enticing for customers but not helpful to the bottom line.

🏠 The Good Fall - Last week mortgage rates fell for the seventh consecutive week to 6.95%, the first time they’ve been below 7% since August. 

🍎 Apple Spotlights - Apple released the top apps and games of 2023 on the App Store. 

🚚 Rich Drivers - A UPS driver racked up ~12 million views on TikTok by shocking viewers with his $2,000 pre-tax weekly payslip.

🔸 Golden Buys - Costco customers bought $100 million worth of gold bars last quarter after the company began carrying 1-ounce gold bars in its stores

🤰 Happy Pregnant Women - Scientists seem to closer to finding a solution for morning sickness.

🦃 Big Ball of Meat - Ikea is giving away 30 turkey-sized meatballs (and 30 vegan versions) this holiday season. 

❓ DYK - Coffee wasn’t always a beverage. At one time, it was used as handwash.