Tesla's Model Y upgrade 🚗, gen AI short films 🤖, new age of CSS 👨‍💻

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Big Tech & Startups

Tesla Giga Shanghai to release 2024 Model Y refresh as competition heats up in China (2 minute read)

Tesla is already preparing to produce the 2024 refresh Model Y at Gigafactory Shanghai, with mass production expected to start by mid-2024. The refresh will have significant changes compared to the updated units released in October 2023. The new Model Y will have more noticeable changes to the exterior and interior to compete with new electric car units to be released in China next year. It is expected to feature a new wheel design with ambient lighting.

4-year campaign backdoored iPhones using possibly the most advanced exploit ever (8 minute read)

Researchers have discovered an attack that backdoored possibly thousands of iPhones over four years. Many of the affected phones belonged to Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky. The attackers were able to achieve an unprecedented level of access by exploiting a vulnerability in an undocumented hardware feature that few people know of. It is still unknown how they became aware of the feature. The exploit was delivered through iMessage texts which installed malware without requiring the receiver to take any action. Apple has patched the exploit, which also affected Macs, iPods, iPads, Apple TVs, and Apple Watches.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

Scientists discover the first new antibiotics in over 60 years using AI (3 minute read)

Scientists have discovered a new class of antibiotics for drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria using AI. The discovery could be a turning point in the fight against antibiotic resistance. Deep learning is increasingly being applied in drug discovery to accelerate the process. The model was able to predict the activity and toxicity of the new compound.

Injection of “smart insulin” regulates blood glucose levels for one week (3 minute read)

Glucose-responsive insulin, or 'smart' insulin, is a form of insulin that provides control of blood glucose levels over a longer period of time than normal insulin. A recent study reported that a single injection of a smart insulin system was able to regulate blood glucose levels in diabetic mice and minipigs for a week. The system mimics the body's natural process, releasing insulin in response to glucose. Research into smart insulin is still in its early stages, but the study demonstrated that it could be a viable research subject heading forward.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

Fontimize (32 minute read)

Fontimize is a Python library for subsetting fonts. It can cut the size of font files by around 95%, resulting in saved bandwidth. Fontimize's Magic Method generates new versions of fonts with only the glyphs needed to render the specific website. It features a flexible API and command-line utility that allows users to customize output locations, use specific font files, change verbosity, return information about what characters were found and what fonts were generated, and more.

Tbmk (GitHub Repo)

Tbmk is a commands bookmark for the terminal. It allows users to search, add, edit, and delete commands. Tbmk has been tested on Linux bash and zsh. A video demo is available.

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Miscellaneous

My CCPA Dialog With OpenAI (12 minute read)

This article contains an exchange with OpenAI following the filing of a CCPA request. The aim of the filing was to see how large language models might comply with privacy regulations like the CCPA and GDPR when it comes to their training data sets. While OpenAI never really settled the original CCPA request, the exchange illuminated its approach to privacy and training data. It appears OpenAI is currently using the hallucination excuse to handle privacy requests, and while they are releasing products at a truly impressive pace, it doesn't seem that legal and support are keeping up.

Big Tech is spending more than VC firms on AI startups (2 minute read)

Big Tech companies have vastly outspent venture capital firms with generative AI startup investments this year. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are responsible for two-thirds of the $27 billion raised by AI startups in 2023. Building and training generative AI tools is expensive and requires immense computing power, so startups have preferred to partner with Big Tech companies that can provide infrastructure and funds. This has rapidly pushed up the valuations of private startups, making it harder for VCs to invest in the most cutting-edge companies.

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Quick Links

What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it (11 minute read)

The Post-Open Source movement aims to ensure companies pay a fair amount for the benefits they receive while individuals and non-profits still have access to software for free.

Apple Watch import ban paused; Series 9 and Ultra 2 will be available on Apple’s site tomorrow (2 minute read)

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has instituted a pause on the Apple Watch import ban - it will hear the company's case as early as January 15.

Chisel (GitHub Repo)

Chisel (Constructing Hardware in a Scala Embedded Language) is an open-source hardware description language used to describe digital electronics and circuits at the register-transfer level that facilitates advanced circuit generation and design reuse for both ASIC and FPGA digital logic designs.

Attempting to make a little mini-series using only AI (2 minute read)

A thread showing the prompts used to create a short film using Midjourney for the images and Pika to generate the video.

CSS is fun again (7 minute read)

Many big features that previously required external tools to use are now native to CSS.

66 Good News Stories You Didn't Hear About in 2023 (32 minute read)

A lot of things went right this year - a record number of countries eliminated diseases, Malaria vaccines started arriving in Africa, solar became the fastest-growing energy technology in history, and more - but almost none of it made it to the news.

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Tesla's Model Y upgrade 🚗, gen AI short films 🤖, new age of CSS 👨‍💻

TLDR 2023-12-28

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

Older messages

Microsoft's ChatGPT competitor 🤖, Apple Watch ban starts ⌚, rethinking Unix 👨‍💻

Apple's open source LLM 🤖, next-gen self checkout 🛍️, making LLMs fast 👨‍💻

Apple's AI breakthrough 📱, PHOLED displays 🖥️, Sam Altman's career advice 💼

Tesla stops equity comp 💰, Apple Vision Pro launch 🌎, advice for new devs 👨‍💻

Google's new app store rules 📱, Blue Origin launches 🚀, understanding technical debt 👨‍💻

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