OpenAI Search 🔍, YCombinator’s startup ideas 🚀, Chromium browser micropayments 🪙

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Big Tech & Startups

Is OpenAI the next challenger trying to take on Google Search? (1 minute read)

OpenAI is working on a web search to compete more directly with Google. It is unclear if the product will be standalone or part of ChatGPT. Competition in the search space is filling up quickly with the addition of Copilot on Bing, newcomers like Perplexity, and Google's Gemini Copilot. A YouTube Short featuring Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talking about competing with Google is available in the article.

Why walking around in public with Vision Pro makes no sense (7 minute read)

The passthrough on Apple's Vision Pro gives users all the fidelity and depth perception they need to comfortably see what they're doing and navigate safely on foot. Its limited field of view and poor low-light visibility could pose issues when driving. While critics of the device say it takes people's attention away from reality, the Vision Pro may actually make users more aware of their surroundings as their eyes are always up and taking in the world (when in passthrough mode). This article details a first-hand experience of what it feels like to use the device in public.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

MagicLab's humanoid can toast marshmallows, fold clothes, and dance (6 minute read)

MagicLab has unveiled MagicBot, a humanoid robot that can roast marshmallows and dance. The robot has exceptional balance and dexterity - it has the capability to execute somersaults. MagicBot has sub-millimeter positioning accuracy and a load capacity reaching several kilograms. Videos of the robot in action are available in the article.

Open-Source Security Chip Released (3 minute read)

The OpenTitan coalition has announced the first commercial silicon chip that includes built-in open-source hardware security. The chip, called Earl Grey, features a number of built-in hardware security and cryptography modules in a self-contained microprocessor. It uses a security protocol called Root of Trust, which provides an on-chip source of cryptographic keys that is inaccessible remotely. As part of the project, OpenTitan developed a framework for open-source hardware design that provides rules for documentation, pre-defined interfaces and quality standards, and a governance structure that lays out how different partners make decisions as a collective.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

oink.php (GitHub Repo)

oink.php is a single-file API wrapper for PHP. It makes it easy to route endpoints, set parameters, and return responses. oink.php was designed to be simple and comfortable to use. Examples of using oink.php to create a blog and gallery are available.

OpenLLMetry-JS (GitHub Repo)

OpenLLMetry-JS is a set of extensions built on top of OpenTelemetry that provides developers with complete observability over their LLM applications. It can be connected to existing observability solutions. OpenLLMetry-JS can instrument everything that OpenTelemetry already instruments. It also has custom extensions for instrumenting things like calls to OpenAI or Vector DBs.

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Miscellaneous

The text file that runs the internet (16 minute read)

robots.txt has kept the internet from chaos for three decades. The simple text file represents a deal between some of the earliest pioneers of the internet to respect each other's wishes and build the internet in a way that benefits everybody. It allows anyone who runs a website to tell the web who's allowed on the site and who isn't. The system used to work, but AI is now threatening to change everything. This article takes a look at the history behind robots.txt, how it works, different types of web crawlers, the tradeoff between sites and the search engineers crawling them, and how AI changes the balance of the internet.

Requests for Startups (20 minute read)

Requests for Startups is a periodic feature from Y Combinator that gathers ideas and categories that it wants to see more people working on. The list is intended to provide founders with ideas on what to build. Readers should not feel like they need to work on one of these ideas to apply to Y Combinator - the company expects to fund only a small fraction of ideas from the list. The list covers areas such as robotics, machine learning, manufacturing, space, enterprise software, cryptocurrency, and more.

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Quick Links

Tonic: Streamline test data generation and provisioning (Sponsor)

Generate secure and realistic synthetic data to accelerate engineering velocity and ensure compliance. Get a free sandbox account

Largest text-to-speech AI model yet shows ’emergent abilities’ (5 minute read)

Amazon AGI's Big Adaptive Steamable TTS with Emergent abilities model, or BASE TTS, has 980 million parameters and emergent qualities that improve its ability to speak even complex sentences naturally.

Tesla’s biggest EV rival is planning a factory in North America (2 minute read)

BYD is considering opening a plant in Mexico, which would make it cheaper for the company to sell cars in the US.

Chrome engine devs experiment with automatic browser micropayments (5 minute read)

Chromium's team is prototyping Web Monetization, a community specification that lets websites automatically receive payments from online visitors via a web browser and designated payment service.

The Performance Improvement Plan is Cruel and Unusual (5 minute read)

Performance improvement plans are cruel and a waste of everyone's time because everyone knows what's going to happen at the end of the plan.

How to break into Silicon Valley (10 minute read)

If you work in tech, you won’t regret spending 3-5 years in the Bay Area - this post tells you how to make the most of your time.

The rise of virtual influencers (15 minute read)

Virtual influencers are digital characters used in social media and marketing campaigns to engage with real audiences.

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OpenAI Search 🔍, YCombinator’s startup ideas 🚀, Chromium browser micropayments 🪙

TLDR 2024-02-15

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

Older messages

Google Gemini 1.5 🧠, transparent laptops 💻, Rust vs C++ 👨‍💻

Vision Pro app stats 🌎, tech accelerationism 🤖, inside DNS 👨‍💻

OpenAI agents 🤖, Sam Altman's $7T chip fund 💰, tech employment in 2024 👨‍💻

Google Gemini Ultra 🧠, 1X's robotics demo 🤖 , Windows launches sudo 🧑‍💻

Disney's Epic Games stake 🎮, Google's morale crisis 📉, jQuery 4.0 👨‍💻

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