MSFT hires DeepMind cofounder 🤖, Toyota's smart city 🏙️, AI devs overhyped? 👨‍💻

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TLDR 2024-03-20

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Big Tech & Startups

DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman will run Microsoft’s new consumer AI unit (3 minute read)

Microsoft has hired Mustafa Suleyman to run a new consumer AI unit called Microsoft AI. Suleyman is one of Google DeepMind's cofounders and chief executive of AI startup Inflection. Microsoft AI will combine consumer-facing products like Copilot, Bing, and Edge into one team. Microsoft will hire most of Inflection's staff, including AI engineers, researchers, and large language model builders. Inflection will switch its focus from its consumer chatbot to selling enterprise AI software to businesses.

Meta just showed off Threads’ fediverse integration for the very first time (4 minute read)

Meta showed off a brief demo of how users will eventually be able to connect their accounts to the fediverse during the FediForum conference on Tuesday. The company's integration will let users share their posts across different platforms through Threads. It currently allows users to post to other services that interoperate through ActivityPub, but they can't view replies and can only see the likes they get, a fact Meta is working hard to change. A video showing how the integration currently works is available in the article.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

‘Mass human experiment’: Inside Japan’s futuristic $15 billion smart city (6 minute read)

Toyota's Woven City project, located close to the foot of Japan's Mount Fuji, will complete Phase 1 of its development by the end of the year and start trials in 2025. The city will be used to pilot experiments and innovations in personal mobility, automated driving, robots, and artificial intelligence. It will have streets for automated driving, pedestrians, and pedestrians using personal mobility vehicles, as well as underground roads for goods transportation. The project will begin with around 350 residents, mainly senior citizens, families with young children, and inventors. It will help Toyota develop next-generation cars and realize a mobility society in which everyone can move freely.

‘A landmark moment’: scientists use AI to design antibodies from scratch (3 minute read)

Researchers have used a generative AI tool called RFdiffusion to make completely new antibodies for the first time. The proof-of-principle work paves the way for the design of antibody drugs at the touch of a button. The technology is still a long way from reaching the clinic.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

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Is the “AI developer” a threat to jobs – or a marketing stunt? (12 minute read)

There have been a number of news stories about AI developers recently. While some developers are concerned that the technology may soon take over their jobs, these claims are likely just attempts at grabbing attention. AI may not remove the need for developers - it will likely just create the need for AI developers. The future of software development will likely still involve humans - the exaggerated claims made by startups today are just marketing.

Postgres is eating the database world (17 minute read)

PostgreSQL is a data management framework with the potential to engulf the entire database realm. Using Postgres for everything is becoming a mainstream best practice. ParadeDB and DuckDB add more performance, propelling PostgreSQL's analysis capabilities to the top tier of OLAP. Pigsty is a PostgreSQL distribution that aims to harness the collective power of PostgreSQL ecosystem extensions and democratize access to production-grade database services.

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Miscellaneous

Saudi Arabia Plans $40 Billion Push Into Artificial Intelligence (5 minute read)

The government of Saudi Arabia plans to invest around $40 billion into artificial intelligence. It is in talks to create a tech fund through a partnership with Andreessen Horowitz and other financiers. The fund would make Saudi Arabia the world's largest investor in artificial intelligence. It will back an array of tech startups tied to artificial intelligence, including chip makers, data centers, and AI companies.

How to Start Google (14 minute read)

Building a company is not a trick for avoiding work, but it avoids many of the annoying things that come with a job. You need three things to build a successful startup: technology skills, an idea, and cofounders. This article talks about how to get all three. Making things for friends is a great source of ideas for young founders, who have the least amount of knowledge about what other people want and whose own wants are most predictive of future demand.

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Nvidia Waves and Moats (15 minute read)

An overview of Jensen Huang's keynote at Nvidia's annual GPU Technology Conference on Monday.

Section 174 and its Impact on Tech Startups (6 minute read)

Section 174 is a US tax law code amendment that kicked in last year that requires companies to amortize R&D costs over five years, or fifteen if it was tied to foreign workers.

New algorithm unlocks high-resolution insights for computer vision (8 minute read)

FeatUp, a new system created by MIT researchers, lets algorithms capture all of the high- and low-level details of a scene at the same time, boosting the resolution of any deep network without compromising on speed or quality.

jnv (GitHub Repo)

jnv features an interactive JSON viewer and jq filter editor.

Nvidia’s AI boom is only getting started. Just ask CEO Jensen Huang (15 minute read)

Nvidia's technology is an essential ingredient in AI progress.

Apple Publishes Details About New 'MM1' AI Model (2 minute read)

Apple's new method for training large language models seamlessly integrates both text and visual information.

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MSFT hires DeepMind cofounder 🤖, Toyota's smart city 🏙️, AI devs overhyped? 👨‍💻

TLDR 2024-03-20

Big Tech & Startups

Science & Futuristic Technology

Programming, Design & Data Science

Miscellaneous

Quick Links

Older messages

Apple's AI negotiations 📱, Sam Altman on AGI 🤖, Nvidia's new GPU ⚡

AirPods 4 🎧, Elon open sources Grok 🧠, knowing when to quit 💡

SpaceX Starship reaches orbit 🚀, DNA foundational models 🧬, curse of senior devs 👨‍💻

GPT-4.5 leak 🧠, conversational robots 🤖, what are design engineers 👨‍💻

TikTok Photos 📱, next-gen AI dev 👨‍💻, startup comp trends 💰

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