Amazon Buy Now Pay Later 💰, Square's TBD DEX 🪙, iPhone 13 satellite internet 📱

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Big Tech & Startups

Amazon partners with Affirm to roll out first buy now, pay later option on the e-commerce site (2 minute read)

Amazon has partnered with Affirm to offer installment payment options. Affirm is one of the best-known installment payment option providers, servicing more than 12,000 merchants. Some Amazon customers in the US will start seeing Affirm's ‘buy now, pay later’ checkout option on Friday, with a broader rollout in the coming months. Purchases of $50 or more will be allowed to be split into smaller, monthly installments. Neither company has said whether these loans will come with interest.

Square Plans to Build a Decentralized Bitcoin Exchange, Says Jack Dorsey (3 minute read)

Square CEO Jack Dorsey has announced that Square is working on a new decentralized exchange called TBD. TBD will be a fully permissionless and decentralized exchange built around Bitcoin that will let users fund any kind of Bitcoin wallet using fiat currency. Square aims to develop the project using only Bitcoin infrastructure. There is no timeline for when Square plans to launch TBD.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

An Advertising Company Wants to Make Deepfake Clones of Your Face (3 minute read)

Hour One is a startup that uses deepfakes to sell products and education services. The company is looking to add more faces to its collection and anyone can apply through their website. Hour One currently works with more than 40 clients in industries including e-commerce, entertainment, real estate, and digital health. It uses both AI-generated voices and voice actors for its videos, depending on the client's budget. The use of deepfake technology in this way raises ethical and security concerns.

Why do bats have such bizarrely long lifespans? (4 minute read)

For most mammals, as the size of the mammal goes up, its metabolism slows down and its longevity increases. There are exceptions to this rule, including humans. 18 out of 19 species of mammals that live longer than humans given their body size are bats. Bats maintain the ends of their chromosomes to prevent cells from slipping into senescence while managing to keep cells from turning cancerous. They have genes that repair DNA damage and recycle damaged components, as well as genes that help stop cells from dividing. Bats don't seem to have an increase in inflammation as they age. The adaptations could be a product of bats evolving flight.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

SWR (GitHub Repo)

SWR is a React Hooks library for data fetching. It can provide a stream of data updates constantly and automatically with just one hook. SWR is transport and protocol agnostic and it features built-in cache and request deduplication, revalidation on focus and network recovery, pagination and scroll position recovery, and more. Examples are available.

Illustrations (Website)

This website features over 120 completely free illustrations. 100 of the designs were made during a 100-day illustration challenge.

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Miscellaneous

Kuo: iPhone 13 to support LEO satellite communication, allowing users to make phone calls and send texts without cell signal (1 minute read)

The iPhone 13 will feature a low-earth-orbit satellite communication mode, according to Ming-Chi Kuo. Users will be able to send messages and make phone calls with their devices even if they are not within standard cell tower coverage. The technology might also be used in the upcoming Apple AR headset, the Apple Car, and other Internet-of-Things accessories. It is unclear whether the satellite features will be free, as well as whether the connection will only work for Apple services. Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 13 lineup in September.

Can artificially altered clouds save the Great Barrier Reef? (11 minute read)

In March, Australian researchers conducted an experiment that involved using a mist machine to convert seawater into clouds of nano-sized droplets engineered to brighten clouds and block sunlight. The experiment was part of the $300 million Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program that aims to save the country's reefs. Geoengineering is a controversial topic amongst scientists and research has struggled to attract funding. However, the technology may be vital one day if humans are not able to stop climate change.

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Amazon Buy Now Pay Later 💰, Square's TBD DEX 🪙, iPhone 13 satellite internet 📱

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