Meta avatars 🧍, NYT buys Wordle 📰, HIV vaccine 💉

Daily Update 2022-02-01

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Big Tech & Startups

What’s a five-letter word for “acquire”? NYT buys Wordle for “low 7 figures” (2 minute read)

The New York Times has announced that it will purchase Wordle for a number in the low seven figures. It will remain free to play and no changes will be made to its gameplay. Current players' win records and streaks will be retained. While NYT has many free games that can be played without signing in or registering, some games require a subscription to play a full version or for more features.

Meta brings 3D avatars to Instagram, rolls out new options for Facebook and Messenger (3 minute read)

Meta is bringing its 3D avatars to Instagram and rolling out an update to Facebook and Messenger avatars. The update adds Cochlear implants, over-the-ear hearing aids, wheelchairs, and more facial shapes. Users can use the same avatar across all Meta platforms. Meta has partnered with the NFL to allow fans' avatars to wear shirts supporting their favorite team in the Super Bowl until February 28. Meta is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings on February 2.

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Science & Futuristic Technology

Moderna’s HIV Vaccine Has Officially Begun Human Trials (2 minute read)

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and Moderna have announced that human trials for an experimental HIV vaccine have officially begun. The first shots were administered on Thursday. While modern medicines have proved effective at slowing the spread of HIV and reducing its mortality, it is still a threat to global health. The HIV vaccine builds on the mRNA vaccine technology developed by Moderna for the Covid-19 vaccine. The human trials are expected to conclude in 2023.

Innovative capsule allows mRNA vaccines to be delivered orally (3 minute read)

Scientists from MIT have demonstrated a technique that can deliver mRNA therapies directly to the digestive tract using a capsule. The technique uses capsules coated with microneedles that inject their contents directly into the wall of the gut. It was first used to deliver insulin into pigs, but new studies have demonstrated that it is also effective for mRNA delivery. More work is still needed to determine whether mRNA vaccines administered in this way can lead to systemic immune responses.

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Programming, Design & Data Science

Rich CLI (GitHub Repo)

Rich CLI is a command-line toolbox for fancy output in the terminal. It can highlight file types, highlight syntax in files, render Markdown and JSON files, and markup and format text from the command line. Many file formats are supported. Screenshots and examples are available.

Pay attention to WebAssembly (17 minute read)

This article discusses WebAssembly and its possible future applications. WebAssembly is an intermediate layer between various programming languages and many different execution environments. It can be used to run code from over 30 different languages on browsers, servers, and even on some cars. WebAssembly is portable, universal, fast, and secure. It can be used to speed up JavaScript, execute code from different languages, create plug-in systems, and more. WebAssembly is the future of containerization. It is much faster, smaller, and more secure compared to Docker while providing better scalability.

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Miscellaneous

Viewer Data Suggests Many Netflix Hits Go From Sizzle to Fizzle Quickly (4 minute read)

Data from viewers show that virtually all of the 10 most viewed new Netflix titles of 2021 saw significantly lower viewership after their debut month. Multiple TV analytics platforms confirm the data. These findings could explain why it is uncommon for English TV series to make Netflix's top 10 rankings for extended periods. Netflix will likely spend over $19 billion on content this year.

Reimagining Chess with AlphaZero (17 minute read)

AlphaZero is a system that can learn superhuman chess strategies from scratch without any human supervision. It learns its strategies from scratch by playing games with itself, resulting in a unique approach to playing chess. This article discusses an experiment where AlphaZero played chess with different rule variants to see how chess would have looked like if history had taken a slightly different course. The results of the experiment show how some variants of chess can still lead to games that are at least as engaging as classical chess.

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Meta avatars 🧍, NYT buys Wordle 📰, HIV vaccine 💉

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