Google launches Gemini—a powerful AI model it says can surpass GPT-4 (6 minute read)
Google's Gemini is a multimodal AI model that the company says will power a new era in computing. The largest version of the model exceeds current state-of-the-art results on 30 of the 32 widely used academic benchmarks used in large language model research and development. A specially tuned English version of the mid-level model is available now in 170 countries as part of Google's Bard chatbot. The smallest version of the model is designed to run locally on consumer devices.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Gemini and the coming age of AI (18 minute read)
Google's release of its next-generation AI model Gemini reflects years of efforts from inside Google overseen and driven by its CEO Sundar Pichai. Pichai is famously product-obsessed and has infused AI deeply into all of Google's products. This article contains an interview with Pichai where he discusses Gemini and what it will mean for Google, its products, AI, and society at large. Gemini is different from other models as it is natively multimodal from the ground up.
Liquid AI, a new MIT spinoff, wants to build an entirely new type of AI (4 minute read)
Liquid neural networks are much smaller than traditional AI models and require far less compute power to run.
Beeper Mini for Android sends and receives iMessages, no Mac server required (6 minute read)
It is now possible to send iMessages without handing over Apple credentials or logging in with an Apple ID on a Mac server. Beeper Mini for Android allows Android users to send iMessages with all the typing, delivered/read receipt, emoji reaction, and most other iPhone-to-iPhone message features. The app is powered by a teenager's reverse-engineering discovery. This article looks at how the app works.
Beeper Mini, an app that brought iMessage to Android, recently experienced an outage. It appeared that Apple found a way to make the app stop functioning. The service is now back online. Apple claims that the app poses significant risks to user security and privacy. Beeper claims that its service increases iPhone security as without it, texts would be sent to Android devices unencrypted.
Beeper is working with iMessage yet again, though Apple is likely to fight it (4 minute read)
Beeper Mini now requires signing in with an Apple ID - developers are working on a fix to bring back the phone-number-only method available at Beeper Mini's launch.
Defying Cavity: Lantern Bioworks FAQ (18 minute read)
Lantern Bioworks claims to have a cure for tooth decay. It has a genetically modified bacterium designed to infect patients' mouths to outcompete tooth-decay-causing bacteria, making cavities a thing of the past. One treatment with the bacteria is enough to infect users' mouths forever. This article contains an interview with Lantern founder Aaron Silverbook where he explains how the technology works, both in a biological and economic sense.
FDA approves first CRISPR therapy (3 minute read)
The FDA has approved two gene therapies for treating sickle cell disease. These treatments have been shown to be highly effective at preventing vaso-occlusive events and crises. One of the treatments, the first CRISPR/Cas9 therapy approved in the US, turns on the production of fetal hemoglobin to replace deformed red blood cells. The other therapy uses a Lentiviral vector to insert the genetic code for a modified type of hemoglobin designed to be anti-sickling.
FrankenPHP v1.0 is Here (2 minute read)
FrankenPHP is a modern PHP application server that can create a production-grade PHP server with just one command. It has native support for Symphony, Laravel, WordPress, and more. Most popular PHP extensions should work with FrankenPHP.
Nova Mode: The Ultimate ChatGPT Custom Instruction (4 minute read)
Nova Mode is a ChatGPT prompt that is extremely useful for generating, revising, and iterating on ideas and content.
Google Provides Insight into the Top Search Trends of 2023, and the Last 25 Years (3 minute read)
Google's latest 'Year in Search' overview highlights the most searched topics over the past year. It provides global and regional insights as well as interactive displays, games, and more. Google added a new element dedicated to historic Search trends to celebrate 25 years of Search. It allows users to see how things have evolved over the years and how that's reflected in the top trends.
Wi-Fi 7 is nearly here – 2024 could be the year wireless speeds get turbocharged (2 minute read)
Wi-Fi 7 offers speeds of up to 40 Gbit/s - five times quicker than Wi-Fi 6.
As ChatGPT gets “lazy,” people test “winter break hypothesis” as the cause (4 minute read)
Some ChatGPT users started to notice that the AI was becoming more lazy in late November. The chatbot was reportedly refusing to do some tasks or returning simplified results. OpenAI has admitted that it's an issue, but it hasn't identified why. People usually slow down in December and put bigger projects off until the new year - the 'winter break hypothesis' says that ChatGPT has learned this and may be getting lazier because of it. The theory has yet to be proven. OpenAI is working on a potential fix.
Netflix finally reveals viewing data across its entire catalog (2 minute read)
Netflix will start publishing comprehensive deep dives into what its subscribers are watching twice a year. Its first report provides viewer data on more than 18,000 titles representing a total of nearly 100 billion hours viewed. Netflix's lack of transparency created an environment of mistrust in the industry. The company says that the data released is the same data that it uses to run its business.
Human brain-like supercomputer with 228 trillion links coming in 2024 (2 minute read)
DeepSouth is a supercomputer designed to operate in a manner similar to a network of neurons. It uses interconnected artificial neurons and synapses to emulate the brain's ability to learn, adapt, and process information in a highly parallel and distributed manner. The neuromorphic supercomputer will be capable of 228 trillion synaptic operations per second, on par with the estimated number of operations in the human brain, when it becomes operational in April 2024.