New Weight Loss Pill More Effective Than Ozempic, Tests Find (2 minute read)
Novo Nordisk's new obesity treatment drug, amycretin, helped patients lose 13% of their body weight in just 12 weeks. The drug may be more effective than semaglutide. Amycretin targets GLP-1 and another hormone called amylin, both of which are believed to be linked to hunger and satiety. The drug still needs to go through much larger trials that will likely drag on for years before it will be publicly available. The results of the initial trials sent Novo Nordisk's stock rising as much as 8.3%.
Engineer plans solar panel implant for human retina to retain eyesight (4 minute read)
Engineers from the University of New South Wales in Australia are working on a prototype solar panel implant for the retinas to restore sight. The implant converts light into electrical signals that can be directed to the optic nerve, enabling vision. Users may need to wear special glasses or goggles that amplify sunlight for the device to work. The device is still in a proof-of-concept stage - a lot more work still needs to be done before it is ready for human implantation.
Why Facebook doesn’t use Git (12 minute read)
Mercurial is a tool for creating and managing code changes used at Facebook. Facebook started out on Git, but it began hitting scaling limits in around 2012. Mercurial's developers were receptive to the idea of Facebook engineers contributing patches to scale it better while Git's developers were not. There were other alternatives, but all were quickly disqualified. Facebook adopted Mercurial not because it had better technology, but because the maintainers and codebase felt more open.
US lawmakers vote 50-0 to force sale of TikTok despite angry calls from users (4 minute read)
The House Commerce Committee has voted to approve a bill that would force ByteDance to sell the company or lose access to the US market. The bill still has to pass in the House and Senate and be signed into law before it comes into effect. TikTok is urging its users to protest the bill. Lawmakers responded by noting that the app will only be banned if it doesn't sever its relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.
mRNA vaccines: let's be sick a whole lot less and maybe cure cancer (19 minute read)
mRNA vaccines are our best bet at addressing viral persistence. They can prevent infection as well as improve responses against infection. They are also faster, cheaper, and more flexible to make than their traditional counterparts. mRNA vaccines are like injectable instructions that turn a body's cells into factories that can create any protein for which mRNA instructions can be built. This means they can be used to teach the body to mount an immune response to any target foreign protein - including proteins on cancer cells.
New Breakthrough Brings Matrix Multiplication Closer to Ideal (11 minute read)
Three researchers from the University of California have presented a new technique that boosts matrix multiplication. Matrix multiplication is a fundamental computational operation that is incorporated into a large population of the algorithms people use every day for a variety of tasks. Even slight improvements can eventually lead to significant savings in time, computational power, and money. While the new technique has set new records, the most exciting thing about the development is that the technique reveals a new avenue for improvement that was previously unknown.
Elon Musk says xAI will open source Grok this week (3 minute read)
xAI will open source Grok this week. The move follows Elon Musk's complaint that OpenAI has deviated from its open source roots. Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI claiming that OpenAI, which was supposed to make its technology freely available to the public, has become closed-source and has shifted its focus to maximizing profits for Microsoft. Musk has long been a proponent of open source - Tesla has open sourced many of its patents. It is unclear what aspects of Grok will be open sourced.
TikTok's shareholder agreement bans current and former employees from criticizing the company or risk losing any stock they own. While the non-disparagement provision is unusual, it isn't illegal as long as it doesn't prevent, intimidate, or punish employees for filing complaints with government agencies. The terms in the agreement defining disparagement are vague. It is unknown whether TikTok has ever seized stock from any shareholders.
TikTok prepares to challenge Instagram with 'TikTok Photos' (2 minute read)
The latest TikTok app APK contains strings that mention a standalone app called TikTok Photos. TikTok appears to be considering offering a more dedicated photo experience that will allow users to sync their existing photo posts from the main TikTok app. There is no official launch date and TikTok has not confirmed the existence of the app. A leaked icon for the app is available in the article.
Apple to allow iOS app downloads direct from websites in the EU (4 minute read)
Apple's new iOS web distribution feature is a new way to distribute iOS apps in EU markets without the need for a separate app store. App developers considering the option will need to adhere to Apple's strict rules. It will allow apps to be installed from website domains registered with App Store Connect. Apple appears to be limiting the option to large developers with a good standing around for at least two years.
Introducing Devin, the first AI software engineer (4 minute read)
Devin is a fully autonomous AI software engineer created by Cognition Labs. It is designed to work alongside engineers or independently complete tasks for engineers to review. Devin can plan and execute complex engineering tasks requiring thousands of decisions, recalling context at every step, learn over time, and fix mistakes. It actively collaborates with users, reporting on its progress in real time and accepting feedback. Devin can use unfamiliar technologies, build and deploy apps end-to-end, autonomously find and fix bugs in codebases, train and fine-tune its own AI models, and more.
Ubicloud wants to build an open source alternative to AWS (5 minute read)
Ubicloud wants to offer an open-source layer of core cloud computing services that allows developers to build their own cloud on top of affordable bare-metal servers.
A formula for responsive font-size (1 minute read)
Instead of defining font-size piecewise, just use this one-line function: 1rem + 0.25vw.