Macs to Get AI-Focused M4 Chips Starting in Late 2024 (1 minute read)
The entire Mac lineup may get the M4 chip in late 2024 and early 2025. The chip will start appearing in the iMac, MacBook Pros, and Mac mini machines first before being implemented into the MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro. The M4 processor is expected to come in at least three varieties. It will feature an improved Neural Engine with an increased number of cores for AI tasks.
Game emulators arrive in App Store following rule changes (2 minute read)
A recent change to Apple's App Store Review Guidelines means that a rule that effectively banned the submission of console and classic game emulators for iOS and iPadOS has been reversed. The first wave of game emulators have now made their way to the App Store. Emu64 XL is a Commodore 64 emulator and iGBA is a Gameboy Advance and Gameboy Color emulator. Both are free to download without any in-app purchases. Under Apple's rule changes, emulators still have to filter objectionable content, follow all privacy guidelines, and not share data or privacy permissions with other software, but it is unclear how some of the rules will be enforced.
Lessons after a half-billion GPT tokens (11 minute read)
This article contains seven lessons learned by Truss, a startup that released a few LLM-heavy features over the last six months, that cover how to improve prompting, tooling and optimal usage, GPT's limitations, and more. The startup exclusively deals with text using a combination of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. While GPT is useful, the technology is still in its early days and probably won't result in everyone losing their jobs. It mostly lowers the barrier of entry to ML/AI that was previously only available to Google.
Naval Ravikant's Airchat is a social app built around talk, not text (4 minute read)
Airchat is similar to other social media apps except that the posts and replies are audio recordings.
Limitless is a new AI tool for your meetings — and an all-hearing wearable gadget (4 minute read)
The Limitless Pendant is a device that records everything its wearers hear and then uses AI to help them remember and make sense of it. Designed to be clipped onto a shirt or worn on a string around the neck, it uses a beam-forming technology that can more clearly record people around the user and not the rest of the room. The Pendant is part of a system that uses data from different apps to provide users with useful information. The company plans to eventually create AI agents that do things on users' behalf.
New charging algorithm could double life of li-ion batteries (3 minute read)
A team of researchers from Berlin has developed a charging solution that makes lithium-ion batteries last much longer than they do now. It uses a pulsed current (PC) protocol that results in reduced mechanical stress and cracking in graphite particles within batteries and suppressed structural degradation in cathodes. Using PC charging can double the service life of commercial lithium-ion batteries with an 80% capacity retention. High-frequency pulsing with square-wave current produced the best results.
The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat (58 minute read)
A small number of ships maintain the subsea cables that carry 99% of the world's data. Positioned in strategic locations around the planet, these ships stand ready to sail out and fix faults as soon as they are detected. This article tells the story of how these ships operate and the problems they face. Cable industry professionals perform a function vital to the world, which if done right, will continue to be unaware of their service.