Tesla’s new car-building process could be a huge industrial breakthrough (3 minute read)
Tesla's new manufacturing process could significantly reduce costs and increase production of its electric vehicles. It can die-cast almost an entire vehicle underbody as a single piece. Tesla's mold-making process involves building molds layer by layer with sand. The automaker still has several hurdles to overcome before the process is complete. Tesla reportedly plans to use the process on its long-awaited $25,000 electric car.
PostgreSQL 16 Released (7 minute read)
PostgreSQL 16 is now available. It features notable improvements to query parallelism, bulk data loading, and logical replication. PostgreSQL 16 has more SQL/JSON syntax, new monitoring stats, and greater flexibility in defining access control rules. The release also adds several security-oriented client connection parameters and support for Kerberos credential delegation.
Some facts about solar deployment (1 minute read)
We are now deploying roughly 3-4 acres of solar per minute across the globe.
WordPress blogs can now be followed in the fediverse, including Mastodon (2 minute read)
WordPress has released ActivityPub 1.0.0 for WordPress, which allows WordPress blogs to be followed by others on fediverse apps and receive replies as comments.
In the Google antitrust trial, defaults are everything and nobody likes Bing (13 minute read)
The US Justice Department says that Google owes its dominance thanks to a series of coercive deals that have let the search engine market stagnate. Google's anti-competitive tactics allowed it to maintain an overwhelming search engine monopoly. The company struck many deals that would make its search engine the default and then used its vast quantities of search data to improve its engine, creating a feedback loop that made it almost impossible to beat. One of the most important questions in the case is whether consumer harm can apply to free products like search engines.
Researchers from the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have developed a new type of vaccine that can completely reverse autoimmune diseases without shutting down the rest of the immune system. The vaccine removes the immune system's memory of one molecule, stopping autoimmune reactions like those seen in multiple sclerosis, type I diabetes, or rheumatoid arthritis. Initial phase I safety trials of the vaccine are currently underway.
v0 is effectively Midjourney for React. It takes simple prompts and generates copy-and-paste-friendly React. v0 was trained on custom code mixed with open-source and synthetic datasets. It is currently free to use while in Private Alpha. Pricing will be announced when v0 becomes publicly available.
A look at Apple’s new Transformer-powered predictive text model (8 minute read)
Apple announced a new Transformer language model-based predictive text for iOS and macOS during its WWDC event. It may be one of the first Transformer-based models that Apple will ship in its operating systems. This article takes a look at the underlying model powering the feature, its architecture, and the data that was used to train the model. Many details about the model are still unclear.
Funky AI-generated spiraling medieval village captivates social media (8 minute read)
A Reddit user recently posted an AI-generated image of a spiral-shaped medieval village that gained rapid attention on social media for its remarkable geometric qualities. The image was created using Stable Diffusion and a guidance technique called ControlNet. A similar technique for producing QR codes went viral earlier this year. This article explains how the artwork was generated. Examples of other similar artworks are available.
Bun hype. How we learned nothing from Yarn (26 minute read)
npm gradually implemented all of the features that made Yarn special over the years - the same thing will likely happen with Bun.
How Much Garden You Would Need to 100% Survive On (6 minute read)
An efficient 800-square-foot garden could sustain a family of four.
Xbox leak: new Xbox Series X design, next-gen in 2028, and more (1 minute read)
Unredacted documents from the FTC v.Microsoft case have revealed plans for a new disc-less Xbox Series, a gyro controller, and a next-gen hybrid Xbox in 2028. This is the biggest leak in Xbox history. Xbox chief Phil Spencer has hinted that Microsoft's plans may have changed. This page contains a collection of articles with more details about the leak.
Google’s AI assistant can now read your emails, plan trips, “double-check” answers (5 minute read)
Google Bard is now integrated with Google apps and can double-check answers against web content. It can now also work in over 40 languages. Bard Extensions are opt-in features that let Bard pull data from Google's other services for integration into a Bard conversation. They allow Bard to pull real-time flight and hotel information, suggest YouTube videos about a topic, and more. Data from Google apps used in AI conversations will not be viewed by human reviewers or be used to train future versions of the model.
Google’s AI protein folder IDs structure where none seemingly existed (3 minute read)
The structure was found two proteins whose interactions are essential for cell division.
OpenAI’s new AI image generator pushes the limits in detail and prompt fidelity (6 minute read)
DALL-E 3, OpenAI’s latest text-to-image generator, will be available to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise customers in early October. OpenAI has yet to release any technical details about the model. DALL-E 3 refines small details like hands more effectively and can create engaging images without hacks or prompt engineering. Examples of images generated with DALL-E 3 along with their prompts are available in the article.
Amazon is set to supercharge Alexa with generative AI (9 minute read)
Amazon unveiled an all-new Alexa voice assistant powered by a large language model during its fall hardware event on Wednesday. The new Alexa can understand conversational phrases and respond appropriately, interpret context more effectively, and complete multiple requests from one command. It could take home automation to the next level. Amazon will roll out the new assistant slowly to customers in the US through a preview program in the coming months.
ElectricSQL is a local-first sync layer for web and mobile apps. It enables developers to build reactive, real-time, and local-first apps directly on Postgres. ElectricSQL makes apps feel instant as app code talks directly to a local database. It supports multi-user collaboration and conflict-free offline.
Language Model UXes in 2027 (13 minute read)
This article explores what large language model-powered software might look like in the medium-term future. LLMs are going to significantly shift how we interact with computers. The current state of the technology seems rudimentary and it's increasingly clear that generative AI can't quite replace the other UX innovations that have been introduced over the last several decades. LLM UXes will likely evolve to have a memory of past interactions in order to provide more relevant responses.