TLDR 2021-01-26

Tesla's self-driving chip 🚗, Apple Watch glucose monitoring⌚, scaling Kubernetes 💻

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Big Tech & Startups

Tesla partners with Samsung on new 5nm chip for full self-driving, report says (2 minute read)

A report from Korea says that Tesla is partnering with Samsung to develop a 5-nanometer chip for self-driving. Samsung is already producing Tesla's current self-driving chips in its Hardware 3.0 computers, but that chip is based on 14-nm technology. The new chips will begin mass production in late 2021, so they likely won't be inside Tesla production vehicles until 2022.

Apple Watch blood sugar sensor 'coming in Series 7' (3 minute read)

The next Apple Watch will have a blood sugar sensor, according to reports. More than 10% of Americans have type 1 diabetes, with an estimated over 26 million undiagnosed cases in the country. Adding a blood sugar sensor would play a valuable role in prompting formal testing, diagnosis, and treatment. Non-invasive blood sugar detection can be achieved using infrared sensors. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 will likely have the same feature when it is released later this year.
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Science & Futuristic Technology

Audi develops and uses a virtual 3D world for WFH (3 minute read)

Audi Spaces is an interactive 3D world that copies the real working environment. Participants can use it to communicate, learn, and work with others using avatars in real-time and in a virtual space. The avatars can make gestures, interact, and talk to each other. It allows for meetings, training sessions, workshops, and other office activities. Screenshots from Audi Spaces are available in the article.

Myopia correcting 'smart glasses' from Japan to be sold in Asia (1 minute read)

Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings is planning to release a wearable device that can project an image onto the wearer's retina to correct the refractive error that causes nearsightedness. Wearing the device for 60 to 90 minutes a day can correct myopia. The company is still testing the device to see how long the effect lasts and how many days a user needs to wear the device to achieve a permanent correction for nearsightedness. The device will be available in Asian markets in the second half of the year.
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Programming, Design & Data Science

ReScript – the language after TypeScript? (16 minute read)

ReScript is a language that was created in 2016 and it is still in active development. It is relatively easy to learn for JavaScript and TypeScript developers and it comes with an excellent type system, high performance, and concepts from functional programming. This article looks at ReScript and its use cases, as well as the limitations of the language.

Scaling Kubernetes to 7,500 Nodes (14 minute read)

Scaling a single Kubernetes cluster to 7,500 nodes is rarely done, but the team at OpenAI did so using a simple infrastructure that allowed its machine learning research team to move faster and scale up without changing their code. This post details how the team upgraded its infrastructure, summarizing the lessons learned along the way. OpenAI's needs and resources can be pretty different from other companies, so the solutions might not apply to everyone.
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Miscellaneous

GameStop short-sellers lost $1.6 billion in a single day as Reddit traders rebelled against them (2 minute read)

GameStop shares have rocketed since January 11, after the company added three new directors to its board. The action drew the attention of retail traders, including members of the popular WallStreetBets subreddit. Some believe that the gains were fueled by a massive short-squeeze, but demand for shorting the stock remains high. The stock is now up more than 500% year-to-date. Analysts have struggled to make sense of the retail-trader phenomenon.

Google workers in 10 countries just formed a global union to keep Alphabet in check (2 minute read)

Google workers from 10 countries have united to form the Alpha Global coalition. The coalition's focus is on getting Google to change some of its ethically questionable business practices. It also aims to strengthen the workplace rights of Google employees. Alpha Global acknowledges the many things that Google has brought to the tech industry, but says that it also created many inequalities. Worker action has forced Google to change in the past. The union does not have a legal agreement with Google yet, so the tech giant is not bound to any of its demands. This can change if the union gains political support or if Google voluntarily chooses to acknowledge it.
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