TLDR 2023-06-27

DeepMind's Gemini large language model was trained using techniques from AlphaGo, the first AI system to defeat a professional human player in the board game Go. Gemini can plan, solve problems, and analyze text. It combines the strengths of AlphaGo-type systems with the capabilities of large language models. Gemini's development was spurred by the failures of Bard, Google's chatbot project. Jeff Dean, Google's most senior AI research executive, directly participated in the project.

Amazon is connecting with a range of small businesses across the US to build out its package delivery network. Participating businesses are required to have a physical location and be available for delivery seven days a week. There are no long-term contracts and businesses bring their own staff, vehicles, and devices. Amazon hopes to connect with 2,500 drivers operating out of these small businesses by the end of the year. Small businesses can apply to become an Amazon Hub Partner online.

Bacteria can evolve genetic survival tactics much faster than humans can find new drugs to kill them. Scientists from Baylor College of Medicine discovered that a drug commonly used as a topical antiseptic significantly slows the evolution of bacteria and makes cipro, the second most prescribed antibiotic in the US, much more effective at fighting infection. Their study suggests that it may be possible to slow down pathogen evolution to the point where the body's immune system can deal with the infection without antibiotics. Global antibiotic resistance was responsible for nearly 1.3 million deaths in 2019.

Researchers at NIST and Georgia Tech have developed a new type of miniature atomic clock called a chip-scale beam clock. The technology promises improved timing over weeks and months compared to existing chip-scale atomic clock systems. The device, currently still in a prototype stage, is the size of a postal stamp and initial tests show scarcely worse performance than existing chip-scale atomic clocks. The team is confident that they will be able to increase precision by a factor of 10 and stability by a factor of 100 over weekly periods.

Mycelite was created to make it easier to build local-first applications that sync across devices. It allows developers to synchronize changes from one instance of SQLite to another. Mycelite currently only supports one-way synchronization, but the team is working on integrating two-way synchronization.

This guide to FAANG interviews was created by interviewers for candidates. The authors spent hundreds of hours talking to current and former FAANG interviewers about their processes. While FAANG interviews can seem daunting, they are much easier once you learn a company's operating metaphors: what they reward, what they punish, and what they're blind to. Learning a company's metaphors shows interviewers that you're part of their tribe.

This report focuses on the impact of minimum salary requirement trends on software engineers. Ongoing layoffs have created a saturated job market, making it easier for employers to attract candidates at a reduced cost. Workers are now emphasizing the importance of culture, career growth, work-life balance, and stability. Employees are likely to continue to place equal or more importance on these non-monetary benefits as the economy rebounds.

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This article looks at the potential effects AI will have on the future of the internet. The web used to be a place where individuals made things, but then companies took over and created platforms. Layoffs and AI-generated content are killing these platforms. AI systems can scale effortlessly and their output may potentially overrun the platforms people use for news, information, and entertainment. The decisions that we make now will determine who makes information in the future, how it is accessed, and who gets paid for it.

Vectors are a mathematical structure and JSON is a data interchange format - both these representations have become essential to modern application development.

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action-permissions is a tool that monitors GitHub Actions workflows and recommends the minimum permissions required to run them.

The Magic Nix Cache is a GitHub action that can dramatically speed up Nix-related workflows for free with just one line in a YAML configuration.

Microsoft wanted to start acquisition talks with several game companies to expand Xbox Game Pass to more audiences, but it is unclear whether the strategy was approved.

Stability AI lost both its Head of Research and Chief Operating Officer in June.

Social app IRL is shutting down after an internal investigation by its board of directors found that almost all of its 20 million users were bots.