TLDR 2023-07-07
Threads hits 30M users 📱, Twitter threatens to sue Meta 🐦, GPT-4 API generally available 👨💻
Threads already has over 95 million posts (1 minute read)
Threads had more than 30 million sign-ups and 95 million posts in its first 24 hours. It reached the top free apps on the App Store. There are still a lot of features missing from the app, such as DMs or a reverse chronological following feed. The app is also missing a planned integration with the decentralized ActivityPub protocol.
Apple is inventing a revolutionary car audio system for Apple Car (4 minute read)
Apple is inventing a whole new stereo system for the Apple Car. The company recently filed five patent applications about audio in the car. It uses the phrase 'enclosed environment' as a euphemism for the car, but the way the term is used strongly suggests that it can't refer to anything else but a vehicle. This article provides an overview of the five patents along with images from the applications.
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Science & Futuristic Technology
India to launch Chandrayaan-3 Moon lander mission on July 14 (2 minute read)
India will launch the Chandrayaan-3 mission on July 14, almost four years after the crash of its previous iteration. The mission involves sending a lander, propulsion module, and rover to the lunar surface to conduct on-site scientific experiments. It should land on the Moon in August. If successful, India will be the fourth country in the world to achieve a soft landing on the Moon.
Revolutionary gel allows metal items to be 3D printed at room temperature (2 minute read)
A new type of gel allows 3D printers to print heat-sensitive electronics. It enables the 3D printing of metal objects at room temperature. The gel temporarily turns a metal alloy into a liquid-metal state - it becomes rigid and highly electrically conductive after it is left to dry. It can create objects that can change shape in a predictable fashion if heat is applied while it is drying, allowing for the production of items with complex 3D shapes that are easier to print as a flat pattern.
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Programming, Design & Data Science
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GPT-4 API general availability and deprecation of older models in the Completions API (4 minute read)
All paying OpenAI API customers now have access to GPT-4. The GPT-3.5 Turbo, DALL·E, and Whisper APIs are also now generally available. Models using the Completions API are set to be deprecated in favor of models using the Chat Completions API, which often provides better results. Older embeddings models will also soon be deprecated as the current recommended model, text-embedding-ada-002, accounts for 99.9% of all embedding API usage. The Edits API will be deprecated in January. Details about which exact models will be deprecated are available in the article.
TySON (GitHub Repo)
TySON (TypeScript Object Notation) is an embeddable configuration language that generates JSON. It can create JSON with comments, types, and basic logic using TypeScript syntax. The project aims to make it possible for all major programming languages to read configuration written in TypeScript using native libraries.
Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads (4 minute read)
Twitter has accused Meta of poaching former employees to create Threads. It is threatening to sue Meta to enforce its intellectual property rights. Twitter's lawyers allege that Meta hired and assigned former Twitter employees to develop Threads with the specific intent that they use Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property to accelerate development. A Meta spokesperson responded by saying that Twitter's accusations are baseless as no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee.
My small, no name company has completely lost its mind with AI (2 minute read)
Some people really think that AI is a magical thing that can fix all their problems. This article gives an example of a company that is using AI to generate JIRA tickets, code, and HR documents without any care about quality or security or checks for legality. The entire process has become a failed experiment that the company's engineers have had to clean up, but the company's decision-makers continue to push the technology to please the CEO. Examples of no name companies acting like this serve as an indication of what the future might hold.
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