TLDR 2023-07-13

Elon Musk has announced the formation of xAI, a company aimed at understanding the true nature of the universe. Musk and the operator of his family office incorporated X.AI in March and there were reports that Musk was in talks for potential funding of a new AI startup in April. xAI’s core team will be led by Musk himself. The team will have an array of talent from across the AI industry. xAI will maintain close ties with Twitter and Tesla to achieve its mission. The company plans to host a Twitter Spaces chat on Friday to give the public a chance to ask questions.

The first public betas of iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS, and macOS 14 Sonoma are now available. These builds are essentially identical to the third developer betas released last week. Public betas are usually signals that OSes are approaching the level of stability and polish required for a public release. Updates to all OSes include improved autocorrect, new iMessage and AirDrop features, separate profiles for Safari, an Enhanced Private Browsing feature, and the removal of 'Hey' from the 'Hey Siri' activation phrase.

Chinese firm LandSpace is the first company ever to send a methane-fueled launcher into orbit. LaunchSpace's Zhuque-2 rocket was launched at 9 pm ET on Tuesday from the Jiuquan spaceport in the Gobi Desert. The launch mission was a complete success. Methane is the preferred fuel for rockets due to its high density and warmer boiling point. It also deposits less soot inside engines, making the engines easier to clean and reuse. Future explorers on Mars may be able to tap into natural resources to produce their own methane rocket fuel.

Deep-sea mining could begin within the next two years. A handful of companies backed by countries hungry for nickel, manganese, and other minerals needed for clean energy are ready to forge ahead with deep-mining projects. An obscure UN agency called the International Seabed Authority is finalizing regulations for the emergent industry. Around a dozen countries currently support a temporary or permanent halt to deep-sea mining, but a majority vote by the ISA's 167 member states is required to stop the practice. Approval of the practice will almost certainly set off an undersea gold rush.

pg_embedding enables the use of the Hierarchical Navigable Small World (HNSW) algorithm for vector similarity search in PostgreSQL. It is based on the implementation of the current state-of-the-art billion-scale nearest neighbor search system. HNSW is a graph-based approach to indexing multi-dimensional data known for its superior performance in terms of speed and accuracy.

Google NotebookLM is a notebook app designed to use the power of language models paired with existing content to gain critical insights faster. Google describes it as like a virtual research assistant that can summarize facts, explain complex ideas, and brainstorm new connections. NotebookLM's source-grounding reduces model hallucinations. The app is now in limited public testing. A link to a waitlist for the app is available in the article.

AI could affect employment rates, the results of an election, and even the future of humanity. While these threats need to be taken seriously, this is not the first time a major innovation has introduced new threats that need to be controlled. People have always managed to adapt through other transformative moments and come out better off in the end. It is natural to feel unsettled, but history shows that it's possible to solve the challenges created by new technologies.

Data and compute have created a flywheel that generates more digital information than ever before. This will shift where value sits in software ecosystems and presents key opportunities for companies. This article explores the implications of generative AI for the future. It reviews past advances in technology, the compute revolution with the introduction of GPT, the data business, how information is changing, and more.

This blog post shares practical strategies to boost job seekers' chances of success by making specific requests and engaging meaningfully with their connections.

Coding only represents a small part of a developer's job - developers will still have to spend time designing, debugging, and auditing code.

Besides the issue of technical challenges that need to be overcome, some groups are threatening to exclude Threads from their extended networks if Meta adopts ActivityPub.

Shopify's Meeting Cost Calculator shows its employees the estimated cost of their meetings using data based on average compensation, number of attendees, and length.

Many freelance and offshore outsourced workers are already seeing generative AI change the demand for their work and the stability of their income.

While there are many valid business reasons why some legacy tech can't be removed, no system will ever be secure as long as it sits on the technology stack presented in this graphic.