Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience will soon be able to summarize articles on the web. The new feature is being rolled out as an early experiment in Google's opt-in Search Labs program. It will first be available in the Google app on Android and iOS, with a desktop launch for the Chrome browser planned for later. The feature will only work on articles that are freely available to the public.
Microsoft is rolling out a new Office default theme to Microsoft 365 subscribers next month. Aptos will replace Calibri as the default after more than 15 years. Yellow has been removed from the color palette and replaced with a dark green and one of the lighter blues has been replaced with a dark teal. The default style in Word and Outlook will now be easier to read and navigate. An image showing the difference between the old and new themes is available in the article.
Meta has released the MyoSuite 2.0 collection, a project that applies machine learning to biomechanical control problems. The MyoSuite platform includes a collection of baseline musculoskeletal models and tasks for researchers to attempt. Emulating the human body is extremely complicated. The research could help develop more capable robots and realistic avatars for the metaverse.
Intuitive Machines is ready to launch its Nova-C lander to the Moon. The company is competing with other US companies for NASA-funded missions to deliver science experiments and other payloads to the surface of the Moon. Intuitive Machines has booked a flight on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and is expected to launch in November. It has a backup window in December in case of any issues.
Layerform is a Terraform wrapper for building reusable infrastructure. It uses plain Terraform files and layers to allow teams to reuse core pieces of infrastructure. Engineers are able to spawn only the infrastructure layers they need. Layerform makes development infrastructure much cheaper and quicker to spin up.
Abstractions can end up causing frustrations with developers if not done right. This blog post takes a look at what makes a good developer experience. Developers should think about their target audience and what skills the audience is likely to bring to the table when creating abstractions. The abstraction should rely on these skills to minimize cognitive friction.
Apple could be forced to open up iOS to third-party app stores in the EU next year. Setapp has officially announced its mobile app store and is now taking applications from developers. It is offering developers access to a dedicated community of users, seamless onboarding, and the ability to offload commerce and distribution. Developers have the potential to earn up to 90% of revenue from user fees per month.
Workers in Asia spend the most time on performative work according to a survey of more than 18,000 desk workers. Performative work involves spending time appearing busy rather than doing work. South Korea and the US are tied in first place as countries where workers spent the least amount of time doing performative work. Worker focus on appearing busy is likely influenced by the way productivity is measured.
Prospect theory, an explanation for how people make decisions, may not be entirely applicable to the current economic landscape - embracing both caution and boldness allows people to navigate this new era of uncertainty and capitalize on the opportunities it presents.
Gemini combines the text generation capabilities of large language models with image generation to create a multifunctional product that is able to create contextual images.
OpenAI is using GPT-4 to build a scalable, consistent, and customizable content moderation system that can aid in developing policies and swiftly iterating on policy changes.