TLDR 2023-09-13

Apple announced its latest iPhone lineup, the Watch Series 9, a second-gen Apple Watch Ultra, a USB-C charging case for the AirPods Pro, and the release dates for its next round of OS updates at its Wonderlust event. The new iPhones will have USB-C and feature the Dynamic Island. The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models will include a new Action button that replaces the mute toggle. Many more details about Apple's latest announcements are available in the article.

WhatsApp's latest Android beta update contains a new screen called Third-party chats. The screen is currently not functional and can't be accessed by users. It is a strong clue that Meta is building cross-platform compatibility for encrypted messages. Meta's communication software will need to be interoperable with third-party messaging apps by March 2024 as the company meets the definition of a gatekeeper under the EU's Digital Markets Act.

A team of students from the Academic Motorsports Club Zurich, ETH Zurich, and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts have built an electric vehicle that can accelerate from 0 to 62 miles per hour in just 0.956 seconds. The student-built EV can do this with just 326 hp over a distance of 12.3 meters. It only weighs 309 lbs. A video of the world record attempt is available in the article.

The kākāpō is a critically endangered species native to New Zealand. While its populations have risen slowly over the last decade, the limited genetic diversity in the species' population has made breeding problematic. Most kākāpō are severely inbred and susceptible to disease and infertility. Researchers are now sequencing the genomes of nearly all existing birds to discover genetic variants in the population to help preserve the species.

There is no need for every service to be 'micro'. Some startups do fine with just 'services'. Starting with a monolith is fine. Services can be branched from the monolith if they take care of a clearly-identifiable and separately-scalable load. A simple approach is often a more appropriate choice.

Whisper Turbo is a drop-in replacement for the OpenAI Whisper API. It features a smooth compatibility layer for ingesting audio files and converting them to be Whisper compatible, developer-friendly APIs for one-shot inference and streaming, and an inference framework for fast, cross-platform inference. The project is still currently in alpha.

Disney and Charter Communications have reached an agreement to restore popular channels to the cable operator, ending a blackout that lasted for more than a week. The agreement marks a seminal moment in the relationship between pay-TV providers and entertainment companies. Charter appears to be the winner in the standoff as Disney has been forced to give up its attempt at double-dipping by getting paid by Charter for channels and charging subscribers directly for the same content. However, Disney may end up being the long-term winner. More details about the agreement and its implications are available in the article.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang believes that the flattest organization is the most empowering one, so there are no 1:1s in the company and everything happens in the group setting. There are no status reports within Nvidia - Huang believes that these are too refined by the time they get to him. Anyone in the company can email Huang with whatever is on top of their mind and he will read it. The company doesn't have any formal planning cycles, but strategy meetings are open to all employees. Nvidia is optimized for attracting amazing people and allowing information to travel as quickly as possible.

This article looks at how a team built out a tool that no one wanted, the lessons the team learned while building the tool, and why the team decided to shut down the service.

US sanctions aimed at limiting Chinese firms' ability to manufacture high-end chips have clearly failed as China is rapidly developing exascale supercomputing capabilities - the country has announced its intent to become the world leader in AI by 2030.

Margin collapse is when adjacent margins overlap in CSS - understanding the rules behind this mechanism can make writing CSS clearer and less surprising.

Unity is implementing a pay-per-download pricing scheme that charges developers a flat fee any time a game using Unity software is installed starting from January 2024 - these fees will only be applied to games that meet certain criteria.

Tim Cook announced that production of the Vision Pro headset is on track and that the iPhone 15 Pro will be able to capture spatial video for the headset at the Wonderlust launch event.

The Justice Department claims that Google abused its monopoly power in its search engine business in the first major monopoly case to make it to trial in decades.