Google plans to introduce a number of AI features in the first half of next year. The company recently held a strategy meeting for next year where executives set the stage for a year of increased competition, regulatory hurdles, and advancements in AI. CEO Sundar Pichai has warned employees that 2025 will be a challenging year as the company is facing scrutiny across the world. While Google's search business still has dominant market share, generative AI has brought with it a host of new competitors.
OpenAI will create a public benefit corporation to oversee commercial operations when it moves towards a for-profit structure in 2025. The public benefit corporation will remove some of OpenAI's nonprofit restrictions and allow it to function more like a high-growth startup. The scale of capital that the company needs requires conventional equity and a less complicated structure. OpenAI's effort to restructure faces major hurdles, including a lawsuit from Elon Musk and an outflow of high-level talent.
Humans think at a rate of 10 bits per second. Our bodies' sensory systems gather environmental data at a rate of a billion bits per second, 100 million times faster than our thought processes. It is unknown why humans are only able to think a single thought at a time rather than many at a time in parallel the way our sensory systems work. One theory is that the brain was first evolved for navigation - it would make sense that we can only follow one 'path' of thought at a time if our brain evolved from a simple system to follow paths.
Space exploration dazzled the world in 2024 - NASA's Europa Clipper began its journey to study Jupiter's moon Europa, SpaceX's Starship achieved its first successful landing, China's Chang'e 6 mission successfully returned samples from the far side of the Moon, and the International Space Station continued to host international crews and private missions. Space agencies are gearing up for even more ambitious goals in 2025. This article looks at the most exciting missions planned for the coming year. These include CLPS, an initiative from NASA to deliver science and technology payloads to the Moon using commercial landers; SPHEREx, a mission that will survey the sky in near-infrared light to create a comprehensive map of the universe; Space Rider, and uncrewed spaceplane from the European Space Agency; and Japan's M2/Resilience mission, which will launch a lander and micro-rover to the lunar surface.
Software designers usually have a simple concept in mind when writing programs - understanding this concept allows them to find sections of programs that must be altered when an update or correction is needed. Changes made by people who don't understand the original design concept almost always cause the structure of the program to degrade. The changes will be inconsistent or invalidate the original concept. After many such changes, nobody will understand the modified product. Software that has been repeatedly modified in this way becomes very expensive to update.
It's probably easier to get to staff engineer by getting hired as doing so via promotions requires you to be known and valued by your organization. Companies value engineers who ship, so ship projects that the company cares about and don't spend time on pet projects. Don't worry too much about mentoring and leading, as long as you're leading projects successfully, or if doing so delivers value for the company. Getting to staff manager requires a lot of work from your manager - don't invest time in the promo packet until they're fully on board.
All small and medium-sized portable electronic devices (under 100 watts) sold in the EU must now be compatible with USB-C ports. The rule will also apply to laptops starting April 28, 2026. Apple removed the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, and third-generation iPhone SE from its EU online stores to comply with the regulation earlier this month. Other major markets, such as California and India, are following the EU's lead and will implement similar rules in the coming years.
This article talks about the implications of labor-replacing AI and the possible future that we might be facing. Labor is the human mental and physical effort that produces something of value. Capital goods are things that are used in the production of goods and services. Capital can refer to both the stock of capital goods and the money that can pay for them. AI will make capital a more general substitute for labor. There will be less need to pay humans for work as you can replace that with capital - data centers running software.
This Hacker News thread contains a discussion on the state of employment for software engineers and the effect that offshore/immigrant workers are having on the industry.
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Apple hopes to release a foldable 18.8-inch creaseless iPad by about 2028. Its industrial design group has reportedly managed to create prototypes of the device. It is unknown whether the device will be able to run Mac apps, but rumors say that iPadOS should be advanced enough to run macOS apps by 2028. A foldable iPhone is still apparently in the works.
Claude has become the chatbot of choice for a crowd of savvy tech insiders. These people claim Claude provides more human-sounding answers and that it is helping them with things such as legal advice, health coaching, and therapy. Claude apparently seems more insightful and good at helping people spot patterns and blind spots. It is roughly comparable to the most powerful models from OpenAI, Google, and others on benchmark evaluations, but its fans say its emotional intelligence sets it apart.
Scientists will be able to create a microbe that could cause an unstoppable pandemic within a few decades. 38 prominent biologists have issued a warning and called for a ban on research that could lead to the synthesis of such an organism. The molecules that serve as the building blocks of DNA and proteins typically exist in one of two mirror-image forms, but living cells rely on just one form. A 'mirrored' cell would have proteins that are much harder to break down as natural enzymes are targeted at un-mirrored proteins. Scientists have already created mirror proteins and are experimenting with them to create longer-acting drugs. Creating mirror cells would mean creating a second tree of life.
A transatlantic tunnel connecting the UK to the US may be possible, but it would be extremely expensive, with estimates of almost $20 trillion for the project. It would take many years for the 3,000-mile tunnel to be completed - it took six years to build the 23.5-mile Channel Tunnel linking England and France. Developments in vacuum tube technology have made the concept more viable. A vehicle traveling in a hyperloop system could theoretically reach speeds of more than 3,000 mph, making the journey between London and New York barely an hour long.
Write code not documents. Focus and express ideas in code and execute them often. Test ideas, play with variations of them, and make code easy to handle, read, mix, and match. Make errors and failures cheap. All things should move smoothly and tools should be accessible. This allows developers to stay busy all the time with no useless interruptions.
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard designed by Anthropic for connecting large language models with external tools and data. It lets AI apps connect to local and remote servers that provide access to tools and resources like databases, search engines, and other APIs. MCP provides SDKs in Python and TypeScript. This article reviews the protocol and provides suggestions on how it can be improved.
Benchmark Capital started small and aimed to stay small. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) set up shop to do the opposite - raise more money, do more deals, make more noise, and flash more attitude. Over the years, a16z's assets have grown to $44 billion. The gaps between the two firms highlights the divergence in the venture capital industry. This article looks at how the two firms have performed over the years and the implications for the venture capital industry.
Meta is urging California's attorney general to block OpenAI's planned conversion to a for-profit company. It says that allowing OpenAI to become a for-profit company would set a dangerous precedent of allowing startups to enjoy the advantages of nonprofit status until they are poised to become profitable. OpenAI's conduct could have serious implications for Silicon Valley if its business model is proven valid.
AI could create a new mode of interaction where models play the role of computer applications, providing a richer and more powerful computing environment.
Design docs slow down the process for team members with less disciplined or skilled developers, are usually outdated pretty fast, and teams usually won't discover the real problems until they write code.
As part of Ramp's Bill Pay product, customers need to upload CSV data from legacy workflows. Find out how Ramp increased adoption of their product by implementing seamless data migrations with OneSchema's embeddable CSV Importer. Read the case study
Is “building secure applications” on your New Year's resolutions shortlist? If you're an eligible startup, this might be easier to achieve than you expect...
Auth0 for Startups offers everything in the Auth0 B2B Professional plan: enterprise MFA, unlimited organizations and admins, inbound SCIM, and 5 enterprise connections — plus 100,000 monthly active users, because why not?
Android XR is a mixed-reality operating system that will power future headsets and glasses. The first headset powered by the OS will be Project Moohan, a mixed-reality headset built by Samsung available for purchase next year. Project Moohan seems to be aimed at the same use purposes as the Apple Vision Pro. Android XR is available for developers now.
iOS 18.2 introduces several long-awaited Apple Intelligence tools. These features require an iPhone 15 Pro or the latest iPhone 16 models. This article looks at the new features, which include ChatGPT integration, emoji generation, and more. Examples of emojis generated by the new Genmoji feature are available in the article.
When Waymo launched in August last year, Uber and Lyft were at 66% and 34% market share in San Francisco. 15 months later, Waymo is at 22% market share, the same as Lyft, while Uber sits at 55%. Waymo's wait times are longer than Uber and Lyft because the company doesn't have enough cars on the road. It's possible that Waymo's market share will climb even faster as it puts more cars on the road and reduces wait times to be in line with its competition.
Geneticists cannot read the genetic code and know who will be about average in intelligence and athleticism. Traits and diseases that result from multiple genes and lifestyle factors cannot be predicted using just DNA. Designer babies aren't possible now and will unlikely be possible in the future. The creation of designer babies is not limited by technology, but by biology.
Wave Terminal can launch graphical widgets that are controlled and integrated directly with the CLI. It makes it easy to access the web from the CLI. Wave Terminal features a base terminal, directory browser, file previews, a graphical editor, a web browser, and integrated AI chat.
Harvard University plans to release a dataset that includes around one million public-domain books that are no longer copyright-protected due to their age. The dataset's release is aimed at leveling the playing field in the AI industry, allowing research labs and AI startups to access a huge dataset to train large language models. It is unclear when or how the dataset will be released.
Netflix made headlines nearly a decade ago when it pledged to give new parents unlimited time off in their child's first year. More staffers than expected took full advantage of the benefit, which Netflix found unsustainable. The company has spent the last few years walking back the policy. Netflix's new mindset of cost-consciousness has aided its recovery from a sluggish period. The long-term risk for Netflix is that the characteristics that made its workplace distinct will erode, making it harder to attract and retain talent.
This article details an experience with Samsung's Project Moohan, the first device to run Android XR. The experience of using its UI feels similar to that of the Apple Vision Pro's, but Google-flavored. Google believes that Gemini will help Android XR crack the augmented reality puzzle. Video demos from Google are available in the article.
Mozi is an app aimed at helping people foster in-person connections with their social circle by letting people tell their friends about any upcoming plans that may overlap.
Starbase is hoping to incorporate as a town to streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world-class place to live.
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Google has unveiled Gemini 2.0, the next generation of its AI model family. Gemini 2.0 Flash, the smallest model of the family in terms of parameter count, launches today through Google's developer platforms. It can generate text, images, and speech while processing multiple types of input including text, images, audio, and video, but its image generation and text-to-speech features will remain limited to early access partners until January 2025. Google plans to integrate the technology into products like Android Studio, Chrome DevTools, and Firebase.
The visionOS 2.2 update upgrades Mac screen mirroring on the Apple Vision Pro with a curved and sharper display. There are now three screen options - Standard, Wide, and Ultrawide. The Ultrawide mode can display resolutions of up to 10240 x 2880. The update makes the Vision Pro more than a personal movie theater.
Self-driving cars are now ready for prime time, with robotaxis leading the charge. There is evidence that the industry is making progress on overlapping technologies that make adoption possible. This article looks at the adoption of self-driving cars, robotaxis, public perceptions of the technology, and the future of self-driving cars. The regulatory environment will determine how long it takes for markets to adopt self-driving technology. It will still likely be a couple of decades before consumers are buying self-driving cars in meaningful numbers.
Google Quantum's claims should be approached with caution, particularly those of an extraordinary nature. Its supremacy claims in the past have been refuted by several groups. This article looks at Google's 2019 experiment to review its claims of quantum supremacy. The methodology used in the experiment was flawed and the competition in the space is a serious additional reason to not take Google's assertions seriously.
ucacher is a CLI tool that tracks which files are accessed by commands, skips unnecessary executions, and restores cached outputs when possible. It brings faster feedback loops, simplified caching and skipping, enhanced precision, resource efficiency, scalability for complex workflows, and more. Using ucacher can result in significantly reduced execution times.
Every dev team wants to ship faster. But when E2E testing takes hours to run, everything slows down. The alternative? Ditch manual testing and try QA Wolf. Run 100% of your test suite in parallel with pass/fail results within 3 minutes, and no cap on test runs. Test constantly. Deploy continuously. Start here
The circuit that lets junior developers grow into senior developers is broken, or at least damaged. Many tasks can now be automated, so companies don't need as many junior contributors. Developers who don't adopt chat-based programming as their primary modality will be left behind.
The Pixel 9a is expected to be released in March next year for $499. It will be powered by a Tensor G4 and use the Titan M2 security chip. The 6.3-inch display, which will use Gorilla Glass 3, will have a peak brightness of 1,700 nits (or 2,700 nits for HDR content) with a 120Hz refresh rate. The Pixel 9a will have Android 15 out of the box and seven years of updates.
People contributing to open source are under no obligation to stay in a project. The best thing to do is to make sure projects can continue to operate smoothly even after you leave. The license maintainers choose will influence how their project is utilized and how it develops, so maintainers should fully understand the implications of each license before making a decision. It's okay to step away from projects if they don't make you happy.
Some of Microsoft's biggest rivals say that its deal with OpenAI harms competition by saddling rivals with extra costs and blocking them from hosting OpenAI's latest models themselves.
A federal district judge in California has ordered Matt Mullenweg and his companies to stop interfering in WPEngine's contacts with its customers and to restore its access to the wordpress.com platform.
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Apple and Broadcom are working on a server chip designed especially for artificial intelligence internally code-named Baltra - it is expected to be ready for mass production by 2026.
Former PlayStation Studios boss Shawn Layden doesn't think there will ever be a generational improvement in console performance matching that of the PS1 to PS2 ever again.
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Amazon Autos is an e-commerce business that lets customers find, order, and buy new cars, trucks, and SUVs from dealerships. It launched on Tuesday with Hyundai in 48 US cities. Amazon Autos will allow customers to secure financing and e-sign paperwork. It will also handle trade-ins. Customers can only buy new cars. Amazon will add more cities, additional auto manufacturers, leasing, and expanded financing options in 2025.
Cruise CEO Marc Whitten announced that GM would no longer fund the company in a Slack message on Tuesday afternoon. Cruise will be absorbed into GM and combined with the automaker's own efforts to develop driver assistance features and eventually fully autonomous personal vehicles. It is unclear whether employees' jobs are safe. Several employees reported feeling blindsided by the decision - they had been following a roadmap to launch a driverless service in Houston in 2025.
The universe is expanding about 8% faster than initially assumed possible. New measurements from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that the long-established discrepancy between the observed expansion rate of the universe and the rate we thought possible based on our knowledge of the cosmos is potentially due to the influence of dark matter and dark energy. The discrepancy suggests that something is missing in our understanding of the early universe. The new data confirms that the universe is expanding faster today than it did during its first few billion years.
Google Willow is a new 105-qubit superconducting chip. It has been used to demonstrate an error-corrected surface code qubit as well as a new, bigger quantum supremacy experiment based on Random Circuit Sampling. The development is a real milestone for the field. This article discusses Google Willow and its implications for the field of quantum computing.
Limbo is an in-process OLTP database management system. It features an in-process OLTP database engine library, asynchronous I/O support with io_uring, SQLite compatibility, and JavaScript/WebAssembly bindings. Limbo is still a work in progress.
JSON is famously simple, but its formal definition is quite complicated. The biggest problem with JSON is the incredible diversity of parser behavior and non-conformity across and within language ecosystems. Everything is implementation-defined, which can result in data loss and other issues. This article looks at how JSON is designed, how it is used and misused, and how its 'human readability' features can cause headaches for users.
Fragmented processes and point automation solutions often hide inefficiencies, restrict scalability, and block data-driven insights. Process orchestration helps businesses transform this complexity into opportunity. This guide by Camunda covers actionable steps, best practices, and tips for modern process orchestration + access to bonus resources and templates. Get the guide here
The creator of Redis is returning to the project after a four-and-a-half-year break. He will be working with Redis' new CEO to tune the future of the company's relationships with the community and the code base direction. He will help be a bridge between the company and the community and also help produce programming demos, invent and describe new patterns, and create documentation, videos, and blog posts about new and old stuff.
WhatsApp contains an ecosystem of services, features, and connections that make many businesses possible. It is the world's most widely-used messaging app, with 2 billion daily users sending more than 100 billion messages a day in 60 languages across 180 countries. WhatsApp achieved its global dominance in large part by enabling cheap, private, and reliable messaging on almost any phone almost anywhere in the world. The app has transformed into a sort of 'everything app' in the decade since Meta acquired it. This article takes a look at how the app is used in different places and the possibilities it has enabled.
This article features an interview with Annie Rauwerda, the owner of the famous Depths of Wikipedia account, which shares factors from some of the most arcane, interesting, and surprising pages on Wikipedia.
This article looks at two recently unveiled chiplet-enabling technologies and examines the benefits of chiplet-based designs and some reasons why they may not make sense.
Instagram's trial reels will give creators a chance to test out new content by publishing videos that don't appear to their followers, allowing creators to experiment with new ideas and see what performs best without having to worry about how their followers may react.
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The Tesla Model Q will launch in the first half of 2025 and cost less than $30,000 with subsidies, or $37,499 if Trump cancels the IRA tax credit. It will be built on Tesla's existing lines. Tesla told investors during its Q3 earning calls that it planned to develop a more affordable model in H1 2025. The Model Q will be 15% smaller and 30% lighter than the Model 3. It will have a steering wheel and pedals but will be geared toward autonomous driving functionality.
OpenAI has released Sora, its AI video-generation model. Sora will be available to US users and most countries internationally but OpenAI has no timeline yet for launching the tool in Europe and the UK. It will be included in existing ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscriptions. Sora is aimed at competing with video-generation AI tools from other companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, and Stability AI.
Researchers have shown that adding more qubits to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. The scientists transformed a group of physical qubits into a single logical qubit and then showed that the logical qubit's error rates dropped sharply as they added more physical qubits to the group. The result has thrilled quantum computing researchers, but the technology still has a long way to go. There are still many challenges to overcome before quantum computing becomes a viable technology.
Blue Origin says it's on track to launch New Glenn before the end of the year, but it is still waiting on regulatory approval to conduct a final key test of the rocket. The hot fire test will involve powering up all seven of the first stage's BE-4 engines and firing them to full thrust while the rocket sits on the pad. It is designed to mirror how the vehicle will operate during lift-off. The 320-foot-tall rocket will be capable of carrying 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit.
TorchGeo is a PyTorch domain library that provides datasets, samplers, transforms, and pre-trained models specific to geospatial data. It makes it simple for machine learning experts to work with geospatial data and for remote sensing experts to explore machine learning solutions. TorchGeo has plenty of tutorials and documentation.
This post shares useful evaluations for large language models that focus on simple, common tasks like classification/extraction, summarization, and translation. The post also discusses the role of human evaluation and how to calibrate the evaluation bar to balance between potential benefits and risks. It was written to be accessible for those without a data science or machine learning background.
Jobs in financial services companies are more desirable than they have ever been. Banks say they are still aggressively hiring. Compensation is similar for comparable roles across tech and banking. However, tech companies are no longer rolling out the red carpet for their employees. Banks are increasingly looking to publicize their AI work, invest in pure research departments, and focus on upskilling and internal development.
The idea that $300k/year engineers are doing next to nothing as a norm in tech is damaging and ridiculous. The myth misleads aspiring engineers, fuels layoff culture, and damages the industry's reputation. While it is true some employees coast, glorifying this idea only perpetuates toxicity. Engineers should instead focus on creating realistic expectations, better leadership, and healthier work cultures.
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Two people with long-standing spinal cord injuries can now walk thanks to scientists using deep brain stimulation in the lateral hypothalamus, an area of the brain associated with a variety of basic functions.
Both firms see vast potential in crypto, stablecoins, and artificial intelligence - these technologies will shape how industries will function and how consumers will interact with technology in the coming years.
