Facebook launches a Gen Z-focused redesign (6 minute read)
Meta has announced a series of changes to Facebook that will put a greater emphasis on local community information, videos, and Facebook Groups. The changes are aimed at making Facebook more approachable for those wanting to connect with their local community or be entertained. Meta also announced updates to Meta AI, Facebook Dating, and Messenger. This article goes through the long list of upcoming changes in detail.
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Google's Grip on Search Slips as TikTok and AI Startup Mount Challenge (4 minute read)
TikTok has recently started allowing brands to target ads based on users' search queries and Perplexity, an AI search startup, plans to introduce ads later this month under its AI-generated answers. Google's share of the US search ad market is expected to drop below 50% next year for the first time in over a decade. Generative AI, which serves fully formed answers to user queries, is transforming search products. Companies are experimenting with ways to monetize ads with chatbots, but some analysts are uncertain whether ads in chatbots will be as valuable as traditional search because people might be less likely to click on them.
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Science & Futuristic Technology
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The US has passed peak obesity, a new survey suggests. Is it the Ozempic effect? (2 minute read)
The obesity rate in adults in the US fell by 2% between 2020 and 2023. There is no established direct link between new weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and the decline in obesity, but there is a strong possibility of a link considering the medications hit the market around 2021. Approximately one in eight US adults have tried the new weight-loss drugs, with more than 15 million using a prescription. At least 25,000 people in the US are starting the drug every week.
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To Be Born in a Bag (27 minute read)
Several research groups are developing artificial wombs to replicate their basic life-support functions for extremely premature infants. At least one group is working on a system to grow a fetus from embryo to birth entirely outside of the womb. Such technology could have profound implications for the future of human reproduction. Despite several technology hurdles, it might not be very long before the first human baby is birthed from a bag.
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Programming, Design & Data Science
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One (GitHub Repo)
One is a React framework for web and native that simplifies things with universal, typed routing seamlessly across static, server, and client pages. The project aims to make full stack development as simple as possible. It allows developers to target React Native and web with a single code base with shared file-system routing. One includes a production server out of the box.
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content-visibility: the new CSS property that boosts your rendering performance (12 minute read)
The content-visibility property launching in Chromium 85 may be one of the most impactful new CSS properties for improving page load performance. It enables the user agent to skip an element's rendering work until it is needed. It also allows for faster interactions with on-screen content. Reducing rendering work can in some situations reduce a page's Interaction to Next Paint, a metric that evaluates a page's ability to be reliably responsive to user input.
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We're Entering Uncharted Territory for Math (6 minute read)
Terence Tao, a mathematics professor at UCLA widely considered to be the world's greatest living mathematician, recently posted his impressions of OpenAI's o1 model, comparing it to a mediocre but not completely incompetent graduate student. This article contains an edited transcript of an interview with Tao where he describes a kind of AI-enabled 'industrial-scale mathematics' in which AI acts as a lubricant for mathematicians' hypotheses and approaches to unlock new information. This approach keeps humans at its core, embracing both the strengths of people and machines.
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This Teenage Hacker Became a Legend Attacking Companies. Then His Rivals Attacked Him (16 minute read)
Arion Kurtaj is a hacker accused of breaking into Uber and stealing software and videos from Rockstar Games. He was given an indefinite hospital order for his crimes, confined to a secure mental health ward until doctors and UK officials decide he is no longer a danger to the public. His lawyers are seeking an appeal, arguing that evidence fails to prove Kurtaj committed many of the offenses he is accused of or was the central player. This article tells the story of Kurtaj's life. Kurtaj lived a very empty offline life with all sorts of difficulties, challenges, and limitations, but online, he was a bit of a superhero.
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StarbaseDB (GitHub Repo)
StarbaseDB is an HTTP SQLite database that features HTTPS endpoints to interact with databases, transactions support for ACID database interactions, and scale-to-zero compute when databases are not in use.
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