SpaceX to Launch Starship’s Second Orbital Test This Weekend: What to Know (3 minute read)
SpaceX may launch the second Starship orbital test as soon as this Friday. Elon Musk said on X that SpaceX will receive a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration in time for the launch. The last orbital attempt was almost seven months ago - it ended in a mid-air explosion that led to a months-long federal investigation. The FAA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service have yet to announce the completion of an environmental review for the test. The most critical part of the test flight will be hot staging, where Starship's upper stage separates from its boost and ignites its own engines.
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Nothing Phone says it will hack into iMessage, bring blue bubbles to Android (3 minute read)
Upstart phone manufacturer Nothing says its new Nothing Chats app allows Android users to use iMessage, complete with blue bubbles sent to their iPhone contacts. An early version of Nothing Chats will start rolling out on Friday. The app will only work for Nothing Phone 2 owners. Nothing claims that its setup is completely legal and that it doesn't see any scenario in which Apple could block it.
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Science & Futuristic Technology
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AI outperforms conventional weather forecasting for the first time: Google study (3 minute read)
An AI meteorology model from Google DeepMind called GraphCast significantly outperforms conventional weather forecasting methods in predicting global weather conditions up to 10 days in advance. GraphCast outperformed the world's leading conventional system in 90% of 1,380 metrics. It can predict hundreds of weather variables over 10 days at 0.25° resolution globally in under a minute. GraphCast is estimated to be about 1,000 times cheaper in terms of energy consumption compared to traditional methods.
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Speaker Chip Uses Ultrasound to Crack Volume Limits (4 minute read)
xMEMS is a five-year-old startup that specializes in making speakers from microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) silicon-and-piezoelectric chips. Its designs have many advantages over other miniature speakers. A new technology designed by the company uses ultrasonic modulation and demodulation to create pressure and generate sound. This article covers MEMS systems and explains how xMEMS' ultrasound system works.
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Programming, Design & Data Science
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A decade of developing a programming language (16 minute read)
Inko is a statically typed language that compiles into machine code using LLVM. This article highlights lessons learned while developing the programming language. Inko was originally heavily inspired by Ruby and Smalltalk, but 10 years later, it's closer to Rust, Erlang, and Pony. It has been used to write meaningful applications like HVAC automation software, a Markdown parser, a changelog generator, and more.
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Cryptography Guidelines (GitHub Repo)
This repository contains a document that outlines recommendations for cryptographic algorithm choices and parameters as well as important implementation details. Some knowledge of cryptography is required to understand the terminology used in the document. The document aims to be a resource for those getting into writing programs related to cryptography.
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Farewell to the felt | Quitting the full-time Poker scene (5 minute read)
Playing professional poker can sound like a dream job - you aren't answerable to anybody, you set your own schedule, play from anywhere in the world, and the money is close to VP+ level in unicorn/FAANG companies. However, there are many downsides to playing the game for a living - at the highest levels, it becomes an intense grind that can sometimes bring no (or negative) results for long periods of time. There are many more stable forms of income that have a better potential for growth.
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Nvidia Envy: understanding the GPU gold rush (34 minute read)
Many tech companies were caught off-guard by the introduction of AI. The easiest way for them to catch up was large-scale GPU purchasing, making Nvidia the AI kingmaker. This article looks at the factors that amplified the GPU shortage to understand how the 2020s will unfold. It aims to bring tech-savvy people up to speed on the Nvidia craze, LLM training mega-runs, and the resulting shortage.
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