Meta's new lightweight AR prototype shows a future beyond bulky VR headsets (4 minute read)
Mark Zuckerberg revealed a prototype of Meta's Orion AR glasses at this year's Meta Connect keynote. While the 100g pair of see-through augmented-reality glasses won't likely be ready for consumer release anytime soon, the demo represents a new vision of lightweight, wide-ranging, see-through smart glasses. Getting the glasses down to a weight of 100 grams was a challenge - a small amount of processing is done in a 'small puck' that connects wirelessly to the glasses. The glasses use tiny projectors embedded into the arms that shoot light into specially designed waveguides instead of a screen, creating a holographic display that allows for a 70-degree field of view. Pictures and more details are available in the article.
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OpenAI considering restructuring to for-profit, CTO Mira Murati and two top research execs depart (5 minute read)
OpenAI's board is considering plans to restructure itself into a for-profit business while still retaining its non-profit segment as a separate entity. The structure will make investing more straightforward and make it easier for OpenAI employees to realize liquidity. OpenAI's Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati is leaving the company after six and a half years. Research chief Bob McGrew and Barret Zoph, a research vice-president, are also departing the company.
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Science & Futuristic Technology
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NASA spacecraft to probe possibility of life in Europa's salty ocean (36 minute read)
Jupiter's moon Europa possibly contains a liquid saltwater ocean that may be potentially as welcoming to life as Earth's. In 2030, NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will swoop past the moon in a series of nearly 50 flybys to remotely probe the ocean in hopes of finding a chemistry that could support life. It may even be capable of detecting microbes directly. It will be a habitability mission rather than a life search mission. If Europa is found to be habitable to life, it could fundamentally change the definition of a habitable zone around a star as it would mean that all that is required for life is ice and gravitational tides.
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'World-first' indoor vertical farm to produce 4M pounds of berries a year (4 minute read)
The world's first farm to grow indoor, vertically farmed berries at scale is opening in Richmond, VA. The farm is designed to produce more than four million pounds of strawberries while using a fraction of the land needed for traditional strawberry production. It will not be subject to seasonal and environmental factors that limit yield. The company aims for its strawberries to be on grocery store shelves by early 2025.
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Programming, Design & Data Science
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WebJSX (GitHub Repo)
WebJSX is a minimal library for building web applications with JSX and Web Components. It provides two core functions: createElement, which creates virtual DOM elements using JSX, and applyDiff, which efficiently applies changes to the real DOM by comparing virtual nodes. Examples and an API reference are available.
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Summary of Ilya Sutskevers AI Reading List (15 minute read)
A reading list shared on X earlier this year went somewhat viral due to claims that it was originally compiled by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and part of onboarding at OpenAI. The combined contents of this list amount to about 300,000 words of dense, technical text that requires a decent investment in time and energy for self-study. This post provides a condensed and structured summary of the readings to capture the essential key points, context, and perspective gained, free of mathematical notation. The list contains 27 reading items - papers, blog posts, courses, one dissertation, and two book chapters - all originally dating from 1993 to 2020.
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Why Mark Zuckerberg thinks AR glasses will replace your phone (62 minute read)
This is an interview with Mark Zuckerberg where the CEO discusses new developments in VR, AI, and the fast-growing world of consumer smart glasses. It also includes a bit with Verge's deputy editor Alex Heath that talks about the Orion smart glasses demo he experienced at Meta's headquarters, some of the context around Meta's AR efforts, and how Zuckerberg is approaching his reputation as a leader and the public perception of Meta as a whole. A link to the full podcast is available.
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91% of polled Amazon staff unhappy with return-to-office, 3-in-4 want to jump ship (3 minute read)
A staff poll suggests that Amazon's recent return-to-office mandate has not gone down well. Of the over 2,500 Amazon employees polled, only nine percent said they were happy with the order. 73 percent are now considering moving jobs. Amazon is reportedly having trouble hiring staff since the policy was announced, with employees at other companies agreeing that the policy meant Amazon was off their list of potential employees.
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