This is Instagram’s new Twitter competitor (2 minute read)
Details about Instagram's new text-based app for conversations were recently leaked. Codenamed P92, the app will allow users to make text posts up to 500 characters long with attached links, photos, and videos. Meta will implement good moderation controls from the start. Users will be able to log on with their Instagram IDs and any blocked accounts will carry over to the new service. P92 will be compatible with certain other apps like Mastodon, likely through ActivityPub.
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Meta reportedly wants to license Magic Leap’s AR technology (1 minute read)
Meta and Magic Leap are in talks to sign a multi-year IP licensing and manufacturing pact. There are few details available about the deal, but the potential partnership is not expected to produce a jointly developed headset. Magic Leap may be providing Meta with access to some of its optical tech. It may also assist with the manufacturing of Meta devices. A post from Magic Leap's CEO late last year said that the company had received an incredible amount of interest in its IP and patented manufacturing process.
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Science & Futuristic Technology
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Did Scientists Accidentally Invent an Anti-addiction Drug? (10 minute read)
Semaglutide is a weight loss drug that has recently skyrocketed in popularity. Some people taking the drug have found that they have lost interest in a whole range of addictive and compulsive behaviors. Scientists have been testing whether drugs similar to semaglutide can curb substance abuse with promising results. The class of drugs may be altering the brain's fundamental reward circuitry. Researchers are now running clinical trials to see whether semaglutide can help people quit drinking and smoking.
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The FDA just approved rub-on gene therapy that helps ‘butterfly’ children (7 minute read)
Dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa is an inherited disease that makes the skin of those affected so fragile that kids with the illness are called 'butterfly children'. A novel gene therapy has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the disease. It is the first gene therapy for sale that is applied to the outside of a patient's body, as well as the first that is intended for repeated use by the patient. A subsidiary established by Krystal Biotech, the company that created the treatment, is now testing a version of the drug that reverses wrinkles caused by lower collagen production.
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Programming, Design & Data Science
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Trogon (GitHub Repo)
Trogon is a tool that auto-generates friendly terminal user interfaces for command-line apps. It examines CLI apps and extracts a schema that describes the options, switches, help, and more, to build a Textual UI. The project eventually aims to be able to build TUIs for all CLI apps.
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How I Re-implemented PyTorch for WebGPU (5 minute read)
webgpu-torch is a WebGPU optimized inference and autograd library with an API that matches PyTorch. It aims to run neural networks in the browser at speeds comparable to a Linux workstation. It implements many kernels and it is easily extensible. webgpu-torch works in both the browser and Node.js. This article explains the process behind developing webgpu-torch.
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Apple Publishes First-Ever App Store Transparency Report (2 minute read)
Apple published its inaugural App Store Transparency Report on Friday. The company agreed to provide developers with the report as part of a lawsuit settlement in 2021. The report contains meaningful statistics about the app review process: the number of apps that were rejected, the number of customer and developer accounts deactivated, the number of apps removed from the App Store, data regarding search queries and results, and more. This article provides a summary of the data from the report. A link to the full report is available.
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Where Do Great Ideas Come From? (15 minute read)
Being comfortable with failure fosters a more creative environment. Having a 'beginner's mind' can be a gift when analyzing problems. People who position themselves near structural holes within organizations tend to be especially creative. Hiring people who are more motivated by independence or the desire for intellectual challenge will result in a more creative team. Innovators operate at the frontier of knowledge, so it can take some time before people make their greatest inventions.
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Whichlang (GitHub Repo)
Whichlang is a language detection library with no dependencies, high throughput, good accuracy, and support for 16 languages.
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