Meta's community notes 📝, Google Home API 👨‍💻, Silicon Valley's dominance 📈

TLDR 2024-01-08

Jan 08, 2025

Meta is ending its fact-checking program in favor of a 'community notes' system similar to X's (9 minute read)

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced a series of major changes to the company's moderation practices due to a shifting political and social landscape and a desire to embrace free speech. The fact checking program will be replaced with a community-driven system. Content moderation policies that reduced the amount of political content in user feeds will be undone. The election was a major influence on Meta's decision - Zuckerberg has criticized governments and legacy media for pushing more and more censorship.

CES 2025: The 12 most impressive products so far (9 minute read)

The annual Consumer Electronics Show is the biggest week in tech each year. This year has so far seen announcements from Samsung, Abbott, and Dell, as well as some new and innovative brands with cool concepts. This article contains a list of the most impressive tech so far, which includes AI-integrated TVs, over the counter continuous glucose monitors, a device that can fully charge a phone in seconds, and a robot vacuum with an arm.

🚀Science & Futuristic Technology

Nuclear startup Deep Fission plans to bury micro-reactors to power data centers (4 minute read)

Deep Fission is a nuclear startup that wants to bury small nuclear reactors underground. The depth will act as a substitute for the tons of concrete required to safeguard aboveground reactors. The startup plans to lower its reactors on cables down a 30-inch, one-mile-deep borehole. Any maintenance will require hauling the reactor to the surface, which would take about an hour or two. Deep Fission is targeting between five to seven cents per kilowatt-hour, half of what new nuclear power costs today in the US. It has yet to receive a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Blue Ghost Lunar Lander scheduled to launch on January 15th (2 minute read)

The last lander to successfully reach the surface of the Moon's cratered Mare Crisium region was the Soviet Luna 24 probe in August 1976. SpaceX is preparing to launch two landers there on January 15. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 lander will carry 10 NASA payloads to the surface. It will collect data using tools designed to measure various particulate compositions, thermal properties, and the electromagnetic activity of both the Moon and the Earth. The other lander, Resilience, is from Japanese spacecraft firm iSpace.

💻Programming, Design & Data Science

Google Home APIs enter public developer beta on Android (2 minute read)

There are three parts to Google's new Home APIs on Android: the Device and Structure APIs provide a single unified interface to manage and control both cloud-connected and Matter devices across Google Home connected devices, the Commissioning API simplifies device setup, and the Automation API empowers users with tools needed to create and manage home automations directly in apps. All developers can now access the Android version of the Home APIs and test their apps with up to 100 users. iOS will get a public developer beta in the coming months.

Agents (59 minute read)

Intelligent agents are considered by many to be the ultimate goal of AI. AI has made it possible to develop intelligent autonomous agents to act as assistants, co-workers, and coaches. The potential economic value of these agents is enormous. This article provides an overview of agents and the aspects that determine the capabilities of an agent and discusses how to evaluate agents to catch failures. AI-powered agents are still an emerging field with no established theoretical frameworks for defining, developing, and evaluating them.

🎁Miscellaneous

0x01f - AI and Startup Moats (12 minute read)

A key requirement for building a business, securing a key role, or investing in companies is to focus on things that stand the test of time and hopefully improve at doing them at a rate faster than the market. A good way to do this is to find a moat. This article attempts to enumerate all of the possible moats that will still be relevant in the age of AI. It splits them into dead moats, short-term moats, strong moats, and uncertain moats. Businesses should evaluate their moats, use and learn about AI, systematize, move quickly, make strong decisions, and work on their ability to predict the future.

Silicon Valley is so dominant again, its startups devoured over half of all global VC funding in 2024 (2 minute read)

Data repeatedly shows that the San Francisco Bay Area is still the best place for venture-backed startups. Startups in the area received $90 billion of VC investment in 2024, 57% of the global venture funding spent last year. The area has a high density of everything, from financiers to engineers, making it easier to build a startup there. It is the home of Big Tech and offers the largest concentration of skilled tech employees.

⚡Quick Links

Nvidia CEO says his AI chips are improving faster than Moore's Law (5 minute read)

Moore's Law predicted that the number of transistors on computer chips would roughly double every year, essentially doubling the performance of those chips, but Nvidia's latest data center superchip is more than 30 times faster for running AI inference workloads than its previous generation.

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