TLDR 2024-04-22

Tesla has cut the prices of its models across China, Europe, and the US. Full Self-Driving is now $8,000 in the US. In China, the revamped Model 3 is now 241,900 yuan (~$32,000), down from 245,900 yuan previously and the Model Y was discounted to 249,900 yuan (~$34,500) from 263,900 yuan. The cheapest Model Y in the US is now $42,990. Tesla is facing several challenges, including a recall of almost 3,900 Cybertrucks, sales drops, interrupted production schedules, and more.

Google's Real World Testing Lab is an elaborate environment where Google tests the cameras in its Pixel phones. The lab looks more like a cluster of Ikea displays than a testing room. It allows Google to test its devices in realistic environments that simulate where customers will actually use them. This article takes a look inside the lab and the kind of testing that Google does to make sure its devices capture moments in just the right way.

Lumina is a one-time treatment that can present cavities. It can be applied either at home or by a dentist. The treatment, which can be pre-ordered for $250 (before taxes and shipping fees), is expected to be released by mid-June. Marketed as a cosmetic product, the treatment has yet to successfully move through human clinical trials, leading to safety and ethical concerns.

Semaglutide has proved so successful that its manufacturer is unable to keep up with demand. There is currently a tsunami of clinical trials for new drugs that also operate on the gut-brain axis and re-create the action of other intestinal and pancreatic hormones. This article discusses the state of the industry and new developments on the horizon. These drugs remain inaccessible for many people due to cost.

The PostgreSQL community recently resolved the question of whether to merge a brief patch adding a new configuration parameter. This article tells the story of the decision process, which involved one of the longest-running development discussions in recent PostgreSQL history. The success of the effort was due to the persistence of a small number of developers who saw it through months of opposition and 'helpful' implementation suggestions.

When users ask ChatGPT a question, OpenAI chunks the question into tokens, creates embeddings, multiplies the embeddings by model weights, and then samples a prediction. This article explains this process in detail. It covers pretraining and inference as well as the system's limitations. Links to other resources that also explain how ChatGPT works are available in the article.

Measuring things can often help to make life better. This article presents three metrics for measuring personal growth: rate of change, time to solve problems, and number of future options. Rate of change looks at how long it takes to become a new person. Time to solve problems looks at what big problems have been solved and what needs to be solved. Number of future options looks at options gained and lost.

Samsung has introduced a company-wide six-day workweek policy for executives. The company had disappointing financial results last year and is now trying to tackle ongoing business uncertainty. The new workweek policy aims to inject a sense of crisis as part of an all-out effort to overcome its current challenges. Employees under the executive level are not expected to follow suit. Samsung is facing increased competition in the production of high-bandwidth memory chips alongside wider economic concerns like rising borrowing costs and oil prices and a rapid depreciation of Korean currency.

The US House has passed a bill, tied to a sweeping aid package for Israel and Ukraine, that may force ByteDance to sell TikTok if the Senate votes to also pass it in the coming days.

Benchmarks show that Llama-3 70B matches GPT-4 and Claude Opus in most tasks.

Europe's new rules mean that Apple will open up access to iPhone NFC chips and allow for non-Apple tap-to-pay payment options.

Decentralized ID systems cannot protect users against state surveillance and exclusion as seen in current government ID systems unless they allow users to participate without linking government ID, allow pseudonyms and throwaways, and keep regular login methods for people who prefer it.

New use cases will be things that are still automated one at a time, but that could not have been automated before, or that would have needed more software and capital to automate.

Curiosity knows more than you do about what's worth paying attention to.