TechSlice 2023-11-08

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BIG TECH & STARTUPS

WeWork, once valued at $47 billion, files for bankruptcy (3 minute read)

WeWork, once valued at $47 billion, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing debts of over $18.6 billion, with assets of over $15 billion. The bankruptcy filing is limited to locations in the U.S. and Canada, while WeWork India, majority-owned by Embassy Group, remains unaffected. The filing comes as the result of WeWork's ambitious global expansion and underperforming properties, with around 777 locations across 39 countries, culminating in billions of dollars of rent obligations during the pandemic.

YouTube is testing a chatbot that will appear under select videos (3 minute read)

YouTube has introduced a conversational AI chatbot that provides viewers with more information about the videos they're watching and answers questions, makes recommendations, and can quiz viewers on educational content. This chatbot is part of a wider push by Google to integrate AI into its services. The platform has also launched an AI-powered comment categorization feature, designed to sort video comments into individual topics to help video creators engage with their audiences more effectively.

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SCIENCE & FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY

A step closer to injection-free diabetes care (2 minute read)

A University of Alberta team has improved the process of creating insulin-producing pancreatic cells from a patient's own stem cells using "directed differentiation." They used an anti-tumor drug called AKT/P70 inhibitor AT7867, resulting in a 90% success rate in producing the desired cells. This safer and more reliable method could eventually lead to insulin-producing cell transplants without the need for anti-rejection drugs, potentially transforming diabetes care.

Teaching AI systems to use intuition to find new medicines (2 minute read)

Researchers from Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and Microsoft Research AI4Science are using AI to aid in the challenging task of finding new medicines. They incorporated feedback from experienced chemists to provide intuition guidelines for an AI model in drug development. By using chemists' intuition and AI, the team identified promising chemical pairs, indicating the potential of AI to streamline the drug discovery process.

Fungal hybrids study finds climate crisis could trigger outbreak of new and lethal infectious diseases (4 minute read)

Rising global temperatures and human actions like the extensive use of fungicides and antibiotics in agriculture are creating favorable conditions for the emergence of potentially virulent pathogenic microorganisms, such as the Candida fungus, which can infect humans; understanding the evolutionary routes and adaptations of these pathogens is crucial for monitoring and preventing deadly epidemics, and researchers have identified Candida orthopsilosis, a hybrid microorganism, with the capacity to infect humans and pose a potential threat to global health, which highlights the significance of hybridization in enabling fungal pathogens to colonize and harm human populations amid climate change and overuse of antifungal drugs.

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PROGRAMMING, DESIGN & DATA SCIENCE

Vitess 18 (3 minute read)

Vitess 18, now Generally Available, comes with significant MySQL compatibility improvements, including Vitess-managed foreign keys and enhanced query planning capabilities for complex aggregations and subqueries. The release also focuses on usability with CLI migration to Cobra for auto-generated reference documentation, migration of client commands to vtctldclient, and support for near-zero downtime data migration from an external database. Additional features include improved Point in Time Recovery, tablet throttler enhancements, and improvements to the benchmarking system Arewefastyet.

The Guardian digital design style guide (5 minute read)

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MISCELLANEOUS

As first Vulcan flight nears, new space plane Dream Chaser preps for launch No. 2 (4 minute read)

The Sierra Space Dream Chaser, resembling a mini space shuttle, is set for its first space voyage in 2024 atop United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket. Initially designed for cargo missions to the International Space Station under a NASA contract, it boasts the ability to land back at the former space shuttle landing facility at Kennedy Space Center. Sierra Space plans to expand Dream Chaser to support crew and is central to its partnership with Blue Origin for developing a commercial low-Earth-orbit space station called Orbital Reef.

Google launches new tools to find and track shopping deals (2 minute read)

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Google has introduced several new tools to help users find and track the best deals online. A new "deals destination page" on Google's main search platform allows users to browse discounts organized by product categories. For Google Chrome users, the web browser now provides the latest deals and discounts when opening a new tab, as well as price history and tracking, and notifications for price changes and coupons, making it easier to find and track the best shopping deals.

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QUICK LINKS

WhatsApp head confirms in-app ads are still in the works (1 minute read)

WhatsApp may introduce ads within the app's Channels feature and Status feature in the future, according to company head Will Cathcart, although no specific timeline for the implementation was provided.

YouTube’s ad blocking crackdown is facing a new challenge: privacy laws (4 minute read)

Privacy advocates in the European Union are urging the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) to stop YouTube's crackdown on ad blockers.

Google researchers deal a major blow to the theory AI is about to outsmart humans (4 minute read)

Google researchers have exposed the limitations of transformers, the technology behind large language models like ChatGPT, revealing that they struggle with generalizing tasks beyond their pre-training data, posing a challenge for achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) and clarifying that transformers aren't magical solutions to AGI.

Intel could receive billions from the US government to make chips for the military (2 minute read)

Intel is a leading contender for a multi-billion-dollar US government contract to build a "secure enclave" producing microchips for the military, part of the Chips and Science Act, though this deal is still in negotiation and faces opposition from rival chip makers and lawmakers who argue it could limit funding for a diversified domestic supplier base of semiconductors critical to the defense industrial base.

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