Today’s Byte Size News

Tesla's Next Field of Dream: RoboTaxis

Get ready, Knight Rider fans! Tesla apparantly read our dream journals and decided to bring them to life with their next-generation self-driving robotaxi. Not just your average 'I’ll take the wheel, buddy' type self-driving vehicle, but one that is 'optimized from the ground up for driverless ridesharing'. If that doesn’t sound like science fiction, we don’t know what does!

And while some Tesla owners are worried that this move might sway the company's attention away from improving its existing fleet, our customary reminder is this: You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, right?

Musk's Unlimited Ambitions: SpaceX Starship

On the other side of the incredible Musk-iverse, plans are on for the fourth SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy launch. The aim? Achieving the previously unthinkable: sending Starship's upper stage through the fiery gauntlet of reentry and making a controlled, albeit 'splat-like', splat into the ocean.

But don’t worry, it's not all about water landings. They also plan to bring the Super Heavy booster back intact, with a landing planned on a virtual tower in the Gulf of Mexico. And we'll have front row seats for that, folks.

A 'Cool' Solution for Corals: Cryopreservation

Here’s something that's not fishy - literally! Coral reefs, the sprawling underwater metropolises that play home to countless marine species, are tragically dying off. But fear not, for the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute's Reef Recovery Initiative is here with a plan straight out of a sci-fi movie!

They are planning to deep-freeze coral sperm and larvae to preserve it for the future, potentially enabling us to reseed the oceans by making new coral, like some under-the-sea Johnny Appleseeds. 'Just keep swimming' indeed!

A Sonic Boom in the Making: Hermeus' Hypersonic Aircraft

We're sure you've heard the old saying, 'If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck'... but if it takes off like a plane and lands like a plane, is it still just a plane? Not if it's Hermeus' hypersonic aircraft, apparently! This start-up company has been trying to perfect their aircraft which boasts jet engines and traditional takeoff/landings... only 1000 times faster!

Just in case Mach 1 was starting to feel a bit too pedestrian for you...

The Site That Outlasted The Experts: Stack Overflow

Ever heard about the case of 'David being Goliath-ed'? Stack Overflow did just that in 2008 by becoming the go-to question-and-answer site on the internet, replacing the formerly popular Experts Exchange. And how ironically satisfying is it that the site founded by ‘experts’ was toppled by a site catering to ‘overflows’? Oh, the delicious irony...!

Shady Practices of AI Giants: Harvesting Data Unethically

If you've ever wondered how tech giants manage to get all that data they need to make their AI 'super-smart', here's a shocking revelation: They cut corners. Yep, it's not all datasheets and encryption, folks. In our version of 'The Ugly Truth', we reveal how OpenAI, Google, and Meta have tried to get their chunk of data pie, with OpenAI even using a speech recognition tool to transcribe audio from YouTube videos!

The Most Useless Project You've Worked On?

Last but definitely not least, we bring you some comic relief. Following in the footsteps of 'The Most Pointless Job in the World' thread, Hacker News users have shared the most useless project they've worked on. So next time you feel like you're just pushing papers, remember: it could always be worse!