Today’s Byte Size News

Meta Raises The AI Experience a Notch

Oh, hey there world. Hope you're ready to meet Meta's AI assistant because it's coming in hot! This integration is all about bringing the AI right into Meta's app search boxes. For your daily dose of future interaction, users can chat with this assistant in the treasured main Facebook feed or Meta's messaging apps. The assistant is also housed in an independent website for people who like their virtual helpers solo! It's rocking the latest Llama 3 model from Meta and is known for being a leaderboard topper for key benchmarks. As for the nerdy bits, this assistant compiles real-time search results from Bing and Google and guess what—it can create images!

Google Takes Unification To a Whole New Level

Google is making some serious organizational changes with its Android, Chrome, and Google hardware divisions all merging to form a new 'Platforms and Devices' division. Rick Osterloh, Google's Hardware SVP, will take the lead on this united front. This unified team includes some remarkable minds from Google Research working on computational photography. All for one and one for all as they aim to create better products and experiences for its users and partners!

When Lifeforms Decide to Merge

An unthinkable event when two microorganisms say, "Why don't we just merge and work together?" has happened! It's a mystical phenomenon known as primary endosymbiosis where, like a kid in a candy shop, one microbial organism engulfs another, treating it essentially as an internal organ. The host cell generously provides nutrients, energy, and protection to the now organelle-turned symbiote. A species of algae has evolved with this nitrogen-fixing symbiote, potentially offering a new route for improving crop growth!

All Systems Go for Boom's XB-1

The US FAA has played fairy godmother, granting Boom the first-ever Special Flight Authorization to Exceed Mach. Boom's XB-1 prototype can now confidently break the sound barrier during its test flights! As for where this supersonic magic is allowed, the designated places include Black Mountain Supersonic Corridor at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and a portion of the High Altitude Supersonic Corridor in the R-2515 airspace. However, Boom still has a huge to-do list with up to 20 subsonic tests pending before the cool supersonic tests can begin.

A Shoutout to Otel-Profiling-Agent & Hatchet

Developer land is buzzing with the launch of otel-profiling-agent - a Linux-centric, whole-system, cross-language profiler employing the cutting-edge OTel profiling signal. Its highlights include support for C/C++ executables, system library profiling, and mixed stack traceability between runtimes. If flexing software tools is your thing, let's give a big shoutout to Hatchet - a heroic, distributed, fault-tolerant task queue. It plans to replace legacy queues and pub/sub systems, assisting in designing durable workloads that bounce back from any failure.

Chemists: The Unsung Heroes of Drug Development

In the life-saving world of drug development, the unsung heroes are the chemists. They're the smarty-pants who design, synthesize, purify, and characterize new drugs. Doctors may be the operators, but they're not always the inventors. It's about time the public gears up for more chemistry classes to better understand and contribute to solving humankind's problems!

China Puts its Foot Down on Messaging Apps

China has had it with some of the world's most beloved messaging apps and ordered Apple to yank them from the App Store. If you're in China and find WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, Telegram, or Line missing from your App Store, now you know why. They were only accessible through VPNs, but were loved nonetheless. This surging censorship hints that more apps may bid adieu in forthcoming months.