🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #269

Not your regular greeting - Just want to ask you all to stay safe.

#CringeworthyAds - Cringeworthy Google ad mocks the iPhone 17 design even before it launches. Ad features an iPhone talking to a Pixel and admitting to the “coincidence” of launching Night mode, photo Clean Up, and widgets years after the Pixel.

#curl - Daniel Stenberg, the CEO of curl, is fed up with AI-generated security reports on Hackerone and is taking a stand by implementing a new policy that requires reporters to disclose if they used AI to find or generate the report, and will instantly ban those who submit "AI slop".

Elon Musk's Starlink Wins Approval To Launch Satellite Internet In India
Elon Musk’s Starlink has received a Letter of Intent (LoI) from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to launch its satellite internet services in India. The approval was issued after the satellite internet constellation operated by Starlink Services, LLC, agreed to meet the new national security guidelines. Service providers must ensure data remains within Indian borders.

Drone Delivery Takes Off In India
Skye Air, a drone mobility startup, collaborated with Big Basket to deliver groceries via drone in under 10 minutes in Bengaluru. Skye Air's drones can carry 7-10 kg and are faster than regular delivery services, with the potential to double efficiency and enable patching, a process that wasn't feasible with road logistics.

Wells Fargo Shuts Down Chennai Office, Shifts Operations To Bengaluru And Hyderabad
Wells Fargo was operating out of Chennai, but they just announced they're shutting down that office and moving to Bengaluru and Hyderabad by 2027. They say it's to provide better career growth for employees and service for customers, but some people are criticizing Chennai for being a tough city to work in.

Safari - Exploring integration of AI search engines, potentially adding alternatives to Google in default search engine options.

OpenAI - Introduced data residency in Asia, allowing organizations to store data locally in Japan, India, Singapore, and South Korea.

Instagram - Introduces lockable Reels that can only be viewed by users with a secret code.

Jsfontpicker | An open source, free (as in beer), versatile, flexible and lightweight Javascript Font Picker Component for System fonts, Google fonts and custom (woff/ttf) fonts. Features dynamic font loading, favourites, keyboard navigation, fuzzy search, advanced metrics filters, property sorting and much more.

Gemini Coder | Non-agentic 100% free & open source coding tool for AI-assisted programming.

Cocoindex | ETL framework to turn your data AI-ready - with realtime incremental updates and support custom logic like lego.

Public Speaking 101 For Techies
Advice from an experienced speaker on giving technical talks, covering topics such as inclusive language, slide design, and overcoming nerves, with a focus on empowering new speakers in the tech community.

Re-imagining HTML
A thought experiment on redesigning HTML from scratch, adding features like custom tags, attributes, and object support, and exploring the implications for asynchronous data loading and serialization.