🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #382

Good morning! Let's smash this Wednesday!

#ChatGPT - Apparently, OpenAI will soon allow verified users to have “erotic chats” with ChatGPT. And the announcement came from none other than the CEO Sam Altman themselves!

#FirefoxVPN - Mozilla is starting a beta test for its in built VPN feature. Firefox VPN is a Beta (experimental) feature that enhances your privacy in Firefox by routing your web traffic through a VPN server. It is completely free of charge and is available to a small set of users chosen at random, for a limited time. See if you made the cut.

#DiscordBreach - As you are aware from the previous editions, Discord suffered a data breach and it was quick to point out that the breach occurred in their third party service. Well, the said third party service has now come out publicly to refuse these allegations, saying they are not to blame. Now who’s saying the truth?

Government Emails Migrate To Zoho
Zoho is an Indian software company that specializes in productivity and business software solutions. So, the Indian government moved about 1.2 million email accounts from a government-run platform to Zoho's email service to make their emails more secure and under their control. This move is a big step towards making India's digital infrastructure more secure and reducing reliance on foreign tech companies.

Airbound Secures $8.65m In Seed Funding To Revolutionize Drone Delivery
Airbound, a young Indian drone startup, has raised $8.65 million in seed funding to launch a drone delivery pilot with a private hospital, aiming to make one-cent deliveries using its ultra-light, blended-wing-body aircraft.

Google To Invest $15 Billion In Andhra Pradesh’s AI Hub
Google announced on Tuesday that it will invest $15 billion over the next five years to establish a major AI data centre hub in Andhra Pradesh. The 1-gigawatt facility will be located in the port city of Visakhapatnam and is described by Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian as the largest AI hub the company is investing in outside the US.

TCS Offers Higher Variable Pay To Senior Employees
Tata Consultancy Services, a leading Indian IT company, is giving higher variable pay to senior employees based on their individual and team performance, while junior level employees will continue to receive 100% variable pay.

Windows 10 Reaches End Of Support
Microsoft has discontinued support for Windows 10, meaning it won't receive security updates or patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities. PCs running Windows 10 will still work, but they'll be more vulnerable to attacks if not upgraded to Windows 11 or migrated to Windows 365.

Nvidia's Mini Workstation "DGX Spark" Hits Stores This Week
A super powerful mini workstation that just came out. It's called the DGX Spark, and it's from Nvidia. They're known for making the best graphics cards, and this thing is like a supercomputer in a tiny package. It's got a tiny GPU that can do AI and machine learning workloads, but it won't come with Windows, it'll be running Ubuntu Linux instead. It's super expensive though.

YouTube - New redesigned video player with updated UI elements and seek feature, new threaded comments, simplified playlist and Watch Later queue management, and animated like button interactions.

Slack - Added new ChatGPT app for direct integration and context-awareness features with Slack data.

Google Meet - AI-powered makeup feature with 12 studio looks now available.

Google Search - Added ability to collapse sponsored results with "Hide sponsored results" button.

Microsoft AI - First in-house Image Generation model released, named MAI-Image-1

Microsoft Copilot - Direct Settings Access now available, allowing users to quickly access relevant Windows Settings via voice commands.

Instagram - Introduces 13+ content setting with PG-13 movie ratings guidelines for teen accounts.

Github MCP - A registry where you can find and install tools like the GitHub MCP Server, which allows AI agents to analyze code and manage issues, or integrations for platforms like Notion, MongoDB, and Terraform, enabling models to interact with complex data and systems using natural language. It’s essential for building powerful, context-aware AI coding assistants.

IT Tools Tech - Supercharge your daily coding tasks with this free, open-source collection of online IT tools! It offers a single, well-designed platform for developers, featuring utilities like JSON formatters, JWT decoders, hash generators, and case converters. Stop hunting for random online tools and boost your productivity!

Darknet Diaries - The Darknet Diaries podcast offers gripping true stories from the dark side of the internet. Dive into the world of hackers, massive data breaches, hacktivism, cybercrime, and shadow government activity. With expert narration, it’s a must-listen for anyone fascinated by digital security, technology failures, and real-life cyber-espionage. You can read the transcripts too.

How I provide technical clarity to non-technical leaders
As a staff engineer, providing technical clarity to the organization is not just about writing code, but about enabling non-technical decision-makers to make informed decisions about software systems. Technical clarity is the ability to communicate complex technical concepts in a way that others can understand, bridging the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders. By providing technical clarity, staff engineers can be the unsung heroes of their organizations, empowering leaders to make data-driven decisions and drive business success.

Devrel Is Back
Developer relations is back in vogue, with searches and hiring for DevRel roles at all-time highs, driven by the desire for bottom-up developer adoption, particularly through in-person events and social media, especially Twitter.

What A 10X Team Looks Like
Sumanyu, founder, CEO, and still-shipping engineer at Hamming AI, shares his secrets. His 6-person team (plus 2 interns) moves faster than most 50-person engineering orgs. Sumanyu: To learn fast, you must do 2 things: Ship fast and talk to customers a lot.