🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #393

Rise and shine, it's Thursday - the weekend is in sight!

#MicrosoftAzure - Microsoft's cloud computing service, Azure, is experiencing an outage. The issues appear to be impacting Microsoft’s services that run on Azure, including Microsoft 365, Xbox, and even Minecraft. The outage comes just one week after issues with AWS took out swaths of the internet.

#NewWorldGame - Amazon’s popular game - New World - will no longer receive updates. This comes after the downsizing / layoffs in Amazon. The servers will continue to run until 2026 though.

India's First Driverless Car Takes Test Run In Bengaluru
A driverless car built in India by Wipro and RV College of Engineering was shown for the first time in Bengaluru. The car is part of a joint research effort to make smart vehicles that can drive safely on Indian roads. The project began around 2019 and took six years of work by researchers, students, and engineers.

Flipkart's Fintech Arm Super Money Partners With Kotak Mahindra Bank To Disrupt India's Digital Payments Industry
With the goal of issuing 2 million secured credit cards in the next 12 months, Super Money, a fintech arm of Flipkart, is partnering with Kotak Mahindra Bank to offer a unique 3-in-1 account that combines savings, UPI payments, and secured credit. This move aims to change how fintechs make money in India's digital payments revolution.

India's First Commercial Rocket Launch Plans
Skyroot Aerospace, a Hyderabad-based space startup founded by ex-ISRO engineers, is planning to launch India's first private commercial rocket by January 2026, marking a significant step towards making satellite launches more affordable and frequent.

Nvidia Hits $5 Trillion Market Cap
Nvidia became the first company to reach a $5 trillion market capitalization, driven by their advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and recent deals with Nokia and potential export agreements with China.

Etsy's Leadership Transition Plan
Another Indian origin CEO in the making - Etsy's current CEO, Josh Silverman, is stepping down as CEO on December 31, 2025, and will be succeeded by Kruti Patel Goyal, who will also join the company's Board of Directors. Kruti was previously CEO of Depop, where she led the company to significant growth and success. She has been with Etsy for over 10 years and has a deep understanding of the company's customers and mission.

YouTube - Expands thumbnail file limit to 50MB for 4K-resolution thumbnails, introduces AI-powered video upscaling, and enhances channel experience with immersive previews and contextual search.

Adobe Firefly - Introduces Firefly Image 5 with native 4-megapixel resolution, improved human rendering, and layered editing capabilities; expands third-party model support and enables custom model creation; enhances Firefly website with new features and video editing tool redesign.

Grammarly - Rebranded as Superhuman, now offering a suite of productivity tools including Superhuman Go, a browser-based AI assistant, and a new store for AI agents to integrate with various apps and web browsers.

This video from The Pragmatic Engineer offers a deep dive into Google's engineering culture. It explores the company's massive scale and its unique, custom-built technology stack, referencing internal tools like the Borg orchestration system. The hosts also discuss roles, compensation, and performance reviews, providing insights for engineers interested in the company's operations.

In this EuroPython Conference talk, Manivannan Selvaraj discusses the importance of mentoring. He explains that mentoring is a two-way street where both mentor and mentee learn from each other. Selvaraj offers practical advice on how to find a mentor and also encourages the audience to become mentors, stating that anyone can do it and that their story can be a survival guide for someone else.

Solve The Right Problem
Five Whys is a framework for finding the root cause of a problem. It asks the same question five times to try and find the right solution. The goal is to get to the bottom of the problem and find a solution.

What Is Good Software Architecture
Software engineering veteran Matthew Hawthorne shares his insights on software architecture. He worked at Netflix for 6 years, where there were no Architects. He says that good architecture is about trading problems for better problems tomorrow.

Apple's Storytelling Evolution
Apple's narrative shift from product-focused to customer-centric storytelling, driven by Steve Jobs' understanding of human emotions and aspirations, transformed the company's success.