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Geek Gossip
#xAI - Elon Musk’s AI company compelled its employees to submit their own biometric data to train its “Ani’ female chatbot. Ani, an anime avatar with blond pigtails and an NSFW setting, was released over the summer. The Wall Street Journal reports that some employees balked at the demand, concerned that their faces or likeness could be sold to other companies.
#Microsoft - Microsoft has introduced an internal option for employees to request a “Trusted Technology Review” where they can raise concerns about the way Microsoft creates and uses its technology. This was announced by Microsoft President Brad Smith in an internal memo disclosed in a securities filing. The announcement comes after controversy about the company’s work in the Middle East. An Israeli Defense Forces unit was using Microsoft's Azure cloud service for tracking the phone calls of Palestinians.
Latest Updates
Groq And PayTM Partner To Accelerate Ai Adoption In India
PayTM, a major digital payments company in India, just partnered with Groq to bring fast and efficient AI to its platform, aiming to boost India's digital economy.
Amazon Web Services Expands In India
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has expanded its AWS Marketplace in India, allowing customers to transact in Indian Rupees (INR) and simplifying tax compliance for Indian tech providers. This move enables Indian companies to list and sell their offerings locally, increasing their reach and scalability.
India's AI Governance Guidelines
The Indian government has released national guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance, recommending the update of the IT Act to classify AI systems, create a national risk assessment framework, and establish a database for AI incidents.
Snapchat Teams Up With Perplexity
Snapchat partners with Perplexity, an AI-powered answer engine, to offer users a new way to ask questions and learn about the world, drawing from credible sources. Starting in 2026, Perplexity will be integrated into Snapchat's chat interface, allowing users to get clear, conversational answers to their queries.
Microsoft Launched Magentic - An Open Source Simulation Environment For Studying Agentic Markets
Microsoft researchers introduce Magentic Marketplace, an open-source simulation environment to explore the dynamics of agentic markets, enabling controlled experimentation and shedding light on the societal implications of autonomous AI agents in the digital economy.
Changelog
Spotify - Introduces Listening Stats, a feature that provides a shareable snapshot of your top artists, songs, and music insights from the past four weeks.
Gemini - Introduces Deep Research with Integrated Gmail, Drive, and Chat Data
Discord - Expands Family Center with increased visibility of teen activity, sensitive content filtering, and data privacy settings, as well as new social permissions for controlling direct messages.
Chrome - New AI Mode button added to the "New Tab" page for easier access to AI search capabilities on iOS and Android.
Vercel - Now supports Bun Runtime
Trending Projects / Code Repositories
Chef | Build full-stack web apps with a built-in database, zero config auth, file uploads, real-time UIs, and background workflows.
Dillo | A multi-platform graphical web browser, known for its speed and small footprint, that is developed with a focus on personal security and privacy.
Glow | A terminal based markdown reader designed from the ground up to bring out the beauty and power of the CLI.
In Case You Missed It
🎁 We now have a dedicated page to list all events. We will be updating this page EVERY WEEK. We will of course be publishing new (and coming-soon) events in this section but for a comprehensive list of events, check the link(s) below:
This link is EXCLUSIVELY accessible by subscribers of Heap Heap Hurray!
Participants in the Meta Horizon Start Developer Competition build immersive VR/MR experiences on Meta Horizon OS across Entertainment, Lifestyle and Gaming tracks. The total prize pool is $1.5 million in cash. Register here.
Miscellaneous
Understanding Source Maps: The Key To Debugging Minified Javascript
This article will teach you about source maps, their format, and how they enable debugging of minified JavaScript code. You'll learn about the TypeScript build pipeline, the source map file format, and the VLQ encoding used to compress mapping data.
CSS Field Sizing
CSS now allows sizing input fields based on content without JavaScript, making layout-focused designs easier.
32 Things We’ve Learned About Building A Startup That Scales
PostHog's founder shares 32 key lessons learned from scaling his company from 11 to 150 people, covering topics from hiring to product-market fit.
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We believe in sharing great resources, and these newsletters are some good ones. They offer sharp, focused insights - especially around tech topics we might only touch on briefly.
If you're into cryptocurrency and blockchain, we recommend Cryptogram - it dives deep into the space, which we don’t often cover in detail.
For startup enthusiasts, Rustic Flute is a must-read, especially since we’ve noticed many of you love staying on top of the latest in the startup world.
