Halfway through the week - happy Wednesday!
Geek Gossip
#WhatsApp - Passwords for WhatsApp was spotted in the beta version of the app. You will still use your phone number to sign in / sign up, but you may soon be able to set a password too - for added security.
#Anthropic - Anthropic, a maker of Claude models, says Chinese AI labs are stealing its data. The company accuses China-based DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax of conducting "industrial-scale campaigns" to siphon knowledge from its models. The irony? Anthropic themselves have been sued for alleged copyright infringement or unauthorized web scraping.
Latest Updates
Bharat Taxi Goes Live
Bharat Taxi is a ride-hailing platform launched by the Indian government, allowing drivers to retain most of their earnings through a zero-commission model, distinguishing it from traditional services like Uber, Ola, and Rapido. They have started to roll out in New Delhi and Ahmedabad.
Xflow Scores Big Funding Round
Xflow, an Indian fintech startup, has secured backing from both Stripe and PayPal Ventures in a $16.6 million funding round. The investment comes as the company works to carve out a position in cross-border B2B payments, a market still dominated by banks.
Stripe's Potential Paypal Acquisition
Payment processing giant Stripe is considering a deal to buy PayPal, sources say, with talks still in early stages. Stripe's valuation soared to $159 billion in a recent tender offer, led by investors Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital.
Discord Backtracks On Age Verification Plans
Discord is delaying its global rollout of age verification until 2026, after facing backlash from users over concerns about ID sharing and facial scans, and will offer alternative verification methods, including credit card verification.
Changelog
Meta - Brings Instagram App with Reels to Google TV Devices, Taking On YouTube's Dominance in TV Streaming Space
Vercel Chat SDK - Unified TypeScript library for building chatbots across multiple platforms, including Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, Discord, GitHub, and Linear.
Website Wednesday
LLM Tools - Simon Willison's Tools is a collection of over 180 lightweight, browser-based utilities built primarily via prompt-driven development. It includes diverse tools for LLM debugging, media conversion, text processing, and data visualization. Designed as a playground for low-stakes experiments, the site provides developers with practical, single-purpose apps for everything from OCR to Bluesky analytics.
Scrape This Site - Scrape This Site is a public sandbox designed for practicing web scraping - specifically tailored to teach different technical challenges. Developers can use it to master everything from simple HTML parsing and pagination to complex scenarios involving AJAX, JavaScript rendering, and iframe-embedded content.
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!
Top CSS Developers from across the globe are competing in a showdown beginning on March 6th where they attempt to replicate a UI using only HTML and CSS. More details here.
Miscellaneous
In Defense Of Not Reading The Code
The output of code isn’t just the code itself, it’s the product. The skills that matter are shifting from syntax and implementation to architecture, specification, and feedback loop design.
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