It's a terrific Tuesday - let's keep pushing forward!
Geek Gossip
#WhatsApp - WhatsApp is testing a new subscription tier, similar to Instagram Plus and Snapchat+ The paid plan’s features are largely cosmetic; users don’t get many additional functional features. There is no mention of ad removal from the Status feature.
#Meta - Meta will begin companywide layoffs on 20 May, cutting approximately 8,000 employees, or 10% of its global workforce. Additional cuts are planned for the second half of 2026, though their timing and scope have not been finalised. The restructuring is driven by a reallocation toward AI infrastructure costing $115-135 billion in 2026.
#Copilot - Github CoPilot has paused signups for the individual subscription plans, to allocate resources better to existing ones.
#FakeStars - Did you know that the stars on a GitHub project could be paid promotions? Apparently, repository owners are trying to jack up the stars on their GitHub project to make it look more popular than it is.
Latest Updates
Apple's New Leadership Era: Tim Cook Steps Down, John Ternus Takes The Helm
Tim Cook will step down as CEO of Apple on September 1st, 2026. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take over as CEO. Cook will become executive chairman of the board.
Vercel Suffers Major Breach, Hackers Claim To Have Stolen Customer Data
Cloud app hosting giant Vercel this weekend said hackers had breached its internal systems and accessed customer data. Hackers have claimed they have stolen sensitive customer credentials from Vercel’s systems and are selling the data online.
Changelog
Google Photos - Introduces new touch-up tools for subtle skin refinements, blemish removal, and eye enhancements.
Trending Projects / Code Repositories
Pgque | Zero-bloat Postgres queue. One SQL file to install, pg_cron to tick.
Mdv | MDV - a Markdown superset for documents, dashboards, and slides with embedded data and visualizations. HTML + PDF export, live preview, VS Code extension.
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!
Miscellaneous
How The Heck Does Shazam Work?
Learn about hexadecimal to song code conversion, a technique used in computer science to represent binary data as a sequence of notes. You will learn how to convert hexadecimal numbers to song code, understand the significance of this conversion, and see examples of how it is used in music synthesis and data representation.
MDN Frontend Overhaul
MDN has overhauled its frontend to make it easier to work on the site. The new frontend is written in Markdown and compiled into HTML and JavaScript. The resulting HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files are uploaded to cloud buckets.
Attention Subscribers
Every two weeks, on Friday at 7 PM IST, we distribute a “BONUS EDITION” featuring highly valuable links. These special editions are exclusively sent to our most dedicated and engaged subscribers. To ensure you receive these editions, please take the following actions:
1. Regularly open our emails. We track email open rates to identify our most active subscribers.
2. Engage with the links in our newsletter. While we provide concise summaries, your engagement is equally important.
Your active participation ensures you continue to receive these exclusive benefits. Thank you for your ongoing support and engagement.
If you are seeing the bonus edition posts in your SPAM folder, please do us a favour and mark it as NOT SPAM.
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.
