Good morning! This is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
On this day, 32 years ago, Microsoft launched Windows 3.1, enhancing multimedia capabilities and modem speeds, which sold three million copies in two months, marking the first widely used version of Windows for many early computer enthusiasts.
In today's Techpresso:
🎵 Spotify moves into AI with new feature
💰 US lands another big Taiwan chip investment
🇬🇧 Microsoft opens AI Hub in London to 'advance state-of-the-art language models'
💡 JPMorgan CEO compares AI’s potential impact to electricity and the steam engine
🚆 San Francisco's train control system still runs on floppy disks, risking a 'catastrophic failure'
🎁 + 9 other news you might like
🔮 + 4 handpicked research papers and tools
🎵 Spotify moves into AI with new featureLINK
Spotify is launching a beta tool enabling Premium subscribers to create playlists using text descriptions on mobile. Users can input various prompts reflecting genres, moods, activities, or even movie characters to receive a 30-song playlist tailored to their request, with options for further refinement through additional prompts. The AI Playlist feature introduces a novel approach to playlist curation, offering an efficient and enjoyable way to discover music that matches specific aesthetics or themes, despite limitations on non-music related prompts and content restrictions.>
💰 US lands another big Taiwan chip investmentLINK
TSMC announces the production of its most advanced 2-nanometer chips in a new Arizona factory by 2028, with support from billions in US government subsidies.
The Taiwanese chip manufacturer plans to increase its US investments to $65 billion and build a third factory in Phoenix, Arizona, supported by the Biden administration's grants and loans under the Chips Act.
The initiative aims to enhance US national security by shifting semiconductor production to the US, with the first Arizona factory starting on 4-nanometer chips next year and later factories to produce even more advanced chips.
🇬🇧 Microsoft opens AI Hub in London to 'advance state-of-the-art language models'LINK
Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and new CEO of Microsoft AI, announced the opening of a new AI hub in London, focusing on advanced language models, under the leadership of Jordan Hoffmann. The hub aims to recruit fresh AI talent for developing new language models and infrastructure, bolstered by Microsoft's £2.5 billion investment in the U.K. over the next three years to support AI economy training and data centre expansion. Suleyman, Hoffmann, and about 60 AI experts recently joined Microsoft through its indirect acquisition of UK-based AI startup Inflection AI.
💡 JPMorgan CEO compares AI’s potential impact to electricity and the steam engineLINK
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon stated AI could significantly impact every job, comparing its potential to revolutionary technologies like the steam engine and electricity. Dimon highlighted AI's importance in his shareholder letter, revealing the bank's investment in over 400 AI use cases and the acquisition of thousands of AI experts and data scientists. He expressed belief in AI's transformative power, equating its future impact to historical milestones such as the printing press, computing, and the internet.
🚆 San Francisco's train control system still runs on floppy disks, risking a 'catastrophic failure'LINK
San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) uses a train control system that still operates on floppy disks, risking a potential "catastrophic failure" if not upgraded.
The floppy-based train control system, first implemented in 1998, is now outdated, with SFMTA director Jeffrey Tumlin emphasizing the increasing risk of data degradation each year.
Upgrading the system is a decade-long process that could cost hundreds of millions, with hopes of funding primarily from state and federal grants.
Other news you might like
Why Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is the internet’s unlikely defender.LINK
Tesla investment in autonomous driving program to exceed $10 billion this year: Musk.LINK
After Bitcoin Surge, Crypto VC Creeps Toward a Comeback.LINK
OpenAI Made Sam Altman Famous. His Investments Made Him A Billionaire..LINK
Teachers are using AI to grade essays. But some experts are raising ethical concerns.LINK
Google files patent for radar-based fall detection system in US.LINK
Ripple CEO predicts crypto market will double in size to $5 trillion by the end of 2024.LINK
This fake Midjourney Facebook page tried to push malware on over a million people.LINK
Google unveils new JPEG encoder for enhanced image quality.LINK
Latest research and tools
Open Parse: a library that enhances file parsing for large language models by visually chunking complex documents, surpassing traditional text splitting methods.LINK
Bonk: a command-line tool for X11 window management that allows users to modify, adjust, and change properties and decorations of windows using various subcommands.LINK
Pixee: a tool that identifies security and code quality issues in your code, offering merge-ready pull requests with fixes.LINK
AutoMQ: a cloud-native, serverless Kafka distribution that autoscales in seconds, promising cost-effective scalability, high reliability, disaster recovery across major cloud providers, low-latency, high throughput, and compatibility with Apache Kafka.LINK
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