🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #142

Happy Wednesday! The weekend is within reach!

#NotificationSummaries - The latest iOS has a feature that summarizes multiple notifications from the same app. However, instead of being useful, users have found it to be funny instead. Check the link out to see some hilarious summaries users have received.

#DarkPatterns - Microsoft Edge has been caught auto-starting on PCs and promising to "enhance your browsing experience" with Copilot. The option to move data from other browsers, i.e., Chrome, is ticked by default. Unlike earlier this year, Microsoft openly admits its dark patterns.

#YouTube - Users have spotted a gesture change in the YouTube app for Android devices. Instead of exiting a fullscreen video, the swipe-down gesture now plays the next video. While it brings consistency to the video player behavior, this change breaks muscle memory.

Indian Airlines To Offer In-flight Wi-fi Services
Indigo and Air India will soon offer in-flight Wi-Fi services to passengers, allowing them to use apps like WhatsApp and YouTube while airborne. The government has finally notified the feature, requiring airlines to set up Wi-Fi connectivity on their planes. With this, passengers can stay connected while flying above 3,000 meters.

Bitcoin Hits New All-time High
Bitcoin traded at $82,321.76 as of 8am ET Monday, up 3% in the last day and 20% in last week. Markets are betting on a strong chance for bitcoin to hit $100,000 by the end of this year.

Apple's New "Inactivity Reboot" Feature Explained
Apple has added a new security feature in iOS 18.1, which automatically reboots iPhones after long idle periods, re-encrypting data and making it harder for law enforcement or hackers to extract it. This feature is called "inactivity reboot" and switches the device's state to Before First Unlock (BFU), making it harder to break using forensic phone unlocking tools, and prevents accessing stored data even by the operating system itself.

Amazon Engaged In Data Breach
Amazon confirmed a data breach involving employee information after data allegedly stolen during the May 2023 MOVEit attacks was leaked on a hacking forum. The threat actor behind this data leak, known as Nam3L3ss, published over 2.8 million lines of Amazon employee data, including names, contact information, building locations, email addresses, and more. The data leaked of the twenty-five companies is similar to a single vendor and has now been released as separate data sets.

Amazon's AR Glasses For Delivery Drivers
Amazon is reportedly developing smart glasses for its delivery drivers, with features such as GPS navigation and building guidance to shave seconds off delivery times.

Meta Quest 3 Launches Virtual Reality Education Program In Europe
Meta is launching a VR education program with a bunch of universities. This “Meta for Education” beta gives these schools early access to VR apps and tools. Leeds, Basque Country, and Hannover now have digital twins, virtual versions of their campuses.

Signal - Introduces Call Links, Reusable Meeting Invites, and Enhanced In-Call Features

Pg Flo | Stream, transform, and route PostgreSQL data in real-time.

Iron Calc | A new, modern, work-in-progress spreadsheet engine and set of tools to work with spreadsheets in diverse settings.

New Developer's Writing Habits
DevEx engineer David Armstrong shares his thoughts on writing. He explains why he writes and why it's useful in a multitude of roles. He also explains how to write for developers.

Best Practices For Organized Projects
A project should have a short one-page readme that is mostly links to more topical documentation. The two most important links are the user docs and the dev docs. A common failure is a Readme growing haphazardly by accretion.

Engineering Management Evolution
Despite initial bias, the author reflects on the changing landscape of engineering management, noting the shift from command-and-control systems to empowered teams, increased awareness of manager damage, and the importance of technical leaders.