🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #161

Happy Tuesday! You're halfway to the weekend! NOTTT! :P

#UCLA - A UCLA class will feature a textbook, homework assignments, and TA resources generated by AI. The materials are generated by Kudu, an “evolved” textbook platform. The university says this will be the first class in its humanities division with materials developed by AI.

#TokyoTales - How do you prevent students from China applying to your university as a global student? Tokyo Univeristy is being accused of preventing Chinese students from applying to their courses - by injecting the word “Tiananmen Square” on their HTML page - which would cause the Great Firewall of China to prevent the college’s website from being displayed in China!

#ItchIo - Itch[dot]io is a very popular website for indie games. Well, an AI powered Brand Protection Software generated a bogus phishing report for the domain - and caused the domain to be taken down!

#Samsung - Looks like Samsung is copying Google's homework, launching an "Audio Eraser" feature that's basically a carbon copy of Google's "Audio Magic Eraser"...

#RedditAnswers - So it looks like Reddit is trying to become a one-stop shop for answers, introducing a new AI-powered search feature that summarizes conversations and posts in a conversational interface, but VP of product Serkan Piantino insists it's not trying to steal Google's thunder, rather guide users towards relevant content.

Unacademy Not For Sale, Says CEO Gaurav Munjal
Unacademy is a popular Indian edtech startup, and there were rumors about its potential sale to Allen Career Institute. But CEO Gaurav Munjal has denied this, stating they have a long-term vision and are committed to building Unacademy for the future, with a strong financial position and impressive growth, particularly in their offline business and unit economics.

YouTube Music - Added timestamp-sharing toggle in the share sheet, allowing users to share specific moments from a song.

WhatsApp - Fixed a bug that allowed malicious users to save pictures and videos sent using the "View Once" privacy feature.

X - Increases minimum threshold for verified followers to 2,000 for creator revenue share program, adds ability to request price changes for subscriptions, and introduces verified follower count in account analytics.

Seek Storm | Sub-millisecond full-text search library & multi-tenancy server in Rust

Stagehand | An AI web browsing framework focused on simplicity and extensibility.

CSS Wrapped
As the year comes to an end, here’s a summary of all the CSS Features released this year.

Dive Into 7 Databases In 7 Weeks
Explore PostgreSQL, SQLite, DuckDB, ClickHouse, FoundationDB, TigerBeetle, and CockroachDB in this in-depth guide, covering their features, extensions, and use cases, from client-server models to local-first architectures and query-anything data.**

Lessons From A New Manager
Palantir's Engineering Leadership shares insights on pitfalls to avoid as an Individual Contributor (IC) transitions to a manager, including reluctance to delegate, seeking direct rewards, and managing perception, with a focus on empowerment, trust, and communication.