🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #186

Hello, Tuesday! Let's make progress today!

#Infosys - An (Ex) Infosys employee trashes the company on LinkedIn, claims unfair workload and toxic client environment. The employee also said that despite consistent effort and recognition from peers and seniors, there was no tangible reward such as financial growth, promotions, or career advancement. He is also accusing the company of having a bias based on linguistic preferences.

#iPhone17Air - Apple’s next major iPhone upgrade will include a new model called the iPhone 17 Air. The phone is also supposed to be Apple's thinnest smartphone yet.

#WhatsApp - Internal tech industry emails surface in public records. WhatsApp's Jan Koum and Brian Acton had concerns about WeChat back in 2012, but didn't think it was a major threat, with Koum even joking that their own server outages were a bigger problem.

Microsoft India Rules Out Layoffs Amid Global Job Cuts
Microsoft has around 20,000 employees in India out of a global workforce of 228,000. Today, the company's India president announced that there will be no layoffs in India, despite a less than 1% global workforce reduction. This comes as Microsoft invests $3 billion to expand its Azure infrastructure in India, aiming to boost AI and computing capabilities. This move will create more jobs in the country.

HCL Tech Postpones Pay Raise For Senior Staff, Gives Partial Increases To Juniors
HCLTech is the third-largest IT services provider in India. Today, they postponed pay raises for senior to management-level staff due to uncertain spending and a challenging environment, instead giving partial 1-2% raises to junior staff.

Indichip Semiconductors, Andhra Pradesh Govt Sign MOU For INR 14,000 Cr Semiconductor Facility
Indichip Semiconductors is an Indian semiconductor manufacturing company, and Yitoa Micro Technology is a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer. They've signed a deal with the Andhra Pradesh government to build a new semiconductor facility, investing INR 14,000 Cr to produce Silicon Carbide chips.

Mastodon Transfers Ownership To Non-profit Entity
Mastodon the social network that's like Twitter, but decentralized, meaning it's not controlled by one company. Today, its founder Eugen Rochko announced that he's transferring ownership to a non-profit organization in Europe, ensuring the platform won't be controlled by a single person, unlike Facebook and Twitter. This move aligns with Rochko's original vision for Mastodon and nothing should change for users in the short term.

US Cracks Down On AI Chip Exports
The US just announced new rules to control who can buy powerful AI chips, basically the brain behind AI models like ChatGPT. They're worried that if these chips fall into the wrong hands, it could be bad for national security. They're splitting the world into 3 tiers and setting limits on who can buy these chips, with allies like the UK and Australia having no restrictions, while countries like China and Russia are still banned."

Mercedes-Benz Virtual Assistant - Introduces Automotive AI Agent integration with Google Cloud for conversational search and real-time Google Maps updates.

OpenAI Structured Outputs Samples | Sample apps to help developers get started with Structured Outputs in OpenAI

Cloudypad | Free, Open Source alternative to GeForce Now, Blacknut and similar Cloud Gaming platforms. Deploy your own gaming gear in the Cloud!

Broccoli | A robust message queue system for Rust applications, designed as a Rust alternative to Celery.

Accessible Front-end Development Essentials
The key accessibility principles every front-end developer should apply when building components. Most examples in this article use React, but the principles apply to any front- end app.

Traits Of A Strong Engineer
Self-belief, pragmatism, speed, and technical ability are key traits of a strong engineer. Strong engineers have confidence in their abilities, prioritize working solutions, work fast, and possess a baseline level of technical skill. They are ruthless pragmatists, focusing on shipping and making compromises when necessary. Speed and efficiency are also essential, allowing them to experiment, find solutions, and tackle complex tasks.

RSA Security Breach
Researchers cracked a 512-bit RSA key used by Redfin, a real estate company, due to its insecure DKIM configuration. The key was factored using CADO-NFS and a cloud server, taking 86 hours. This highlights the importance of using secure key lengths in cryptography.