🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #213

Happy Thursday! One day closer to the weekend!

#UberAuto - BIG GOSSIP folks! Uber has changed the way it charges for auto rides in India. Instead of charging a commission at the end of the journey, Uber now suggests a fare. The company has decided to move to a subscription model, or a Software-as-a-Service. Drivers will now pay a fee to use the platform, and users pay cash or UPI, no digital payments or Uber credits, sounds like a blast from the past, and users are not happy.

#PerplexityAI - Deepseek unseated OpenAI’s models with its R1 model. But this was heavily censored (seriously, try asking it anything anti China or about North East part of India and it behaves weirdly). Anyway Perplexity just released a new version of R1 that's all about being unbiased and factual, which is a big deal because the original was caught censoring topics related to China, and now it's available for anyone to use.

#AmazonInspire - It did not make it to the Indian Markets yet, but it may never make it now. Amazon is reportedly killing Inspire, its short-form video and photo feed for discovering products. The feed, launched back in 2022, offered a TikTok-like interface, allowing users to discover and shop products from other customers, influencers, and brands.

Reliance Jio Launches Jiotele OS, A Cutting-edge Smart TV Operating System
Reliance Jio launches JioTele OS, a cutting-edge smart TV operating system. The operating system aims to revolutionise Indian homes by providing a cost-effective, high-end, and content-rich smart TV platform. Jio termed it a "next-generation platform" and said it was designed to meet the demands of Indian customers.

Gaganyaan Mission To Send Fruit Flies To Space
The Gaganyaan mission, slated for 2025, will send fruit flies to space to study kidney stone formation in microgravity. Fruit flies are chosen due to their 77% genetic similarity with humans, making them ideal for space-based health research. The mission aims to uncover genetic and molecular factors behind kidney stones to enhance space travel health strategies.

Google Opens New Office In Bengaluru, Named Ananta
Google just opened a massive new office in Bengaluru, India, and it's one of their biggest in the world! They named it Ananta, which means "infinite" in Sanskrit, symbolizing their limitless tech possibilities. The office is super cool, with features like electro-chromic glass, tactile flooring for the visually impaired, and lots of greenery. They also made sure it's sustainable, recycling wastewater and using local materials.

Nvidia Unveils RTX 5070 Ti: A Capable GPU For 4k Gaming
Nvidia just released the RTX 5070 Ti, which is a more affordable alternative to their high-end GPUs. It's got 8,960 CUDA cores and 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, making it a solid choice for 4K gaming. The best part is that it supports multi-frame generation in DLSS 4, which makes gameplay super smooth.

Fiverr Unveils AI-powered Tools To Help Freelancers Thrive
Fiverr is a gig marketplace that connects freelancers with clients. Today, they announced a new program that lets freelancers train AI on their work and use it to automate future jobs, ensuring they receive proper credit and compensation. This move aims to make freelancers "irreplaceable, not obsolete" in a market impacted by cheap generative AI tech.

Facebook - Live videos will now be stored for 30 days before being automatically deleted, with users given 90 days to download, transfer, or convert content before deletion.

Bluesky - Added "Followers Only" option to restrict replies to posts and a "Search Posts" feature for user profiles.

YouTube Android TV - You can now view live lyrics for music video content.

Google Meet - Added automatic generation of action items with due dates and assigned stakeholders at the end of meetings using Gemini-powered note-taking feature.

ESLint - Added CSS linting support with @eslint/css plugin.

Microsoft Edge - Up to 40% faster load times for 14 different UI components, including Favorites and Downloads, thanks to the adoption of WebUI 2.0.

Apache Kafka Meets Apache Iceberg: Real-Time Data Streaming - Kasun Indrasiri’s talk at GOTO Chicago 2024 explores how Kafka enables real-time data streaming and why Apache Iceberg is becoming essential for data lakes and warehouses. He discusses Iceberg’s benefits, including schema evolution and ACID transactions, and demonstrates how Confluent Tableflow simplifies streaming Kafka data into Iceberg tables. A live demo showcases seamless integration for real-time analytics.

The Easiest Way to Add Animations to Your Website - Mike Hartington’s JSNation US 2024 talk explores View Transitions, a new web feature that simplifies animations without complex JavaScript or heavy math. He explains how developers can leverage this technology to create smooth, compelling animations by letting the browser handle transitions, making animation more accessible and efficient for modern web apps.

Terminal Tweaks
A developer's morning experiment with their Terminal setup leads to discoveries of useful tools

Preparing For AI-driven Software Engineering
As AI-powered coding tools improve, software engineers must adapt. Short-term, learn AI and acquire status to stay ahead. Medium-term, focus on legacy code, which will be harder for AI to master. Long-term, develop skills that require accountability and trust, as AI may struggle to replicate human responsibility and decision-making.

MERN Stack Oversaturation
MERN's popularity has led to oversaturation in the job market, making it harder for junior developers to stand out. Companies now seek skills beyond basic MERN, such as Next.js, data structures, and DevOps, to differentiate candidates in a crowded field.