🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #242

Happy Wednesday! The weekend is within reach!

#ChatGPT - It’s been making waves with the image generation feature, but now they got a million new users in JUST ONE HOUR, talk about demand! Meanwhile, artists are still fuming about their work being used without credit, and the CEO is just over here using a Studio Ghibli-inspired meme as their profile pic, no less.

#Twitter - Elon's got a huge problem on his hands, a massive data leak exposing 2.8 billion Twitter users' info, and he's been quiet about it, meanwhile a disgruntled employee might be behind the leak.

#CorporateEspionage - Two HR companies. Deel and Rippling. One case of corporate espionage. So, Deel's CEO Alex Bouaziz's dad is in hot water, allegedly orchestrating a massive corporate spy scheme to steal from competitor Rippling. The spy got caught and locked himself in a bathroom, refusing to hand over his phone, saying "I'm willing to take that risk".

Physicswallah In Advanced Talks To Acquire Drishti IAS Institute
PhysicsWallah is an edtech unicorn that offers online learning platforms, founded by Alakh Pandey in 2016 as a YouTube channel, now valued at $2.8 billion. It's reportedly in talks to acquire Drishti IAS Institute, an offline coaching firm, for around Rs 2,500-3,000 crore, and is also preparing for its initial public offering (IPO) to raise $500 million at a valuation of $5 billion.

Zomato Fires 600 Customer Support Staff
Zomato is a popular Indian food delivery and restaurant discovery platform. They had hired 1,500 customer support associates under a program promising career growth, but 600 of them were let go without renewals after a year, sparking criticism from former employees who claim they were treated unfairly and without warning.

Andhra Pradesh Launches Quantum Valley To Boost India's Quantum Computing Capabilities
Andhra Pradesh has initiated a project to establish Quantum Valley, a world-class quantum computing hub in Amaravati. Spearheaded by CM N Chandrababu Naidu, this initiative collaborates with leading institutions such as IIT Madras, IBM, and Tata Consultancy Services.

iOS 18.4 - Introduces Apple Intelligence features, upgrades to Apple News, new emoji, CarPlay changes, and more.

Google Gemini - Added access to Gemini 2.5 Pro (Experimental) for free users with most new AI features, simulated reasoning, and large context window, albeit with limitations.

Firefox - Introduces tab groups, HEVC playback on Linux, PDF signing, and a refreshed address bar with contextual search, unified search button, and calculator functionality.

FFMPEG By Example - FFmpeg by Example is a hands-on guide for tech enthusiasts exploring FFmpeg’s powerful media processing capabilities. It provides practical, real-world examples for tasks like video conversion, compression, and filtering. With a clean layout and easy-to-follow commands, it's a must-bookmark resource for anyone working with multimedia files.

DataViz Project - Data Viz Project is a visual encyclopedia for data visualization enthusiasts. It showcases a wide range of chart types with explanations, use cases, and design tips. Perfect for designers, analysts, and developers, this resource helps users pick the right visualization for their data. A must-bookmark site for anyone passionate about effective data storytelling.

CSS Sweeper - CSS Sweeper is a pure CSS remake of the classic Minesweeper game, bringing nostalgia to the web with modern styling. Hosted on GitHub, it’s an open-source project showcasing the creative potential of CSS without JavaScript. A must-bookmark for developers and CSS enthusiasts looking for inspiration or fun experiments in frontend design.

Basecamp's Cloud Exit
Basecamp is ditching AWS S3 for on-premises storage with Pure Storage, citing a $1.5 million/year cost savings. They're transferring 6 petabytes of data before a June 30 contract expiration to avoid $5,000/day fees.

SSense Overhauls Payment Processing
E-commerce platform SSENSE migrates to asynchronous payment infrastructure to overcome synchronous processing limitations, improving customer experience and operational efficiency amidst rapid growth and high-traffic surges, leveraging event-driven architecture and strategic PSP partnerships.

Rise Of 'Vibe Coding': A Cautionary Tale For New Devs
Andrej Karpathy's recent comments on 'vibe coding' highlight risks of surrendering code comprehension to AI tools. Experts warn of exponential technical debt, security nightmares, and loss of intellectual ownership. As new devs, it's crucial to balance AI assistance with engineering excellence.