Apple's iPhone 16 brings parity between regular videos and slow motion
in terms of image quality and dynamic range and introduces a new
feature


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TLDR

TLDR 2025-01-01

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BIG TECH & STARTUPS

A BILLION PIXELS A SECOND: I GOT A RARE LOOK INSIDE APPLE'S SECRET
IPHONE 16 CAMERA LABS (14 MINUTE READ) [4]

Apple's iPhone 16 brings parity between regular videos and slow
motion in terms of image quality and dynamic range. It also introduces
a new feature that allows users to adjust the quality of the audio on
videos they record by moving around a few sliders in the Photos app.
This article looks into how Apple designed these features. It takes a
tour through Apple's labs to see how the company tests and calibrates
its technology.

X CEO YACCARINO: X MONEY PAYMENT SYSTEM WILL LAUNCH IN 2025 (2 MINUTE
READ) [5]

X is launching a platform payment system called X Money this year.
The platform will have its own currency. It is unknown how it will tie
into fiat currency. Elon Musk's influence means that the platform may
involve crypto integration.

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SCIENCE & FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY

O3, OH MY (53 MINUTE READ) [6]

OpenAI presented o3 the Friday before Christmas. o3 improves on some
of the most challenging benchmarks and represents substantial progress
in general-domain reasoning with reinforcement learning. It
potentially ranks as one of the best competitive programmers in the
world. This article looks at o3, its strengths and weaknesses, how o3
impacts the AI industry, and much more.

IN 2025, PEOPLE WILL TRY LIVING IN THIS UNDERWATER HABITAT (7 MINUTE
READ) [7]

Ocean exploration organization Deep has embarked on a multiyear quest
to enable scientists to live on the seafloor at depths of up to 200
meters. It aims to develop and test a small modular habitat called
Vanguard this year. The underwater shelter is capable of housing up to
three divers for up to a week. It is a stepping stone to a more
permanent modular habitat system called Sentinel set to launch in
2027. Deep aims to have a permanent human presence in the ocean by
2030.

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PROGRAMMING, DESIGN & DATA SCIENCE

THINGS WE LEARNED ABOUT LLMS IN 2024 (37 MINUTE READ) [8]

The GPT-4 barrier was comprehensively broken in 2024 - some of those
models can run on consumer laptops. Last year saw prices crash thanks
to competition and increased efficiency, with models developing more capabilities. A lot happened in the world of large language models
last year - this article provides a review of the things researchers
figured out in the last twelve months.

WHY IT'S HARD TO TRUST SOFTWARE, BUT YOU MOSTLY HAVE TO ANYWAY (42
MINUTE READ) [9]

Most people who use software have to just trust that the manufacturer
is honest. There is no practical way to determine whether software
really does what the manufacturer says it does, even if it is open
source. While there are some technologies that have the potential to
reduce the amount of trust required, there isn't any plausible way to
reduce things down to the level where there aren't a number of single
points of trust. This problem isn't likely to be solved anytime soon.

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MISCELLANEOUS

THE COLLAPSE OF MID-RANGE SMARTPHONES (2 MINUTE READ) [10]

The mid-range smartphone segment, which includes devices between $200
to $600, will plummet to a projected 23% in 2027 from 35% in 2021. The
demand for the range has declined due to a lack of revolutionary
technology upgrades and a more conservative consumption of middle
class amid macro challenges. Premium devices are expected to account
for 74% of industry revenues by 2027, up from 56% in 2021. The used
and refurbished phone markets have grown.

US TREASURY IS LATEST VICTIM OF MOST `PERSISTENT' HACKING THREAT (7
MINUTE READ) [11]

The US Treasury Department disclosed on Monday that Chinese
state-sponsored hackers had breached its network via a third-party
provider. Details of the hack remain scant, but it is known that the
hackers accessed some unclassified documents. Chinese officials have
denied the state's involvement in the attack. China's hacking
capabilities have increased over the last decade as the country built
up its talent.

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QUICK LINKS

WILL SMITH EATING SPAGHETTI AND OTHER WEIRD AI BENCHMARKS THAT TOOK
OFF IN 2024 (3 MINUTE READ) [12]

A look at the weird AI benchmarks the internet has invented, like
Connect 4, Minecraft, and Will Smith eating spaghetti.

MY 25-YEAR ADVENTURE IN AI AND ML (6 MINUTE READ) [13]

A look over the major AI/ML projects that Austin Z. Henley, Associate
Teaching Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, worked on during his
25-year career.

10 BIG PREDICTIONS FOR 2025 (6 MINUTE READ) [14]

10 big things that could happen this year according to M.G. Siegler,
a writer and investor from London.

TECH PACE LAYERS (2 MINUTE READ) [15]

The Pace Layering framework is great for thinking about how different ecosystems and emergent forces interact.

GLUE WORK CONSIDERED HARMFUL (3 MINUTE READ) [16]

'Glue work' is the large amount of unglamorous work that every team
needs in order to be efficient.

`SQUID GAME' SEASON 2 PREMIERE BREAKS SEVERAL NETFLIX RECORDS WITH
68 MILLION VIEWS (1 MINUTE READ) [17]

The second season of 'Squid Game' ranked as the number one
most-watched show on Netflix in 92 countries.

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Dan Ni & Stephen Flanders

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[5] https://watcher.guru/news/x-ceo-yaccarino-x-money-payment-system-will-launch-in-2025#google_vignette?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
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[13] https://austinhenley.com/blog/25yearsofai.html?utm_source=tldrnewsletter [14] https://spyglass.org/10-big-predictions-for-2025/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
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