Price war intensifies as Am=
azon reportedly targets Chinese sellers offering cheap goods on Temu (3 min=
ute read)
Amazon has reportedly instructed some o=
f its Chinese cross-border merchants to stop listing lower-priced products =
on Temu. Temu has seen rapid growth in its market share in the US - it was =
the most downloaded free app in the country in 2024. The site's aggressive =
pricing strategy has forced Amazon to take action. Amazon has responded to =
the rumors by stating that sellers have the freedom to determine their own =
sales strategies and can set prices for their products on Amazon and other =
sales channels.
|
Meta to Add Displays to Ray=
Ban Smart Glasses in 2025 (2 minute read)
Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses may get di=
splays as soon as the second half of 2025. The new displays will be used to=
show notifications and responses from Meta's virtual assistant. Plans to t=
urn Orion, its augmented reality glasses prototype, into a consumer product=
have been brought forward, though a release is still likely to be years aw=
ay. More big tech firms, like Qualcomm, Samsung, and Google, are entering i=
nto the mixed-reality glasses space. Apple may be releasing a cheaper versi=
on of the Apple Vision Pro at some point after 2027.
|
|
Science & Futuristic Technology
|
AI decodes the calls of the=
wild (50 minute read)
Animal communications have patterns and=
structures that convey information to other members of that animal's speci=
es. A growing number of biologists and computer scientists are applying AI =
to animal sounds to reveal what they are saying to each other. AI-assisted =
studies have found that both African savannah elephants and common marmoset=
monkeys give names to their companions. As these computer models improve, =
they may enable scientists to investigate animals' self-awareness.
|
Transparent bamboo: A firep=
roof and waterproof alternative to glass (3 minute read)
Chinese scientists have turned bamboo i=
nto a transparent material that is resistant to fire and water and suppress=
es smoke. The team used the same method used to turn wood transparent to tu=
rn the bamboo transparent - bamboo's internal structure and chemical compos=
ition is very similar to wood. The resulting transparent bamboo can be used=
as a building material. When used as a substrate for perovskite solar cell=
s, it acts like a light management layer, boosting cells' power conversion =
efficiency by 15.29%.
|
|
Programming, Design & Data Science
|
Shortest (GitHub Repo)
Shortest is an AI-powered natural langu=
age end-to-end testing framework. It lets developers write tests in plain E=
nglish and let AI handle the execution. Shortest uses Anthropic's Claude AP=
I. It is built on Playwright and has GitHub integration with 2FA support.
|
A CSS Wishlist for 2025 (10=
minute read)
2024 was a great year for CSS. Several =
features, including cross-document view transitions, scroll-driven animatio=
ns, anchor positioning, and animate to height: auto were introduced. This a=
rticle suggests more CSS features that developers want, such as a condition=
al if() statement, CSS mixins, anchor positioning in more browsers, and a w=
ay to balance flex-wrap.
|
|
AI Models Are Getting Smart=
er. New Tests Are Racing to Catch Up (13 minute read)
Evaluations (or evals) help researchers=
understand what advanced AI systems can do. Designing effective evals is c=
hallenging and expensive and the field is underfunded. Modern AI systems re=
gularly achieve top scores on many popular evals, making it harder to judge=
how quickly they are improving. Companies, nonprofits, and governments hav=
e created new sets of much more challenging evals in response, but AI syste=
ms are making astonishing progress, even on the most advanced tests.
|
Mark Zuckerberg went all in=
on Meta's AI strategy this year. The pressure builds in 2025 (13 minute re=
ad)
Meta said in April that it would raise =
spending levels by as much as $10 billion to support infrastructure investm=
ents for its AI efforts. The announcement sent shares plunging, but several=
months later, Meta's stock price has hit a new record. AI has become Meta'=
s top priority, directly impacting the company's business and potentially p=
aving the way for future revenue opportunities. This all-encompassing appro=
ach to AI has led analysts to predict that Meta will be positioned for more=
success in 2025.
|
|
|
Love TLDR? Tell your friends and get rewards!
|
|
Share your referral link below with friends to get free TLDR swag!
|
|
|
|
|
Track your referrals here.
|
|
Want to advertise in TLDR? =F0=9F=93=B0
|
If your company is interested in reaching an audience of tech executives, d=
ecision-makers and engineers, you may want to advertise with us.
If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email!
Thanks for reading,
Dan Ni & Stephen Flanders
|
|
|
|