TLDR 2021-02-10

Decentralizing Twitter 🐦, Shopify Facebook integration 🛍️, mastering git 💻

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Big Tech & Startups

Shopify's payment option to be added to Facebook, Instagram (1 minute read)

Shopify is expanding its Shop Pay payment option to all users selling on Facebook and Instagram. It will be available to Instagram users in the US from Tuesday, and to Facebook users in the coming weeks. Customers will be able to use Shop Pay alongside other payment options such as Facebook Pay. This is the first time the feature has been made available outside Shopify's platform.

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey wants to build an app store for social media algorithms (2 minute read)

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wants people to be able to choose which algorithm controls their social media content from a marketplace, rather than relying on a single company to get it right. This will be a part of how decentralized social networks will work. Companies will have access to much more data on a decentralized network. They will compete based on how they can serve relevant content to users. Decentralization could help platforms deal with laws around user-created content. Twitter has been developing Bluesky, a decentralized social network, since the end of 2019. It is still firmly in the research phase.
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Science & Futuristic Technology

Hyundai latest concept 'car' walks to places it can't drive (2 minute read)

Hyundai's Tiger X-1 is a vehicle that has long, bendable legs that it can use if its wheels can't get it to where it needs to go. It can drive in any direction, using either its wheels or legs. The legs can bend as the vehicle goes over uneven terrain, keeping the cargo area level. Hyundai designed the vehicle to be used for difficult rescue operations following natural disasters. It can be connected to an aerial drone to be flown to any location. Hyundai estimates that it needs at least another five years before the Tiger will be ready for the real world.

Antibiotic Game-Changer: Phages Can Anticipate Bacteria’s Location and Destroy Them Before They Cause an Infection (4 minute read)

Phages are viruses that specialize in invading and killing specific bacteria. Many phages have trouble fighting bacteria in the gut due to a sticky protein called mucin. Researchers have found a rare phage that can be used to target and kill specific bacteria, even in the gut. They were able to demonstrate its effectiveness on bacteria inside complex environments with lab studies. It is the first case where a bacterial infection has been treated with the use of targeted drugs.
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Programming, Design & Data Science

Getting The Most Out Of Git (10 minute read)

This article explores some less known, but very useful features in Git. It teaches the reader how to recover deleted commits, clean up commit histories, use submodules to manage third-party code, and more. A cheat sheet that lists the most important Git commands is linked.

How Lyft discovered OpenStreetMap is the Freshest Map for Rideshare (6 minute read)

Lyft recently conducted a study to test OpenStreetMap's map quality. OSM is used by millions of people around the world for many purposes. It was created by, and is maintained by, a community of contributors. After three months of study, Lyft found that OSM had a very high-quality road network in the cities tested and that the community was able to maintain the map at a reliably fresh standard. Lyft's survey design is potentially valuable for any study of map quality relative to ground-truth.
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Miscellaneous

The mysterious photo of a purple flower that receives 78 million hits each day (4 minute read)

An image hosted by Wikimedia Commons has been receiving around 78 million hits a day since roughly June 29 last year. The photo of the purple daisy now accounts for 20% of data requests to the organization's servers. It is unknown where the traffic is coming from, except that it is likely to be from a mobile app. It appears that the mysterious app's developers copied code that links to the image. The app is likely an Indian TikTok clone as the traffic coincides with the date that TikTok was banned in the country.

Mass Over-The-Air Update Of Tesla Cars Captured On Video (1 minute read)

Footage of hundreds of Tesla cars receiving their over-the-air updates at the same time was captured at a logistics center recently. In the video, the cars’ emergency lights flash as they receive the update. The update was pushed using a standard LTE connection. Tesla can improve basically everything in its cars through these updates. The 38-second video is available in the article.
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