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Microsoft’s futuristic Project Silica stores data on glass plates

Plus: What's happening in Chrome Extensions

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Cash Nut
October 18, 2023

In Today’s Edition

  • This startup CEO claims he can completely decarbonize the cement industry

  • Working in Silicon Valley used to be fun. Now it's just another miserable corporate gig

  • Netflix's first live sports broadcast will be a golf tournament between PGA Tour pros and F1 drivers

  • Walmart beefs up its third-party marketplace as it challenges bigger online rival Amazon

  • Microsoft’s futuristic ‘Project Silica’ stores data on glass plates for 10,000 years

  • What's happening in Chrome Extensions?

  • Figure's humanoid is already walking and performing autonomous tasks

🚀Startups Nuts

Brimstone Energy is trying to reduce carbon emissions from the production of cement by using calcium silicate rock, which contains no CO2. It will use a patented technology to remove the calcium from the rock. The company has received certification that its product is essentially the same as Portland cement. Its technology produces cheaper cement than what is currently available. Brimstone hopes that its process will lead to the industry using a fully decarbonized system.

Employee satisfaction among tech workers has plummeted, falling in line with workers in finance and consulting. Reported ratings of work-life balance and compensation are down and many workers are struggling to find a new gig in tech.

🏭Business Nuts

Netflix will broadcast the Netflix Cup golf tournament on November 14. The eight-hole tournament will pitch a team of four PGA Tour pros against four Formula 1 golfers. All eight participants were key participants in the Netflix docuseries 'Drive to Survive'. The tournament could set the stage for a future foray into live sports rights for Netflix.

Walmart is banking on its third-party online marketplace to boost holiday sales. While Walmart is the biggest retailer, its e-commerce business is still much smaller than rival Amazon. Online sales for Walmart U.S. rose sharply recently, while other major retailers such as Macy’s and Target reported declines.

📱Tech Nuts

Microsoft Research's Project Silica is testing the storage of huge amounts of data on glass plates using three-dimensional pixels called voxels. The plates can store data for thousands of years. Each plate can store several terabytes of data. The data inside each plate can't be changed once written. Project Silica is still in its early stages and it will be some time before the technology can be used commercially.

This article looks at some of the changes the Chrome extension team has made over the past few months and some of the new features that will come out later this year. Some of the highlights include improved Service Worker stability and the launch of the Runtime and Side Panel APIs. Upcoming changes include the addition of a UserScripts API, a ReadingList API, and an increase in the limit on enabled static rulesets. The Chrome Web Store has been redesigned.

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🎁Miscellaneous

Figure has released video footage of its humanoid robot. The robot was designed with the aim of making it useful as quickly as possible. Figure's team achieved bipedal walking in less than 12 months, a record for a brand-new humanoid initiative. The company aims to show the prototype doing useful work by the end of the year. This article contains photos and a video of the robot as well as an interview with Figure's founder Brett Adcock.

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

😎Fun Fact

The world's first recorded stock exchange, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, was established in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company

🔥 Hot Book of the Day

You might believe you’re thinking clearly in the moments that matter most. But in all likelihood, when the pressure is on, you won’t be thinking at all. And your subsequent actions will inevitably move you further from the results you ultimately seek—love, belonging, success, wealth, victory.

According to Farnam Street founder Shane Parrish, we must get better at recognizing these opportunities for what they are, and deploying our cognitive ability in order to achieve the life we want.

Clear Thinking gives you the tools to recognize the moments that have the potential to transform your trajectory, and reshape how you navigate the critical space between stimulus and response. As Parrish shows, we may imagine we are the protagonists in the story of our lives. But the sad truth is, most of us run on autopilot.

Our behavioral defaults, groomed by biology, evolution, and culture, are primed to run the show for us if we don’t intervene. At our worst, we react to events without reasoning, not even realizing that we’ve missed an opportunity to think at all. At our best, we recognize these moments for what they are, and apply the full capacity of our reasoning and rationality to them.

“Few things will change your trajectory in life or business as much as learning to think clearly. Yet few of us recognize opportunities to think in the first place.”

🐦Joke of the Day

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