Google is launching a cross-device software development kit that will eventually allow apps to play across all devices. 
TLDR

Daily Update 2022-08-29

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Big Tech & Startups

Google opens the door for Android apps that work across all kinds of devices (3 minute read)

Google is launching a cross-device software development kit that will allow apps to play across Android devices and eventually non-Android devices as well. It lets apps discover nearby devices, establish secure connections between devices, and host app experiences across multiple devices. The SDK uses Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and ultra-wideband for multi-device connectivity. It is in developer preview and only works with Android devices for now.
The largest Chinese e-commerce company you have never heard of is about to enter the U.S. with a model to challenge Amazon’s dominance (3 minute read)

Pinduoduo is an e-commerce company that launched in 2015. It has since become one of China's most powerful tech firms. Pinduoduo allows customers to purchase bulk orders directly from manufacturers to reduce costs. The company plans to launch a cross-border e-commerce platform in the US next month. It will follow the model set by Chinese fast-fashion firm Shein to attract American customers.
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Science & Futuristic Technology

NASA is set to launch the Artemis 1 mission on its most powerful rocket yet — here's what you should know (6 minute read)

NASA plans to launch the Artemis I mission today from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission will send the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule on a more than month-long journey around the moon. It will travel about 1.3 million miles over the course of 42 days. The Artemis lunar program aims to land astronauts on the moon by its third mission in 2025. NASA has backup launch dates scheduled for September 2 and September 5 in the event that there are any issues that delay today's launch attempt.
Stable Diffusion Is the Most Important AI Art Model Ever (8 minute read)

Stable Diffusion is an AI art model that is available as open-source. Anyone can use it to build apps targeted for specific text-to-image tasks for free. This article introduces Stable Diffusion and DreamStudio, a no-code, ready-to-use website anyone can use to generate images with Stable Diffusion. The article includes many examples of images generated with Stable Diffusion.
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Programming, Design & Data Science

We just launched Heroicons v2.0! (1 minute read)

Heroicons are hand-crafted SVG icons from the makers of Tailwind CSS. The new version 2.0 features 260 icons redrawn from scratch with a thinner 1.5px stroke and a new 24px solid set. Heroicons are available as first-party React and Vue libraries and official Figma components.
Acorn (Website)

Acorn is an application deployment framework for Kubernetes. It can package up all of an app's Docker images, configuration, and deployment specifications into a single image artifact that is pushable to any OCI container registry, allowing it to be deployed on any dev, test, or production Kubernetes. This allows developers to develop apps locally and move to production without having to switch tools or technology stacks.
Open-source SPL Boosts MongoDB Computing Ability (Sponsor)

SPL has an independent procedural syntax that is particularly good at handling complex computations. It can help MongoDB increase its ability to compute, accomplish grouping and aggregation, joins, subqueries, and all the other computing tasks effortlessly.
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Miscellaneous

Ask HN: Contractors, what is your hourly rate? (Hacker News Thread)

In this Hacker News thread, contractors discuss their rates and rates structures. The thread contains advice on how to charge customers and tips on how to best run a contracting business. Customers who hire contractors value more than just the time and the work they do and pricing structures should reflect that fact.
Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on? (Hacker News Thread)

Many people in the older generation are retiring and there may be a gap in generational knowledge transfer. This Hacker News thread discusses important areas in technology that we may be losing our collective knowledge in. The top replies discuss educational games, using AI to help with knowledge transfer, and how technology is a black box for most people, making things harder to repair.
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Quick Links

Time Till Open Source Alternative (9 minute read)

It is only a matter of time before compelling open source alternatives are developed for all proprietary software.
Radash (GitHub Repo)

Radash is a functional utility library with strong types and zero dependencies.
Why YouTube decided to make its own video chip (8 minute read)

Transcoding videos into the correct format for thousands of devices is costly and the chips YouTube was using were not especially good at it.
FISSURE (GitHub Repo)

FISSURE is an open-source RF and reverse engineering framework with hooks for signal detection and classification, protocol discovery, attack execution, and more.
LastPass source code, blueprints stolen by intruder (2 minute read)

A hacker broke into one of LastPass' developer's accounts and gained access to proprietary data.
DivKit (GitHub Repo)

DivKit is an open source Server-Driven UI framework that allows developers to roll out server-sourced updates to different app versions.

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