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- Inside the Invite-Only API: What Developers Are Quietly Building With GPT-3
GPT-3's private beta API is still closed off, but a growing group of developers is already shipping chatbots, copywriting tools, and code generators on top of it.
- AMD's Ryzen 5000 Chips Just Took the Gaming Crown Back From Intel
AMD's new Zen 3 architecture powers the Ryzen 5000 desktop lineup, with the company claiming double-digit gaming gains and the fastest gaming CPU title.
- A Fast Radio Burst, Finally Traced to a Source We Can Point To
A Nature paper confirms FRB 200428 came from the galactic magnetar SGR 1935+2154, the first fast radio burst ever traced to a source in the Milky Way.
- The RTX 30-Series Shortage Isn't Getting Better Anytime Soon
Nvidia's CEO says demand for RTX 3080/3090 cards is outstripping supply, with shortages likely to run through the end of 2020.
- What to Expect from .NET Conf 2020: The Great Unification
.NET Conf 2020 (Nov 10-12) should ship .NET 5, C# 9, and F# 5, finally merging .NET Framework and Core into one runtime.
- A Femur, a Skull, and a Fight Over Humanity's Oldest Ancestor
A new look at a 7-million-year-old femur from Chad reignites debate over whether Sahelanthropus tchadensis really walked upright.
- October 2020's Biggest Science Stories, In Review
A dense month for fundamental science: a double Nobel, NASA's first asteroid sample grab, and a new record for the shortest measured time.
- Red Ventures Officially Owns CNET Now, and That's a Big Deal
Red Ventures closed its roughly $500 million purchase of CNET Media Group from ViacomCBS, taking over CNET, GameSpot, Metacritic, TVGuide.com, and Chowhound.
- The RTX 3070 Is Finally Here, and It's $499
Nvidia's RTX 3070 launches today at $499 after a two-week delay, the same day Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G hit the US.
- Is AI Actually Writing Code Yet?
A look at Kite, TabNine, and GPT-3's promise for autocomplete-style AI coding tools, and how far they really are from writing features unsupervised.
- NASA Finds Water on the Sunlit Side of the Moon
SOFIA's airborne telescope confirmed molecular water in Clavius Crater, the first detection on a sunlit lunar surface rather than in shadowed polar craters.
- How Among Us Took Over 2020
A 2018 indie game about space imposters became October's biggest entertainment story, fueled by streamers and pandemic boredom.
- SpaceX Quietly Passes Its 100th Successful Flight
SpaceX's third Starlink launch of October marked mission number 100 across Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy since 2006.
- RIAA's DMCA Takedown of youtube-dl Roils Developers
The RIAA got GitHub to pull youtube-dl overnight, and developers are calling it a bad-faith abuse of DMCA Section 1201.
- iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro Hit Stores
Apple's iPhone 12 and 12 Pro go on sale alongside the new iPad Air, bringing 5G, all-OLED screens, and MagSafe to the lineup.
- OSIRIS-REx Grabbed So Much of Bennu Its Sample Capsule Won't Fully Close
NASA says OSIRIS-REx collected so much asteroid material from Bennu that rocks are jamming its sample chamber door open.
- Nitro PDF Breach Exposes 70 Million Email Addresses
Nitro's PDF service disclosed a breach exposing over 70 million email addresses and document titles, now circulating on hacking forums.
- OSIRIS-REx Touches Bennu, Grabs NASA's First Asteroid Sample
NASA's OSIRIS-REx briefly touched down on asteroid Bennu and fired nitrogen gas to collect a sample, the first U.S. asteroid retrieval mission.
- The Console Countdown Is On, and So Is the Panic Buying
With PS5 and Xbox Series X/S launch dates weeks away, October has turned into a preorder scramble over price, stock, and silicon.
- SpaceX Launches Another 60 Starlink Satellites, Nails a Droneship Landing
SpaceX's third Starlink launch in two weeks pushed the constellation toward 800 satellites and marked its 70th straight successful mission.
- Why TypeScript Is Winning Over More Teams
TypeScript keeps climbing GitHub's language rankings as teams trade JavaScript flexibility for compile-time safety and better tooling.
- Physicists Just Clocked the Shortest Time Interval Ever Measured
German researchers measured 247 zeptoseconds for a photon to cross a hydrogen molecule, smashing the previous record for shortest directly measured time span.
- Pixel 5 Goes on Sale, and Google Bets Against the Spec Sheet
Google's Pixel 5 launches today with a mid-range Snapdragon 765G instead of a flagship chip, wagering that battery life and price beat raw benchmarks.
- Ubisoft Connect Replaces Uplay, Just in Time for Valhalla
Ubisoft rebrands Uplay as Ubisoft Connect, unifying achievements and rewards across PC, console, and Stadia as it courts players away from Steam and Epic.
- iPhone 12 Goes 5G: Apple's 'Hi, Speed' Event Recap
Apple's Hi, Speed event brought four new iPhone 12 models with 5G, A14 Bionic, and a revived MagSafe, plus a smaller HomePod mini.
- Mars Sample Return Gets a Technical Green Light
An independent review board says NASA and ESA's plan to bring Mars rock cores back to Earth is technically ready to proceed.
- 5G Phones in 2020: Hype vs. Reality
As 5G iPhones and Pixels hit preorder, the actual U.S. network experience still lags far behind the ads.
- What Developers Are Building With GPT-3 (and Why the API Feels Complicated)
A look at the chatbots, code helpers, and writing tools developers are prototyping on GPT-3's private beta API, and the tension around Microsoft's exclusive license.
- The Nobel Committee Just Rewarded the Ultimate Editing Tool
Charpentier and Doudna win the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for CRISPR-Cas9, the first all-woman team to win a Nobel science prize.
- AMD's Ryzen 5000 Chips Just Made Zen 3 the Gaming Story of the Year
AMD unveiled four Zen 3 desktop CPUs claiming a 19% IPC gain and up to 26% faster gaming, all drop-in compatible with existing AM4 boards.