A video’s popularity on Instagram can impact its actual quality: in line with Adam Mosseri (executive of Meta, which runs Instagram and Threads), more popular videos are displayed in higher quality, while less popular videos are displayed in lower quality.

In the movie (via The Verge) Mosseri said Instagram strives to display “the highest quality video it can,” but added, “if something isn’t watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views happen initially — we’ll move to lower-quality video.”

This isn’t entirely latest information; Meta wrote last 12 months about using different encoding configurations for various videos depending on their popularity. But after someone shared Mosseri’s video on Threadsmany users had questions and criticisms, and one among them even went further describe the corporate’s approach as “really crazy.”

The discussion prompted Mosseri to offer more details. First of all, him explained that these decisions are made at an “aggregate level, not an individual level”, so this isn’t a situation where the viewer’s individual involvement could have an impact on the standard of the film played for them.

“We focus on higher quality (CPU-intensive encoding and more expensive storage for larger files) for creators who generate more views,” Mosseri added. “It is not a binary value (threshold), but rather a sliding scale.”

Many users have also suggested that this approach creates a system that privileges popular creators over smaller ones – popular creators can post at the best quality, which boosts their popularity, while smaller creators cannot break through.

Mosseri he said is a “valid concern,” but he said, “In practice, it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference because the change in quality isn’t much, and (whether or not) people interact with the videos is much more based on focus on video content rather than quality.” Quality, he said, turns out to be “way more vital to the unique creator.”

Solar panels are almost everywhere. There’s likelihood one among your neighbors has them on their roof, as does the big store down the street. As you drive there, you could see a field of them displayed along the road. With such ubiquity, you would be forgiven for pondering there isn’t any room for improvement.

Venkatesan Murali would really like to prove you unsuitable.

Murali, founder and CTO of the company Merlin Solarhas been working on a brand new approach to solar energy for nearly a decade. He founded the company in 2016, after Solyndra’s spectacular implosion in 2011, as Chinese manufacturers pushed panels down a dizzying cost curve. Murali, nonetheless, remained unmoved, although he learned lessons from this defeat.

“Don’t scare people with something new,” he told TechCrunch. “No new particles, no new physics.”

Instead, Merlin Solar turned to an existing and widely used solar technology, monocrystalline silicon. Solar cells constituted of this material are inexpensive but fragile; to forestall cracking, corporations typically encase monocrystalline silicon in two panels of glass surrounded by a metal frame. This makes the panels heavy and limits where they might be installed.

Murali wanted flexible solar panels, but using monocrystalline silicon was a challenge. “Everything crystalline will eventually crack,” Murali said. “Can we be sure that every electron will find its way, even if a bullet goes through it?”

To answer this query, the company modified the way the cells are connected in the panel. Merlin increased the variety of joints at the front and rear, and between the links made the joints springy in order that they may bounce when bent.

“Suddenly we had a product that was not only crack-resistant, but also electrically crack-resistant,” he said.

Merlin panels are much lighter than a typical glass panel, and their flexible nature changes the way and place of their installation. The panels have adhesive on the packaging, so that they might be stuck to the surface like a toddler’s sticker. The curved design follows the contours of assorted surfaces, allowing for installation on, for instance, the roof of a Winnebago Airstream trailer.

Merlin claims its panels cope higher with partial shading than traditional panels. In a conventional panel, when something like a leaf shades the corner of the cell, energy production drops dramatically. Merlin’s network of connections allows more power to be distributed around the shaded cell.

The added flexibility, light weight and skill to handle shading have made Merlin panels a favourite amongst recreational vehicle owners. The company also sold panels to corporations reminiscent of Perdue, Daimler and Ryder to be used of their trucks, which allowed them to scale back idling or use of fossil fuels to power on-board fridges.

Merlin’s improvements mean its products cost greater than typical solar panels, which has forced the company to get creative with who it sells to. “We are entering spaces where we don’t compete solely on cost,” Murali said. “When I minimize vehicle idling time, I expose myself to the dirty and expensive energy produced by burning diesel fuel. So when I go against it, my return on investment is usually a year and a half.”

In addition to RV owners and shippers, the company can be the rooftop photovoltaics industry, where a good portion of solar panels are installed. To scale its operations, the company recently raised $31 million in Series B funding led by Fifth Wall with participation from Saint Gobain and Ayala.

Merlin hopes that Saint Gobain, one among the largest roofing corporations, will grow to be one among the startup’s largest customers and its panels will go into Saint Gobain solar shingles, said Laura Allen, Merlin’s chief operating officer.

Welcome back to the week in review. This week we have a look at OpenAI’s reported plans for its next AI model; a vibrant recent messaging app that is change into a hit with Gen Z; and Tim Cook discover that you could name a group chat in iMessage. Let’s get on with it.

The Verge noted this week that it is reportedly planning to release OpenAI its next pioneering artificial intelligence model, codenamed Orion, by December. An OpenAI spokesperson denied TechCrunch’s claims, saying: “We have no plans to release a model codenamed Orion this year.” But what this means is anyone’s guess and leaves OpenAI considerable room for maneuver.

Character.AI is the goal of a lawsuit following the suicide of a 14-year-old boy whose mother claims he was obsessive about a chatbot on the platform. The company said it is rolling out recent security measures, including “improved detection, response and intervention” for chats that violate terms of service and notification when a user spends an hour chatting.

Over 100 million people their private health data was stolen in a February ransomware attack on Change Healthcare. For the primary time, UnitedHealth Group, the health insurer that owns the corporate, has released the number of individuals affected by the info breach; the corporate previously said it expected a data breach affecting “a significant portion of people in America.”

News

Mira Murati’s next move: Former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati is reportedly raising greater than $100 million for a recent artificial intelligence startup that will reportedly give attention to constructing artificial intelligence products based on proprietary models. Read more

What’s in a (group chat) name? A recent profile of Tim Cook revealed that he didn’t know you might name group chats in iMessage. Cook has since dubbed the group chat along with his former college roommates simply “Roommates.” Read more

Elon Musk’s conversations with Putin: According to reports, Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the reason that end of 2022. The Wall Street Journal reports that the talks raised national security concerns amongst some intelligence officials. Read more

Let Anthropic control your computer: Anthropic has released an improved version of Claude 3.5 Sonnet that may understand and interact with any desktop application. The model can imitate keystrokes, button clicks and mouse gestures, essentially emulating a person sitting at a computer. Read more

Smart Glasses Success: Ray-Ban Meta’s smart glasses are proving to be a larger success than Meta initially expected. The glasses are the best-selling product in 60% of all Ray-Ban stores in Europe, the Middle East and Africa – even before the introduction of AI features. Read more

Artificial intelligence (gut): Throne is an Austin-based health startup that sells a camera that attaches to the side of your toilet bowl and takes photos of your poop. Currently in beta, the system uses artificial intelligence to look at stools and determine aspects equivalent to gut health and hydration. Read more

Turn your phone into an e-book reader: Bookcase, the most recent technological innovation from Astropad, is a case with a MagSafe mount and an NFC chip that permits you to hold your smartphone like a Kindle, providing more convenient mobile e-book reading. Read more

Midjourney is obtainable online: Midjourney releases an improved tool that permits users to edit any images uploaded from the Internet using generative artificial intelligence. The improved tool will also allow users to retexture objects in images to “repaint” their colours and details in response to the captions. Read more

A less expensive method to buy gasoline: Amazon is offering Prime members a 10-cent-per-gallon discount at roughly 7,000 Amoco, AM/PM and BP gas stations across the U.S. to combat high gas prices and challenge competing service Walmart+. Read more

Messaging app for the subsequent generation: Daze is a creative AI-powered messaging app that’s growing in popularity amongst Gen Z users, with a waiting list of roughly 156,000 sign-ups ahead of its November 4 launch. Read more

A more in-depth have a look at Apple’s hearing aid feature: TechCrunch’s Brian Heater tested Apple’s upcoming accessibility features for AirPods Pro 2, which permit the earbuds to operate as a hearing aid and perform hearing tests. Read more

Analysis

23iMe and You: 23andMe faces an uncertain future amid efforts to make sure its privacy, heightening concerns about what might occur to the genetic data of the corporate’s roughly 15 million customers. If you sent your saliva to 23andMe, you’ll have assumed that, by law, that data would remain private. However, as Carly Page writes, 23andMe isn’t covered by HIPAA and is basically subject only to its own privacy policy, which it can change at any time. However, there may be a straightforward method to request deletion of your data. Read more