Andrew Colombi is a 38 year old tech guy from way back. At 12 years old, he wanted to play a computer game, but lacked the RAM to load it. After digging into the internal configuration to delay the load of peripherals, he was hooked on computers and eventually, coding. Outside of tech, he is picking back up learning piano, and really enjoys biking. He mentioned he just got a new gravel bike, which is a street bike with a front suspension.
In the past, Andrew frequently worked with data that was private, with other users not having access. So, he had to create fake data, for multiple different projects. When he tried to do this, it took him much longer than anticipated, and it was incredibly valuable for multiple uses (stress testing and demos to name a few). This was key to eventually building a real tool for this, and starting a new adventure.
Is language really unique to humans? New research suggests maybe not.
Not for the first time, Ryan recommends the work of Noam Chomsky: Why Only Us: Language and Evolution, an evolutionary account of language acquisition in humans written with Robert C. Berwick.
OverflowAI search is now available for alpha testing. Learn more here.
Good news for your cable clutter: Apple is switching to USB-C charging ports. Here’s when.
In this special edition of the African Tech Roundup podcast, taped at the fringes of the inaugural Africa Digital Transformation Strategy Summit (convened by NOVACOM Summits), Refiloe Mpakanyane investigates the state of digital transformation in Africa through conversation with four seasoned corporate C-suite executives spearheading corporate innovation in Africa.
Dr Juliet Ehimuan is formerly Director of Google West Africa. Juliet posits three critical pillars of digital transformation: access, local content development, and tech entrepreneurship. Citing the role of smartphone adoption in driving digital access across Africa, Juliet believes that skills development is essential for participation in the digital economy and that governments can play a significant role in digitizing services, enhancing efficiency, and promoting digital skills among citizens.
As the Chief Strategy Officer of Liquid Intelligence Technologies, Dr Willie Oosthuysen serves a Cassava Technologies subsidiary with an extensive presence in over 20 African countries and a fibre optic network spanning more than 110,000 kilometres. Willie holds that even as regulatory challenges persist across the continent, with governments often struggling to keep pace with rapidly evolving technology and innovation, Africa adapts successful technology models from more developed regions, with a lag of 2 to 3 years.
Varun Giridhar is the CEO of Continuous Power Africa. The episode acknowledges the challenges of infrastructure, energy costs, and other hurdles in Africa's digital transformation. Varun is inclined to view Africa's energy challenges as opportunities for innovation. He is upbeat as he reflects on the continent's progress since Continous Power Africa started providing nimble, cost-effective distributed energy to telecommunications partners in Africa and beyond. He is particularly bullish on more recent trends towards the deployment of remote control and autonomous interventions.
Elhad Kassim Said Ahmed is the Head of Submarine Optical Fiber Network at Comoros Cables. Comoros Cables is a company from a small island nation with a grand vision for connectivity. Elhad sheds light on Comoros Cables' ambitious vision to position itself as a pivotal hub for broadband connectivity. This vision is underpinned by Comoros' strategic geographical location, nestled in the Mozambique Channel. This location allows them to connect not only with the Asian markets but also with the northern and southern regions of the African continent.
SUPPORT US: Value our work? Then, join our Patreon Community and help the African Tech Roundup platform remain single-mindedly focused on serving Africa's tech and innovation ecosystem with robust independent insight and learning content.
Image credit: Gabriel Meinert
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) Meta Connect, and Zuck's new vision for the Metaverse 2) Whether the Metaverse finally makes sense now 3) Alex's first purchase on Temu 4) Your questions + audio quality issues 5) TikTok takes center stage in the Republican debates 6) Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino's poor performance at Code 7) Did Yaccarino get sandbagged? 8) Amazon's new Anthropic deal, worth up to $4 billion 9) Our interview with Bill Kovacic, ex-FTC Chairman, on the Amazon case.
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Our host, Noah Labhart, couldn't be more excited about being featured on Dev Interrupted, whom we have followed for a long time, and have learned a ton from. Check out the post below, and subscribe to Dev Interrupted!
Built for Developers. Monitoring doesn't have to be so complicated. That's why we built the monitoring tool we always wanted: a tool that's there when you need it, and gets out of your. Everything you need to keep production happy so that you can keep shipping. Deploy with confidence and be your team's DevOps hero.
php[architect] magazine is the only technical journal dedicated exclusively to the world of PHP. We are committed to spreading knowledge of best practices in PHP. With that purpose, the brand has expanded into producing a full line of books, hosting online and in-person web training, as well as organizing multiple conferences per year.
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pgnanalyze helps users deliver consistent PostgreSQL performance and availability at any scale. Get started with a free trial or explore their docs. You can also find them on YouTube, where Lukas posts a weekly show called 5mins of Postgres.
Lukas was a founding engineer of Citus Data. Citus is an open-source extension to PostgreSQL that was eventually acquired by Microsoft. Find them on GitHub.
OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(08:38) – Metaverse
(23:01) – Quest 3
(37:50) – Nature of reality
(42:28) – AI in the Metaverse
(59:26) – Large language models
(1:05:23) – Future of humanity
