Good morning! Google launched an updated AI model called Gemini 1.5 that has a 1 million token context window for more efficient language processing. Microsoft revealed upcoming improvements in .NET 9 like better cloud and AI support to simplify app development. The Asahi Linux project now exceeds Apple's own OpenGL graphics support on M-chip Macs, showing strong progress towards a full Linux desktop experience.

— Forrest Knight & Meghanadh Vasireddy

Google Launches Updated AI Model Gemini 1.5 with 1 Million Token Context Window

Gemini 1.5 is Google's newest large language model for artificial intelligence. It is an updated version of their previous model Gemini 1.0.

Key Improvements

• More Efficient Architecture: Gemini 1.5 uses something called a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) design. This routes questions to smaller specialized neural networks instead of one giant one. This makes Gemini 1.5 faster and higher quality.

• Bigger Context Window: The most exciting improvement is that Gemini 1.5 can process contexts up to 1 million tokens. Older models max out at around 200,000 tokens. This means Gemini 1.5 can analyze entire documents, videos or codebases as single inputs rather than just paragraphs.

Performance: Early testing shows Gemini 1.5 performs just as well as Google's previous most advanced model, Gemini 1.0 Ultra. It also has over 99% accuracy at searching long transcripts and understanding complex silent films.

Right now, Gemini 1.5 is available in preview just for developers through Google's AI Studio platform. It is not available to the public yet.

Read More Here

Microsoft reveals what’s to come in .NET 9

.NET 9 is the upcoming new release of Microsoft's popular .NET developer toolkit, coming later this year. It builds on .NET 8 and adds many new capabilities, with a focus on cloud-native applications and AI.

Some of the key areas where .NET 9 adds features:

• Cloud-Native Apps

  • Better performance, monitoring, and support for Kubernetes

  • Integrates with managed databases like Redis

  • Simplifies the deployment process with upgrades to Visual Studio

• AI Capabilities

  • Improved OpenAI integration

  • Makes it easier to add ChatGPT-like models

  • More code samples and documentation

• Other enhancements in .NET 9:

  • New options for serializing JSON data

  • LINQ updates like the new AggregateBy method to aggregate data without intermediate groupings

  • Updates to the PriorityQueue collection type

  • One-shot hashing support in the cryptography API

  • Support for saving dynamically created assemblies using reflection

Microsoft released the first .NET 9 preview build and is looking for developer feedback on the planned features and capabilities via GitHub discussions. Community input helps shape each new release of the .NET platform.

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Asahi Linux’s OpenGL support leapfrogs Apple’s on M-chip Macs

Asahi Linux is an open-source project working to support Linux operating systems on Apple Silicon Macs. The project is run independently without Apple's involvement or resources.

Graphics Driver Milestone: Asahi Linux recently achieved a major milestone with its graphics driver. The new driver fully supports up to OpenGL 4.6 and OpenGL ES 3.2 graphics standards. This surpasses the OpenGL 4.1 maximum support currently offered in Apple's macOS system since 2013.

The Apple GPUs in Macs lack some features that would have made implementing the newer graphics standards easier. But the Asahi Linux team worked around these limitations using compute shaders and other programming techniques. This allowed them to match the latest standards despite missing hardware support.

Exceeding Apple's Graphics Support: This achievement shows Asahi Linux is making strong progress in not only matching but exceeding Apple's own graphics support. This is despite having no official help or documentation from Apple. Better graphics capabilities will help Asahi Linux work towards its goal of providing a fully functional Linux desktop experience on Macs with Apple silicon.

With OpenGL standard support now on par with 2017 desktop GPUs, the Asahi Linux project will shift focus to bringing efficient Vulkan graphics to Apple silicon. Supporting the latest OpenGL and working on Vulkan sets the foundation for running more advanced Linux applications and games on Apple's M-series chips.

Read More Here

🔥 More Notes

• ngrok Transforms API Delivery with the Industry’s First Developer-Defined API Gateway

• Slack AI is beginning to roll out to customers

• AMD Quietly Funded A Drop-In CUDA Implementation Built On ROCm: It's Now Open-Source

• Cloudflare defeats patent troll Sable at trial

🎥 Youtube Spotlight

Problem solving across 100,633 lines of code | Gemini 1.5 Pro Demo

This demo showcases the capabilities of the Gemini 1.5 Pro model to understand and modify large amounts of code, specifically focusing on the three.js example code. The model successfully identifies and customizes code for character animation, finds specific demos based on screenshots, and provides instructions for modifying code to achieve desired effects.

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