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Good Morning! Oracle's deepening ties with Arm-based chip designer Ampere are turning heads, with the tech giant now owning a 29% stake and providing a billion-dollar loan. Kia's cybersecurity woes continue as researchers uncover a critical flaw allowing remote car control via license plate numbers, exposing millions of vehicles to potential attacks. Meanwhile, PostgreSQL 17 is upping its game with supercharged JSON support and impressive performance boosts, promising faster queries and easier handling of modern data patterns.

— Forrest Knight & Meghanadh Vasireddy

Oracle's Deepening Ties with Arm Chip Designer Ampere

Context: Oracle's been cozying up to Arm-based server chip designer Ampere Computing for a while now. But recent filings show just how deep this relationship goes.

What's New:

• Oracle now owns a whopping 29% stake in Ampere

• They've loaned Ampere $1 billion in convertible debt

• Come 2027, Oracle could potentially take majority control

Ampere's been making waves with its high-core-count Arm chips, like their upcoming 256-core beast. They've even snagged big-name customers like Microsoft and Google. But here's the kicker: those same customers are now developing their own Arm chips (looking at you, Cobalt and Axion).

What It Means: Oracle's clearly betting big on Arm for the datacenter. But with competition heating up from both x86 giants (Intel, AMD) and custom silicon plays, Ampere's facing an uphill battle. Oracle's deep pockets could be crucial for keeping Ampere in the game.

→ Keep your eyes peeled on this space. The server CPU market is getting spicier by the day, and Oracle might just be positioning itself for a major power play in the Arm ecosystem.

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Kia's Key Vulnerability: Remote Car Control via License Plate

Remember last year's car hacking spree that affected 15.5 million vehicles? Well, the researchers are back at it, and this time they've uncovered a critical flaw in Kia's systems.

A team of ethical hackers discovered a vulnerability allowing remote control of Kia vehicles using just a license plate number. By exploiting weaknesses in Kia's dealer infrastructure, attackers could:

• Take over vehicle ownership

• Track location

• Unlock doors

• Start/stop engine

• Honk horn

The hack involves registering as a Kia dealer, generating an access token, and using dealer APIs to modify vehicle ownership. The researchers created a proof-of-concept tool that automates the process, demonstrating how easily an attacker could compromise vehicles at scale.

Impact: This vulnerability affected most Kia models from 2013 onwards, potentially exposing millions of vehicles. What's more concerning is that victims wouldn't receive any notification of the unauthorized access or ownership change.

Kia has since patched the vulnerability, but this incident serves as a stark reminder of the growing importance of cybersecurity in the automotive industry. As our cars become more connected, they also become more vulnerable to digital threats.

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PostgreSQL 17: Leveling Up Performance and JSON Support

PostgreSQL has been the go-to open-source relational database for years, known for its reliability and extensibility. With this release, they're doubling down on performance and adapting to modern data patterns.

What's New:

1. JSON Superpowers: Remember when PostgreSQL first added JSON support back in 2012? Well, they've gone and made it even better. JSON_TABLE is now available, letting you view JSON data as a relational table. Plus, there are new SQL/JSON constructors and query functions. If you're working with JSON in Postgres, your life just got a whole lot easier.

2. Performance Boosts: The vacuum process (crucial for keeping your database healthy) now uses up to 20x less memory. High concurrency workloads might see up to 2x better write throughput. They've also optimized sequential scans and ANALYZE operations. TL;DR: Your queries are about to get faster.

Developer Goodies:

• MERGE got some love with a new RETURNING clause and the ability to update views.

• Bulk loading and data exporting saw improvements, with COPY showing up to 2x performance gains for large rows.

• New built-in, platform-independent collation provider ensures consistent text sorting across different environments.

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🔥 More Notes

• Crowd Funding: A more hackable ARM Cortex M0+ brain upgrade for Casio's iconic F-91W

• Newsom vetoes US's first bill aimed at regulating large-scale artificial intelligence

• OpenAI projects its revenue to increase to $11.6 billion next year

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