💻 Microsoft Finally Unbundles, 🤖 Amazon AI struggles, & 🤯 Mental Models for Creativity

Your One-Stop Tech Source: News, Deep Dives, Career Development

1. In a landmark move, Microsoft to unbundle Teams (chat + video app) and Office, amid regulatory antitrust scrutiny

Microsoft is set to globally offer Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscriptions without Teams, after EU scrutiny and complaints from Slack about unfair bundling practices. This follows previous commitments to sell Office 365 sans Teams in the EU. The change marks a significant shift in Microsoft’s strategy. The firm claims this is aimed at addressing EU Commission concerns and providing purchasing flexibility for customers - rollout will reportedly commence this week.
LINK: Techcrunch (3 min)

2. Vitalik Buterin outlines next steps for Ethereum with the upcoming “Purge” to make the protocol simpler and more secure

Ethereum is entering a phase called "The Purge," led by co-founder Vitalik Buterin. This phase is about making Ethereum simpler and less heavy for its network by removing old data and outdated parts of its system. It includes plans to delete old "SELFDESTRUCT" functions and allow nodes to forget data that's more than a year old - making it easier for more people to participate in the network. This step will help make Ethereum run smoother and more securely.
LINK: CoinTelegraph (5 min)

3. Making gaming physics look like magic: How the team behind the iconic game, The Legend of Zelda, embraced multiplicative gameplay and a vast universe

The team behind “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” game detailed their innovative approach to game design, emphasizing 'multiplicative gameplay' and a seamless, vast physics-driven world. By enabling everything in the game to interact through consistent physics, they created a system where players could use objects and the environment in unanticipated ways to solve problems and advance. This design philosophy fosters a deep level of interactivity & creativity.
LINK: Verge (5 min)

4. Amazon is scrambling to develop its own AI model, Olympus, in a push to outperform Anthropic, by mid-2024

Amazon's strategic investment of $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, alongside developing its own AI model, Olympus, signifies a major push to lead in AI technologies. With Olympus aimed at eclipsing Anthropic's Claude in performance by mid-year, the stakes are high. Despite the ambitious investment, there's internal concern over Claude's superior performance, causing some Amazon employees to consider switching. Olympus is anticipated to integrate across Amazon's services and AWS.
LINK: Decoder (5 min)

<And More>
5. Charting 10 years of The Google Algorithm
LINK: Moz (7min)

6. Cancer could be spotted years before symptoms appear, say Cambridge University researchers, using innovation as the cytosponge & new biomarkers
LINK: Guardian (3 min)

7. The first cohort of the Scaling Club by the European Innovation Council (EIC), has 48 companies focusing on XR, quantum computing and other deep tech initiatives
LINK: TNW (5 min)

8. Will tech IPOs come roaring back this year? The debut performance of Reddit and Astera Labs offers some hope
LINK: Investors (10 min)

Biohacking
Biohacking refers to the practice of applying DIY biology and technology-driven approaches to make changes to the human body with the aim of enhancing performance. It ranges from simple life hacks and dietary changes to more advanced techniques like genetic engineering or implantable devices. In the tech industry, it's often embraced as a frontier for human enhancement.

“Our wellness program recently incorporated biohacking techniques, encouraging personalized nutrition and exercise regimens based on genetic testing. It's fascinating to see how applying data-driven approaches to biology can yield significant improvements in employee health and productivity.”

Loss Leader
A loss leader is a pricing strategy where a product is sold at a loss to attract customers, with the expectation that the initial loss will be recouped through subsequent purchases of more profitable products or services. In the tech industry, this can often be seen with hardware sold at or below cost, with profits made on software, services, or consumables that accompany the hardware.

“Smartwatches are often a loss leader. By offering it at an incredibly low price, more users buy it - and the real value lies in the subscription services and app sales. This approach allows for rapid expansion of users and building long-term customer relationships, banking on future sales of high-margin services."

Mental Models to Boost Creative Thinking / Creativity

Creativity is often hard to articulate and distill into actionable frameworks. But there are simple and effective tactics to improve your creative thinking. Here are 2 mental models to make you a more creative thinker:

🎩 1. Six Thinking Hats

The notable author, Edward de Bono, outlined a well-known role-playing technique which forces a more deliberate and varied thought process. This is known as the Six Thinking Hats.

Each person in a group wears a different “hat” and therefore embodies that perspective to provide inputs on the discussion. You can also deploy this mentally when thinking alone (e.g. when considering a product launch, putting on a red hat to get into the emotional state of a customer, and then putting on the yellow hat to outline tangible benefits of this feature).

White Hat - Facts
Blue Hat - Planning
Black Hat - Judgement
Red Hat - Emotions
Yellow Hat - Benefits
Green Hat - Ideas
Blue Hat - Planning

🔭 2. Exploration vs Exploitation

How many times have you experienced a flurry of creative energy and thought through ideas - only to then amount to nothing tangible come out of it?

Idea generation and creative thinking is an iterative process that requires information accumulation. You need to acquire new knowledge and perspectives (i.e. Exploration). But eventually, you also need to start building towards the solution (i.e. Exploitation) - utilising the information gathered in the exploration phase.

Information gathering should therefore not be considered “work” in of itself as the goal of creative thinking is to generate value, which requires execution and deployment.

LINK: Facile Things (5 min); Edward De Bono (5 min)