US funds tech hubs, my new editing toy, and an exclusive Google interview
US funds tech hubs, my new editing toy, and an exclusive Google interview
Plus, tips about managing sheet metal, GoPro's problems, boosting chatbot performance, and whether antivirus software is still relevant
I’m David Gewirtz. Welcome to this week’s Advanced Geekery newsletter. It’s been an exciting week. Let’s dive in.
My articles
Let’s kick it off with a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.
US awards 12 regional 'Tech Hubs', aiming to fund America's next Silicon Valleys: In Phase 2 of the CHIPS and Science Act, the US has awarded $504 million in funding to 12 Tech Hub designees. Here's what this means for cities and states near you.
My top 2 productivity hacks for video editing that save me time - and wrist pain: Tired of spending all your time editing video? Doing these two things gave me dozens of hours of my life back.
This AI cloud: How Google Gemini will help everyone build things faster, cheaper, better: Explore the future of AI-assisted coding with Google Gemini. In our exclusive interview, Google's Richard Seroter shares insights on how AI tools are boosting productivity, improving code quality, and shaping the future of software engineering.
Must-watch YouTube
Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.
Did you know GoPro (the company) had this many ups and downs? I didn’t either.
The Vision Pro makes for a very interesting first-person flying experience with drones. The gotcha, until now, was that passing the Mac interface into the Vision Pro and connecting it with a drone was a pain. Now, in the VisionOS 2 beta, it’s much better and potentially game changing, especially for pro drone pilots.
Wesley Treat is one of my favorite YouTubers. In this incredibly helpful video, he talks about how to prepare and join metal sheets. Worth watching (and he makes it fun to watch, too).
Interesting reads
And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth reading.
Speaking of GoPros, this team dropped a camera into a very deep pit.
This is a fairly long read (and a bit tedious), but it has some really interesting insights into ways to coax more performance from your favorite AI chatbots using re-reading techniques.
ZDNET’s Ed Bott is back with his recommendation about Do you still need to pay for antivirus software in 2024? TL;DR: No.
Send in your projects
I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.
If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.
Both my EPs are now streaming
Available on all your favorite streaming services.
More clicky
I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:
House of the Head: home for my published music
ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects
Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!
Leave some comments
Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.
That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.
Have a great week!