This Week I Learned - Week #47 2024

This Week I Learned - 

* Anthropic's Claude models on Vertex AI offer fully managed and serverless models as APIs. To use a Claude model on Vertex AI, send a request directly to the Vertex AI API endpoint. Because Anthropic's Claude models use a managed API, there's no need to provision or manage infrastructure.

* How to choose the right LLM for your needs

* Hugging Face's DataSet Viewer features an SQL Console powered by DuckDB WASM (WebAssembly), allowing users to execute SQL queries on datasets directly within the browser. DuckDB has full SQL syntax support, along with many built in functions for regex, lists, JSON, embeddings and more. DuckDB syntax is similar to PostgreSQL. You can embed the Dataset Viewer in your own webpage using an iframe.

* While DuckDB WASM is very powerful, it doesn't have full feature parity with DuckDB.

* Google and Meta recorded ad sales in India of Rs 31,221 crore and Rs 22,730 crore, respectively, in FY24. 

* In 1994, Shrinath and Shrikant Acharya, brothers from Madhya Pradesh, founded Margi Systems, a U.S.-based company that revolutionized DVD playback on laptops. Margi developed the first widely available PCMCIA card (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association standard), enabling full DVD playback on laptops—a groundbreaking innovation in the 1990s. This hardware allowed users to simply plug in a DVD and enjoy movies on their laptops, transforming how media was consumed. 

* Margi’s solution addressed the challenge of DVDs' encryption, designed to prevent unauthorized copying. The card decrypted this layer, accessing the MPEG2 video format and enabling smooth playback. In addition to hardware, Margi created playback software with features like fast-forward, rewind, segment skipping, and subtitles. A similar solution was also developed for in-car entertainment systems.

* The Acharya brothers' roots trace back to Madhya Pradesh, where their father worked as an engineer in the state’s public works department. Following Margi’s acquisition by Harman in 2003, both brothers joined Harman’s multimedia division, with Shrinath as CEO and Shrikant as CTO. They played pivotal roles in growing the business from $800 million to over $2.5 billion within five years. 

* Like them, their brothers Sridhar and Shripati also did their undergraduate studies in premier colleges in India before heading to the US for higher studies. The Acharya brothers have had stellar careers, like the four Kurian brothers – Thomas (CEO, Google Cloud), George (CEO, NetApp), Jacob and Mathew.

* During Jack Welch's tenure at GE, he fired half the company staff after taking over. For a long time, he was highly regarded by GE shareholders until the company faced severe challenges. GE was removed from the Dow Index following a sharp decline in 2017. Additionally, in 2016, GE sold its appliance division to Haier, a company based in China. 

* Hepatitis B and C are primarily transmitted through blood-to-blood contact, while Hepatitis A and E spread mainly through contaminated food or water. Vaccines are our best defense against Hepatitis. Vaccines train the body to recognize threats. They prompt the immune system to produce antibodies (specialized proteins that combat infections) that target specific viruses, like hepatitis. This process creates memory cells, enabling the body to rapidly defend against future infections. 

* The United States is the world’s largest oil producer. The US has been the largest producer for the last seven years.

Source: Our World in Data

* Nifty has corrected more than 12 percent from its peak. 

* The Cambridge Dictionary has selected "manifest" as its Word of the Year for 2024. The verb "to manifest" is defined as imagining achieving a goal with the belief that doing so increases the likelihood of its realization. While the concept of manifesting originates from a century-old spiritual philosophy movement, it remains scientifically unproven. Experts caution that relying on manifesting can encourage risky behavior or reinforce false and potentially harmful beliefs, especially when it substitutes for actionable strategies. 

* Emojis and stars are fast replacing marks or grades in performance sheets of students of up to class 2 under New Education Policy which calls it a “holistic report card”, focusing on evaluating children based on their activities rather than traditional written exams

* "Nationalism is the measles of mankind." - Einstein