Cursor, Google Translate, Cheating, Aging out of People-Pleasing, and Parkinson's
Your Weekly Review of News in Technology, UX and AI
Here’s the latest news, resources, and use cases from the world of product, UX, AI and technology. Let’s go:
📊 AI in Healthcare
👩💻 Cursor
🗣️ Google Translate
👀 AI and Cheating
👁️🗨️ Being Articulate
🫢 Aging out of F*cks
🏥 Parkinson’s
Podcast
Harnessing AI in Healthcare: Insights from RJ Kedziora
In this episode of Product by Design, Kyle Evans interviews RJ Kedziora, co-founder of Estenda, a company specializing in custom software and data analysis for healthcare. We discuss RJ’s journey in technology and entrepreneurship, the importance of energy management over time management, and the role of AI in healthcare. RJ shares insights into the challenges and future of AI applications, the need for ethical considerations, and the potential for personalized healthcare solutions. He also offers advice to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to make a difference in the industry.
News and Useful Reads
Cursor Launches an AI Coding Tool For Designers
AI tools are going to continue to drive us to more full-stack creatives than we’ve seen before. Product management, UX, and engineering are increasingly converging as the tools allow us to do more and more.
Cursor, the wildly popular AI coding startup, is launching a new feature that lets people design the look and feel of web applications with AI. The tool, Visual Editor, is essentially a vibe-coding product for designers, giving them access to the same fine-grained controls they’d expect from professional design software. But in addition to making changes manually, the tool lets them request edits from Cursor’s AI agent using natural language.
Google Translate brings real-time speech translations to any headphones
A universal translator (Star Trek) or a babel fish (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) is something that I’m incredibly excited about. And we continue to get closer to being able to understand any language in real time.
Google Translate’s latest update brings live speech translations, originally available only on the Pixel Buds, to any headphones you want, with support for over 70 languages. It’s rolling out today in beta and just requires a compatible Android phone with the Translate app (unlike Apple’s similar feature, which requires AirPods).
How does AI impact students and cheating?
Cheating in school isn’t new, but the methods continually change. AI is a powerful tool, but too often students (and professionals) use it to replace rather than supplement. The difference is obvious to those who have put in the work.
However, as has always been the case, students can only get out of an education what they put into it. Those who cheat, in the long run, wind up only cheating themselves, indicating that the only change is the specific technology used to cheat.
How to become dangerously articulate
Being articulate isn’t about how you talk—it’s about how you think and approach the world. It’s about being authentic, embracing uncertainty, being curious, and practice.
Discover what makes your soul genuinely curious and lean into it obsessively. Your soul isn’t characterized by your achievements but by your interests. Read to find what sets your mind on fire, then follow that fire wherever it leads.
Other Interesting Finds
Aging Out of Fucks: The Neuroscience of Why You Suddenly Can’t Pretend Anymore
I’ve been wondering if it’s just me, but apparently it’s not. The older we get, the less patience we have for people-pleasing.
Research in neuroscience shows that as we age, the brain undergoes a process called synaptic pruning. Neural pathways that aren’t essential get trimmed away. Your brain is essentially Marie Kondo-ing itself, keeping what serves you and discarding what doesn’t.
And all those neural pathways dedicated to hypervigilant people-pleasing? They’re often first on the chopping block.
Scientists Thought Parkinson’s Was in Our Genes. It Might Be in the Water
For many years we’ve been focused on the genetic causes of diseases like Parkinson’s. But have we overlooked some of the potential environmental causes?
After a century of putting genetics on a pedestal, the geneticists have some surprising news for us: The vast majority of chronic disease isn’t caused by our genes. “The Human Genome Project was a $3 billion investment, and what did we find out?” says Thomas Hartung, a toxicologist at Johns Hopkins. “Five percent of all disease is purely genetic. Less than 40 percent of diseases even have a genetic component.”