Vespa Newsletter, December 2023

The December 2023 Vespa Newsletter highlights several advancements and updates in the Vespa platform, including the introduction of a global-phase cross-hit normalization feature, which allows for more refined ranking by evaluating global lists of hits on container nodes. This update includes new normalizing functions like normalize_linear, reciprocal_rank, and reciprocal_rank_fusion, aimed at providing better control over ranking factors. Pyvespa, the platform's API, now offers improved data feeding capabilities and supports global-phase ranking expressions, along with streaming mode options. Vespa has also enhanced security with Token Authentication for data plane access, eliminating the need for certificates. Additional features include the ability to download active application packages for easier replication and the unpack_bits function for converting int8 input to float values, akin to numpy.unpackbits. The newsletter also celebrates the successful year Vespa has had in the search and recommendation industry, introduces a new visual identity, and encourages participation in the Advent of Tensors challenge, while offering a glimpse into recent blog posts and the opportunity to try Vespa Cloud for free.