Techmeme
December 4, 2024, 9:30 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Trump picks Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner who is seen as a strong advocate for looser regulation of crypto assets, to succeed Gary Gensler as SEC chair  —  Mr. Atkins, a pro-business conservative, would likely take a lighter regulatory approach than the current chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Josh Sisco / Bloomberg:
Trump selects Gail Slater, an adviser to JD Vance and tech policy adviser during Trump's first term, as head of the DOJ's antitrust unit  —  - Slater has been policy adviser for Vice President-elect Vance  — Trump vows to continue to crackdown on giant technology firms
William J. Broad / New York Times:
Google DeepMind unveils GenCast, an AI weather model that the company claims outperforms traditional methods on up to 15-day weather and deadly storm forecasts  —  GenCast, from the company's DeepMind division, outperformed the world's best predictions of deadly storms as well as everyday weather.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google DeepMind unveils Genie 2, a model that can generate 3D worlds from a single prompt image, playable by humans or AI agents using keyboard and mouse inputs  —  DeepMind, Google's AI research org, has unveiled a model that can generate an “endless” variety of playable 3D worlds.
Greg Otto / CyberScoop:
The White House says the Salt Typhoon hack has impacted eight telecom firms in the US, with dozens of other countries also affected, for as long as two years  —  A senior administration official said Wednesday the Salt Typhoon hack has impacted dozens of countries in a sweeping espionage campaign
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
Hayden Field / CNBC:
Anduril and OpenAI partner to deploy advanced AI systems for national security missions, focusing on “improving the nation's counter-unmanned aircraft systems”  —  OpenAI and Anduril on Wednesday announced a partnership allowing the defense tech company to deploy advanced artificial …
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
First impressions of Amazon Nova LLMs: they are competitive with Google Gemini, among the cheapest available, and may position Amazon as a top model provider  —  Amazon released three new Large Language Models yesterday at their AWS re:Invent conference.  The new model family is called Amazon Nova …
Financial Times:
The UK NCA uncovers a Russian multibillion-dollar money laundering scheme that let Russian spies, European drug traffickers, and more evade sanctions via crypto  —  Multibillion-dollar ring across London, Moscow and Dubai connected cash-rich criminals with sanctions evaders
Wes Davis / The Verge:
Threads users can now follow fediverse accounts that have interacted with a Threads post; fediverse posts won't show in feeds, only on the accounts' profiles  —  Threads rolled out fediverse users' likes and replies in a very limited way at first, and it's the same here …
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
DC's AG sues Amazon for allegedly secretly stopping its fastest delivery service to the nearly 50K Prime subscribers in historically lower-income neighborhoods  —  The District of Columbia's attorney general said the company deliberately outsourced Prime member deliveries in certain ZIP codes.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google launches Veo, an AI video model for generating “high-quality” 1080p videos in visual and cinematic styles, to businesses, beating OpenAI's Sora to market  —  Veo, Google's latest generative AI video model, is now available for businesses to start incorporating into their content creation pipelines.
Financial Times:
xAI plans to expand its Colossus supercomputer tenfold to incorporate more than 1M GPUs; work has already begun to increase the size of its facility in Memphis  —  Facility in Memphis expected to incorporate more than 1mn GPUs as billionaire's xAI aims to catch up with rivals
The Verge:
Sam Altman says OpenAI will begin 12 days of “shipmas” on December 5, with new features, products, and demos, sources say including text-to-video AI tool Sora  —  Happy holidays from OpenAI.  The AI startup plans to kick off a “shipmas” period of new features and products for 12 days, starting on December 5th.
Jackie Davalos / Bloomberg:
The Information:
Sources: Apple and Baidu are working to add AI features to Chinese iPhones but have clashed over model training data, and the models have struggled with prompts  —  Apple and Chinese search giant Baidu are working together to add artificial intelligence features to iPhones sold in China …
More: MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Reuters, and Wccftech
Threads: @eshumarneediX: @amir and @waynemaForums: MacRumors Forums
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify launches Spotify Wrapped, adding an AI podcast of users' 2024 Wrapped created with Google's NotebookLM summarizer, and a Your Music Evolution data story  —  Spotify Wrapped, the streamer's highly anticipated annual listening recap, has arrived.  In addition to its usual personalized …
Steven Levy / Wired:
Q&A with Tim Cook on generative AI, Apple Intelligence, outsourcing to OpenAI, why Apple's biggest contribution will be in health, ARM, the Vision Pro, and more  —  Much as the CEO seems awestruck by AI and his just-released Apple Intelligence, he's more convinced that the tech giant's health apps will define the company's legacy.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta says AI content was less than 1% of fact-checked election-related misinformation on its apps during major US, UK, Indian, Indonesian, and other elections  —  At the start of the year, there were widespread concerns about how generative AI could be used to interfere in global elections to spread propaganda and disinformation.
Ming-Chi Kuo:
Alexandra S. Levine / Bloomberg:
TikTok Shop says its US sales tripled to over $100M on Black Friday and it drew a 165% annual increase in shoppers on the two days leading up to Cyber Monday  —  Company is betting big on its US e-commerce arm as ban looms  —  TikTok tripled its US shopping sales to more than $100 million on Black Friday …

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Niantic Spatial:
World models need real-world data  —  Scaniverse is the gateway to spatial services — self-serve and built for AI and robotics.  Large-area 3D reconstruction from 360° cameras and precise localization, anywhere machines operate.
Zoho:
Security update: Retiring weak TLS cipher suites  —  At Zoho Corp, we are dedicated to maintaining the highest security and compliance standards.  As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance security …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Hard Fork:
A.I. Backlash Turns Violent + Kara Swisher on Healthmaxxing + The Zuck Bot Is Coming
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Max Mullen from Instacart
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Access:
Canva's CEO on what happens when AI does the design
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Cohere's Aidan Gomez: The Canadian Founder Taking AI Models To The World, Not Just Big Tech
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Data Centers...IN SPACE!!
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:30 PM ET, December 4, 2024.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Josh Dzieza / The Verge: