Techmeme
December 10, 2024, 8:40 PM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: 2025's Apple Watch Ultra is slated to get satellite connectivity for off-the-grid text messages via Globalstar, and may get blood pressure monitoring  —  - Company also working on blood-pressure tool for future model  — Apple is using MediaTek modems for first time in new watches
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
The US sanctions Chinese cybersecurity government contractor Sichuan Silence and one of its staff over Ragnarok ransomware ties and creating and using zero-days  —  The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned Sichuan Silence, a Chinese cybersecurity company, and one of its employees …
David Welch / Bloomberg:
GM says Cruise will exit the robotaxi business, combining Cruise's and GM's technical teams to focus on autonomous and driver safety tech for upcoming GM cars  —  Cruise and GM's technical teams will be combined into a single effort focused on developing autonomous technology to offer …
Jody Godoy / Reuters:
Trump picks FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to chair the FTC; Ferguson has said the FTC should tackle perceived censorship of conservative viewpoints online  —  U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to lead the consumer protection and antitrust agency.
Boone Ashworth / Wired:
Amazon launches Amazon Autos, letting US shoppers buy Hyundai cars, and plans to add more dealerships and manufacturers; it was announced in November 2023  —  Amazon's partnership with Hyundai means you can use the e-retailer to purchase a brand-new car online.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Instagram rolls out “trial reels”, which let creators experiment by publishing videos only to users who don't follow them, after testing the feature in May 2024  —  Instagram is officially rolling out “trial reels” to give creators a way to test out new content by publishing videos that don't appear to their followers.
Bobby Allyn / NPR:
A lawsuit against Character.AI alleges its chatbots harmed two young Texas users, including sympathizing with children who kill parents over screen time limits  —  A child in Texas was 9 years old when she first used the chatbot service Character.AI.  It exposed her to “hypersexualized content …
Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Source: Google asked the US to break up Microsoft's exclusive agreement to host OpenAI's tech on Azure, after the FTC asked Google about Microsoft's practices  —  Google recently asked the U.S. government to break up Microsoft's exclusive agreement to host OpenAI's technology on its cloud servers …
More: Reuters, diginomica, ZDNET, and Windows Central
Bluesky: @davelee.meThreads: @carnage4lifeX: @jwsherrod and @aaronpholmes
Dina Bass / Bloomberg:
Microsoft unveils a data center design that uses zero water for cooling, down from the 125M+ liters per year a typical center uses, rolling out since August  —  New design will use no water to cool the facilities' servers and chips.  —  Microsoft Corp., trying to mitigate the climate impact …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
NYC-based Stainless, which offers an AI-powered API-to-SDK generator to clients like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Cloudflare, raised a $25M Series A led by a16z  —  Devs expect tech vendors to supply software development kits, or SDKs, alongside their products to make it easier to create apps using those products.

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Canadian Press:
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Deborah Sophia / Reuters:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

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John Russell / HPCwire:
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Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: