Techmeme
December 11, 2024, 8:55 AM

Top News

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 …
TechCrunch:
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Apple rolls out iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2, adding major AI updates, including Image Playground on iPhone 15 Pro, 16, and 16 Pro, Genmoji, and ChatGPT integration  —  ChatGPT integration is also included with this update.  —  Apple has begun rolling iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 to iPhones and iPads.
Emma Roth / The Verge:
A California District Court judge orders Automattic to stop blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources and interfering with WP Engine's plugins  —  WP Engine just won a preliminary injunction against WordPress.com parent company Automattic.  On Tuesday, a California District …
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
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 …
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
Embodied, which made Moxie, an $800 companion robot for kids aged 5 to 10, says it is shutting down after a failed funding round and Moxie will soon be bricked  —  Startup Embodied is closing down, and its product, an $800 robot for kids ages 5 to 10, will soon be bricked.
Alexandra S. Levine / Bloomberg:
TikTok is offering users hundreds of dollars in Shop credits to spend time in the app, invite friends to join, and purchase products, ahead of a possible US ban  —  - App offers hundreds to users for spending time, adding friends  — TikTok ramping up growth push despite January US ban pending
Canadian Press:
TikTok files a legal challenge against Canada's order to stop operations in the country, claiming the “unreasonable” decision was “driven by improper purposes”  —  OTTAWA — TikTok is challenging the federal government's order to shut down its operations in Canada.
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
A look at Anthropic's Frontier Red Team, which has grown to 11 people overseen by Rhodes scholar Logan Graham to evaluate catastrophic risks in its AI models  —  It's largely up to companies to determine whether their AI is capable of superhuman harm.  At Anthropic, the Frontier Red Team looks for the danger zone.
Emilia David / VentureBeat:
OpenAI expands Canvas, its side-by-side digital editing space, to all ChatGPT users and adds support for Python, more text pasting, and launching in custom GPTs  —  OpenAI is extending access to its side-by-side digital editing space, Canvas, to all ChatGPT users and added new features …
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.
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 …
Rebecca F. Elliott / New York Times:
Exxon says it is in the early stages of designing a natural gas plant for data centers, the first time it would build a plant not supplying its own operations  —  The country's largest oil company is designing a natural gas power plant outfitted with carbon capture technology to meet the voracious power demand of technology companies.
Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:
Google's top lobbyist Mark Isakowitz departs to become GOP Senator-elect Dave McCormick's chief of staff, leaving a power vacuum in the company's lobbying team  —  - Mark Isakowitz is leaving the company for a job in the Senate  — Trump has said he is planning to crack down on ‘Big Tech’
More: Axios

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Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg:
Bobby Allyn / NPR:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: