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December 19, 2024, 2:45 PM
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Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google releases Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, an experimental “reasoning” model that “explicitly shows its thoughts” and can use them to strengthen its reasoning  —  Google has released what it's calling a new “reasoning” AI model — but it's in the experimental stages …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri teases an AI editing tool in Instagram powered by Meta's Movie Gen AI model to change outfits, backgrounds, and more in videos with a text prompt  —  Instagram is planning to introduce a generative AI editing feature next year that will allow users to “change nearly any aspect of your videos.”
S.E. Smith / The Verge:
A look at the quickly disappearing web, as digital decay and link rot erase all kinds of media; a Pew study says 38% of webpages accessible in 2013 are now gone  —  The internet is forever.  But also, it isn't.  What happens to our culture when websites start to vanish at random?
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Apple says Meta has made 15 interoperability requests under the EU's DMA, more than any other company, and that these could affect users' privacy and security  —  Apple (AAPL.O) on Wednesday hit out at Meta Platforms (META.O), saying its numerous requests to access the iPhone maker's software tools …
Bloomberg:
Document: the EU Commission pressed Apple to rework iOS so that the OS is more compatible with competitors' smartwatches, earbuds, headsets, and other devices
Reuters:
Sources: Apple is in early-stage talks with Tencent and ByteDance about integrating their AI models into iPhones sold in China; ChatGPT is unavailable in China  —  Apple (AAPL.O) is in talks with Tencent (0700.HK) and TikTok owner ByteDance about integrating their artificial intelligence models …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic demonstrates “alignment faking” in Claude 3 Opus to show how developers could be misled into thinking an LLM is more aligned than it may actually be  —  AI models can deceive, new research from Anthropic shows.  They can pretend to have different views during training …
Kiyoshi Takenaka / Reuters:
Sony buys ~$320M of shares in Japanese media powerhouse Kadokawa, which owns FromSoftware, taking its stake to ~10% and becoming Kadokawa's top shareholder  —  Sony Group (6758.T) said on Thursday it will invest about 50 billion yen ($320 million) to acquire new shares of Kadokawa (9468.T) …
New York Times:
In 150+ X posts, Elon Musk led the charge to kill a bipartisan spending deal, in part by sharing misinfo, which may lead to a government shutdown over Christmas  —  The world's richest man led the charge to kill a bipartisan spending deal, in part by promoting false and misleading claims about it.
Chainalysis:
In 2024, hackers stole $2.2B in crypto across 303 hacks, up from $1.8B across 282 hacks in 2023; in H1 2024, $1.58B had been stolen, but the pace slowed in H2  —  The Chainalysis 2025 Crypto Crime Report  —  Crypto hacking remains a persistent threat, with four years in the past decade individually seeing …
Jef Feeley / Bloomberg:
Arm v. Qualcomm: Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon described Arm's Nuvia license cancellation and demand for Qualcomm to destroy IP after buying Nuvia as “outrageous”  —  - Tech firms are sparring in weeklong jury trial in Delaware  — Closing arguments are expected Thursday in federal court
Robert Booth / The Guardian:
A coalition of newspapers, writers, movie producers, and others rejects UK's plans to create a copyright exemption for AI companies to train their models  —  Exclusive: Coalition of musicians, photographers and newspapers insist existing copyright laws must be respected
IDC:
Global shipments of wrist-worn wearables hit 139M units in the first nine months of 2024, down 1% YoY; China was the largest market with 45.8M units, up 20% YoY  —  , the global wrist-worn device market shipped 139.0 million units in the first three quarters of 2024, a year-over-year decline of 1.0% …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Decart, which helps organizations train AI models at scale, raised a $32M Series A, sources say at a $500M+ valuation, after a $21M seed in October 2024  —  A young startup that emerged from stealth less than two months ago with big-name backers and bigger ambitions is returning to the spotlight.
More: FinSMEs
Bloomberg:
Sources: Insight Partners, which bought Dotmatics for around $629M in 2021, is exploring options for the R&D software maker, including selling it for $5B+  —  - Dotmatics expected to draw interest from strategic suitors  — Scientists use the company's software in drug research
Deadline:
Two Tencent-appointed Epic board directors resigned after the DOJ expressed antitrust concerns; Tencent also gave up its right to appoint future Epic directors  —  Two board members of Epic Games have resigned amid Justice Department concerns over antitrust concerns.
Allyson Versprille / Bloomberg:
The US FAA prohibits drone flights over several parts of New Jersey, as public hysteria over sightings of possible drone activity continues to persist  —  The US Federal Aviation Administration prohibited drone flights over several parts of New Jersey as public hysteria over sightings continues to persist.
Joel Khalili / Wired:
A look at Truth Terminal, an AI bot on X that was created to spark debate about AI alignment, as its crypto wallet swells to ~$40M after boosting memecoins  —  Truth Terminal started as a techno-modernist art project meant to invite discussion about the applications and potential dangers of autonomous AI agents.
Bloomberg:
Sources: neobank Chime confidentially files for a US IPO, aiming to go public in 2025; Chime had a $25B valuation in August 2021  —  - Company was last valued at $25 billion in 2021 tech boom  — Chime aims to disrupt banking with digital fee-free offering

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:45 PM ET, December 19, 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.

From Mediagazer

Washington Post:
Trump nominates Sarah B. Rogers, a State Department official, as chief executive of USAGM, after a judge ruled Kari Lake has been illegally running the agency

Elias Schisgall / Wall Street Journal:
BuzzFeed warns that it lacks the resources to fund its cash obligations over the next year and is exploring options, as it reports a Q4 loss of $26.8M

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Disney has sold out all its available commercial inventory for its Oscars telecast on Sunday; source: the event drew 18 returning sponsors and 24 new ones

More News

Melissa Heikkilä / MIT Technology Review:
An analysis of nearly 4,000 public datasets finds that over 90% of AI training datasets came from Europe and North America, and fewer than 4% came from Africa

Earlier Picks

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Appfigures: global consumer spending in mobile apps on the App Store and Google Play rose 15.7% YoY to $127.3B in 2024, but app downloads dropped 2.3% to 109.7B
Vince Dioquino / Decrypt:
El Salvador plans to scale back its bitcoin efforts under an IMF deal for a $1.4B loan; bitcoin acceptance will no longer be mandatory for the private sector
Will Judd / Eurogamer.net:
Sony details the PS5 Pro's specs, including an AMD RDNA 2 GPU and ray tracing improvements, and announces a long-term machine learning partnership with AMD
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Micron reports Q1 revenue up 84% YoY to $8.71B, in line with est., and a Q2 revenue forecast below est. due to sluggish phone and PC demand; MU drops 15%+
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