Techmeme
December 20, 2024, 1:50 AM

Top News

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 …
Bloomberg:
Sony's shares in Japan surged 50%+ from an August low to reach its new all-time high since 2000 last week, as investors are bullish on its gaming growth in 2025  —  - Next year ‘one of the greatest’ for video games: Smithers  — M&A and good management boost stock's appeal: Janus Henderson
Kiyoshi Takenaka / Reuters:
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Researchers unveil Genesis, an open-source generative physics engine that trains robots in simulated reality 430K times faster than in the real world  —  On Thursday, a large group of university and private industry researchers unveiled Genesis, a new open source computer simulation system …
Bloomberg:
SAP promoted a team lead accused by five female staff of targeting female subordinates, raising concerns about company culture and workplace discrimination  —  Women who worked for a team lead at the tech giant's Signavio unit say that the company failed to address complaints of bullying and discrimination.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
YouTube plans to start a crackdown on “egregious clickbait”, or videos where the titles or thumbnails make claims the videos don't back up, beginning in India  —  A lot of YouTube videos have flashy, misleading titles and thumbnails, such as “BREAKING NEWS” or “The president steps down …
Malcolm Owen / AppleInsider:
Apple researchers say the company's open-source ReDrafter method on Nvidia GPUs led to a 2.7x speed increase in generated tokens per second for greedy encoding  —  Apple's latest machine learning research could make creating models for Apple Intelligence faster, by coming up with a technique …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Meta teases an AI editing tool powered by Movie Gen AI in Instagram that can change outfits, backgrounds, and more in videos using a text prompt, coming in 2025  —  Instagram is planning to introduce a generative AI editing feature next year that will allow users to “change nearly any aspect of your videos.”
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.

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Featured Podcasts

The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'A Naughty Citizen', With Quinn Nelson
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
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Big Technology Podcast:
2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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BG2 Pod:
AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
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Great Chat:
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A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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.
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More News

Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
Allyson Versprille / Bloomberg:
Robert Booth / The Guardian:
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Chainalysis:

Earlier Picks

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:
Reuters:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Deadline: