Techmeme
December 11, 2024, 7:20 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:
Several Cruise employees say they were “surprised” and “blindsided” by GM's decision to end Cruise's robotaxi program and that they expect job cuts  —  The news came by Slack message.  —  Cruise CEO Marc Whitten, who took the top post in June, posted a message Tuesday afternoon …
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
Scharon Harding / Ars Technica:
Embodied, which made an $800 companion robot called Moxie for kids, says it is closing down after a failed funding round and that its robot 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.
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 …
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 …
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
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.
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
A look at Anthropic's Frontier Red Team, which has grown to 11 people and is overseen by Logan Graham to assess catastrophic risks in Anthropic's 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 rolls out Canvas, its side-by-side digital editing space, to all ChatGPT users and adds new features, including support for Python and more text pasting  —  OpenAI is extending access to its side-by-side digital editing space, Canvas, to all ChatGPT users and added new features …
Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Sponsor Post
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

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
Driving customer engagement: User experience optimization using SaaS products in the Middle East  —  The Middle Eastern software as a service (SaaS) market is projected to grow at an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.1% from 2024 to 2030.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Tue. 12/10 - Amazon Autos
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

Newest

More News

Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Canadian Press:
Bobby Allyn / NPR:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Boone Ashworth / Wired:
Dina Bass / Bloomberg: