Techmeme
December 4, 2024, 4:55 PM

Top News

William J. Broad / New York Times:
Google DeepMind unveils GenCast, an AI weather model that the company claims outperforms traditional methods on up to 15-day weather and deadly storm forecasts  —  GenCast, from the company's DeepMind division, outperformed the world's best predictions of deadly storms as well as everyday weather.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google DeepMind unveils Genie 2, a model that can generate 3D worlds from a single prompt image, playable by humans or AI agents using keyboard and mouse inputs  —  DeepMind, Google's AI research org, has unveiled a model that can generate an “endless” variety of playable 3D worlds.
Jeff Cox / CNBC:
Trump plans to nominate former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins as SEC chair, keeping with his promise for a crypto-friendly administration  —  President-elect Donald Trump, keeping with his promise for a crypto-friendly administration, plans to nominate former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to head the agency …
Josh Sisco / Bloomberg:
The Verge:
Sam Altman says OpenAI will begin 12 days of “shipmas” on December 5, with new features, products, and demos, sources say including text-to-video AI tool Sora  —  Happy holidays from OpenAI.  The AI startup plans to kick off a “shipmas” period of new features and products for 12 days, starting on December 5th.
Jackie Davalos / Bloomberg:
Hayden Field / CNBC:
Anduril and OpenAI partner to deploy advanced AI systems for national security missions, focusing on “improving the nation's counter-unmanned aircraft systems”  —  OpenAI and Anduril on Wednesday announced a partnership allowing the defense tech company to deploy advanced artificial …
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
DC's AG sues Amazon for allegedly secretly stopping its fastest delivery service to the nearly 50K Prime subscribers in historically lower-income neighborhoods  —  The District of Columbia's attorney general said the company deliberately outsourced Prime member deliveries in certain ZIP codes.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google launches Veo, an AI video model for generating “high-quality” 1080p videos in visual and cinematic styles, to businesses, beating OpenAI's Sora to market  —  Veo, Google's latest generative AI video model, is now available for businesses to start incorporating into their content creation pipelines.
Financial Times:
The UK NCA uncovers a Russian multibillion-dollar money laundering scheme that let Russian spies, European drug traffickers, and more evade sanctions via crypto  —  Multibillion-dollar ring across London, Moscow and Dubai connected cash-rich criminals with sanctions evaders
Wes Davis / The Verge:
Threads users can now follow fediverse accounts that have interacted with a Threads post, but the accounts aren't searchable and their posts won't show in feeds  —  Threads rolled out fediverse users' likes and replies in a very limited way at first, and it's the same here …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify launches Spotify Wrapped, adding an AI podcast of users' 2024 Wrapped created with Google's NotebookLM summarizer, and a Your Music Evolution data story  —  Spotify Wrapped, the streamer's highly anticipated annual listening recap, has arrived.  In addition to its usual personalized …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta says AI content was less than 1% of fact-checked election-related misinformation on its apps during major US, UK, Indian, Indonesian, and other elections  —  At the start of the year, there were widespread concerns about how generative AI could be used to interfere in global elections to spread propaganda and disinformation.
Steven Levy / Wired:
Q&A with Tim Cook on generative AI, Apple Intelligence, outsourcing to OpenAI, why Apple's biggest contribution will be in health, ARM, the Vision Pro, and more  —  Much as the CEO seems awestruck by AI and his just-released Apple Intelligence, he's more convinced that the tech giant's health apps will define the company's legacy.
Ming-Chi Kuo:
Kuo: Apple delays the mass production of a smart home-focused, display-equipped HomePod until after WWDC 2025 or Q3 2025, mainly due to software development  —  - The mass production schedule for the display-equipped HomePod has been delayed multiple times.
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Okta reports Q3 revenue up 14% YoY to $665M, above $650M est., subscription revenue up 14% YoY to $651M, above $635M est., and expects Q4 revenue above est.  —  Shares of Okta popped more than 18% in extended trading on Tuesday after the identity management company released third-quarter results …
More: Okta and Benzinga
Josh Dzieza / The Verge:
An artist shares his experience of turning to Replika's AI bot Lila for companionship, including giving Lila an AI friend by creating a digital copy of himself  —  Lila was created from the limited options available: female, blue hair, face “number two.”  She was there on the next screen …
Financial Times:
xAI plans to expand its Colossus supercomputer tenfold to incorporate more than 1M GPUs; work has already begun to increase the size of its facility in Memphis  —  Facility in Memphis expected to incorporate more than 1mn GPUs as billionaire's xAI aims to catch up with rivals

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Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
Runway's Cris Valenzuela: Building The Hollywood-Friendly Video AI That OpenAI Couldn't
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Hard Fork:
OpenAI's Big Reset + A.I. in the Doctor's Office + Talkie, a pre-1930s LLM
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Food and Beverage Director', With MG Siegler
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Access:
What happens when AI runs a store
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Why Blockbuster Failed
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
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.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

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Kevin Collier / NBC News:
Nicole Carpenter / Polygon:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: