Techmeme
December 4, 2024, 11:20 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Trump picks Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner who is seen as a strong advocate for looser regulation of crypto assets, to succeed Gary Gensler as SEC chair  —  Mr. Atkins, a pro-business conservative, would likely take a lighter regulatory approach than the current chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Josh Sisco / Bloomberg:
Donald Trump selects Gail Slater, an economic policy adviser to JD Vance and tech policy adviser during Trump's first term, as head of the DOJ's antitrust unit  —  - Slater has been policy adviser for Vice President-elect Vance  — Trump vows to continue to crackdown on giant technology firms
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.
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.
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 …
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
First impressions of Amazon Nova LLMs: they are competitive with Google Gemini and extremely inexpensive, and may position Amazon as a top tier model provider  —  Amazon released three new Large Language Models yesterday at their AWS re:Invent conference.  The new model family is called Amazon Nova …
Financial Times:
xAI plans to expand its Colossus supercomputer tenfold to incorporate 1M+ GPUs; work has already begun to increase the size of its Memphis, Tennessee facility  —  Facility in Memphis expected to incorporate more than 1mn GPUs as billionaire's xAI aims to catch up with rivals
Wes Davis / The Verge:
Threads users can now follow fediverse accounts that have interacted with a Threads post; users won't see fediverse posts in feeds, but will on account profiles  —  Threads rolled out fediverse users' likes and replies in a very limited way at first, and it's the same here …
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
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 …
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.
Helen Partz / Cointelegraph:
Bitcoin passes $100K for the first time after rallying 126%+ since January 2024, driven by Bitcoin ETF demand, April's halving, and Donald Trump's election win  —  Bitcoin has rallied 126% since January to reach $100,000, driven by Bitcoin ETF demand, April's halving and Donald Trump's US election win.
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:
The Information:
Sources: Apple and Baidu are working to add AI features to Chinese iPhones but have clashed over model training data, and the models have struggled with prompts  —  Apple and Chinese search giant Baidu are working together to add artificial intelligence features to iPhones sold in China …
More: Reuters, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and TrendForce News
Threads: @eshumarneediX: @waynema and @amirForums: MacRumors Forums
Greg Otto / CyberScoop:
The White House says the Salt Typhoon hack has impacted eight telecom companies in the US, and also affected dozens of other countries, for as long as two years  —  A senior administration official said Wednesday the Salt Typhoon hack has impacted dozens of countries in a sweeping espionage campaign
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.
Alexandra S. Levine / Bloomberg:
TikTok Shop says its US sales tripled to over $100M on Black Friday and it drew a 165% annual increase in shoppers on the two days leading up to Cyber Monday  —  Company is betting big on its US e-commerce arm as ban looms  —  TikTok tripled its US shopping sales to more than $100 million on Black Friday …
Scott Stein / CNET:
Hands-on with Xreal's One Series smart glasses, powered by its custom-made X1 chip, shipping December 9 for the $499 One and early 2025 for the $599 One Pro  —  Xreal's CEO says these new glasses are the start of something bigger.  After wearing them, I agree.
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.
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.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Zoho:
From S Pen to PDF templates: Explore Zoho Writer mobile apps' new features  —  We're excited to roll out the latest updates to Zoho Writer's Android and iOS apps.  Each feature is designed to make writing …
Sevalla:
Sevalla - PaaS from the future  —  Deploy your app before your coffee gets cold.  It's that simple.  Application, database, object storage and free static site hosting.  Start with $50 free credit!
Bitrix24:
Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses  —  Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place.  Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Great Chat:
That Portfolio Life
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
[trading places]:
Top Tier's Sean Engel 🎯 | AI Bubble? 🎈 | Data Centers 🏗️ | Kraken 💰
a very bad podcast about broken unicorns & busted carry hosted by dave mcclure and aman verjee
Subscribe to [trading places].
Invest Like the Best:
Ari Emanuel - The Anti-AI Bet
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Big Technology Podcast:
Can We Trust Silicon Valley With Superintelligence? — With Nick Clegg
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Kevin Reilly got to the top of the TV heap. Now he's in AI.
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.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Knee-Jerk Contrarian', With Dan Frommer
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:20 PM ET, December 4, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:
Josh Dzieza / The Verge:
Ming-Chi Kuo: