Techmeme
December 8, 2024, 1:40 AM

Top News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
X adds Aurora, an AI image generator that appears to excel at photorealistic images and has few restrictions; it isn't clear if xAI trained Aurora itself  —  X, the Elon Musk-owned social network previously known as Twitter, has added a new image generator to its Grok assistant.
Simon Sharwood / The Register:
Broadcom shelves plans to work directly with the top 2,000 VMware customers, focusing on just 500 and giving 1,500 back to partners as a way to stem migrations  —  Now wants to work with 500 and lean more on partners to defend against migrations - which Dell says are on the cards
Financial Times:
Sources: ByteDance has taken an early lead in the generative AI race in China by poaching top talent from rivals and becoming Nvidia's biggest buyer in China  —  Beijing-based company has lured top AI talent from local rivals while becoming China's biggest buyer of Nvidia chips
Alicia Diaz / Bloomberg:
Linda Yaccarino says X worked with the authors of the Kids Online Safety Act to make changes to protect freedom of speech and urges the House to pass the bill  —  - Senate passed bill in a tech privacy package in July  — Changes to bill safeguard free speech, lawmakers say
Financial Times:
Meta says there are no plans to release its AI-powered coding tool Metamate externally; Metamate lacks the more autonomous, agent-like features of rivals' tools  —  Social media group targets burgeoning artificial intelligence sector as it develops ‘Metamate’ workplace assistant
The Guardian:
An analysis of US FEC data: Trump received $273.2M in donations from tech executives and VCs, including $242.6M from Elon Musk, while Harris received $120.9M  —  FEC filings offer only a glimpse of the money tech is pouring into Washington as it seeks to influence government
Sharon Goldman / Fortune:
David Sacks, who called OpenAI a “piranha for-profit company”, becoming AI czar comes at a delicate moment for OpenAI as it transitions to a for-profit  —  Sam Altman may be playing Santa with OpenAI's “12 days of shipmas” - a series of splashy product releases that kicked off Thursday …

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