Techmeme: WaveForms, which aims to create AI assistants that pick up on emotional cues from verbal interactions, raised a $40M seed from a16z at a $200M valuation (Rachel Metz/Bloomberg)

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December 9, 2024, 1:45 PM

Top News

Marques Brownlee / Marques Brownlee on YouTube:

Review of OpenAI's Sora video generator: excels at depicting landscapes, people, stylistic content, but it often fails with basic physics like object permanence — SORA generates videos. This is the first review.Get up to 40% off on last minute gifts at https://ridge.com/MKBHDThe (real) birding video: https://youtu.be/F...

More: The Information, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, The Verge, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Los Angeles Times, BGR, Tom's Guide, Crypto Briefing, CoinGeek, Analytics India Magazine, and The Decoder

Threads: @mkbhd. X: @mkbhd. Forums: r/singularity

See also Mediagazer

OpenAI:

OpenAI launches Sora, available as part of ChatGPT Plus, letting users generate up to 50 videos at 480p or fewer videos at 720p each month, in select countries — We're moving our video generation model out of research preview. — Learn more System Card

More: Engadget, The Verge, and CNBC

Bluesky: @joannastern. Forums: Hacker News

See also Mediagazer

John Russell / HPCwire:

Google says it had a major quantum error correction breakthrough, unveils its Willow quantum chip with 105 improved qubits, and shares benchmarks and a roadmap — Google today introduced its latest quantum chip — Willow (~100 qubits) — coinciding with two key achievements run on the new chip …

More: The Keyword, Nature, Financial Times, Gizmodo, Decrypt, Ars Technica, FinSMEs, Quartz, New Scientist, LiveScience, SiliconANGLE, Constellation Research, The Next Platform, TipRanks Financial, WinBuzzer, The Quantum Insider, Semafor, BBC, Cosmos, Quanta Magazine, The Debrief, and XDA Developers

X: @teroterotero. Forums: Hacker News and Hacker News

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:

Reddit says it is testing Reddit Answers, which lets select US users ask questions and receive curated summaries of relevant responses and threads in English — As more AI companies gobble up Reddit's data to fuel their own chatbots, the popular online forum site has begun testing a new conversational AI feature of its own.

More: Reddit Upvoted, The Verge, CNET, The Hill, Reuters, Android Authority, Social Media Today, Quartz, Investor's Business Daily, iPhone in Canada Blog, Mashable, Engadget, LifeHacker, WinBuzzer, Neowin, MediaPost, Sherwood News, BetaNews, MakeUseOf, Bloomberg, CNBC, Adweek, and Search Engine Journal

Bluesky: @karissabe, @jaypeters.net, and @quinnypig.com

Amy Thomson / Bloomberg:

Chinese state media: the State Administration for Market Regulation opened an anti-monopoly investigation into Nvidia tied to its Mellanox acquisition in 2020 — - Probe from the market regulator is looking into Mellanox deal — Nvidia shares dropped in early trading after the announcement

Les Pounder / Tom's Hardware:

Raspberry Pi 500 review: the Pi 5's power in a convenient keyboard form factor with awesome thermal performance, but lacks NVMe and no camera or display ports — Cramming a Raspberry Pi 5 into a keyboard — Tom's Hardware Verdict … When the Raspberry Pi 400 was released …

More: Raspberry Pi, TechCrunch, The Verge, How-To Geek, PCWorld, XDA Developers, Engadget, OMG! Ubuntu, TechSpot, SlashGear, TechEBlog, Liliputing, Thurrott, Level 2 Jeff on YouTube, The Register, Level 2 Jeff on YouTube, CNX Software, 9to5Linux, Hackster.io, Phoronix, Neowin, Notebookcheck, and Tao of Mac

Mastodon: @0atman@mastodon.social. X: @raspberry_pi, @geerlingguy, @geerlingguy, @geerlingguy, and @pimoroni

Forums: Hacker News and r/raspberry_pi

SemiAnalysis:

A look at Intel's problems, starting with 2016's 10nm node: 7/11 board members have no chip experience, most CEO options are worse than Pat Gelsinger, and more — Intel's board is incompetent and its horrible decisions over the decades are going to push it towards death.

More: Fabricated Knowledge, Thurrott, The Verge, Stratechery, and The Register

Bluesky: @paularmstrongtbd. X: @pgelsinger, @doggycapital, @dylan522p, @basedjensen, @_fabknowledge_, @rnaudbertrand, @kyleichan, @benthompson, @pgelsinger, @_fabknowledge_, @rodolfor, @qcapital2020, @_fabknowledge_, @metacriticcap, and @jordanschnyc. LinkedIn: Durgesh Mishra

Forums: r/intel and r/hardware

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:

A look at Grand Theft Auto VI, set for release in 2025 after Rockstar started development in 2018, as Rockstar tries to improve its culture after the 2022 hack — Expectations are dangerously high for the first GTA in more than a decade. — Grand Theft Auto VI isn't just going to be the biggest video game of 2025.

More: IGN, TheGamer, Dexerto, The Game Post, Gameranx, and Eurogamer.net. Bluesky: @martinsfp

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Q&A with Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman on AGI, Copilot, AI agents, the OpenAI deal, joining Microsoft in March 2024, managing ~10K staff, DeepMind, and more — The company's new AI chief on working for Microsoft, the OpenAI relationship, and when superintelligence might actually arrive.

More: The Verge and Windows Central. Forums: Slashdot

Daniel Zuidijk / Bloomberg:

Researchers: Meta let 25 Facebook Pages run 4,100+ ads attacking Romania's pro-EU candidate and promoting far-right figures, with 199M+ views since August 2024 — - Political ads promoted far-right figures including Georgescu — Network of Facebook pages shared similar, polarizing messaging

More: CheckFirst, Metacurity, Le Monde, Romania Insider, Financial Times, CheckFirst, and BusinessLIVE

Bluesky: @oliviasolon. Forums: Hacker News, r/technology, and r/europe

Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:

WaveForms, which aims to create AI assistants that pick up on emotional cues from verbal interactions, raised a $40M seed from a16z at a $200M valuation — WaveForms wants to help people have better spoken conversations with machines. — A lead researcher behind OpenAI's voice assistant …

More: TechCrunch, PYMNTS.com, Fortune, San Francisco Business Times, and Maginative

Evgeny Morozov / Boston Review:

A look at generative AI's impact, its structural issue of concentrated power among just a few companies, and utopian questions over an alternative vision for AI — Critiques of artificial intelligence abound. Where's the utopian vision for what it could be?

More: Boston Review, Boston Review, Boston Review, Boston Review, Boston Review, Boston Review, Boston Review, Boston Review, and Boston Review

Bluesky: @markanthonyneal, @davidakin, @sanlambert, @pettter, and @jathansadowski.com

X: @saaphilosophy, @evgenymorozov, @neilturkewitz, @evgenymorozov, and @bostonreview

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:45 PM ET, December 9, 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.

From Mediagazer

Bloomberg:

Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners is exiting from Paramount's takeover bid for WBD, citing changed investment dynamics since it joined the bid in October

Christal Hayes / BBC:

The BBC says “as we have made clear previously, we will be defending” against Trump's defamation lawsuit and “we are not going to make further comment”

Todd Spangler / Variety:

E.W. Scripps' board unanimously rejects Sinclair's unsolicited acquisition proposal of $7 per share in cash and stock, offered in November

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More News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

In a mockup posted on GitHub, Bluesky teases Bluesky+, a $8 per month paid subscription offering profile customizations, higher video upload limits, and more

See also Mediagazer

David Belson / The Cloudflare Blog:

Cloudflare 2024 report: global internet traffic grew 17.2% in 2024, Google remained the top service, global traffic from Starlink grew 3.3x in 2024, and more

More: PCMag, Advanced Television, Business Insider, and SiliconANGLE

Bluesky: @wadewarrens. X: @cloudflare

Sabrina Willmer / Bloomberg:

Filing: TikTok asks a US court to put on hold a law forcing a sale or ban of the app until SCOTUS can review it and the Trump admin can decide its position

New York Times:

Ukrainian officials worry about Telegram, which has soared in popularity during the war with Russia, questioning if its upsides outweigh its security risks

Forums: r/worldnews and r/technews

Bloomberg:

Russian docs and sources: how Putin's forces kept buying US chips, including $5.9M from Texas Instruments from January to August 2024, via a Russian distributor

More: Benzinga. Bluesky: @albertonardelli. X: @edconwaysky and @golub

Forums: r/hardware, r/technology, and r/EverythingScience

Bloomberg:

A look at Donald Trump's collision course with the EU over its Big Tech crackdown: targeting Elon Musk's X under the DSA, Apple's and Meta's fines, and more

More: Financial Times, MacDailyNews, and BIG by Matt Stoller

X: @alicemhancock, @rasmus_kleis, and @kevinwhitelaw1. Forums: r/europe

Reuters:

Filing: Japanese chipmaker Kioxia set its IPO price at ~$9.70, in the middle of its range, raising ~$800M and valuing it at ~$5.2B, for its December 18 listing

More: Blocks and Files, The Japan Times, and Bloomberg

Jeanna Smialek / New York Times:

How FRED, a data tool the St. Louis Federal Reserve created in 1991, recently gained a major following, from <400K website users in 2009 to nearly 15M in 2023

Bluesky: @kedseconomist.com and @ryanlcooper.com

X: @keds_economist, @jeannasmialek, and @justinwolfers

LinkedIn: Alberto G. Musalem and Carlos Garriga. Forums: Slashdot

Earlier Picks

Paula Span / New York Times:

Researchers say cashless policies, which are picking up pace in the US, disadvantage many groups, including low-income peoples, the homeless, and older adults

X: @paula_span and @jeanette_leardi

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:

GroupM expects global ad industry revenue to grow 9.5% in 2024, passing $1T for the first time, with Google, Meta, ByteDance, Amazon, and Alibaba earning 50%+

More: Search Engine Land, MarTech, Axios, The Times, GroupM, Wall Street Journal, The Media Leader, Reuters, and The Hollywood Reporter

See also Mediagazer

Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg:

How Russia-linked Akira group's ransomware attack on Knights of Old in June 2023 led to the 158-year-old UK delivery firm's bankruptcy after it refused to pay

X: @business

Margherita Bassi / Gizmodo:

A study involving 747,604 women finds those who paid extra for AI-enhanced mammograms were 21% more likely to have breast cancer detected than those who didn't

More: TechCrunch, HIT Consultant, The Decoder, and Business Standard

Bluesky: @stormkeepergu. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to

Davide Castelvecchi / Nature:

A randomized study at a corporate lab employing more than 1,000 researchers: teams using AI discovered 44% more new materials than teams with standard workflows

More: The Decoder and Aidan Toner-Rodgers

Bluesky: @richvn. Forums: Slashdot

Dan Gallagher / Wall Street Journal:

A look at chipmaker Marvell, whose market cap has passed Intel's, driven by its data center business; CEO Matt Murphy has reportedly been floated as Intel's CEO

More: TechSpot. Forums: Hacker News

CBS News:

US FEC post-election filings: Elon Musk gave $239M to America PAC, $20.5M to the RBG PAC, $10M to the Senate Leadership Fund, $3M to the MAHA Alliance, and more

More: CNN and The Guardian. Bluesky: @asifhossain

Jeran Wittenstein / Bloomberg:

Bloomberg Intelligence: the Magnificent Seven's combined profit growth is projected to slow from 34% in 2024 to 18% in 2025, or just 3% if Nvidia is excluded

More: Fortune. Bluesky: @alexrpigman and @edzitron.com. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to. Forums: r/ProductManagement