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December 20, 2024, 7:45 AM
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Top News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google releases Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, an experimental “reasoning” model that “explicitly shows its thoughts” and can use them to strengthen its reasoning  —  Google has released what it's calling a new “reasoning” AI model — but it's in the experimental stages …
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Researchers unveil Genesis, an open-source generative physics engine that trains robots in simulated reality 430K times faster than in the real world  —  On Thursday, a large group of university and private industry researchers unveiled Genesis, a new open source computer simulation system …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
YouTube plans to start a crackdown on “egregious clickbait”, or videos where the titles or thumbnails make claims the videos don't back up, beginning in India  —  A lot of YouTube videos have flashy, misleading titles and thumbnails, such as “BREAKING NEWS” or “The president steps down …
Bloomberg:
Sony's shares in Japan surged 50%+ from an August low to reach its new all-time high since 2000 last week, as investors are bullish on its gaming growth in 2025  —  - Next year ‘one of the greatest’ for video games: Smithers  — M&A and good management boost stock's appeal: Janus Henderson
Kiyoshi Takenaka / Reuters:
Sony buys ~$320M of shares in Japanese media powerhouse Kadokawa, which owns FromSoftware, taking its stake to ~10% and becoming Kadokawa's top shareholder
Malcolm Owen / AppleInsider:
Apple researchers say the company's open-source ReDrafter method on Nvidia GPUs led to a 2.7x speed increase in generated tokens per second for greedy encoding  —  Apple's latest machine learning research could make creating models for Apple Intelligence faster, by coming up with a technique …
Reuters:
The UK CMA says its phase one probe finds that chip designer Synopsys' $35B acquisition of 3D software maker Ansys could reduce innovation and increase prices  —  UK's competition watchdog said on Friday it could approve chip design software maker Synopsys' $35 billion acquisition of Ansys if the regulator's concerns are resolved.
More: Bloomberg and GOV.UK
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
Crypto executives worry that the EU's MiCA, which puts stringent conditions on crypto exchanges to list stablecoins like USDT, will drain liquidity from markets  —  - Executives are concerned that removing USDT will sap liquidity  —  European Union cryptoasset regulations set to take full force …
Robert Booth / The Guardian:
The UK ICO criticizes Google's plans to no longer prohibit companies using its ad products from employing fingerprinting techniques from 16 February 2025  —  ICO says allowing advertisers to track digital ‘fingerprints’ will undermine consumers' control over information
Bobby Allyn / NPR:
Q&A with Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on what led to the country's under-16 social media ban, enforcement, unintended consequences, more  —  Australia passed one of the strictest internet crackdowns in the world last month, banning children under 16 from being on social media or opening new accounts.
Bluesky: @mmasnick

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:45 AM ET, December 20, 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

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Source: Bari Weiss is planning to create a masthead for CBS News as part of a broader overhaul of standards and procedures

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Trump says Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” and “CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW”; earlier CBS aired the Kennedy Center Honors, hosted by Trump

Lorcan Lovett / Nieman Reports:
A look at the state of independent media in Myanmar, which lost US and Swedish funding this year and where subscriptions aren't a dependable source of revenue

More News

Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
Backflip, which is building AI models that can generate 3D designs using text, sketches, or photos as prompts, raised a $30M Series A co-led by NEA and a16z

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
In 150+ X posts, Elon Musk led the charge to kill a bipartisan spending deal, in part by sharing misinfo, which may lead to a government shutdown over Christmas
More: Politico, The Hill, Wired, The Wrap, Business Insider, Forbes, The Daily Beast, Politico, Gizmodo, The Atlantic, Scripps News, No More Mister Nice Blog, Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Independent, The Moderate Voice, Black Wall Street Times, CBS News, Rolling Stone, El País, New Republic, Alternet.org, Daily Kos, The Guardian, WNYW-TV, NBC News, Bloomberg, The Indian Express, and Fox News
Bluesky: @reckless, @pineapple-king, and @rmac
X: @elonmusk, @maxwellfrostfl, @senjeffmerkley, @elonmusk, @elonmusk, @elonmusk, @elonmusk, @growing_daniel, @brianstelter, @elonmusk, @vivekgramaswamy, @davewiner, @naval, @paulg, @elonmusk, @daithaigilbert, @voidofroses, @berniesanders, @elonmusk, @elonmusk, @anniekarni, @armanddoma, @theliamnissan, @sadmonsters, @sensanders, @themaxburns, @ronfilipkowski, @imknottheone, @jamiedupree, @hillaryclinton, @repjimmygomez, @edkrassen, @vivekgramaswamy, @billkristol, @leftcoastbabe, @steven_pifer, @markpocan, @tvietor08, @fred_guttenberg, @fscdems, @ahmedbaba_, @mattglassman312, @allenanalysis, @pamelabrowncnn, @davetroy, @ericldaugh, @arimelber, @jeffjarvis, @doctorhenryct, @ericldaugh, @maddenifico, @boknowsnews, @emrwilkins, @scott_4trump, @c_s_skeptic, @joncoopertweets, @benjamingoggin, @reploritrahan, @youwouldntpost, @allenanalysis, @karthikfortexas, @daniellamicaela, @bigskyisawesome, @jfberke, @repraskin, @chucktodd, @michaelsteele, @fritschner, @farhip, @maddenifico, @alifarhat79, @aaronblake, @acnewsitics, @cwebbonline, @repdonbeyer, @elonmusk, and @repjayapal.  LinkedIn: Brian McLaughlin
Forums: r/politics, r/inthenews, r/AnythingGoesNews, r/politics, r/AntiTrumpAlliance, r/Law_and_Politics, and r/musked
Allyson Versprille / Bloomberg:
The US FAA publishes 22 temporary flight restrictions for drones over parts of New Jersey, as public hysteria over sightings of possible drone activity persists
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Meta teases an AI editing tool powered by Movie Gen AI in Instagram that can change outfits, backgrounds, and more in videos using a text prompt, coming in 2025
Robert Booth / The Guardian:
A coalition of newspapers, writers, movie producers, and others rejects the UK's plans to create a copyright exemption for AI companies to train their models
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic demonstrates “alignment faking” in Claude 3 Opus to show how developers could be misled into thinking an LLM is more aligned than it may actually be
Deadline:
Two Tencent-appointed Epic board directors resigned after the DOJ expressed antitrust concerns; Tencent also gave up its right to appoint future Epic directors
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