Techmeme
December 5, 2024, 8:30 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Trump picks former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, 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
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.
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 …
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft and Lumen's Black Lotus Labs find Russia-linked Turla hackers hijacked Pakistan-based hackers' servers to launch their own attacks since December 2022  —  The notorious Russian cyber-espionage group Turla is hacking other hackers, hijacking the Pakistani threat actor Storm-0156's infrastructure …
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:
Jillian Deutsch / Bloomberg:
The UK CMA clears the £15B Vodafone-Three deal after a 10-month inquiry, subject to investing £11B in UK digital infrastructure, creating the UK's biggest telco  —  - CMA approved the merger with Three in UK on Thursday  — Europe's telcos have spent years lobbying for consolidation
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
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
Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters:
Intel interim co-CEO David Zinsner says Intel's financial forecast is unchanged and expects the next CEO to have some capability around both foundry and product  —  Intel's (INTC.O) next chief executive officer will have manufacturing expertise as well as experience in the product side of the business …
New York Times:
At the DealBook Summit, Jeff Bezos said he is “very hopeful” about President-elect Donald Trump, and praised his deregulatory agenda and Elon Musk's leadership  —  The Amazon founder said he saw signs of a “calmer” Donald J. Trump on the eve of his return to the White House.
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
Jordyn Holman / New York Times:
A look at the logistics network of Amazon, Walmart and Target for same-day or next-day delivery; Walmart says it now offers same-day to 86% of US households  —  Retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target have figured out that if they get you your online order today, you will probably spend more tomorrow.
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 …
Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
Three members of Google's NotebookLM team, including its lead Raiza Martin, are leaving to launch a startup focused on building “a user-first AI product”  —  Three members of Google's NotebookLM team, including its team lead and designer, have announced they are leaving Google for a new stealth startup.
Reuters:
Meta plans to invest $10B to build a data center in Louisiana, in what would be its largest data center in the world, and expects work to start in December  —  Facebook-parent Meta (META.O) said on Wednesday it plans to invest $10 billion to set up an AI data center in Louisiana …
Nico Grant / New York Times:
At the DealBook Summit, Sundar Pichai said he would love to do a side-by-side comparison of Google and Microsoft's AI models, and expressed optimism about Trump  —  Google's chief executive rejected the idea that rivals were set to eat into the company's dominance in search, despite antitrust fights that could force it to break up.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
How remote support can make your Christmas stress-free  —  As Christmas approaches, the air fills with the anticipation of joy, family gatherings, and gift-giving.  While the season brings immense happiness …
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(BNS) Calvin And Hobbes - With Daniel Kibblesmith
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.

More News

Reuters:

Earlier Picks

Scott Stein / CNET:
Financial Times: