Techmeme
December 5, 2024, 12:40 AM

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
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Microsoft and Lumen's Black Lotus Labs researchers find Russia-linked Turla hackers are hijacking Pakistan-based hackers' servers to launch their own attacks  —  The notorious Russian cyber-espionage group Turla is hacking other hackers, hijacking the Pakistani threat actor Storm-0156's infrastructure …
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:
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
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
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.
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 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, 9to5Mac, and TrendForce News
Threads: @eshumarneediX: @waynema and @amirForums: MacRumors Forums
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Axiado, which makes chips and apps to secure data centers, 5G base stations, and more from cyberattacks, raised a $60M Series C led by Maverick Silicon  —  Cyberattacks are on the rise.  In Q1 2024, organizations experienced an average of around 1,300 attacks per week.  The cost of attacks is climbing, as well.
More: FinSMEs
Alexandra S. Levine / Bloomberg:
TikTok says US sales on TikTok Shop tripled to $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 …
Scott Stein / CNET:
Hands-on with Xreal's One Series smart glasses, powered by its custom-made X1 chip; the $499 One ships from December 9 and the $599 One Pro ships in early 2025  —  Xreal's CEO says these new glasses are the start of something bigger.  After wearing them, I agree.
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
A look at European startups building AI-powered weapons, betting governments will increase defense budgets and buy more autonomous drones and AI systems  —  A crop of defense newcomers wants European militaries to modernize — and dole out contracts  —  As the war in Ukraine enters …

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