Techmeme
December 5, 2024, 5:05 PM

Top News

Kylie Robison / The Verge:
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Pro, a $200/month plan with unlimited access to o1, GPT-4o, and more, plus an o1 version that uses more compute for better responses  —  OpenAI is creating a new, more expensive tier for its flagship chatbot ChatGPT, and is bringing its “reasoning” model series out of preview with an update.
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
OpenAI launches o1 out of preview for ChatGPT Plus and Team users, with support for image uploads and a 34% reduction in major errors on difficult problems  —  OpenAI has officially launched its o1 model, transitioning out of preview to become a core feature of the ChatGPT platform.
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
Google releases new Android features, including “expressive” video captions, improvements to the Pixel Screenshots app, a Spotify extension for Gemini, and more  —  If you're a Pixel user, you can look forward to even more enhancements.  —  If you're an Android user …
Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters:
Tom Mitchelhill / Cointelegraph:
Viral influencer Haliey Welch's Hawk Tuah memecoin sparks outrage across social media as it briefly pumped to a peak market cap of $490M and then dumped 90%+  —  Haliey Welch's memecoin HAWK has plunged 90% since its launch, though Welch has denied any insider sales from herself or her team.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says it is not “necessarily true” that Bluesky will always be ad-free; ads could be “user intent-driven”, like running in search results  —  Bluesky has blown up this year thanks to a vibrant community of posters, user customization choices …
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.
CNBC:
Waymo says it will expand its fleet into Miami in 2025 with human safety drivers and plans to open up paid rides to local users via its Waymo One app by 2026  —  Waymo is setting its sights on its next location: the Sunshine State.  —  The Alphabet-owned company announced Thursday that it will be hitting the roads in Miami.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
US SEC filing: xAI raised $6B, bringing its total raised to $12B; it was reportedly aiming for a $50B valuation  —  xAI, Elon Musk's AI company, has raised $6 billion, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.  —  Investors gave a minimum of $77,593 …
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 …
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.
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
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Microsoft rolls out Copilot Vision in preview to analyze text and images on webpages and answer queries, starting with some Copilot Pro users in the US  —  Microsoft's AI can now read your screen — or rather, the websites you're browsing.  —  On Thursday, the company began rolling out a limited …
Reuters:
Sources: TSMC is in discussions with Nvidia to make its Blackwell AI chips at TSMC's new Arizona plant starting in early 2025, expanding on production in Taiwan  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW) is in discussions with Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) to produce its Blackwell artificial …
CyberScoop:
US intelligence reports: online terrorist network 764 is using techniques normally used for financial crimes, such as SIM swapping, to commit child sextortion  —  Documents reviewed by CyberScoop show that law enforcement is tracking these violent criminal groups' use of malicious cyber tools to cause harm to children.
Reuters:
Meta plans to invest $10B to build an AI 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 …
Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
Three of Google's NotebookLM team members, lead Raiza Martin, a designer, and an engineer, are leaving to launch a startup focused on “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.
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
James Cameron's Lightstorm Vision strikes a deal with Meta to bring more premium content to Quest mixed reality headsets featuring “big-name IP”  —  The multiyear deal will make Meta Quest the exclusive mixed reality headset of Lightstorm, and is meant to turbocharge 3D content development.
The Information:
Sources: Meta is shifting part of the development of its MR headsets to Chinese manufacturer Goertek and moving half of production to Vietnam from China  —  Meta Platforms is changing how it designs and where it builds its mixed reality devices to stem deep financial losses and skirt a possible trade war between the U.S. and China.
Jordyn Holman / New York Times:
A look at the fulfillment networks 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.

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