Techmeme
December 17, 2024, 4:10 AM

Top News

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Google DeepMind unveils Veo 2, a video generation model that can create clips over two minutes long at resolutions up to 4K, available in VideoFX via a waitlist  —  Google DeepMind, Google's flagship AI research lab, wants to beat OpenAI at the video generation game — and it might just, at least for a little while.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Google debuts Whisk, an image generator that takes other images as prompts to suggest the subject, scene, and style, and uses the new, “latest” Imagen 3 version  —  Google has announced a new AI tool called Whisk that lets you generate images using other images as prompts instead of requiring a long text prompt.
NBC News:
Source: Trump meets with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago, the same day that the company asks the Supreme Court to block the law that could ban the app  —  President-elect Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020 but was blocked by the courts.  He has since changed his position on the issue.
Lawrence Hurley / NBC News:
CNBC:
Waymo plans to test its robotaxis in Tokyo in early 2025, its first international expansion, partnering with taxi operator Nihon Kotsu and taxi hailing app GO  —  Alphabet-owned Waymo announced Monday that it will start testing its autonomous vehicles in Tokyo in early 2025, the company's first step toward international expansion.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Mark Zuckerberg says Threads now has 100M+ DAUs, revealing its DAU figure for the first time, and 300M+ MAUs, up from 275M+ MAUs in November 2024  —  It's a notable milestone not just because it's a big number; it's also the first time Meta has a daily active user figure publicly.
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
OpenAI makes ChatGPT Search available to logged-in users, not just subscribers, and says users can set ChatGPT Search as their browser's default search engine  —  The product, called ChatGPT Search, will be available to any user who is logged in with an account for the chatbot across …
Rishav Chatterjee / Reuters:
Australia's privacy watchdog says Meta agreed to a AU$50M settlement over a 2020 Cambridge Analytica lawsuit alleging 300K+ Facebook users' data was exposed  —  The Australian Information Commissioner said on Tuesday it has withdrawn civil penalty proceedings against Meta Platforms (META.O) …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Chinese shopping app Temu was 2024's top free app in the US iOS App Store, same as 2023, followed by Threads, TikTok, ChatGPT, Google, Instagram, and WhatsApp  —  Chinese shopping app Temu was once again the most downloaded free app in the U.S., according to a list of top apps and games across the App Store released by Apple on Monday.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Meta rolls out three new Ray-Ban Meta features: “live AI” for videos and live translations for Early Access Program members, and Shazam for US and Canada users  —  Meta just announced three new features are rolling out to its Ray-Ban smart glasses: live AI, live translations, and Shazam.

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Google:
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More News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:
John Melloy / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
Noam Scheiber / New York Times:
Peggy Hollinger / Financial Times:
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg: