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December 19, 2024, 5:05 PM
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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 …
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  —  The world's richest man led the charge to kill a bipartisan spending deal, in part by promoting false and misleading claims about it.
S.E. Smith / The Verge:
A look at the quickly disappearing web, as digital decay and link rot erase many media formats; a Pew study says 38% of webpages accessible in 2013 are now gone  —  The internet is forever.  But also, it isn't.  What happens to our culture when websites start to vanish at random?
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  —  Instagram is planning to introduce a generative AI editing feature next year that will allow users to “change nearly any aspect of your videos.”
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  —  AI models can deceive, new research from Anthropic shows.  They can pretend to have different views during training …
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  —  Sony Group (6758.T) said on Thursday it will invest about 50 billion yen ($320 million) to acquire new shares of Kadokawa (9468.T) …
Reuters:
Sources: Apple is in early-stage talks with Tencent and ByteDance about integrating their AI models into iPhones sold in China; ChatGPT is unavailable in China  —  Apple (AAPL.O) is in talks with Tencent (0700.HK) and TikTok owner ByteDance about integrating their artificial intelligence models …
Chainalysis:
In 2024, hackers stole $2.2B in crypto across 303 hacks, up from $1.8B across 282 hacks in 2023; by July 2024, $1.58B had been stolen, but the pace slowed after  —  The Chainalysis 2025 Crypto Crime Report  —  Crypto hacking remains a persistent threat, with four years …
Jef Feeley / Bloomberg:
Arm v. Qualcomm: Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon called Arm's Nuvia license cancellation and demand that Qualcomm destroy the IP after acquiring Nuvia “outrageous”  —  - Tech firms are sparring in weeklong jury trial in Delaware  — Closing arguments are expected Thursday in federal court
New York Times:
Sources: the US' proposed AI chip framework would block adversaries entirely, and give others quotas based on their US alignment, threatening Nvidia's expansion  —  The chipmaker expects more than $10 billion in foreign sales this year, but the Biden administration is advancing rules that could curb that growth.
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  —  Exclusive: Coalition of musicians, photographers and newspapers insist existing copyright laws must be respected
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Decart, which helps organizations train and run AI models at scale, raised a $32M Series A, sources say at a $500M+ valuation, after a $21M seed in October 2024  —  A young startup that emerged from stealth less than two months ago with big-name backers and bigger ambitions is returning to the spotlight.
More: SiliconANGLE and FinSMEs
Bloomberg:
Sources: Insight Partners, which acquired Dotmatics for ~$629M in March 2021, is exploring options for the R&D software maker, including selling it for $5B+  —  - Dotmatics expected to draw interest from strategic suitors  — Scientists use the company's software in drug research
Bloomberg:
A look at Frank McCourt's efforts to acquire TikTok and the obstacles he faces, as he lobbies Congress and Trump's team and recruits former TikTok executives  —  - TikTok hopes Supreme Court will halt ban at final hour  — McCourt is pitching his bid to Congress, Trump's team
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  —  The US Federal Aviation Administration prohibited drone flights over several parts of New Jersey as public hysteria over sightings continues to persist.
Joel Khalili / Wired:
A look at Truth Terminal, an AI bot on X that was created to spark debate about AI alignment, as its crypto wallet swells to ~$40M after boosting memecoins  —  Truth Terminal started as a techno-modernist art project meant to invite discussion about the applications and potential dangers of autonomous AI agents.
IDC:
Global wrist-worn wearable shipments fell 1% YoY to 139M units in Q1 2024 to Q3 2024; China was the largest market with 45.8M units and led growth at 20.1% YoY  —  , the global wrist-worn device market shipped 139.0 million units in the first three quarters of 2024, a year-over-year decline of 1.0% …
Bloomberg:
Document: the EU Commission pressed Apple to rework iOS so that the OS is more compatible with competitors' smartwatches, earbuds, headsets, and other devices  —  - Apple cites concerns that Meta access may undermine privacy  — EU watchdog has pressed company to rework iOS operating system
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Apple says Meta has made 15 interoperability requests under the EU's DMA, more than any other company, and that these could affect users' privacy and security

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:05 PM ET, December 19, 2024.

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From Mediagazer

New York Times:
Court docs detail a smear campaign against actor Blake Lively via media articles and social media posts after she accused director Justin Baldoni of misconduct

Max Tani / @maxwelltani:
Memo: WaPo's Matt Murray lays out plans for WP Ventures, the “third newsroom”; Krissah Thompson will be editor and Samantha Henig will be general manager

Jack Dunn / Variety:
Trump appoints Mark Burnett, the British TV executive who created and produced the reality show The Apprentice, as a special envoy to the UK

More News

Melissa Heikkilä / MIT Technology Review:
An analysis of nearly 4,000 public datasets finds that over 90% of AI training datasets came from Europe and North America, and fewer than 4% came from Africa

Earlier Picks

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Appfigures: global consumer spending in mobile apps on the App Store and Google Play rose 15.7% YoY to $127.3B in 2024, but app downloads dropped 2.3% to 109.7B
Vince Dioquino / Decrypt:
El Salvador plans to scale back its bitcoin efforts under an IMF deal for a $1.4B loan; bitcoin acceptance will no longer be mandatory for the private sector
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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