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December 19, 2024, 6:25 PM
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Top News

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.
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 …
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) …
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 …
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.”
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
YouTube plans to start a crackdown on “egregious clickbait”, or videos where the titles or thumbnails make claims the videos don't back up, beginning in India  —  A lot of YouTube videos have flashy, misleading titles and thumbnails, such as “BREAKING NEWS” or “The president steps down …
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Ōura raised a $200M Series D with participation from Fidelity and Dexcom at a $5.2B valuation and says sales grew 100%+ in 2024 to ~$500M with 2.5M+ rings sold  —  Finnish company's growing popularity has led to its sales more than doubling this year  —  Ōura, the maker …
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 …
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.
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
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
Paul Arnold / Reuters:
Swiss tech advisory SoftwareOne to buy Norwegian rival Crayon in a cash and stock deal valuing Crayon at ~$1.4B; the combined firm will have ~$1.8B in revenue  —  Swiss technology firm SoftwareOne Holding (SWON.S) said on Thursday it would acquire Crayon Group Holding (CRAYN.OL) …
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
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?
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.
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
Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
Backflip, which is building AI models that can generate 3D designs using text, sketches, or photos as prompts, raised a $30M Series A co-led by NEA and a16z  —  What if it were as easy to generate a usable 3D design as prompting ChatGPT?  That's the mission of Backflip …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:25 PM ET, December 19, 2024.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Charlotte Van Campenhout / Reuters:
The European Commission opens a probe into Liberty Media's proposed $3.62B acquisition of Dorna Sports, citing possible reduced competition for broadcast rights

Washington Post:
WaPo names Karen Pensiero as standards editor, a new masthead position reporting to Executive Editor Matt Murray; she earlier worked with Murray at The WSJ

Charles Ornstein / ProPublica:
ProPublica details its efforts to bolster local investigative journalism, including launching an initiative with The Texas Tribune to cover major state issues

More News

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
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
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
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
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
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