Techmeme
December 20, 2024, 7:50 PM

Top News

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI unveils o3 and o3-mini, trained to “think” before responding via what OpenAI calls a “private chain of thought”, and plans to launch them in early 2025  —  OpenAI announced its new o3 models on Friday.  —  In a tweet ahead of its final livestream for its …
More: The Information, OpenAI on YouTube, OpenAI, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Engadget, Fortune, NBC News, Quartz, ZDNET, The Verge, Axios, Digital Trends, and Tom's Guide
LinkedIn: Jan Beke and Stefan Bauschard
ARC Prize:
o3, trained on the ARC-AGI-1 Public Training set, scored 87.5% on ARC Prize's Semi-Private Evaluation in a high-compute configuration; GPT-4o scored 5% in 2024  —  OpenAI's new o3 system - trained on the ARC-AGI-1 Public Training set - has scored a breakthrough 75.7% on the Semi-Private Evaluation set …
Bloomberg:
OpenAI says safety researchers can sign up for o3 preview today and that it decided not to name the new model o2 “out of respect” for the UK telecom company  —  The new AI system, called o3, is expected to launch early next year.  —  OpenAI is preparing to launch …
Bloomberg:
Arm v. Qualcomm: a US jury finds Qualcomm didn't violate the terms of an agreement covering Arm's chip products acquired in the $1.4B purchase of Nuvia in 2021  —  - US jury finds Qualcomm didn't violate terms of agreement  — Delaware jurors were unable to agree on Nuvia's alleged breach
Hugh Son / CNBC:
The US CFPB sues Zelle operator EWS, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, alleging that customers lost $870M+ to fraud since Zelle's launch in 2017  —  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday sued the operator of the Zelle payments network and the three U.S. banks …
Jamie Tarabay / Bloomberg:
The US charges dual Russian and Israeli national Rostislav Panev for allegedly working with the LockBit ransomware group and seeks his extradition from Israel  —  - Extortion group targeted Boeing, Royal Mail and thousands more  — Israeli-Russian national allegedly hired via Telegram chat app
Liz Pelly / Harper's:
How Spotify used its Perfect Fit Content program to rig its system against musicians, filling popular playlists with “ghost artists” to cut its royalty payouts  —  I first heard about ghost artists in the summer of 2017.  At the time, I was new to the music-streaming beat.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
US DOJ says a Romanian involved in Netwalker ransomware attacks has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to computer fraud and wire fraud  —  Daniel Christian Hulea, a Romanian man charged for his involvement in NetWalker ransomware attacks, was sentenced to 20 years …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
A study by Waymo and insurer Swiss Re finds Waymo's vehicles were safer than those driven by humans, with a 92% reduction in bodily injury claims and more  —  Waymo's autonomous vehicles cause less property damage and fewer bodily injuries when they crash than human-driven vehicles …
Kali Hays / Fortune:
Sources: David Sacks' role as WH AI and crypto czar will be limited to an adviser role, overseen by Michael Kratsios, partly because he won't divest from Craft  —  David Sacks may already be getting a taste of how difficult it can be to get things done in Washington D.C.
Fortune:
Sam Altman says Elon Musk is “clearly a bully” who is suing OpenAI because the startup is doing really well and calls the lawsuits “a little bit of a sideshow”  —  - Sam Altman called Elon Musk a “bully” for his continued criticism of and several lawsuits against OpenAI, the organization they cofounded in 2015.
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) …

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More News

Stephen Alpher / CoinDesk:
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:

Earlier Picks

Robert Booth / The Guardian:
Bobby Allyn / NPR:
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg: