Techmeme
December 20, 2024, 6:50 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 …
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:
Bloomberg:
Qualcomm prevails in a trial against Arm's claim that it breached a license for chip technology that Qualcomm 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
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.
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
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 …
Robert Booth / The Guardian:
The UK ICO criticizes Google as “irresponsible” after the company announced plans to let advertisers employ fingerprinting techniques from February 16, 2025  —  ICO says allowing advertisers to track digital ‘fingerprints’ will undermine consumers' control over information
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
US hospital operator Ascension notifies nearly 5.6M patients and employees that their personal and health data was stolen in a May 2024 Black Basta cyberattack  —  Ascension, one of the largest private U.S. healthcare systems, is notifying over 5.6 million patients and employees that their personal …
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) …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
Codegen:
Ship with AI: The Future of Coding is Here  —  Use natural language in Slack to trigger real PRs, docs, dashboards, infra & more.  Codegen connects GitHub, Linear, Notion, and beyond.
Zoho:
Workforce password management made easy with Zoho Vault  —  Every click, every login, every digital interaction—we're constantly exchanging sensitive data.  But with cyber threats on the rise, why do so many of us still rely on weak, predictable passwords?
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
AI prompt engineering in 2025: What works and what doesn't | Sander Schulhoff (Learn Prompting, HackAPrompt)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Oh Yeah. What About TikTok?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Why did Apple ice out the most famous Apple blogger?
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Sam Altman from OpenAI
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Spotlight On:
True Anomaly's Even Rogers on failing forward to achieve mission success
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:50 PM ET, December 20, 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.

More News

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
Malcolm Owen / AppleInsider:
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: