Techmeme
December 20, 2024, 7:45 AM

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 …
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Researchers unveil Genesis, an open-source generative physics engine that trains robots in simulated reality 430K times faster than in the real world  —  On Thursday, a large group of university and private industry researchers unveiled Genesis, a new open source computer simulation system …
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 …
Bloomberg:
Sony's shares in Japan surged 50%+ from an August low to reach its new all-time high since 2000 last week, as investors are bullish on its gaming growth in 2025  —  - Next year ‘one of the greatest’ for video games: Smithers  — M&A and good management boost stock's appeal: Janus Henderson
Kiyoshi Takenaka / Reuters:
Malcolm Owen / AppleInsider:
Apple researchers say the company's open-source ReDrafter method on Nvidia GPUs led to a 2.7x speed increase in generated tokens per second for greedy encoding  —  Apple's latest machine learning research could make creating models for Apple Intelligence faster, by coming up with a technique …
Reuters:
The UK CMA says its phase one probe finds that chip designer Synopsys' $35B acquisition of 3D software maker Ansys could reduce innovation and increase prices  —  UK's competition watchdog said on Friday it could approve chip design software maker Synopsys' $35 billion acquisition of Ansys if the regulator's concerns are resolved.
More: Bloomberg and GOV.UK
Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg:
Crypto executives worry that the EU's MiCA, which puts stringent conditions on crypto exchanges to list stablecoins like USDT, will drain liquidity from markets  —  - Executives are concerned that removing USDT will sap liquidity  —  European Union cryptoasset regulations set to take full force …
Robert Booth / The Guardian:
The UK ICO criticizes Google's plans to no longer prohibit companies using its ad products from employing fingerprinting techniques from 16 February 2025  —  ICO says allowing advertisers to track digital ‘fingerprints’ will undermine consumers' control over information
Bobby Allyn / NPR:
Q&A with Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on what led to the country's under-16 social media ban, enforcement, unintended consequences, more  —  Australia passed one of the strictest internet crackdowns in the world last month, banning children under 16 from being on social media or opening new accounts.
Bluesky: @mmasnick

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Robert Booth / The Guardian:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
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