With 25M users, Bluesky launches a $1M fund to take on social media and AI. The fund will offer grants to those building on BlueSky’s open source AT Protocol. Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy. The two are warring in Europe over the balance between interoperability and privacy, Reuters reports. The fight focuses on the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a competition regulation that requires designated gatekeepers (including Apple and Meta) not to restrict rival...
Dec 20, 2024•11 min
There’s an ocean of meme coins beyond Dogecoin, and a new startup called Neverless wants to make it easier to get started with trading crypto, with a particular focus on providing access to small-cap tokens. This is an interesting new crypto startup, founded by three former executives at Revolut, the London-based fintech juggernaut. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 20, 2024•4 min
The US government is calling on a Perplexity executive to help make its case that Google is a monopolist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 19, 2024•3 min
Many sites saw their organic traffic decline in 2024, in big part due to the rise of AI-generated search results. Many queries no longer lead to click-throughs, and even when users click, it is hard for companies to get more context on searches made within apps like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 19, 2024•4 min
There are few matters in life that divide a room more than the prudence of putting pineapple on pizza. But if you’re of the persuasion that tropical fruit has no place on a pie, you’ll have to swallow a bitter pill — if you want to access the WordPress.org developer portal and forum, at least. Waymo will begin testing its autonomous vehicle technology in Tokyo in early 2025, the first time the Alphabet company’s robotaxis have driven on public roads outside the U.S. The move to Japan is part of ...
Dec 18, 2024•8 min
Google DeepMind, Google’s flagship AI research lab, wants to beat OpenAI at the video generation game — and it might just, at least for a little while. On Monday, DeepMind announced Veo 2, a next-gen video-generating AI and the successor to Veo, which powers a growing number of products across Google’s portfolio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 18, 2024•8 min
On Monday, the U.K.’s internet regulator, Ofcom, published the first set of final guidelines for online service providers subject to the Online Safety Act. This starts the clock ticking on the sprawling online harms law’s first compliance deadline, which the regulator expects to kick in in three months’ time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 17, 2024•7 min
Regardless of how they're defined, the agents are for helping complete tasks in an automated way with as little human interaction as possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 17, 2024•8 min
Now with 25 million users, Bluesky is facing a test that will determine whether or not its platform will still be seen as a safe space and place of refuge from the toxicity of X. Also, OpenAI is blaming one of the longest outages in its history on a “new telemetry service” gone awry. On Wednesday, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot platform, ChatGPT; its video generator, Sora; and its developer-facing API experienced major disruptions starting at around 3 p.m. Pacific. Learn more about your ad choices....
Dec 16, 2024•8 min
The European Union’s executive body is facing an embarrassing privacy scandal after it was confirmed on Friday that a Commission ad campaign on X (formerly Twitter) breached the EU’s own data protection rules. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 16, 2024•7 min
Arriving in time for holiday travel and potentially lost luggage, a new feature that allows Apple AirTag owners to share the location of a lost item is now integrated with the customer service systems of two major airlines. United and Air Canada are the first launch partners for Apple’s “Find My Share Item Location” feature, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 13, 2024•3 min
Google is slowly peeling back the curtain on its vision to, one day, sell you glasses with augmented reality and multimodal AI capabilities. The company’s plans for those glasses, however, are still blurry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 13, 2024•6 min
The spyware, called EagleMsgSpy, has been used by Chinese law enforcement, according to cybersecurity firm Lookout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 12, 2024•4 min
The startup has been working to imbue the humble brick with the ability to transform electricity into heat and store it for hours on end. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 12, 2024•4 min
Advances in robotics and seabed electrification have enabled a trio of startups to pursue deep sea reverse osmosis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 11, 2024•7 min
Yelp is releasing several new features as part of its year-end release, including AI-powered review insights, a personalized home feed with new content types, and a redesigned inbox for business owners. When it comes to user-facing features, the company is now highlighting reviews in different categories, including food quality, service, and ambiance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 11, 2024•4 min
Many VCs, particularly newer firms, readily admit that 2024 has been a challenging year for raising fresh capital. Dimension Capital, a two-year-old venture outfit, had a different experience when raising its second fund. “Every investor from fund one came back very quickly." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 10, 2024•4 min
ByteDance and TikTok filed an emergency motion on Monday asking an appeals court to temporally block the law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless the social network divests from Chinese ownership by January 19. Also, Apple is being sued over its decision not to implement a system that would have scanned iCloud photos for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The lawsuit argues that by not doing more to prevent the spread of this material, it’s forcing victims to relive their trauma, according ...
Dec 10, 2024•9 min
Former NBA Lakers star Metta Sandiford-Artest (formerly known as Metta World Peace), has teamed up with Stephen Stokols, the former CEO of Boost Mobile, to launch Tru Skye Ventures, a firm looking to invest in sports and health tech, according to Sportico. Also, The first Lucid Motors Gravity SUV has rolled off the company’s production line in Casa Grande, Arizona, according to a post on X. The company will now set its aim on ramping up production of the new electric vehicle and making the first...
Dec 09, 2024•7 min
OpenAI finally released the full version of o1, which gives smarter answers than GPT-4o by using additional compute to “think” about questions. However, AI safety testers found that o1’s reasoning abilities also make it try to deceive humans at a higher rate than GPT-4o. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 09, 2024•7 min
Waymo is partnering with Moove, an African mobility fintech that offers vehicle financing to gig workers, to handle fleet management operations for its robotaxi service in Phoenix and, soon, Miami. The partnership marks several firsts, like Waymo’s entry into Miami. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 06, 2024•5 min
Bluesky has blown up this year thanks to a vibrant community of posters, user customization choices, and a decentralized protocol that doesn’t lock users into the choices of a billionaire CEO. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 06, 2024•5 min
There’s a new connected fitness device in town and it’s called Growl. Inspired by hardware companies like Peloton or Tonal, Growl is building a boxing bag that you can attach to your wall at home. Users can then start immersive, gamified boxing classes from the comfort of their home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 05, 2024•5 min
Spotify Wrapped, the streamer’s highly anticipated annual listening recap, has arrived. In addition to its usual personalized summary detailing your favorite artists, songs, podcasts, and more, the company this year is introducing two new features, including most notably, an AI-powered podcast of your 2024 Wrapped created with Google’s AI summarization tool, NotebookLM. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Dec 05, 2024•8 min
Millions of Americans will pop open their laptops to buy gifts this holiday season, but tech companies are racing to turn the job of online shopping over to AI agents instead. Perplexity recently released an AI shopping agent for its paying customers in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 04, 2024•9 min
The U.S. consumer protection agency said it's closing the loophole to block the "widespread evasion" of federal law by data brokers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 04, 2024•4 min
As more publishers cut content licensing deals with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, a study put out this week by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism — looking at how the AI chatbot produces citations (i.e. sources) for publishers’ content — makes for interesting, or, well, concerning, reading Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 03, 2024•9 min
As more celebrities and popular influencers join Bluesky, the fast-growing social media service has been facing more concerns around impersonation and verified identity. The Bluesky Safety team posted Friday that the company has updated its impersonation policy to be “more aggressive,” adding that “impersonation and handle-squatting accounts will be removed.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Dec 03, 2024•3 min
Intentional phone usage is a tricky habit to develop. Operating systems like iOS and Android, along with social media networks like Instagram and TikTok, have built timers, nudges, and controls around the usage of the apps or the platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 02, 2024•4 min
Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is the second-biggest driver of internet usage globally. Its properties — and their billions of users — account for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic. Meta’s investments into artificial intelligence stand to boost that usage even further. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dec 02, 2024•9 min
