Mon. 10/07 - macOS Catalina is Here!

Another big pullback of a major AI tool. Microsoft earnings. How CapCut is taking over the creator tools space. Amazon speedy delivery is rolling out to the nooks and crannies of North America. And the startup taking a new run at AI wearable hardware. Links: Meta Scraps Celebrity AI Chatbots That Fell Flat With Users (The Information) The Rise of ByteDance’s CapCut Threatens Adobe and Canva (Bloomberg) Amazon Pushes Fast Delivery Into Rural Areas in Challenge to Post Office (WSJ) Wear This AI Friend Around Your Neck (Wired) Video Announcing the Friend AI device Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

31 Jul 202416min

Perplexity wants to share ad revenue with publishers. But lots of AI companies are continuing to gamble with scraping. Meta’s new Segment Anything 2 model. AI influencers on Instagram. Canva makes an AI acquisition. And in non-AI news, Meta makes a huge settlement with Texas. Links: Perplexity is cutting checks to publishers following plagiarism accusations (The Verge) Websites are Blocking the Wrong AI Scrapers (Because AI Companies Keep Making New Ones) (404Media) Zuckerberg touts Meta’s latest video vision AI with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (TechCrunch) Instagram creators can now make AI doppelgangers to chat with their followers (Engadget) Canva acquires Leonardo.ai to boost its generative AI efforts (TechCrunch) Meta to pay $1.4 billion to settle Texas facial recognition data lawsuit (Reuters) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Jul 202415min

Apple Intelligence might be coming sooner than we dared hope. Might want to check your settings on X. The universe of alt coins is back. A big tech IPO coming from an unexpected source. And is that Galaxy Ring a thing or no? Links: Apple's AI Features Rollout Will Miss Upcoming iPhone Software Overhaul (Bloomberg) Elon Musk calls Grok 'the most powerful AI by every metric' but 'secretly' trains the new model with your X data by default (WindowsCentral) A Digital Coin Based on Baby Trump? Yup. (NYTimes) Honeywell Weighs Quantinuum IPO at $10 Billion Valuation (Bloomberg) Amazon Paid Almost $1 Billion for Twitch in 2014. It’s Still Losing Money. (WSJ) The Galaxy Ring keeps you in Samsung’s orbit (The Verge) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Jul 202416min

OpenAI takes on Google search directly. Another Hollywood strike with the same underlying causes. We know absolutely everything about the new Pixel 9 series already. Is WhatsApp finally catching on in the US? And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions. Sponsors: Thorne.fit/ridehome, promocode: ridehome. Links: OpenAI announces SearchGPT, its AI-powered search engine (The Verge) Video game performers will go on strike over artificial intelligence concerns (AP) [Exclusive] Google Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro Fold promo material reveals design, specs, AI, and other features (91Mobiles) Uber, Lyft, DoorDash Prevail in California Gig-Worker Ruling (Bloomberg) Mark Zuckerberg says WhatsApp has 100M monthly active users in the US (TechCrunch) Weekend Longreads Suggestions: Airbnb Hosts Want Guests to Come to Them Directly (Bloomberg) Physicists may now have a way to make element 120 – the heaviest ever (New Scientist) He says he invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. He didn’t, said Frito-Lay. Now he’s suing (LATimes) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Jul 202416min

Once again, Reddit looks like it’s not worried about upsetting people. New generative search on Bing, new models from Mistral and a new video model from Stability. But did Runway train it’s video models on YouTube videos? We might have a smoking gun. But what if the dream of synthetic data for AI training is a mirage? Sponsors: Lumen.me/ride Links: Google's Exclusive Reddit Access (404Media) Microsoft unveils Bing Generative Search — enhanced with AI, it's a complete overhaul of traditional search (WindowsCentral) Mistral shocks with new open model Mistral Large 2, taking on Llama 3.1 (VentureBeat) Stability AI steps into a new gen AI dimension with Stable Video 4D (VentureBeat) Runway Ripped Off YouTube Creators (404Media) The problem of ‘model collapse’: how a lack of human data limits AI progress (Financial Times) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

25 Jul 202416min

Meta’s Llama 3.1 shows that open models can at least go toe to toe with proprietary AI models. Why did the Google-Wiz deal fall apart? Was the CrowdStrike outage a part of it? Kamala Harris, AI czar? And what do the reviews of the recent Samsung foldable phones say to us about those Apple foldable phone rumors? Links: Meta puts open source AI on the podium. (Ben's Bites) The first GPT-4-class AI model anyone can download has arrived: Llama 405B (ArsTechnica) Google’s Aborted Deals Show Antitrust’s Long Shadow Over Tech (Bloomberg) Google’s $23 Billion Snub From Wiz Will Sting Them Both (Bloomberg) A Kamala Harris Presidency Could Mean More of the Same on A.I. Regulation (NYTimes) Apple Moves Forward With Foldable iPhone (The Information) The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a great phone that’s out of ideas (The Verge) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Jul 202417min

I try to get my head around the whole Google and third-party cookies thing. Wiz turns down Google’s big money acquisition offer. Spot ether ETFs can begin trading. And why weather prediction might be the first big scientific breakthrough of this AI era. Links: After years of uncertainty, Google says it won’t be ‘deprecating third-party cookies’ in Chrome (Digiday) Wiz walks away from $23 billion deal with Google, will pursue IPO (CNBC) This ‘Google TV Streamer’ set-top box is what comes after Chromecast [Gallery] (9to5Google) Spot Ethereum ETFs get final sign off to begin trading Tuesday (The Block) Delta CEO sees flight disruptions lasting for another couple of days (Reuters) Alexa Is in Millions of Households—and Amazon Is Losing Billions (WSJ) AI helps to produce breakthrough in weather and climate forecasting (Financial Times) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Jul 202416min

Wait, did any news happen this weekend? IT people don’t know about it cause they’re still digging out from the CrowdStrike thing. But why is everybody pointing fingers at Microsoft? Samsung jumps on the Google Messages bandwagon. Japan wants AI startups. And what do you do when you need 22 thousand football player avatars real quick? AI of course! Links: CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor also linked to Linux kernel panics and crashes (The Register) Microsoft’s global sprawl comes under fire after historic outage (Washington Post) Blue Screens Everywhere Are Latest Tech Woe for Microsoft (WSJ) Samsung going all in on Google Messages in US, stops pre-installing Samsung Messages on Galaxy phones (9to5Google) Japan’s copyright rules draw AI groups — and alarm from creators (FT) How AI Brought 11,000 College Football Players to Digital Life in Three Months (WSJ) Review: CMF Phone 1 (Wired) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Jul 202417min