Welcome to this week’s review. This week, we cover GM’s decision to get out of the robotaxi business, Google hinting at the existence of multiple worlds, how to make big bucks by making AI bots fall in love, and more. Let’s get started.
General Motors will not fund the development of a commercial robotaxi business, instead merging its self-driving car subsidiary Cruise and combining it with the automaker’s own efforts to develop driver-assistance features and eventually fully autonomous personal vehicles. . Several Cruise employees told TechCrunch they were “blindsided” by the decision. GM acquired Cruise in 2016 for $1 billion and has since spent more than $10 billion on the company’s efforts.
OpenAI has finally released the real-time video capabilities of ChatGPT, which we demoed about seven months ago. ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro subscribers can use the app to point their phone at objects and have ChatGPT respond in near real-time. This feature also lets you see what’s on your device’s screen through screen sharing. We have several more reveals planned for 12 Days of OpenAI, so stay up to date with our live blog.
Google this week announced its first-ever AI agent that can perform actions on the web. The Gemini-powered agent, called Project Mariner, takes control of your Chrome browser and lets you use and navigate websites like a human by moving the cursor around the screen, clicking buttons, and filling out forms. . Although it’s still a prototype for the DeepMind division, it represents Google’s shift away from users directly interacting with websites.
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news
Duolingo joins ‘Squid Game’: Ahead of the release of the next season of ‘Squid Game,’ Netflix has partnered with Duolingo to help viewers learn Korean. The companies also released an exclusive TikTok filter inspired by the show’s “Red Light, Green Light” game. read more
Google Soft Launches Multiverse: Google announced its latest quantum computing chip Willow. But hidden in blog posts about the chip is the claim that it’s so incredibly fast that it must have borrowed computing power from another world. read more
What did you Google this year? Google has announced its annual list of top trending searches for 2024, including CrowdStrike disorder, One Direction’s late Liam Payne, chocolate bars in Dubai and more. read more
Rest in peace, Car Thing: Spotify has officially retired its in-car streaming device, Car Thing. If you make a purchase, you have just over a month to provide proof of purchase and receive your refund. read more
Bluesky teases paid subscriptions: Bluesky has published mockups on GitHub teasing upcoming subscription tiers. Bluesky appears to be considering paid features for this tier, such as custom app icons, post analytics, and bookmark folders. read more
Is Sora trained in video games? Through testing OpenAI’s video generator Sora, it appears that at least some of the data used for training may have come from Twitch streams and game walkthroughs. Legal experts say that could be a problem. read more
Grok has a new image generator. Grok has released a brand new image generator codenamed “Aurora”. This is very open-ended when it comes to replicating public figures. I’ve been looking at a ton of AI images of “Real Housewives” cast members, so this certainly shows my timeline. read more
Krispy Kreme suffers from cyberattack: Donut chain Krispy Kreme has disclosed a security incident that caused “certain business disruptions.” The company said its stores are open and there are no disruptions to deliveries to its retail and restaurant partners. read more
Can you make an AI bot fall in love with you? Freysa.ai is creating challenges aimed at influencing how humans think about AI safety. The first time you successfully trick the AI character Freysa into saying “I love you” could earn you tens of thousands of dollars. read more
Firefox removes unnecessary features: Mozilla’s Firefox browser has removed the “Do Not Track” feature. This setting is effectively useless (and misleading) because websites have no real reason to respect signals. read more
You can now buy cars on Amazon. Amazon is expanding into the online car sales market with the launch of Amazon Autos, an e-commerce business that lets customers search, order, and buy new cars, trucks, and SUVs at dealerships. read more
