Welcome back to this week's review. This week, we take a look at OpenAI's latest – and biggest – announcement at its “12 Days of OpenAI” event; Apple's potential entry into the foldable market; and why Databricks is choosing to wait to go public. Let's go.
PS: Let's go for the holidays! Week in Review will be back in your inbox in the new year.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced the successors of its family of reasoning models o1: o3 and o3-mini. Although the models are not yet widely available, security researchers can sign up for a preview. This reveal marks the end of the company's “12 Days of OpenAI” event, which saw announcements for real-time vision capabilities, Search ChatGPT, and even a voice of Santa Claus for ChatGPT. You can catch up everything you missed here.
Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses I got a big update this week. Meta Early Access Program Members can now download firmware v11, which adds “live AI”. The feature allows users to continuously converse with Meta AI to reference items they discussed earlier in the conversation – and it works with real-time video. Live translation between English and Spanish, French or Italian, as well as features with Shazam are also included in v11.
UnitedHealth's Optum left an AI chatbot, used by employees to ask questions about complaints, exposed on the Internet — and anyone could access it with a web browser. Although the chatbot does not appear to contain or produce sensitive or protected personal health information, its inadvertent exposure comes at a time when its parent company is facing scrutiny for its use of tools and information. AI algorithms to allegedly override doctors' medical decisions and deny patients' claims.
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News
Oura wins $200 million: The smart ring maker closed a $200 million Series D funding round, bringing the company's valuation to $5.2 billion. Oura says this money will help the company expand its product offerings and invest more in products, science, AI and more. Learn more
You can now call ChatGPT from a landline: In an effort to make ChatGPT accessible to as many people as possible, OpenAI announced a 1-800 number to call the chatbot, even from a landline or foldable phone. Users can call 1-800-CHATGPT and the AI assistant will answer the phone. Learn more
Tesla is trying to boost Model S sales: After dropping its free Supercharging for life offer in 2018, Tesla is bringing it back for select Tesla Model S cars at the end of the year. But it's important to note that Tesla also just increased the price of the Model S by $5,000. Learn more
Google wants to attack Sora: Google DeepMind announced Veo 2, a next-generation video generation AI. Veo 2 can create clips longer than two minutes in resolutions up to 4k. That’s 4 times the resolution – and more than 6 times the duration – that OpenAI’s Sora can achieve. Learn more
Apple eyes the foldable market: Apple aims to launch two foldable devices in the next few years, according to a Wall Street Journal report. However, another report from Bloomberg claims that the company is focusing on a giant, foldable iPad. Learn more
Bob Lee's verdict: A San Francisco jury found Nima Momeni guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal 2023 shooting of Bob Lee, the creator of Cash App and former CTO of Block. Jurors decided Lee's killing was not premeditated and found Momeni not guilty of first-degree murder. Learn more
Perplexity acquires Carbon: Perplexity has acquired Carbon, a small startup specializing in connecting AI systems to external data sources. The company says Perplexity will soon be able to search your work files and messages in Notion, Google Docs, or Slack in early 2025. Learn more
Temu is always on top: Temu was once again the most downloaded free app in the United States, according to Apple's list of top apps and games on the App Store. The shopping app jumped to the top spot last year, stealing the position from TikTok. Learn more
GitHub launches the free version of Copilot: GitHub now offers a free version of its popular Copilot code completion/AI pair programming tool. Until now, developers had to pay a monthly fee, and only students, teachers, and verified open source maintainers had free access. Learn more
Google publishes its own “reasoning” model: Google has released Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental, what it calls its new “reasoning” AI model. It's currently in the experimental stage, and based on our brief testing, there's definitely room for improvement. Learn more
Analysis
Towards an IPO or not: Databricks just closed one of the largest fundraising rounds ever, raising a staggering $10 billion. Naturally, tech investors were quick to wonder what this would mean for the company's highly anticipated IPO. In an interview at the Axios AI Summit, CEO Ali Ghodsi said “it's stupid to IPO this year” and is instead waiting until at least 2025. Databricks is using this “Series J” to allow the first employees to cash in and continue their growth. Although 2024 has been uncertain in many ways, the IPOs of ServiceTitan, Reddit and other companies have been largely successful. But, as Maxwell Zeff writes, why take the risk when you can simply raise as much money as Databricks? Learn more
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