Welcome again to Week in Assessment. This week, we’re diving into OpenAI’s shock 12 days of reveals, an underwhelming Spotify Wrapped, and an app that tells you if you’ll die. 😰 Let’s get into it.
OpenAI is stepping into the vacation spirit. In a shock “12 Days of OpenAI” occasion, the corporate will livestream updates and new options each weekday by December 23. The most important reveals to this point embrace a $200 per month subscription tier for energy customers of ChatGPT and the discharge of the total model of its “reasoning” o1 model. You’ll be able to comply with together with the entire product bulletins over the following few weeks by staying updated with our live blog.
Spotify Wrapped was this week, however many customers are feeling underwhelmed by the music streamer’s personalised year-in-review function. The most important complaints stem from the inclusion of an AI podcast over different, intelligent and inventive information tales that it usually gives (remember Burlington, Vermont?). Customers are additionally upset over the shortage of extra detailed stats and the exclusion of knowledge they’ve come to anticipate, like high music genres.
A Delaware Chancery courtroom choose denied Tesla’s request to revise her resolution to strike down CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package — regardless of shareholders voting on the firm’s annual assembly this 12 months to “re-ratify” the deal. Her resolution, specified by a 103-page opinion piece, says that Tesla’s authorized crew has “no procedural floor for flipping the end result” and that the try to vary her thoughts contained a number of deadly flaws.
That is TechCrunch’s Week in Assessment, the place we recap the week’s greatest information. Need this delivered as a e-newsletter to your inbox each Saturday? Sign up here.
Information
Google loses three key leaders: Three members of Google’s NotebookLM crew are leaving for a brand new stealth startup. It’s unclear if the startup will give attention to issues that NotebookLM went viral for, resembling AI-generated podcasts or if it would do one thing completely completely different. Read more
SpaceX mulls an enormous tender provide: SpaceX’s valuation continues to rise at an eye-popping tempo, with the corporate reportedly in talks to promote insider shares at a value that might worth it at round $350 billion. Read more
Electrical popemobile: Mercedes-Benz has delivered the primary all-electric popemobile to the Vatican. The modified model of the G-Class SUV contains a devoted height-adjustable swiveling seat so the pope can handle extra of his viewers. Read more
Intel’s CEO retires: Intel introduced that CEO Pat Gelsinger has retired and stepped down from the corporate’s board of administrators. Per a submitting with the SEC, Gelsinger may very well be strolling away with simply over $10 million in severance pay. Read more
Hey, Dia: The Browser Firm teased its subsequent product to comply with its standard Arc Browser — a brand new net browser known as Dia. Based on an advert from the corporate, Dia will focus closely on AI instruments and is ready to launch in early 2025. Read more
May advertisements come to Bluesky? At our StrictlyVC occasion, we requested Bluesky CEO Jay Graber if advertisements have been off the desk for the social community. Graber informed us that Bluesky might ultimately experiment with advertisements — however in a manner that doesn’t compromise the core person expertise. Read more
All eyes on David Mayer: ChatGPT customers found asking questions on a “David Mayer” triggered the chatbot to freeze. Whereas the unusual conduct spawned conspiracy theories, a way more atypical purpose is on the coronary heart of it — digital privateness requests. Read more
Get your Mac into the vacation spirit: A cute new macOS app known as Festivitas can assist you embellish your Mac pc display with twinkling, vacation lights which might be strung up out of your menu bar and illuminate your dock. Read more
Tesla will get into the fart prank market: Tesla revealed plans for an Apple Watch app that can do a lot of what the smartphone app does, however maybe the silliest replace is the power to prank your buddy within the passenger seat with a whoopie cushion sound impact. Read more
Khloé Kardashian, VC: Khloé Kardashian and Kris Jenner want to increase $10 million for a brand new enterprise known as Khloud, in keeping with an SEC submitting. Logos affiliated with Khloud have been filed to cowl popcorn, granola, and different varieties of snacks. Read more
Do you wish to know when you’ll die? A brand new app known as Demise Clock claims to foretell the date of its customers’ deaths and gives recommendations on how one can push that date again. My colleague Anthony Ha, who is much braver than I, tried it out for himself. Read more
Evaluation
The abject weirdness of AI advertisements.
“Intelligence so massive, you’d swear it was from Texas.”
“Adapt your workforce on the velocity of AI.”
“AI that talks to vehicles and talks to wildlife.”
These are examples of current advertisements for AI merchandise and firms, however what do they even imply? As Maxwell Zeff writes, most advertisements for AI imply nothing in any respect. Firms are resorting to portray AI as this amorphous, magical youngsters’s ebook character with no particular use case, whereas additionally implying that it could do virtually something. We’re in a bizarre place with AI, and the banal tapestry of ads speaks to a bigger rut we’re in. Most corporations don’t actually know what AI is sweet for, and perhaps that’s the purpose. Read more
Source link
