Google is putting together a new group to work on AI models that can mimic the real world. In a post on X, Tim Brooks said that he would be leading the new team. Brooks was one of the co-leads on OpenAI’s video creator, Sora, but left to work at Google’s AI research lab, Google DeepMind, in October. It will be a part of Google DeepMind. Brooks wrote Monday morning, “DeepMind has big plans to make huge generative models that simulate the world.” “I’m hiring for a new team with this mission.” Brooks’s post led to job postings that said…
Author: David
At CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Nvidia revealed its highly anticipated RTX 5000-series GPUs, introducing four new models: RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070. These cards bring advancements in architecture and design, with varied pricing that offers both good and bad news for buyers. Here’s a complete breakdown of what we know so far. How Much Will the RTX 5000 Series Cost? Nvidia has adjusted its pricing strategy for the RTX 5000 series compared to the RTX 4000 lineup. Here’s the cost for each model: The mixed pricing strategy could shift market dynamics. AMD and Intel,…
On Sunday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the company is losing money on its $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro plan because more people are using it than the company thought they would. In several posts on X, Altman said, “I chose the price myself and thought we would make some money.” When ChatGPT Pro came out at the end of last year, it gave users access to o1 pro mode, an improved version of OpenAI’s o1 “reasoning” AI model. It also increased the speed of some of the company’s other tools, such as the Sora video maker. OpenAI has raised about…
Zoe Saldana led Emilia Perez to major wins at the Golden Globes 2025 on Sunday night, while Demi Moore claimed her first-ever award at the age of 62. Other standout winners included Shōgun and The Brutalist. The 46-year-old actress won Best Supporting Actress – Musical or Comedy early in the evening, followed by Netflix’s Emilia Perez securing the top honor for Best Film – Musical or Comedy. The glamorous event, held on January 5 at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, featured a star-studded red carpet. Demi Moore delivered a moving acceptance speech as she received Best Actress –…
At the height of his career, Sean “Diddy” Combs’ extravagant parties were the pinnacle of celebrity culture. These events brought together stars like Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Paris Hilton, and Jennifer Lopez, while Jay-Z and Beyoncé used the stage to release new music. Diddy’s parties weren’t just gatherings; they were cultural moments, described by his former publicist Rob Shuter as unforgettable experiences. Today, Diddy is in a Brooklyn jail, far from his days as the “party king.” Facing federal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, as well as over a dozen civil lawsuits alleging assault, rape, and sexual extortion, his…
There are more and more high-profile AI models that didn’t come out when they were supposed to. Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of the AI company xAI and a billionaire, said last summer that Grok 3, xAI’s next big AI model, would be ready by the “end of the year” 2024. Grok, xAI’s answer to models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Google’s Gemini, can look at pictures and answer questions. It also runs some parts of Musk’s social network X. Musk wrote in a July post on X, “Grok 3 should be really something special by the end of the…
A revealing new documentary, Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, has debuted its trailer on Peacock. The 90-minute feature delves into the early years of Sean “Diddy” Combs, the music mogul who now faces significant legal challenges. Exclusive Interviews Shed Light on Combs’ Past The documentary offers intimate accounts from those who knew Combs personally, including childhood friends, former bodyguards, and past interns. Singer Al B. Sure!, who was romantically linked to Kim Porter—Combs’ late ex-partner—also provides his perspective. Disturbing Allegations Revealed in the Trailer The trailer paints a troubling picture of Combs’ behavior over the years: Combs Faces…
After eight years of legal battles, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have reached a divorce settlement, marking a significant development in their long-running dispute. US media reported the resolution of their case, with Jolie’s attorney confirming the news. For eight years the legal battle was one of the high-profile divorce settlements which captured everyone’s attention. Confirmation from Jolie’s Legal Team Jolie’s attorney, James Simon, shared the details with People Magazine, emphasizing Jolie’s focus on family well-being. “This is just one part of a long ongoing process that started eight years ago,” Simon said. “Frankly, Angelina is exhausted, but she is…
Nvidia (NVDA) had the biggest increase in market value around the world in 2024. This was due to growing interest in artificial intelligence and strong demand for its AI-focused chips in many industries. The chipmaker’s market value rose by more than $2 trillion in 2023 and will reach $3.28 trillion by the end of 2024, making it the world’s second-most valuable public company. At the end of 2023, it was worth $1.2 trillion on the market. At the same time, Apple (AAPL) continued to be the most valuable company in the world, getting close to a record $4 trillion valuation.…
In 2024, the stock market roared thanks to a boom in artificial intelligence, interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, Donald Trump’s election win, and a strong outlook for the economy. This made the wealthiest people in the world very wealthy. The 10 richest people in the world got more than $500 billion richer last year, bringing their total net worth to just over $2 trillion. This is close to the $2.3 trillion market value of Alphabet, the company that owns Amazon and Google. If you look at the top 20 names on the Parhlo World Billionaires Index, their combined…
As the first update of the year, Telegram has added a new way to verify your account that is driven by a third party. It also has added new message search filters and the option to turn gifts into NFTs. The chat app already had a way to verify accounts of public figures and organizations. Now, it has started a new project that lets third-party authorities, like food safety regulators or educational consortiums, check an account after it has already been verified by a public figure or organization. When a third party verifies an account, there will be a new…
According to CNBC, at a planning meeting earlier this month, top Google executives talked about the company’s goals for 2025. “I think it’s really important we internalize the urgency of this moment, and need to move faster as a company.” At the beginning of this month, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other top executives attempted to set the stage for 2025, which they see as a crucial year, especially when it comes to AI. CNBC got audio of a strategy meeting on December 18 in which Pichai repeatedly told workers to “stay scrappy” while he talked about regulatory and competitive…
“A Farewell to Arms” and the cartoon figure Popeye the Sailor are just a few of the works of art that will become public domain in the US on Wednesday. Books, movies, and other works of art in the US no longer have to follow copyright laws after 95 years. Sound records made before 1924 will also no longer be subject to copyright laws. Once a work is in the public domain, anyone can copy, share, repeat, or change it without having to pay the owner of the rights. This year’s crop includes well-known characters from around the world, like…
CNN says that conservatives who don’t like Elon Musk are saying that the platform he owns is censoring them. A political activist named Laura Loomer started a fight on the Right about work visas called H-1Bs, which Musk supports. Loomer now says that her account has been demonetized and that it has not been confirmed. She calls Musk a “free speech fraud. Another conservative activist, Charles C. Johnson, says that X deleted his account because he “embarrassed” Musk by writing about how his father may have been involved with an emerald mine, which Musk has long denied. (Neither this claim…
Donald Trump, who will be president in January, seems to be thinking about expanding American territory in a way that, if he’s serious, would be on par with the Louisiana Purchase or the deal that got Alaska from Russia. He has been making fun of Canadian officials for the past week by saying that the US could take in its northern neighbor and make it the 51st state. He said he would take over the Panama Canal, which was built by the US and has been run by its named country for 25 years. And on Sunday, he brought up…
NASA’s cutting-edge Parker Solar Probe is about to get 3.8 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) from the Sun, which will be the closest it has ever been. This will happen on Christmas Eve. The spaceship was launched in August 2018 and will be there for seven years to help scientists learn more about our star and predict space weather events that could affect life on Earth. The spaceship would be about four yards (meters) from the end zone at that point if the distance between Earth and the Sun is the same as the length of an American football field.…
There will be a strike at more than 300 Starbucks (SBUX) shops in the U.S. on Tuesday, and more than 5,000 workers are expected to walk off the job. The strike will last for five days, ending later on Christmas Eve. Starbucks Workers United, which speaks for workers at 525 stores across the country, said that on Monday, more than 60 stores in 12 big U.S. cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Seattle, were closed. The strike happened because talks between Starbucks and the union had broken down over pay, staffing, and schedules. The union also said…
The US is going to ban TikTok in less than a month, but President-elect Donald Trump told Reuters on Sunday that he’d like to keep the app around. Trump told supporters at an event in Phoenix, Arizona, “We’re going to have to start thinking because, you know, we did go on TikTok and we had a great response with billions and billions of views.” “A chart was brought to me. It was a record, and it was so beautiful to look at. I thought, ‘Maybe we should keep this sucker around for a while.'” It is said that Trump met…
Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is trying an iOS app that can be used by anyone for its chatbot Grok. Until now, only X users could use Grok. The app can receive real-time data from the web and X and is now live in Australia and a few other countries in beta. It has generative AI features like rewriting text, summarising long paragraphs, a little Q&A, and it can also make images from text prompts. “Grok is an AI-powered assistant that is meant to be as honest, helpful, and interested as possible.” The listing says, “Get answers to any question,…
OpenAI released o3, a new family of AI thinking models, on Friday. The company says that o3 is more advanced than o1 and everything else it has released. This seems to be because of scaling test-time compute, which we wrote about last month. However, OpenAI also says that it trained its o-series of models using a new safety approach. OpenAI shared new research on “deliberative alignment” on Friday. This is the latest way that the company makes sure AI reasoning models stay in line with the values of the people who build them. This is how the company got o1…
Bluesky, a social network, has released a new version of its app that adds a different tab for mentions in notifications, protections against username squatting, and new ways to sort replies. Along with v1.96, the company said it would add a new tab called “mentions” that would let you see these posts separately. Up until now, all of your alerts were in one tab. People who want to steal your Bluesky username can’t do it because Bluesky reserves your original Bluesky username with the.bsky.social suffix when you change your username to a custom domain. The platform said it only holds…
In 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke to Congress about how dangerous AI can be. In that case, he told American politicians that he didn’t own any shares in OpenAI. This is something he has said many times, saying that he only runs the company because he loves it. At the same time, Altman recently said that he did have a share in OpenAI through a Sequoia fund, which he has since sold. Altman was asked what kind of stake he might have if OpenAI is able to become a for-profit business in an interview with Bari Weiss that came…
Google has released what it calls a new “reasoning” AI model. It’s still in the testing phase, though, and based on our short tests, it could be much better. The new model can be found in Google’s AI prototyping tool, AI Studio. It’s called Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental, which is a mouthful. A model card says that it is “best for multimodal understanding, reasoning, and coding” and that it can “reason over the most complex problems” in tech, math, and physics. Gavin Kilpatrick, who is in charge of products at AI Studio, wrote on X that Gemini 2.0 Flash…
Apple made some big changes to the base models of the iPhone 16 line, but the iPhone 16 Pro models looked the same as they have for the past few years. But it looks like Apple is making some big changes to the iPhone 17 Pro Max’s design, at least if these fake renders from the Russian YouTube account Wylsacom are correct. Based on the rumours that this mock-up is based on, the iPhone 17 Pro Max will look nothing like the iPhones that came before it. A new horizontal triple-lens camera section is on the back panel. It looks…
OpenAI announced on Monday that ChatGPT-powered internet search will be open to all users. This makes OpenAI an even bigger threat to Google’s dominance. The tech company in San Francisco added search engine features to its ChatGPT generative AI chatbot at the end of October, but only paid users could use them. The company said that the new public feature lets users get “fast, timely answers” with links to relevant web sources. This is information that they could only get by using a standard search engine before. With the update to ChatGPT, the AI robot can give you information from…
Twitter’s Threads is testing a tool that will let you schedule posts, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said. People who get to test this function won’t be able to plan when to reply. According to him, they want to find a good mix between giving people more control over their Threads posts and still letting people talk to each other in real time. In the three-dot menu in the composer, people who are part of the test will see a link to plan posts. All of your planned posts will show up in the drafts folder. You can change…
It is now being looked into by two Digital Services Act (DSA) authorities. On Tuesday, the European Union said it had started a formal process to look into election risks, especially the recent elections in Romania. The investigation will mostly look into TikTok’s recommender systems and the “risks linked to the coordinated inauthentic manipulation or automated exploitation of the service,” as the Commission put it. The EU will also look at how TikTok handles political ads and material that people pay for. The group said in a press release, “As for both parts, one of the things the Commission is…
For a Facebook security breach that touched millions of users and that the company told everyone about in September 2018, Meta was fined €251 million, which is about $263 million. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) issued the fine on Tuesday in line with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is not the biggest GDPR fine Meta has received since the rules went into effect more than five years ago, but it is a significant punishment for a single security breach. Since July 2017, when the company was still called Facebook, a video upload feature came out with a…
In early 2025, Waymo will start trying its self-driving car technology in Tokyo. This will be the first time that the Alphabet company’s robotaxis have driven on public roads outside of the U.S. Waymo is taking its technology on “road trips” to different places to test it. Each city has its own challenges, which is why the move to Japan is part of this program. The Waymo robotaxis will have to deal with moving on the left side of the road and a very crowded city in Tokyo. Up until now, those road trips have mostly been to a dozen…
Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI researcher, was found dead in an apartment in San Francisco eight days before his body was found. The 26-year-old’s name was in a lawsuit against his former company that could have big effects on the future of AI and the internet. The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December of last year, saying they used “millions” of stories from the newspaper without permission to train their popular ChatGPT model. The companies have said they didn’t break any copyright laws. Business Insider saw court papers that show on November 18 the lawyers for the…
Apple (AAPL) has a lot to be happy about on the 44th anniversary of its initial public offering (IPO). The tech industry leader has had a year of pretty steady growth, with shares going up by almost 29%. This week, Apple also released a software update that adds a link between Siri and ChatGPT, which is a long-awaited step forward for artificial intelligence (AI). Apple has been in the spotlight a lot lately since the iOS 18.1 update added Apple Intelligence. Users are still getting used to the new AI features on their iPhones. Some of the new tools that…
Preeti Lobana has been hired by Google to run its India business. This is a key post that had been open since July, when Sanjay Gupta was promoted to Asia-Pacific president. Lobana used to be vice president of advertising technology at Google. He now leads the company as it promotes its AI products in India, where competition in the digital market is growing. In 2016, she started working for Google. India is one of Google’s most important foreign markets. The company has spent billions of dollars to help Indians of all ages get online and to digitise their businesses. The…
OpenAI has finally put out the real-time video features for ChatGPT that it showed off almost seven months ago. During a livestream on Thursday, the company said that Advanced Voice Mode, ChatGPT’s tool for having conversations that sound like they are between people, is getting better. People who have paid for ChatGPT Plus, Team, or Pro can use the app to point their phones at things and get responses almost instantly. With advanced voice mode and vision, you can also share your screen and see what’s on someone else’s screen. It can, for instance, explain different settings choices or offer…
Microsoft has shown off the newest member of its Phi family of creative AI models. Microsoft says that the new model, called Phi-4, is better than the ones that came before it in a number of ways, especially when it comes to answering maths problems. That’s partly because the training data was better. As of Thursday night, Phi-4 can only be used for study under a Microsoft research license agreement and on Microsoft’s brand-new Azure AI Foundry development platform, which has very limited access. The size of this Microsoft small language model is 14 billion parameters, and it will be…
Just before the holidays, WhatsApp revealed that it had added new video calling features, such as the ability to choose who can join a group video call, better resolution, and a new look for the call tab on the desktop. Meta has taken another step towards making WhatsApp a good alternative to Google Meet or Zoom for both personal and business talks. You can already call everyone in a group chat because the texting app lets you do that. But sometimes you don’t need or want to call everyone in the group and bother them. Now, the company is adding…
The honest selfie-sharing app BeReal, which is popular with Gen Z, changed how it asks users to agree to tracking right after it was bought by the French mobile games company Voodoo this summer. A privacy report has been made against the pop-up that happened as a result. If the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is broken, companies can be fined up to 4% of their global annual sales. European private rights not-for-profit Group The complaint, which was made by noyb, says that BeReal is using sneaky methods (also known as “dark patterns”) to get people to agree to…
A few years ago, Australia passed a law that requires platform giants like Meta, which owns Facebook, and Google, which owns YouTube, to work with news publishers to pay for resharing media. Big Tech had to make deals with local news sites because of the News Media Bargaining Code. But Meta has stopped advertising news around the world on its platforms, and in March, it shocked Australian publishers by telling them that deals worth about $70 million would not be renewed. After Meta’s shocking move a few months ago, the Australian government is getting ready to respond. According to the…
Skype, the phone and messaging app owned by Microsoft, has quietly stopped letting users add cash to their accounts and buy Skype phone numbers. This is bad news for anyone who still uses it. Instead, Skype is switching into SaaS mode, which means that users are being forced to sign up for monthly plans for both local and international Skype-to-phone calls. This will likely affect millions of people. Microsoft said last year that Skype had 36 million daily active users, which is the most current information they gave out. Microsoft did not make the change official: It wasn’t known about…
Google revealed Willow, its newest and best quantum computer chip, on Monday. The tech world was interested in Google’s claims about the chip’s speed and dependability, but it was an even stranger claim tucked away in a blog post about the chip that really got people’s attention. Hartmut Neven, the founder of Google Quantum AI, said in a blog post that this chip was so fast that it must have drawn computer power from other worlds. So, the chip’s work shows that there are multiple universes and that “we live in a multiverse.” This Is The Passage: It’s amazing how…
Generative AI has been used in a lot of bad ways, like making up academic papers and copying artists. Now it seems to be showing up in state efforts to influence people. A recent report from the Massachusetts-based threat intelligence company Recorded Future says that commercial AI voice generation products, such as tech made public by the hot startup ElevenLabs, “very likely” helped with a recent campaign. The report talks about a Russian-backed effort to weaken Europe’s support for Ukraine. It was called “Operation Undercut,” and it used AI to make voiceovers for fake or false “news” videos. The videos…