Hey, people, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), Ztoog’s common e-newsletter that recaps the previous few days in tech. AI stole the headlines as soon as once more, with tech giants from Google to X (previously Twitter) heading off in opposition to OpenAI for chatbot supremacy. But loads occurred in addition to.
In this version of WiR, we cowl Google faking a demo of its new AI mannequin (and giving out offensive notebooks to Black summit attendees), protection startup Anduril unveiling a fighter jet weapon, the continued fallout from the 23andMe hack, and the discharge of the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer. Also on the roster are tales about affected person scans and well being information spilling on-line, Meta’s new AI-powered picture generator, Spotify reducing jobs and an autonomous truck startup leaving the U.S.
It’s loads to get to, so we received’t delay. But first, a reminder to enroll right here to obtain WiR in your inbox each Saturday if you happen to haven’t already completed so.
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AI, faked: Google unveiled a brand new flagship AI mannequin this week referred to as Gemini. But it didn’t launch the total mannequin, Gemini Ultra — solely a “lite” model referred to as Gemini Pro. In a press briefing and weblog posts, Google touted Gemini’s coding capabilities and multimodal prowess, claiming that the mannequin can perceive photos, audio and movies simply in addition to textual content. But Gemini Pro — which is strictly text-in, text-out — has confirmed to be mistake-prone. And in a worse search for Google, the corporate was caught faking a Gemini demo by tuning textual content prompts with nonetheless photos off digicam.
Offensive notebooks: In one other Google PR blunder, individuals who attended the corporate’s Okay&I Black Summit in August got third-party notebooks containing extremely insensitive language. My colleague Dominic-Madori writes that the within of the notebooks have been printed with the phrase “I was just cotton the moment, but I came back to take your notes” (emphasis ours). It goes with out saying that this wouldn’t have been effectively obtained by the principally Black viewers in attendance; Google has pledged to “avoid similar situations as [it engages] with [merchandise] vendors going forward.”
Anduril’s new weapon: Anduril, the controversial protection firm co-founded by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, has developed a brand new product designed to tackle the proliferation of low-cost, high-powered aerial threats. Dubbed Roadrunner, the modular, twin-jet-powered autonomous vertical take-off and touchdown air car — one model of which is able to carrying a warhead — can take off, observe and destroy targets or, if there’s no must intercept the goal, autonomously maneuver again to base for refueling and reuse.
More 23andMe victims: Last Friday, genetic testing firm 23andMe introduced that hackers managed to entry the private information of 0.1% of consumers, or about 14,000 people. But the corporate didn’t initially say what number of different customers would possibly’ve been impacted by the breach, which 23andMe first disclosed in October. Rather a lot, because it seems — 6.9 million folks had their names, beginning years, relationship labels, the proportion of DNA they share with kin, ancestry reviews and self-reported areas uncovered.
Grand Theft Auto goes viral: In simply 22 hours, the primary trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI racked up 85 million views — breaking a MrBeast video’s document for many YouTube views in 24 hours. The pleasure for Grand Theft Auto VI is a decade within the making; the earlier entry in Rockstar Games’ long-running franchise, Grand Theft Auto V, stays the second-best-selling online game of all time, falling brief solely of Minecraft.
Patient information leak: Thousands of uncovered servers are spilling the medical information and private well being data of thousands and thousands of sufferers on account of safety weaknesses in a a long time’ outdated trade commonplace designed for storing and sharing medical photos. This commonplace, often called Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), is the internationally acknowledged format for medical imaging. But as found by Aplite, a Germany-based cybersecurity consultancy, safety shortcomings in DICOM imply many medical amenities have unintentionally made non-public information accessible to the open internet.
Meta generates photos: Not to be outdone by Google’s Gemini launch, Meta rolled out a brand new, stand-alone generative AI expertise on the internet, Imagine with Meta AI, that permits customers to create photos by describing them in pure language. Similar to OpenAI’s DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, Imagine with Meta AI, which is powered by Meta’s present Emu image-generation mannequin, creates high-resolution photos from textual content prompts.
Spotify makes cuts: Spotify is eliminating about 1,500 jobs, or roughly 17% of its workforce, in its third spherical of layoffs this yr because the music streaming large seems to be to turn out to be “both productive and efficient.” In a notice to workers Monday, Spotify founder and chief govt Daniel Ek — citing sluggish financial development and rising capital prices — stated right-sizing the workforce is essential for the corporate to face the “challenges ahead.”
TuSimple exits: When TuSimple went public in 2021, it was flying excessive because the main self-driving vehicles developer within the U.S. Now — after a string of inside controversies and the lack of a essential partnership with truck producer Navistar — TuSimple is exiting the U.S. altogether. TuSimple stated in a regulatory submitting Monday that it’s shedding the vast majority of its U.S. workforce and promoting belongings right here because it exits the nation for Asia.
ZestMoney shuts down: ZestMoney — a purchase now, pay later startup whose means to underwrite small-ticket loans to first-time web prospects attracted many high-profile traders, together with Goldman Sachs — is shutting down following unsuccessful efforts to discover a purchaser. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup employed about 150 folks at peak and raised greater than $130 million over its eight-year journey.
Audio
Ztoog’s roster of podcast episodes retains rising — simply in time for weekend listening.
Equity featured a throwback dialog from Ztoog Disrupt 2023, when Alex sat down with Serhii Bohoslovskyi, the founding father of a no-code app builder, Trible, that helps folks assemble on-line programs. The pair caught up on the state of the creator financial system, using no-code tooling immediately (and the way it’s obtained by nontechnical creators) and the safety of startups with roots in Ukraine.
Over on Found, the crew talked to David Rogier, the CEO and founding father of MasterClass, a streaming platform the place you may study from the world’s specialists on a spread of matters. Before Rogier launched MasterClass, he labored as a VC, and — by way of his connections — he obtained a $500,000 seed spherical earlier than he even had an concept for a corporation.
And on Chain Reaction, Jacquelyn interviewed David Pakman, managing associate and head of enterprise investments at CoinFund. Before CoinFund, David spent 14 years on the enterprise capital agency Venrock. He additionally led the Series A and B rounds at Dollar Shave Club, which was acquired by Unilever for $1 billion. And, in 1991, David co-created Apple Music when he was a part of Apple’s system software program product advertising and marketing group.
Ztoog+
TC+ subscribers get entry to in-depth commentary, evaluation and surveys — which you already know if you happen to’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, think about signing up. Here are a couple of highlights from this week:
Bitcoin surge: Jacquelyn writes about Bitcoin’s rapid-fire ascent to $44,000, which got here on the again of roughly 25% beneficial properties within the final week. Her piece for TC+ explores what’s driving Bitcoin’s value ascent and related worth beneficial properties amongst different tokens — and whether or not the great vibes proceed into the brand new yr.
To swap, or to not swap: Tim reviews on how client EV battery swapping might usher in freedom for a variety of individuals, permitting them to take part within the EV transition in ways in which conventional built-in batteries don’t. The problem is making the unit economics work.
Coinbase and Robin and the way forward for fintech: Investors are betting that client buying and selling of fairness and crypto is rebounding and are consequently pushing the worth of some former startups increased, Alex writes. That might spell excellent news for startups providing client buying and selling companies instantly — or not directly, for that matter.