Welcome to the weekly review. This week, We're looking at the latest—and biggest—announcement from its “12 Days of OpenAI” event. Apple's potential entry into the foldable market; Why is Databricks choosing to wait to go public? Let's go inside.
PS It's the weekend for the holidays. Week in Review will be back in your inbox in the New Year.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced. Successors to its o1 family of reasoning models: o3 and o3-mini. The models are not yet widely available, but safety researchers can sign up for a preview. The reveal was the culmination of the company's “12 Days of OpenAI” event, which saw the announcements. real-time vision capability; Search for ChatGPT; And even Santa voice for ChatGPT. You can catch up. Everything you missed here
Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses We got a big upgrade this week. Members of Meta's early access program Firmware v11 is now available for download, It adds “Live AI”. The feature allows wearers to continuously talk to Meta AI to refer back to what was discussed earlier in the conversation — and it works with real-time video. English and Spanish; In addition to live translation between French or Italian, the ability to work with Shazam has also been added in v11.
UnitedHealth's Optum ditches AI chatbot; Used by employees to ask questions about Internet-facing requests — Anyone can access it with a web browser. The chatbot does not appear to contain or generate sensitive personal or protected health information, but its inadvertent exposure comes as its parent company faces scrutiny over its use of AI tools and algorithms, accusing it of overriding doctors' medical decisions and denying patient requests.
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News
Oura saved $200 million. The smart ring maker closed a $200 million Series D funding round, bringing the company's valuation to $5.2 billion. The cash will be used to expand the company's product offerings and product; Science Oura says it will help invest in AI and more. read 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 from a landline or even a flip phone. Users can call 1-800-CHATGPT and an AI assistant will respond over the phone. read more
Tesla is trying to boost Model S sales. After ditching its free Supercharging in 2018, Tesla is bringing it back for some Tesla Model S cars at the end of the year. But it's important to note that Tesla only increased the price of the Model S by $5,000. read more
Google wants to acquire Sora: Google DeepMind announced next-generation AI video generator Veo 2. The Veo 2 can create two-minute clips at up to 4k resolution. That's over 4x the duration and 6x the duration that OpenAI's Sora can achieve. read more
Apple is eyeing the foldable market. Apple is aiming to introduce two foldable devices in the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal. But another report from Bloomberg says that the company's focus is on a giant foldable iPad. read more
Bob Lee Verdict A San Francisco jury found Nima Momeni guilty of second-degree murder in the 2023 stabbing of Cash App creator and Block's former CTO Bob Lee. Jurors ruled that Lee's murder was not premeditated and found Momeni not guilty of first-degree murder. read more
Confusion gets carbon: Confusion spawned Carbon, a small startup specializing in connecting AI systems to external data sources. Perplexity in early 2025, Notion; The company says you'll soon be able to find your files and work messages in Google Docs or Slack. read more
Temu is still on top. According to Apple's list of top apps and games in the App Store, Temu is once again the most downloaded free app in the US. The shopping app moved into the No. 1 slot from TikTok last year. read more
GitHub has launched a free version of Copilot: GitHub now has a free version of its popular Copilot coding/AI pair programming tool. Until now, developers have verified students; Only teachers and open source maintainers get free access, but pay a monthly fee. read more
Google publishes its own “reasonableness” model: Google has released what it calls its new “reasonable” AI model, the Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental. It's currently in the testing phase, and there's definitely room for improvement from our brief testing. read more
Analysis.
IPO to IPO or: Databricks has closed one of the largest funding rounds ever, raising $10 billion. As usual, Tech investors were quick to ask what this means for the company's highly anticipated IPO. In an interview at the Axios AI Summit, CEO Ali Ghodsi said, “This year is crazy for an IPO,” and is looking forward to at least 2025. Databricks is using this “Series J” to cash out early employees and continue to grow. 2024 is uncertain in many ways, but ServiceTitan; IPOs by Reddit and other companies have been massively successful. But as Maxwell Zeff wrote, why risk it when you can make as much money as Databricks? read more