Welcome to the Week in Review (WiR)

Welcome everyone to Week in Review (WiR). This is TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the past few days in technology. AI is back in the headlines, with tech giants from Google to X (formerly Twitter) taking on OpenAI for chatbot supremacy. But so much more happened. In this issue of WiR, Google fakes a demo of a new AI model (and handed out an offensive note to Black Summit attendees), defense startup Anduril unveils fighter jet weapons, and the latest from the 23andMe hack The Continuing Aftermath and Grand Theft Auto VI trailer. Other stories include patient scans and health records leaked online, Meta’s new AI-powered image generator, Spotify layoffs, and self-driving truck startup pulling out of the US. There’s a lot to do, so don’t delay. But before that, if you haven’t already, here’s a reminder to subscribe here so you can receive her WiR in your inbox every Saturday.

Google fakes a new AI model (and hands out an offensive note to Black Summit attendees)

Google this week announced a new flagship AI model called Gemini. However, the complete model Gemini Ultra was not released, only a “lite” version called Gemini Pro. Google touted Gemini’s coding and multimodal capabilities in press conferences and blog posts, claiming the model can understand not only text but also images, audio, and video. However, because Gemini Pro is strictly text input and text output, it has proven to be error-prone. And to make matters worse for Google, the company was caught faking the Gemini demo by adjusting the text prompts with still images taken away from the camera. In another Google PR failure, people who attended the company’s K&I Black Summit in August were given third-party notebooks containing extremely insensitive language. My colleague Dominique Madri wrote that the inside of the notebook had the phrase “I was just now” printed on it. cotton That was the moment, but I came back to take your notes” (emphasis on our notes). Needless to say, this would not have been well-received by the mostly black audience in attendance. Google promises to “avoid similar situations.”

Anduril’s new weapons

Anduril, the controversial defense company co-founded by Oculus founder Palmer Lackey, has developed a new product designed to counter the proliferation of low-cost, high-powered aerial threats. A modular, twin-jet-powered, autonomous vertical take-off and landing aircraft (one version of which can carry warheads), called the Roadrunner, can take off from, track, and destroy targets, as well as intercept them. If there is no need, you can intercept the target. autonomously maneuver back to base, refuel and reuse. More 23andMe victims: Last Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers had accessed the personal data of 0.1% of its customers, or about 14,000 people. But the company initially declined to say how many other users may have been affected by the breach, which 23andMe first disclosed in October. In all, 6.9 million people had their name, year of birth, relationship label, percentage of his DNA shared with relatives, ancestry reports, and self-reported location exposed.

Grand Theft Auto VI trailer goes viral

The first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI reached 85 million views in just 22 hours, breaking the MrBeast video’s record for most YouTube views in 24 hours. The excitement for Grand Theft Auto VI continues for his decade. The previous installment in Rockstar Games’ long-running series, Grand Theft Auto V, remains the same. second best selling Best video game of all time, not even close to Minecraft.

Patient records leaked

A security weakness in a decades-old industry standard designed for storing and sharing medical images has led to thousands of exposed servers exposing the medical records and personal health information of millions of patients. I am. This standard, known as Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), is an internationally recognized format for medical images. However, as German-based cybersecurity consultancy Aplite has discovered, security flaws in DICOM are allowing many healthcare facilities to unintentionally make their personal data accessible from the open web.

Meta generates images

Not to be outdone by the launch of Google’s Gemini, Meta has launched a new standalone generative AI experience, Imagine with Meta AI, on the web. This allows users to create images by describing them in natural language. Similar to OpenAI’s DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, Imagine with Meta AI leverages Meta’s existing Emu image generation model to create high-resolution images from text prompts.

Spotify makes layoffs

Spotify will cut around 1,500 jobs, or about 17% of its workforce, in its third round of layoffs this year as the music streaming giant aims to “increase both productivity and efficiency.” It’s a schedule. In a memo to employees on Monday, Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek cited slowing economic growth and rising costs of capital, saying the company needs more employees to face “the challenges ahead.” He stated that it is important to set an appropriate size of staff.

TuSimple will exit

When TuSimple went public in 2021, it was emerging as the leading self-driving truck developer in the U.S., but now, after a series of internal disputes and the loss of a key partnership with truck manufacturer Navistar, TuSimple is completely removed from the U.S. We are withdrawing. TuSimple says:

ZestMoney will shut down

ZestMoney, a buy-now-pay-later startup that can underwrite small loans to first-time Internet customers and has attracted a number of high-profile investors, including Goldman Sachs, has found a buyer. Efforts failed and it was closed. At its peak, the Bangalore-based startup employed around 150 people and raised more than $130 million during its eight-year run.

TechCrunch’s latest podcast episodes

TechCrunch’s list of podcast episodes continues to grow, just in time for your weekend listening. capital We featured a retrospective conversation from TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. Alex is the founder of Trible, a no-code app builder that helps you build online courses. He spoke with Serhii Bohoslovskyi. The two talked about the current state of the creator economy, the state of use of no-code tools today (and how it’s being embraced by non-technical creators), and the safety of startups with Ukrainian roots. . It’s over found, the crew spoke to David Rogier, CEO and founder of MasterClass, a streaming platform where you can learn from world experts on a variety of topics. Before Rogier launched his MasterClass, he worked as a VC, and through those connections he secured a $500,000 seed round before the company even had an idea. and, Chain reaction, Jacqueline interviewed David Packman, Managing Partner and Head of Venture Investments at Coinfund. Prior to CoinFund, David worked at venture capital firm Venrock where he worked for 14 years. He also led the Series A and B rounds of Dollar Shave Club, which was acquired by Unilever for $1 billion. And he co-created Apple Music in 1991, when David was in Apple’s Systems Software Product Marketing Group.

Source: techcrunch.com