Welcome again to Week in Review. This week, we’re OpenAI’s reported plans for its subsequent AI mannequin; a buzzy new messaging app that’s a success with Gen Z; and Tim Cook discovering which you could title a gaggle chat in iMessage. Let’s get into it.
The Verge famous this week that OpenAI is reportedly planning to launch its subsequent frontier AI mannequin, code-named Orion, by December. An OpenAI spokesperson denied the declare to TechCrunch, saying, “We don’t have plans to launch a mannequin code-named Orion this yr.” But what meaning is anyone’s guess and leaves OpenAI substantial wiggle room.
Character.AI is being focused in a lawsuit after the suicide of a 14-year-old boy whose mom says he turned obsessive about a chatbot on the platform. The firm mentioned it’s rolling out new security options, together with “improved detection, response, and intervention” associated to chats that violate its phrases of service and a notification when a consumer has spent an hour in a chat.
More than 100 million people had their non-public well being info stolen in the course of the February ransomware assault on Change Healthcare. It’s the primary time that UnitedHealth Group, the medical insurance supplier that owns the corporate, has put a quantity on the quantity of people affected by the information breach; beforehand the corporate mentioned it anticipated the breach included knowledge on a “substantial proportion of individuals in America.”
This is TechCrunch’s Week in Review, the place we recap the week’s greatest information. Want this delivered as a e-newsletter to your inbox each Saturday? Sign up right here.
News
Mira Murati’s subsequent transfer: Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati is reportedly elevating greater than $100 million for a brand new AI startup, which is able to reportedly deal with constructing AI merchandise primarily based on proprietary fashions. Read extra
What’s in a (group chat) title? A latest profile of Tim Cook revealed that he didn’t know you can title your group chats in iMessage. Cook has since named a gaggle chat along with his former school roommates as merely “Roommates.” Read extra
Elon Musk’s chats with Putin: Elon Musk has reportedly been in common contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin since late 2022. The Wall Street Journal reviews that the conversations have raised nationwide safety considerations amongst some intelligence officers. Read extra
Let Anthropic management your PC: Anthropic launched an upgraded model of Claude 3.5 Sonnet that may perceive and work together with any desktop app. The mannequin can imitate keystrokes, button clicks, and mouse gestures, primarily emulating an individual sitting at a pc. Read extra
Smart glasses success: The Ray-Ban Meta sensible glasses are proving to be a bigger success than Meta initially anticipated. The glasses are the highest promoting product in 60% of all Ray-Ban shops all through Europe, the Middle East, and Africa — even earlier than its AI options roll out. Read extra
Artificial (intestine) intelligence: Throne is an Austin-based well being startup promoting a digicam that clips onto the aspect of a bathroom bowl and takes footage of your poop. Currently in beta, the system makes use of AI to look at your stool and decide issues like intestine well being and hydration. Read extra
Turn your telephone into an e-reader: Bookcase, the newest little bit of tech novelty from Astropad, is a case with a MagSafe mount and an NFC chip that allows you to maintain a smartphone like a Kindle for a extra comfy cellular e-reading expertise. Read extra
Midjourney comes for the online: Midjourney is releasing an upgraded device that lets customers edit any uploaded pictures from the online utilizing its generative AI. The upgraded device will even enable customers to retexture objects in pictures to “repaint” their colours and particulars based on captions. Read extra
A less expensive option to get gasoline: Amazon is providing Prime members a ten cents per gallon low cost at round 7,000 Amoco, AM/PM, and BP gasoline stations throughout the U.S. to fight excessive gasoline costs — and problem rival service Walmart+. Read extra
A message app for the subsequent technology: Daze is a inventive, AI-powered messaging app that’s blowing up amongst Gen Z customers, with a waitlist of roughly 156,000 signups earlier than its launch on November 4. Read extra
A better take a look at Apple’s listening to help function: TechCrunch’s Brian Heater bought to check out Apple’s upcoming accessibility options for the AirPods Pro 2 that enable the earbuds to behave as a listening to help and supply listening to checks. Read extra
Analysis
23andMe and also you: 23andMe is going through an unsure future amid efforts to take the corporate non-public, intensifying considerations about what would possibly occur to the genetic knowledge of the corporate’s some 15 million prospects. If you’ve shipped your saliva to 23andMe, you will have assumed that this knowledge will stay non-public below regulation. But as Carly Page writes, 23andMe is just not lined below HIPAA and is basically sure solely by its personal privateness insurance policies, which it will possibly change at any time. But there may be a straightforward option to request the deletion of your knowledge. Read extra
