~techmeme | Bookmarks (1012)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Google releases Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, an experimental “reasoning” model that “explicitly shows its thoughts” and can use them to strengthen its reasoning  —  Google has released what it's calling a new “reasoning” AI model — but it's in the experimental stages …

Allyson Versprille / Bloomberg: The US FAA publishes 22 temporary flight restrictions for drones over parts of New Jersey, as public hysteria over sightings of possible drone activity persists  —  The US Federal Aviation Administration prohibited drone flights over several parts of New Jersey as public hysteria over sightings continues to persist.

Myles McCormick / Financial Times: NERC, overseen by FERC, warns soaring electricity demand from sources including data centers to power AI could strain US and Canadian grids, risking blackouts  —  Surging demand from tech sector could overwhelm generation capacity, report says  —  North America's electricity grid faces …

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: India's commerce minister says that Shein will operate in India purely as a tech partner, with Reliance Retail having full ownership and control of operations  —  Shein must surrender all data of Indian customers and control of its local operations to its partner, Reliance Retail …

Google DeepMind: Google introduces FACTS Grounding benchmark for evaluating the factuality of LLMs, and announces a leaderboard that ranks Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental on top  —  Our comprehensive benchmark and online leaderboard offer a much-needed measure of how accurately LLMs ground their responses …

Ernie Smith / Tedium: Bluesky's use of domains to verify users has led to cybersquatting and impersonation, as domains don't offer enough social proof for the average person  —  An apparent extortion scheme involving famous writers and entrepreneurs lit up Bluesky the other night.

Richard Waters / Financial Times: NYC-based Precision Neuroscience, a maker of brain-computer interfaces, raised a $102M Series C led by General Equity Holdings at a ~$500M post-money valuation  —  Precision Neuroscience, maker of a ‘brain-computer interface’, has raised more than $100mn in latest investment round

Avram Piltch / Tom's Hardware: Nvidia unveils Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, a $249 compact AI development board that promises 67 TOPS, compared to 40 TOPS of the $499 last-gen kit  —  The Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit will be available later this month and comes with 8GB of RAM.

Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac: Apple Maps on the web adds support for Look Around, Apple's version of Google Street View  —  Apple in June introduced a beta version of Apple Maps on the web, allowing users of other platforms such as Windows PCs to access its map service directly from a web browser.

Blake Brittain / Reuters: The US ITC says smartphones made by Lenovo's Motorola infringe on Ericsson's 5G patents, which could lead to an import ban; a final ruling is set for April 2025  —  The U.S. International Trade Commission said on Tuesday that smartphones made by Lenovo's (0992.HK) Motorola Mobility infringe patents owned …

John Voorhees / MacStories: Game emulator Delta adds an in-app link to pay outside of the App Store, via Patreon, likely the first US app to use Apple's External Purchase Link Entitlement  —  Delta, the MacStories Selects App of the Year, received an important update today that allows users of the game emulator to support …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: OpenAI adds o1 to its API, but only for certain developers to start, announces new versions of GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini as part of its Realtime API, and more  —  OpenAI is bringing o1, its “reasoning” AI model, to its API — but only for certain developers, to start.

Todd Spangler / Variety: CAA partners with YouTube to help CAA clients identify and remove AI-generated content that features their likeness, with a wider rollout planned in early 2025  —  In what's being touted as the first partnership of its kind, CAA is collaborating with YouTube on a program promising to let actors …

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Salesforce says it will hire 2,000 people to sell AI agent software, a month after saying it would hire 1,000 for the task and two years after laying off 7,000+  —  Salesforce will hire 2,000 people to sell artificial intelligence software to clients, CEO Marc Benioff said on Tuesday …

Marina Temkin / TechCrunch: Amid the AI boom, non-AI startups that raised a Series A 18 months ago are likely facing challenges in securing their Series B, even with decent revenue growth  —  Earlier this year, IVP general partner Tom Loverro, proclaimed that the post-pandemic downturn is over, and companies …

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: SCOTUS rejects ISPs' challenge to a NY law requiring ISPs to offer $15/month or $20/month service to low-income clients, by not revisiting a lower court ruling  —  The Supreme Court yesterday rejected the broadband industry's challenge to a New York law that requires Internet providers …

Jody Godoy / Reuters: Grubhub settles with the US FTC and IL AG for $25M, for allegedly adding restaurants without consent and misleading users about order fees and drivers about pay  —  Grubhub settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Tuesday for allegedly misleading customers …

Margaux Nijkerk / CoinDesk: Electric Capital annual survey: total developers working in crypto fell 7% YoY globally, and Solana was the most popular blockchain among new developers  —  Ethereum remained the blockchain with the most devs, and the overall population of software builders in crypto was flat, the VC firm said in its annual survey.

Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal: The merger of advertising giants Omnicom and Interpublic shows how the industry is preparing for an AI-driven upheaval, which is squeezing out creative talent  —  Two advertisers are combining into a $30 billion behemoth to harness the data, tech and AI expertise now dominating Madison Avenue—and all the marketing you see

Anna Edgerton / Bloomberg: TikTok critics like Marco Rubio, Jacob Helberg, and Brendan Carr are set for senior roles in Trump's administration, emphasizing Trump's murky stance on the app  —  - Longtime China critic Helberg named under secretary of State  — Rubio pushed for congress's TikTok divest-or-ban law last year

Natasha Singer / New York Times: How tech is stoking cycles of violence in US schools, with students using phones and social media to arrange, provoke, record, and spread school brawl videos  —  Ricardo Martinez, an 11th grader, was in his high school lunchroom in April when a mass brawl erupted.

Jason Parham / Wired: A look at Blacksky, the Bluesky custom feed curated by a team of six moderators that is slowly turning into the main avenue for many Black users on the service  —  The curated feed, now run by a team of six moderators, is the meeting ground for hundreds of thousands of Black users on Bluesky.

George Hammond / Financial Times: A profile of Donald Trump's AI and crypto czar David Sacks, who has urged AI companies and other tech startups to boost US competitiveness and national security  —  Silicon Valley investor and podcast host has joined Elon Musk in securing a key role in incoming US administration

Charles Rollet / TechCrunch: Telegram says it removed 15.4M groups and channels with harmful content in 2024, and its new moderation page shows more enforcement since Pavel Durov's arrest  —  Telegram has been under unprecedented pressure to clean up its platform this year, after its founder Pavel Durov was arrested …