Welcome again to Week in Evaluation. This week, we’re taking a look at OpenAI’s reported plans for its subsequent AI mannequin; a buzzy new messaging app that’s successful with Gen Z; and Tim Cook dinner discovering that you would be able to identify a bunch 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 12 months.” However what which means 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 grew to become obsessive about a chatbot on the platform. The corporate 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.
Greater than 100 million people had their personal well being data stolen through 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 info breach; beforehand the corporate mentioned it anticipated the breach included knowledge on a “substantial proportion of individuals in America.”
That is TechCrunch’s Week in Evaluation, the place we recap the week’s greatest information. Need this delivered as a publication to your inbox each Saturday? Enroll right here.
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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 concentrate on constructing AI merchandise based mostly on proprietary fashions. Learn extra
What’s in a (group chat) identify? A latest profile of Tim Cook dinner revealed that he didn’t know you would identify your group chats in iMessage. Cook dinner has since named a bunch chat along with his former faculty roommates as merely “Roommates.” Learn 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 Avenue Journal reviews that the conversations have raised nationwide safety issues amongst some intelligence officers. Learn 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, basically emulating an individual sitting at a pc. Learn extra
Sensible 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 Center East, and Africa — even earlier than its AI options roll out. Learn extra
Synthetic (intestine) intelligence: Throne is an Austin-based well being startup promoting a digital camera that clips onto the aspect of a rest room bowl and takes photos of your poop. At present in beta, the system makes use of AI to look at your stool and decide issues like intestine well being and hydration. Learn extra
Flip your cellphone 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. Learn 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 in line with captions. Learn extra
A less expensive technique 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+. Learn extra
A message app for the following era: 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. Learn extra
A more in-depth take a look at Apple’s listening to support characteristic: TechCrunch’s Brian Heater acquired to check out Apple’s upcoming accessibility options for the AirPods Professional 2 that enable the earbuds to behave as a listening to support and supply listening to checks. Learn extra
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23andMe and also you: 23andMe is dealing with an unsure future amid efforts to take the corporate personal, intensifying issues about what may occur to the genetic knowledge of the corporate’s some 15 million clients. In the event you’ve shipped your saliva to 23andMe, you might have assumed that this knowledge will stay personal beneath regulation. However as Carly Web page writes, 23andMe is just not coated beneath HIPAA and is essentially sure solely by its personal privateness insurance policies, which it will probably change at any time. However there’s a straightforward technique to request the deletion of your knowledge. Learn extra