[ad_1]
Welcome back to Review Week. This week we’re looking at General Motors’ decision to pull out of the robotaxi business, Google’s hint at the existence of a multiverse, and how you can make some serious money by making an AI robot fall in love with you. Let’s get into it.
GM will no longer finance Developing its robotaxi business, it will instead absorb Cruise, its self-driving car subsidiary, and combine it with the automaker’s own efforts to develop driver-assistance features — and eventually fully self-driving personal vehicles. Several Cruise employees told TechCrunch they were “shocked” by the decision. GM acquired Cruise in 2016 for $1 billion, and has since spent more than $10 billion on the company’s efforts.
OpenAI has finally been released ChatGPT’s real-time video capabilities have been demonstrated for nearly seven months. ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro subscribers can use the app to point their phone at objects and have ChatGPT respond in near real-time. This feature can also understand what is on the device screen through screen sharing. There are still a few more demos planned for the 12 Days of OpenAI, so stay tuned to our live blog.
Google revealed this week The first ever AI agent that can take action on the web. The Gemini-powered agent, called Project Mariner, takes control of your Chrome browser, moving the cursor on your screen, clicking buttons, and filling out forms, allowing it to use and navigate websites as a human would. Although it’s still a prototype from its DeepMind division, it represents Google’s shift to move users away from interacting with websites directly.
If you would like to receive the week’s review in your inbox every Saturday, Register here!
news
Duolingo joins the “Squid Game”: Ahead of the release of the next season of Squid Game, Netflix has teamed up with Duolingo to help viewers learn Korean. The companies also released an exclusive TikTok filter inspired by the game show Red Light, Green Light. Read more
Google Soft launches the multiverse: Google announced Willow, its latest quantum computing chip. But in the blog post about the chip there is a claim that the chip is so fast that it must have borrowed computational power from other universes. Read more
What did you search on Google this year? Google has released its annual list of the top trending searches for 2024, including CrowdStrike outages, late One Direction member Liam Payne, and chocolate bars in Dubai. Read more
RIP, the car thing: Spotify has officially discontinued Car Thing, its in-car streaming device. If you buy one, you have just over a month to submit proof of purchase and get a refund. Read more
Bluesky teases a paid subscription: Bluesky posted mockups teasing the upcoming subscription level on GitHub. Bluesky appears to be considering paid features for the tier, such as custom app icons, post analytics, and bookmark folders. Read more
Is Sora trained in video games? From our tests of OpenAI’s Sora video generator, it appears that at least some of the data it was trained on may have come from Twitch streams and gaming walkthroughs. Legal experts say that could be a problem. Read more
Grok has a new image generator: Grok has released its latest image creator, codenamed Aurora, and it’s very unrestricted when it comes to reproducing public figures. This is definitely indicative of my timeline, as I see a ton of AI photos of the “Real Housewives” cast members. Read more
Krispy Kreme is subjected to a cyber attack: Restaurant chain Krispy Kreme has revealed a security incident that caused “certain operational disruptions.” The company said its stores are open and there is no interruption in deliveries to retail partners and restaurants. Read more
Can you make an AI robot fall in love with you? Freysa.ai creates challenges designed to influence how humans think about AI safety. If you’re the first person to successfully trick the AI character Freysa into saying “I love you,” you could win tens of thousands of dollars. Read more
Firefox gets rid of a useless feature: Mozilla Firefox has removed its Do Not Track feature. Since websites have no real reason to respect the signal, the setting is effectively useless (and misleading). Read more
You can now buy a car on Amazon: Amazon is expanding into the online car sales market with the launch of Amazon Autos, an e-commerce company that allows customers to find, order and buy new cars, trucks and SUVs from dealerships. Read more
[ad_2]