Welcome back to Week in Review. This week we look at OpenAI’s final — and largest — announcement from the “12 Days of OpenAI”Apple’s possible entry into the foldable market, and why Databricks chose to wait before going public. Let’s get started.
P.S. We’re on holidays! Week in Review will return to your inbox in January.
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman announced the successors of its o1 reasoning models: o3 (and o3-mini). Safety researchers can sign up to receive a preview of the models, even though they are not yet widely available. The company’s “12 Days of OpenAI”which included announcements of real-time vision, ChatGPT Search and even a Santa Voice for ChatGPT, ends with this reveal. Here you can catch up with everything that was missed. This week, the Ray-Ban Meta smart sunglasses received a major upgrade. Meta’s Early-Access program members can now download firmware version 11, which adds a feature called “live AI”. This feature allows wearers to continuously converse with Meta AI, referencing things they discussed previously in the conversation. It works with real-time videos. In v11, you’ll also find live translation between English and Spanish or French or Italian as well as Shazam functionality.
UnitedHealth Optum left a chatbot AI that was used by employees to inquire about claims exposed on the internet. Anyone with a web-browser could access it. The chatbot does not appear to have any sensitive or protected health data, but its accidental exposure comes as its parent company is under scrutiny for allegedly using AI tools and algorithms to override doctors’ medical decisions and deny claims from patients. Sign up for the Week in Review Newsletter to be delivered directly to your inbox each Saturday by clicking here!
News
Oura grabs $200M:Smart ring maker Oura closed a $200M Series D funding round. The company’s valuation now stands at $5.2 billion. Oura says that the cash will be used to expand the company’s product offerings, and to invest in science, AI and other areas. Read More
Now you can call ChatGPT using a landline. To make ChatGPT as accessible as possible to as many people, OpenAI has announced a 1-800 phone number to call the bot — even from a flip-phone or landline. Users can call 1-800-CHATGPT and the AI assistant will answer the phone. Read More
Tesla attempts to boost Model S sales. Tesla has brought back its free Supercharging offer for life for some Tesla Model S vehicles at the end the year. It’s also important to note that Tesla just increased the Model S price by $5,000. Read More
Google wants Sora to be beaten: Google DeepMind has announced Veo 2, the next-generation video-generating AI. Veo 2 is capable of creating clips up to two minutes in length with resolutions as high as 4k. OpenAI’s Sora is unable to achieve a resolution and duration that is 4x as high. Read More
Apple eyeing the foldable market: According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Apple plans to launch two foldable products within the next few years. Bloomberg claims that the company is focusing on a giant foldable iPad. Read More
Bob Lee verdict : San Francisco jury found Nima Mumeni guilty of murder in second degree for the fatal stabbing of Bob Lee 2023, the Cash App creator of former CTO Block. The jury decided that Lee’s murder had not been premeditated, and found Momeni innocent of first-degree homicide. Read More
Perplexity Acquires Carbon: Perplexity has acquired Carbon, a startup that specializes in connecting AI systems with external data sources. Perplexity, according to the company, will be able search through files and messages in Notion or Google Docs by early 2025. Read More
Temu remains on top: Temu has once again been the most downloaded app in the U.S. according to Apple’s top apps and games list across the App Store. The shopping app has moved up to the No. The shopping app took over the No. 1 spot from TikTok last year. Read More
GitHub releases free version Copilot: GitHub has now launched a free version its popular Copilot code-completion/AI pair-programming tool. Up until now, developers were required to pay a monthly subscription fee. Only verified students, teachers and open-source maintainers received free access. Read More
Google releases their own “reasoning model”: Google released Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental – what it calls its “reasoning AI model”. The model is still in the experimental stage, and our testing showed that there’s definitely room for improvement. Read More
Analysis
To IPO or not to IPO: Databricks just closed one of the largest funding rounds ever, raising a staggering $10 billion. Naturally, technology investors were quick to ask what this means for the company’s highly anticipated IPO. In an interview at Axios AI Summit, CEO Ali Ghodsi said “it’s dumb to IPO this year” and is instead waiting until at least 2025. Databricks is using this “Series J” to let early employees cash out and continue growing. While 2024 was uncertain in many ways, the IPOs of ServiceTitan, Reddit, and other companies have largely been successful. But, as Maxwell Zeff writes, why risk it when you can just raise as much money as Databricks? Read more
Cody Corrall is the Audience Development Producer at TechCrunch. Based in Chicago, he previously ran social media accounts for BuzzFeed News and WTTW’s daily flagship program on PBS, “Chicago Tonight.” When they’re not tweeting, Cody can be found yelling about vampires on the Into the Twilight podcast.
View Bio