CyberTechMag

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch : Microsoft creates the Advanced Planning Unit within its Microsoft AI division to help the company understand the societal, health, and work implications of AI   —  Microsoft says that it's creating a new unit, the Advanced Planning Unit (APU), within its Microsoft AI business division … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/b0q5MDu via IFTTT

On Thursday, Microsoft announced that it’s rolling OpenAI’s reasoning model o1 out to its Copilot users, and now OpenAI is releasing a new reasoning model, o3-mini, to people who use the free version of ChatGPT. This will mark the first time that the vast majority of people will have access to one of OpenAI’s reasoning models, which were formerly restricted to its paid Pro and Plus bundles. Reasoning models use a “chain of thought” technique to generate responses, essentially working through a problem presented to the model step by step. Using this method, the model can find mistakes in its process and correct them before giving an answer. This typically results in more thorough and accurate responses, but it also causes the models to pause before answering, sometimes leading to lengthy wait times. OpenAI claims that o3-mini responds 24% faster than o1-mini. These types of models are most effective at solving complex problems, so if you have any PhD-level math problems you’re cracki...

Stephanie Kirchgaessner / The Guardian : WhatsApp says it disrupted a campaign in which 90 journalists and other members of civil society were targeted using spyware from Israel-based Paragon   —  Messaging app said it had ‘high confidence’ some users were targeted and ‘possibly compromised’ by Paragon Solutions spyware from Techmeme https://ift.tt/OkPcR8S via IFTTT

Bloomberg : PitchBook: a spike in stock-market volatility due to DeepSeek may further complicate hopes for a rebound in venture-backed IPOs in 2025   —  - Firms ‘have to fight extra battles’ to debut, Pitchbook says  — Rout in AI, tech stocks adds hurdle for VC-backed IPO firms from Techmeme https://ift.tt/9UejiwY via IFTTT

Tom Warren / The Verge : Sources: Satya Nadella and Microsoft execs moved quickly to get engineers to test and deploy R1 on Azure and GitHub in 10 days, an unusually fast turnaround   —  Microsoft was ready for the next step in AI models.  —  Microsoft was ready for the next step in AI models. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/GCcSzHh via IFTTT

Meir Orbach / CTech : Maryland-based Tenable, which specializes in security exposure management, agrees to acquire Israel-based Vulcan Cyber in a $150M deal set to close in Q1 2025   —  Cybersecurity giant to integrate Vulcan's technology into its security exposure platform.  —  Tenable  —  Cybersecurity  —  Vulcan Cyber from Techmeme https://ift.tt/BrXizfm via IFTTT

Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge : Waymo plans to test in 10 new US cities in 2025, starting with Las Vegas and San Diego, as it aims for robotaxi operations in Austin, Atlanta, and Miami soon   —  The theme of this year's road trip is ‘generalizability.’  —  The theme of this year's road trip is ‘generalizability.’ from Techmeme https://ift.tt/sNlQch8 via IFTTT

Dario Amodei : DeepSeek makes US export controls to China even more important, and DeepSeek-V3 is not a unique breakthrough but an expected point on a cost reduction curve   —  A few weeks ago I made the case for stronger US export controls on chips to China.  Since then DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/9HnU2Ow via IFTTT

Dan Milmo / The Guardian : An ex-OpenAI safety researcher says he's “terrified” by AI development's pace and that labs racing to AGI can cut corners on alignment, pushing all to speed up   —  Steven Adler expresses concern industry taking ‘very risky gamble’ and raises doubts about future of humanity from Techmeme https://ift.tt/8kTJiSP via IFTTT

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch : Hugging Face researchers unveil Open-R1, a project to “systematically reconstruct DeepSeek-R1's data and training pipeline” for the open-source community   —  Barely a week after DeepSeek released its R1 “reasoning” AI model — which sent markets into a tizzy … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/PbEVCmz via IFTTT

Ankush Khardori / Politico : Trump and the DOJ have been flouting a bipartisan law to shut down TikTok since his inauguration, and Republicans and Democrats seem to be doing little about it   —  Trump's TikTok bailout is worse than it looks.  —  For over a week now, Donald Trump and the Justice Department have been flouting the law meant to shut down TikTok. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/vTpSEYt via IFTTT

Li Yuan / New York Times : Chinese state media and social media viewed DeepSeek's success as a shot in the arm for a discouraged tech industry and a public suffering a stagnating economy   —  Social media exploded in a celebration after the news that a Chinese start-up had made an artificial intelligence tool that was more efficient than any in the United States. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/w7DZTGr via IFTTT

Brian Heater / TechCrunch : Google open sources PebbleOS, paving the way for more smartwatch hardware; Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky aims to develop a new smartwatch   —  Four years after launching the (then) most lucrative crowdfunding campaign in Kickstarter's history, Pebble abruptly ended. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/0eq1V5c via IFTTT

Bloomberg : Sources: some banks led by Morgan Stanley are in talks to sell up to $3B of senior secured debt tied to Twitter's buyout, boosted by a claim to a ~$6B xAI stake   —  - Morgan Stanley leads lenders selling debt tied to X buyout  — Creditors said to be told they'll have claim to AI stake from Techmeme https://ift.tt/KzeCd08 via IFTTT

The Information : Sources: Meta set up four war rooms to analyze DeepSeek's tech, two focusing on how High-Flyer reduced training costs, one on what data High-Flyer may have used   —  Artificial intelligence researchers at Meta Platforms have been in panic mode.  In recent days, leaders of some of the company's … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/GzwQiJD via IFTTT

Wall Street Journal : Betting data from Illinois, New Jersey, and Colorado shows how parlays are driving revenue growth for FanDuel, DraftKings, and other US sports betting companies   —  Parlays, the tough-to-win multipart wagers with tantalizing payouts, are bringing in casual and newbie gamblers, and betting companies are making a killing from Techmeme https://ift.tt/wHqMVdj via IFTTT

Jeffrey Emanuel / YouTubeTranscriptOptimizer : A bear case for Nvidia: competition from hardware startups, inference-heavy “reasoning” models, DeepSeek's training and inference efficiency breakthroughs, more   —  As someone who spent ~10 years working as a generalist investment analyst at various long/short hedge funds … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/aoyG5Fu via IFTTT

John Gruber / Daring Fireball : Siri with Apple Intelligence is a massive regression from the old Siri, which recognized its limitations and provided a list of search links to answer a query   —  Writing about the current state of Apple Intelligence yesterday, I mentioned how utterly stupid and laughably wrong Siri is when asked … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/pOw52R1 via IFTTT

Zeyi Yang / Wired : DeepSeek, which started as a deep-learning research branch of Chinese quant hedge fund High-Flyer, is now giving US AI giants a run for their money   —  When Chinese quant hedge fund founder Liang Wenfeng went into AI research, he took 10,000 Nvidia chips and assembled a team of young, ambitious talent. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/jQxOTDV via IFTTT

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC : After pouring tens of millions into Trump's campaign, the crypto industry has been paid back handsomely during his first week back, with EOs, rule changes, more   —  Crypto executives, companies and investors are getting an early return on their investment in Donald Trump. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/IB78cmY via IFTTT

Caiwei Chen / MIT Technology Review : Rather than weakening China's AI capabilities, US sanctions appear to be driving startups like DeepSeek to innovate by prioritizing efficiency and collaboration   —  The AI community is abuzz over DeepSeek R1, a new open-source reasoning model.  —  The model was developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/noPEDV5 via IFTTT

Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal : Zuckerberg says Meta is building an AI engineer that will “start contributing increasing amounts of code to our R&D efforts” and is planning a 2GW+ data center   —  Social-media giant to spend between $60 billion and $65 billion, Zuckerberg says from Techmeme https://ift.tt/HUO0JEA via IFTTT

The AI community is abuzz over DeepSeek R1, a new open-source reasoning model.  The model was developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which claims that R1 matches or even surpasses OpenAI’s ChatGPT o1 on multiple key benchmarks but operates at a fraction of the cost.  “This could be a truly equalizing breakthrough that is great for researchers and developers with limited resources, especially those from the Global South,” says Hancheng Cao, an assistant professor in information systems at Emory University. DeepSeek’s success is even more remarkable given the constraints facing Chinese AI companies in the form of increasing US export controls on cutting-edge chips. But early evidence shows that these measures are not working as intended. Rather than weakening China’s AI capabilities, the sanctions appear to be driving startups like DeepSeek to innovate in ways that prioritize efficiency, resource-pooling, and collaboration. To create R1, DeepSeek had to rework its tra...

Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review : OpenAI says Operator is powered by Computer-Using Agent, or CUA, which combines GPT-4o's vision capabilities with “reasoning” abilities of more advanced models   —  After weeks of buzz, OpenAI has released Operator, its first AI agent.  Operator is a web app that can carry … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/O6m89nc via IFTTT

After weeks of buzz, OpenAI has released Operator, its first AI agent. Operator is a web app that can carry out simple online tasks in a browser, such as booking concert tickets or filling an online grocery order. The app is powered by a new model called Computer-Using Agent—CUA (“coo-ah”), for short—built on top of OpenAI’s multimodal large language model GPT-4o. Operator is available today at operator.chatgpt.com to anyone signed up with ChatGPT Pro, OpenAI’s premium $200-a-month service. The company says it plans to roll the tool out to other users in the future. OpenAI claims that Operator outperforms similar rival tools, including Anthropic’s Computer Use (a version of Claude 3.5 Sonnet that can carry out simple tasks on a computer) and Google DeepMind’s Mariner (a web-browsing agent built on top of Gemini 2.0). The fact that three of the world’s top AI firms have converged on the same vision of what agent-based models could be makes one thing clear. The battle for AI supremac...

Dominic Preston / The Verge : Google's Gemini will be the default on-device assistant for the new Galaxy S25 series, and gets the ability to work across multiple apps in a single prompt   —  Google's AI assistant Gemini is now able to carry out tasks across multiple apps in a single interaction, in an update announced today alongside … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/FYfszAx via IFTTT

Radhika Rajkumar / ZDNET : DeepSeek's new MIT-licensed AI models can be accessed via DeepSeek's API at a fraction of the cost of comparable OpenAI models but there are censorship concerns   —  Open-source artificial intelligence (AI) has reached another milestone — and the cost differences it represents could shake up the industry. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/UIGQzW8 via IFTTT

Jeff Cox / CNBC : The SEC launches a “Crypto 2.0” task force led by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, to create a “comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets”   —  The Trump administration took its firs steps Tuesday toward an expected lowering of regulatory barriers for cryptocurrency. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/aQwA9c5 via IFTTT