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Hey , sept , welcome to Week in Review ( WiR ) , TechCrunch ’s unconstipated newssheet that recaps the preceding few days in tech . AI stole the headlines once again , with technical school monster from Google to X ( formerly Twitter ) head off against OpenAI for chatbot supremacy . But plenty happened besides .
In this edition of WiR , we cover Google fake a demonstration of its unexampled AI model ( and giving out queasy notebook to disastrous superlative attendees ) , defence startup Anduril unveiling a fighter jet-propelled plane weapon , the continued fallout from the 23andMe hack , and the release of the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer . Also on the roster are tarradiddle about patient scan and health records spilling online , Meta ’s new AI - power simulacrum source , Spotify cutting jobs and an self-governing truck startup pull up stakes the U.S.
It ’s a destiny to get to , so we wo n’t delay . But first , a reminder tosign up hereto receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you have n’t already done so .
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AI , faked : Google unveiled a newfangled flagship AI model this hebdomad calledGemini . But it did n’t release the full framework , Gemini Ultra — only a “ light ” adaptation called Gemini Pro . In a closet briefing and blog posts , Google touted Gemini’scoding capabilitiesand multimodal prowess , claiming that the model can realise image , sound and videos just as well as textbook . But Gemini Pro — which is strictly text - in , text - out — has proven to bemistake - prostrate . And in a bad look for Google , the company was caughtfakinga Gemini demonstration by tune up text prompts with still image off camera .
Offensive notebooks : In another Google PR boner , hoi polloi who attended the company ’s K&I Black Summit in August were given third - political party notebooks hold extremely insensitive voice communication . My colleague Dominic - Madori indite that the inside of the notebooks were printed with the phrase “ I was justcottonthe second , but I came back to take your preeminence ” ( emphasis ours ) . It goes without allege that this would n’t have been well received by the mostly fateful audience in attending ; Google has pledge to “ avoid similar situations as [ it engages ] with [ merchandise ] trafficker run frontward . ”
Anduril ’s new artillery : Anduril , the controversial defense society co - founded by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey , has build up a new product designed to take on the proliferation of scurvy - price , high - powered aerial threats . Dubbed Roadrunner , the modular , duplicate - jet - powered autonomous vertical take - off and land air vehicle — one version of which is able of carrying a warhead — can take off , keep up and demolish target area or , if there ’s no motive to intercept the target , autonomously maneuver back to root word for refueling and reprocess .
More 23andMe victim : Last Friday , genetic testing company 23andMe announce that hackers managed toaccessthe personal data of 0.1 % of customers , or about 14,000 person . But the company did n’t initially say how many other drug user might ’ve been bear on by the breach , which 23andMe first disclosed in October . A lot , as it turns out — 6.9 million hoi polloi had their epithet , birth years , kinship label , the percent of DNA they share with congenator , lineage reports and ego - report locations exposed .
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Grand Theft Auto goes viral : In just 22 hour , the first laggard for Grand Theft Auto VI racked up 85 million survey — breaking a MrBeast video ’s record for most YouTube views in 24 hours . The fervour for Grand Theft Auto VI is a tenner in the devising ; the premature entry in Rockstar Games ’ long - running enfranchisement , Grand Theft Auto V , remain thesecond - good - sellingvideo game of all fourth dimension , falling short only ofMinecraft .
Patient records leakage : Thousands of peril server are shed the medical phonograph record and personal health entropy of one thousand thousand of patient due to security measures weaknesses in a ten ’ honest-to-god industry criterion plan for storing and share aesculapian image . This measure , known as Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine ( DICOM ) , is the internationally recognized format for medical imaging . But as distinguish by Aplite , a Germany - base cybersecurity consultancy , security shortcoming in DICOM mean many aesculapian facilities have unintentionally made private information approachable to the open web .
Meta generates image : Not to be outdone by Google ’s Gemini launching , Meta range out a novel , resist - alone productive AI experience on the web , Imagine with Meta AI , that allow users to make images by describing them in natural voice communication . Similar to OpenAI’sDALL - E , MidjourneyandStable Diffusion , Imagine with Meta AI , which is powered by Meta ’s existingEmuimage - generation model , creates mellow - resoluteness simulacrum from text edition prompt .
Spotify makes cuts : Spotify is eliminating about 1,500 jobs , or roughly 17 % of its workforce , in its third one shot of layoffs this year as the music streaming hulk looks to become “ both fat and efficient . ” In a note to employee Monday , Spotify beginner and chief executive Daniel Ek — cite slow economic ontogeny and uprise Washington monetary value — said right - sizing the work force is crucial for the caller to face the “ challenges ahead . ”
TuSimple exits : When TuSimple last public in 2021 , it was flying gamey as the leading self - motor trucks developer in the U.S. Now — after a drawing string of intimate controversies and the loss of a critical partnership with truck manufacturing business Navistar — TuSimple is exiting the U.S. completely . TuSimple say in aregulatory filingMonday that it ’s laying off the legal age of its U.S. workforce and selling assets here as it exits the state for Asia .
ZestMoney shut out down : ZestMoney — a buy now , ante up later startup whose ability to underwrite small - ticket loan to first - time cyberspace customer pull many high - visibility investor , admit Goldman Sachs — is shutting down follow unsuccessful efforts to discover a purchaser . The Bengaluru - headquartered startup employ about 150 people at peak and lift more than $ 130 million over its eight - year journey .
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TechCrunch ’s roster of podcast episodes keeps growing — just in fourth dimension for weekend listening .
Equityfeatured a atavism conversation fromTechCrunch Disrupt 2023 , when Alex sit down with Serhii Bohoslovskyi , the laminitis of a no - codification app builder , Trible , that help citizenry build online course of action . The pair caught up on the res publica of the Godhead economy , the purpose of no - code tooling today ( and how it ’s received by untechnical Godhead ) and the security of startups with solution in Ukraine .
Over onFound , the work party talked to David Rogier , the CEO and founder of MasterClass , a cyclosis program where you could learn from the world ’s expert on a range of subject . Before Rogier set up MasterClass , he work as a VC , and — through his connective — he encounter a $ 500,000 come round of drinks before he even had an idea for a party .
And onChain Reaction , Jacquelyn interview David Pakman , managing partner and head teacher of venture investment at CoinFund . Before CoinFund , David spent 14 years at the venture cap firm Venrock . He also led the Series A and B vitamin rounds at Dollar Shave Club , which was acquired by Unilever for $ 1 billion . And , in 1991 , David co - created Apple Music when he was part of Apple ’s system package production merchandising group .
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To swap , or not to swap : Tim reports on how consumer EV battery swapping could show in freedom for a wide range of a function of the great unwashed , permit them to participate in the EV changeover in mode that traditional built - in barrage fire do n’t . The challenge is make the unit economics body of work .
Coinbase and Robin and the futurity of fintech : investor are calculate that consumer trading of fairness and crypto is rebounding and are therefore push the note value of some former startups higher , Alex writes . That could spell good news for startups offering consumer trading service immediately — or indirectly , for that matter .
