Meta is opening a pop-up retail store for the Ray-Ban Meta glasses (2 minute read)
Meta Lab, a pop-up experiential retail space for Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, will open on November 8 in Los Angeles. The temporary store will allow customers to try out the glasses and customize glasses cases. There will be events with various creators, live podcasts, and cooking classes. The store will close on December 31. Another Meta Lab experience is planned for Phoenix at the end of January.
Apple is finally letting green bubbles send message reactions (2 minute read)
iOS 18.1 can display emoji reactions from Android users correctly. iOS was unable to display message reactions correctly when RCS first launched on the platform in September. Apple has been ignoring Google's campaign to adopt RCS for years, only complying after pressure from both China and the EU. The company will likely keep as many exclusive features as possible for its iMessage service as long as it isn't forced to change.
Anthropic teams up with Palantir and AWS to sell AI to defense customers (3 minute read)
Claude is now available within Palantir's Impact Level 6 environment, which is reserved for systems containing data deemed critical to national security.
Mozilla Foundation crumbles as third of staff cast off (3 minute read)
The Mozilla Foundation is laying off about a third of its staff and reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact.
OpenAI reportedly developing new strategies to deal with AI improvement slowdown (1 minute read)
OpenAI's new model's performance exceeds its existing models, but the improvement is less than the jump from GPT-3 to GPT-4. The rate of improvement seems to be slowing down. OpenAI created a foundations team to figure out how the company can continue to improve its models. One of the proposed strategies is to train models on synthetic data produced by AI models.
ChatGPT monthly usage may now rival Google Chrome (3 minute read)
ChatGPT has the most visits out of all generative AI platforms at 3.7 billion worldwide. Google Chrome's monthly users is estimated to be around 3.45 billion. ChatGPT saw a 17.2% month-over-month growth and a 115.9% year-over-year traffic growth. The Perplexity chatbot saw 90.8 million visits in October, Google's Gemini chatbot saw 295.8 million visits, Anthropic's Claude saw 84.1 million visits, Microsoft's Copilot saw 69.4 million visits, and NotebookLM saw 31.5 million visits.
Bitcoin blows past $82,000 to new all-time high (1 minute read)
Bitcoin has hit a new all-time high above $82,000. Recent political victories signal a favorable environment for cryptocurrency in the coming years. There is a strong chance for bitcoin to hit $100,000 by the end of the year if the rally continues. Breaking the all-time high is a key psychological indicator for a continued rally.
OpenAI and others seek new path to smarter AI as current methods hit limitations (4 minute read)
AI companies are seeking to develop training techniques that use more human-like ways for algorithms to 'think'.
When muscles work out, they help neurons to grow, a new study shows (7 minute read)
During exercise, muscles release a soup of biochemical signals called myokines that helps neurons grow. A recent study found that the repeated pulling on neurons during exercise helps them grow as much as when they are exposed to myokines. This suggests that exercise could be effective for treating nerve injuries.
Growth of AI adoption slows among U.S. workers (2 minute read)
The percentage of workers in the US who are using AI has remained largely the same over the last three months. The flattening of growth could affect the very high market valuations tied to the technology. Many workers are uncomfortable with telling their managers they use AI at work. Leaders need to encourage employees to talk about and experiment with AI out in the open to ensure the adoption of the technology.
TikTok launches integration with Lemon8, as US ban looms (2 minute read)
Lemon8 will remain a separate app, but the two platforms will share a unified user login.
New secret math benchmark stumps AI models and PhDs alike (3 minute read)
FrontierMath is a new mathematics benchmark that contains hundreds of expert-level problems which leading AI models are able to solve less than 2% of the time.
OpenAI Nears Launch of AI Agent Tool to Automate Tasks for Users (2 minute read)
OpenAI is preparing to launch an AI agent codenamed 'Operator' that will be able to use a computer to take actions on users' behalf. It plans to release the tool as a research preview in January. OpenAI has been working on several agent-related research projects. The one nearest to completion is a general-purpose tool that executes tasks in a web browser. OpenAI and its competitors are moving towards agents as they are seeing diminishing returns from their costly efforts to develop more advanced AI models.
Amazon debuts discount store with everything under $20 to take on Temu and Shein (2 minute read)
Amazon has rolled out a new storefront that features items priced below $20. Amazon Haul, created to fend off competition from Temu and Shein, is accessible through the company's mobile app. Shoppers get free delivery on orders over $25. Amazon will be screening Haul products to make sure they're safe, authentic, and comply with regulatory requirements. The company will not accept returns on items $3 or less. Items on Haul will be imported directly from manufacturers in China.
Just Eat is selling Grubhub to Marc Lore's Wonder for $650M (1 minute read)
Wonder plans to integrate Grubhub into its platform and offer a superapp for restaurants, groceries, and meal kits.