Thursday, December 5, 2024

Welcome to TC PM! Today we have the details on OpenAI's new subscription offering; we get confirmation that xAI did, in fact, raise $6 billion; and we learn what Amazon's CTO has been thinking about lately. Onward!

TechCrunch Top 3

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💸 That's expensive: OpenAI confirmed today that it is launching a new subscription product for its models. The creatively named ChatGPT Pro gives users access to all of the company's models for a cool $200 a month. Read more

😌 Money for Musk: Elon Musk's xAI confirmed its rumored $6 billion fundraise today through a filing with the SEC. Nearly 100 investors participated in the round, which doubles the company's funding. Read more

💻 Amazon CTO talks tech: Frederic Lardinois sat down for his yearly catch-up with Amazon CTO Werner Vogels this week at Amazon's AWS re:Invent conference. While the event was dominated by AI, Vogels seemed preoccupied with other areas of tech. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

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⚙️ Eerie emotions: Today Google announced that its new series of AI models, PaliGemma 2, can be fine-tuned to identify emotions. AI experts aren't sure this is even possible but say the claim is troubling nonetheless. Read more

📲 Indonesia gets its way: Indonesia banned recent iPhone models from being sold in the country because they didn't meet its threshold of having 40% of their parts being manufactured locally. Now Apple plans to build a manufacturing plant in the country. Read more

🏋️ Not subtle: Fitness startup Ladder claims that Peloton ripped off its app in the design of its Strength+ app. The company cites user feedback and the fact that 15 Peloton employees across engineering and design have been using the app since January. Read more

♻️ Recycling robots: Robots are playing an increasingly important role in recycling as consumers and businesses remain mediocre at separating their waste. AMP is building full recycling facilities using its robots and just raised $91 million. Read more

⚙️ Copilot can read: Today Microsoft started rolling out a U.S. preview of Copilot Vision, a tool that can read, understand, and answer questions about the web page you are on. The preview is restricted to certain websites the company has approved. Read more

🔌 Electric expansion: Electric car owners, rejoice! Rivian recently opened a charging station in Joshua Tree, California, that any type of electric vehicle can use. This is part of the company's plan to bolster the interconnected charger network. Read more

Around the web

🤔 Primary sources, please: Do you know how many presidents have pardoned their children or family members? Many people turned to ChatGPT to find out after the announcement that President Joe Biden was pardoning his son. The issue is that ChatGPT's answer to that question is wrong. Read more

♻️ Recycling renewables: While producing solar and wind energy is a cleaner alternative to oil and gas, it doesn't come with zero impact on the environment, as solar panels and wind turbines produce waste. Bloomberg examines the companies and initiatives looking to recycle the materials. Read more