Tech News

Reuters:
China plans to set up a committee of 41 members, including representatives from Baidu and Peking University, to set standards for LLMs and AI risk assessment  —  China's industry ministry will set up an artificial intelligence standardisation technical committee focusing on developing industry standards …

Andrea Chang / Los Angeles Times:
How US SMB owners, celebrities, and retailers on TikTok are using livestreaming to boost their sales one year after TikTok Shop's launch in the country  —  From noon until midnight, Aaliyah Arnold sold products from her beauty brand, BossUp Cosmetics, during a TikTok livestream filmed in Culver City last month.

The Information:
Sources detail Anthropic and OpenAI's rivalry: OpenAI boosted ChatGPT's coding skills in response to Claude, Anthropic's safety focus, exec bad blood, and more  —  OpenAI has a lot of rivals nipping at its heels.  None of them has given the company's executives the jitters quite like Anthropic has, though.

Jennifer Maas / Variety:
In a strategy change, Netflix plans to make its Squid Games battle royale game available for free to non-members for a limited time after its December 17 launch  —  Netflix is going against its tradition of paywalling its steadily growing offering of mobile games by making its upcoming …

FinSMEs:
Australia-based Fleet Space, whose ExoSphere service helps find minerals in space using AI, sensors, and more, raised a AU$150M Series D at a AU$800M+ valuation  —  Fleet Space Technologie s, an Adelaide, Australia-based space exploration company, raised USD$100M in Series D funding, at USD$525M valuation.

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
YouTube removed the ability to click video titles in YouTube Player for Publishers; outlets give up ad revenue by using the standard player to link to YouTube  —  For about a year, I've gotten notes from readers asking why our YouTube embeds are broken in one very specific way …

Kanishka Singh / Reuters:
Texas AG Ken Paxton opens investigations into Character.AI, Reddit, Instagram, Discord, and 11 others over their privacy and safety practices for minors  —  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Thursday his office launched investigations into over a dozen technology platforms over their privacy and safety practices for minors.

Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Microsoft launches Phi-4, a 14B-parameter language model that it says outperforms comparable and larger models, like Gemini Pro 1.5, in mathematical reasoning  —  Microsoft launched a new artificial intelligence model today that achieves remarkable mathematical reasoning capabilities …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Meta releases Meta Video Seal, an AI tool that applies imperceptible watermarks to AI-generated videos and a hidden message to later uncover the video's origins  —  Throw a stone and you'll likely hit a deepfake.  The commoditization of generative AI has led to an absolute explosion of fake content online …

Reuters:
Meta unveils Meta Motivo, an AI model for controlling the movements of a human-like digital agent, hoping to offer lifelike NPCs and more in the metaverse  —  Meta (META.O) said on Thursday it was releasing an artificial intelligence model called Meta Motivo, which could control the movements …

Dana Mattioli / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Amazon plans to donate $1M to Trump's inaugural fund and stream the inauguration through Prime Video; a source says “Bezos is donating through Amazon”  —  Amazon.com is planning a $1 million donation to president-elect Donald Trump's inaugural fund …

Jordan Novet / CNBC:
ServiceTitan's shares closed up 42.25% at $101 in its Nasdaq debut, giving the cloud software provider an ~$8.9B market cap after it raised ~$625M in its IPO  —  ServiceTitan shares popped 42% in their Nasdaq debut on Thursday after the provider of cloud software to contractors raised around $625 million in its initial public offering.

Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Broadcom reports Q4 revenue up 51% YoY to $14.05B vs. $14.09B est., FY 2024 AI revenue up 220%, expects Q1 revenue just above est.; AVGO jumps 10%+ after hours  —  Broadcom reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday and said artificial intelligence revenue for the year more than tripled.

Kritika Lamba / Reuters:
Vapi, which helps businesses deploy AI-powered voice agents, raised a $20M Series A from Bessemer, Y Combinator, and others, a source says at a $130M valuation  —  Vapi, a San Francisco-based startup that helps businesses deploy artificial intelligence-powered voice agents …

TechCrunch:
Sources: Yahoo laid off or lost via attrition 40 to 50 people from its 200-strong cybersecurity team in 2024, as it outsources its “red team” under its new CTO  —  Zack Whittaker Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai  —  Yahoo laid off around 25% of its cybersecurity team …

I saw a pundit suggest people harass people who drive Teslas.

When I bought mine, it cost $70K, a large sum of money that I will not throw away just so a pundit can make a point.

Here's my rebuttal. I'd like to see you get on without buying Exxon products. We all agree they suck, but evil companies have a way of building dependence, that's how they stay in business while openly doing despicable things.

When I put down $70K for what is, btw, a fantastic car, no one knew how evil Elon Musk was going to turn out to be, how little he would care what you and I think.

And I don't believe anyone can live a pure life and extract all evil from it, and still participate in civilization.

PS: I wrote this initially as a post on Bluesky.

A valued tester of WordLand asked a series of questions, which I answered in some detail, and felt it was a good idea to post the answers here on my blog.

• Any kind of feedback you want to give is totally welcome. I'd prefer it be in the GitHub issues section so it might inspire other people to contribute.
• Re image insertion, I'm not sure it could be simpler. The goal is to get an image into the user's document. If it succeeded at doing that then I'm happy with the design. ;-)
• The target audience is writers who use WordPress. The idea is to put all the features writers need in one place, rather than scattered around the WP interface. And to use modern UI techniques you'd see in social web apps.
• I've tried to answer the questions you raised in the only way I can. For example I need to use a term for the arrows that move you through the stories you've written. They aren't all posts, but they are all drafts. I can explain that in the docs, but I seriously doubt if anyone would read them. There is a distinction and it's important to make that distinction. I also don't think it's crucial to get that one "right" -- not that I think there is a right answer to that one other than removing the feature, which I like having there because it emphasizes that we're working with a set of documents that you can edit.
• In all cases, you could raise any issue you have, I will think about what you say, but accept my response, and trust that I've incorporated your experience as data that might inspire a change in the design at some point.
• But do understand that a lot of thought has already gone into this, and a quick review by a new user is no substitute for a product design.
• I know the docs are non-existent. I am limited in the time I have and the commitments I've made. The truth is that even dedicated users won't read them. I know that by the questions they ask. But I will write the docs.
• What I suggest is you try using the product for its intended purpose, and assume that all feedback is welcome (it is) but once it has been registered, you should move on to the next thing.
• I've worked with testers many times going back a very long time. I've even hired testers. I don't take offense to critiques of the software.

BTW, if after reading this, you think you could be this kind of tester for WordLand, and you have experience with WordPress, and a site on wordpress.com, and are excited about the idea of a simple way to write and manage lots of documents in a WordPress environment, please fill out this form, I'll read it right away, and if it seems like a fit, I'll authorize your account.