A look at Apple's new home strategy and plans to launch a ~$2K headset in 2025, Vision Pro 2 in 2026, and Ray-Ban-like glasses and AirPods with cameras in 2027 (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's new home strategy and plans to launch a ~$2K headset in 2025, Vision Pro 2 in 2026, and Ray-Ban-like glasses and AirPods with cameras in 2027  —  Apple is finally preparing to compete for the smart home market after falling behind Amazon and Google.

How some architects and designers are creating photorealistic virtual spaces in the metaverse; report: 41% of architectural practices use AI to some degree (Victoria Woodcock/Financial Times)

Victoria Woodcock / Financial Times:
How some architects and designers are creating photorealistic virtual spaces in the metaverse; report: 41% of architectural practices use AI to some degree  —  The metaverse is changing the face of contemporary design  —  In 2020, artist and designer Charlotte Taylor and architect Riccardo Fornoni unveiled Villa Saraceni.

Threads users criticize Meta after the company posted AI-generated images of the Aurora Borealis on its Threads account (Wes Davis/The Verge)

Wes Davis / The Verge:
Threads users criticize Meta after the company posted AI-generated images of the Aurora Borealis on its Threads account  —  Meta has a suggestion for folks like me who forgot to go outside and look at the Northern Lights on Thursday night: just use AI to fake it!

A profile of, and interview with, Meta's Yann LeCun, who says today's AI models aren't intelligent and warnings about AI's existential peril are "complete B.S." (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
A profile of, and interview with, Meta's Yann LeCun, who says today's AI models aren't intelligent and warnings about AI's existential peril are “complete B.S.”  —  Yann LeCun, an NYU professor and senior researcher at Meta Platforms, says warnings about the technology's existential peril are ‘complete B.S.’

Apple AI researchers say they found no evidence of formal reasoning in language models and their behavior is better explained by sophisticated pattern matching (Gary Marcus/Marcus on AI)

Gary Marcus / Marcus on AI:
Apple AI researchers say they found no evidence of formal reasoning in language models and their behavior is better explained by sophisticated pattern matching  —  Important new study from Apple  —  A superb new article on LLMs from six AI researchers at Apple who were brave enough …

Matt Mullenweg's feud with WP Engine not only presents a significant conflict of interest but has also dragged the WordPress community into a legal mess (Mathew Ingram/The Torment Nexus)

Mathew Ingram / The Torment Nexus:
Matt Mullenweg's feud with WP Engine not only presents a significant conflict of interest but has also dragged the WordPress community into a legal mess  —  Hi everyone!  Mathew Ingram here.  This is The Torment Nexus (you can find out more about me and this newsletter — and why I chose to call it that — in my inaugural post.)

CoreWeave says it has a new $650M credit line and has raised $12.7B from equity and debt investors in the past 18 months (Hayden Field/CNBC)

Hayden Field / CNBC:
CoreWeave says it has a new $650M credit line and has raised $12.7B from equity and debt investors in the past 18 months  —  CoreWeave, an Nvidia-backed artificial intelligence startup that rents out chips to other companies, announced Friday that it has a new $650 million credit line to expand its business and data center portfolio.

Some developers say OpenAI's GPT Store is a mixed bag, with revenue sharing reserved for a tiny number of GPT creators in an invite-only pilot program in the US (Lauren Goode/Wired)

Lauren Goode / Wired:
Some developers say OpenAI's GPT Store is a mixed bag, with revenue sharing reserved for a tiny number of GPT creators in an invite-only pilot program in the US  —  OpenAI promised payouts to custom GPT creators.  Now most are turning to outside sources for revenue.

Report: 47% of traditional hedge funds have crypto investments, up from 29% in 2023; among who already invested in crypto, 33% plan for more by the end of 2024 (Olga Kharif/Bloomberg)

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Report: 47% of traditional hedge funds have crypto investments, up from 29% in 2023; among who already invested in crypto, 33% plan for more by the end of 2024  —  - That's up from 29% last year, per new AIMA and PwC report  — Many traditional hedge funds are active in crypto derivatives

ByteDance confirms laying off hundreds of TikTok content moderators in Malaysia and plans to invest $2B in 2024 on trust and safety; sources: 700 were laid off (Norman Goh/Nikkei Asia)

Norman Goh / Nikkei Asia:
ByteDance confirms laying off hundreds of TikTok content moderators in Malaysia and plans to invest $2B in 2024 on trust and safety; sources: 700 were laid off  —  KUALA LUMPUR — ByteDance, the parent company of social media platform TikTok, confirmed on Friday that it will be laying off hundreds …

How Google plans to deflect and delay the US breakup threat; legal timelines may let it avoid changes for years, and a ruling on remedies may come in mid-2025 (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
How Google plans to deflect and delay the US breakup threat; legal timelines may let it avoid changes for years, and a ruling on remedies may come in mid-2025  —  Search group claims regulators are overreaching just as foreign and domestic rivals are gaining ground

Automattic demanding an 8% cut of WP Engine's revenue is a wanton violation of general open source ideals, and the damage could extend far beyond WordPress (David Heinemeier Hansson/HEY)

David Heinemeier Hansson / HEY:
Automattic demanding an 8% cut of WP Engine's revenue is a wanton violation of general open source ideals, and the damage could extend far beyond WordPress  —  Automattic demanding 8% of WP Engine's revenues because they're not “giving back enough” to WordPress is a wanton violation …

ByteDance launches its first earbuds, the open-ear wearables called Ola Friend, designed as an audio assistant, shipping on October 17 in China for ~$170 (Coco Feng/South China Morning Post)

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
ByteDance launches its first earbuds, the open-ear wearables called Ola Friend, designed as an audio assistant, shipping on October 17 in China for ~$170  —  The Ola Friend earphones are linked to ByteDance's self-developed chatbot, Doubao, currently China's most popular GenAI app

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker for "computational protein design" and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker for “computational protein design” and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper  —  - Demis Hassabis, John Jumper share half the $1.1 million award  — Remainder goes to David Baker for building new proteins

CamScanner app maker Intsig is the best-performing China IPO stock in 2024 for $100M+ listings, after a euphoric market response to Beijing's stimulus measures (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
CamScanner app maker Intsig is the best-performing China IPO stock in 2024 for $100M+ listings, after a euphoric market response to Beijing's stimulus measures  —  - Intsig Chairman Zhen Lixin's net worth hits $876 million  — Shanghai-listed firm has surged since Sept. 26 debut