ElevenLabs, which is reportedly raising $200M at a $3B valuation, launches a tool to let users create and edit AI-hosted podcasts from various source materials (Ashley Carman/Bloomberg)

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
ElevenLabs, which is reportedly raising $200M at a $3B valuation, launches a tool to let users create and edit AI-hosted podcasts from various source materials  —  The new product competes with Google's viral NotebookLM  —  ElevenLabs Inc., a startup that uses artificial intelligence software …

How the US-China fallout is fueling the rise of boomtowns in Vietnam and Malaysia, as companies and governments rush to develop AI and establish chipmaking hubs (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
How the US-China fallout is fueling the rise of boomtowns in Vietnam and Malaysia, as companies and governments rush to develop AI and establish chipmaking hubs  —  An accelerating influx of tech investment is transforming local economies in Malaysia and Vietnam.

A look at the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, a planned project aiming to make Chicago a quantum computing hub with PsiQuantum as the anchor tenant (Steven Rosenbush/Wall Street Journal)

Steven Rosenbush / Wall Street Journal:
A look at the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, a planned project aiming to make Chicago a quantum computing hub with PsiQuantum as the anchor tenant  —  An industrial park taking shape on an old steel mill site provides a glimpse into the quantum future

OpenAI's o1 is a notable departure from older models, representing the industry's shift to reasoning models to overcome the limits of prediction-based AI (Matteo Wong/The Atlantic)

Matteo Wong / The Atlantic:
OpenAI's o1 is a notable departure from older models, representing the industry's shift to reasoning models to overcome the limits of prediction-based AI  —  This week, openai launched what its chief executive, Sam Altman, called “the smartest model in the world”—a generative-AI program whose capabilities …

Paytm sells its stake in Japanese payments firm PayPay to SoftBank for $279.2M, ending Paytm's ties with SoftBank, which sold its remaining Paytm shares in June (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Paytm sells its stake in Japanese payments firm PayPay to SoftBank for $279.2M, ending Paytm's ties with SoftBank, which sold its remaining Paytm shares in June  —  Paytm has agreed to sell its stake in Japanese payments firm PayPay to SoftBank for $279.2 million, as the Indian firm sheds …

How the UK has come to play a key role in the global regulation of AI after Sam Altman played a deepfake of Rishi Sunak on a 2023 call with the then PM (Vincent Manancourt/Politico)

Vincent Manancourt / Politico:
How the UK has come to play a key role in the global regulation of AI after Sam Altman played a deepfake of Rishi Sunak on a 2023 call with the then PM  —  LONDON — In February 2023 Sam Altman dialed into a video call with Britain's then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

A look at Uber Shuttle, the shared bus service that has rolled out in over 20 cities and completed ~30M trips globally, as Uber awaits approval in Bengaluru (Anisha Sircar/Rest of World)

Anisha Sircar / Rest of World:
A look at Uber Shuttle, the shared bus service that has rolled out in over 20 cities and completed ~30M trips globally, as Uber awaits approval in Bengaluru  —  Uber Shuttle, a shared bus ride service, is available in two Indian cities.  The company plans to launch in three more cities soon.

An evaluation of six frontier AI models for in-context scheming when strongly nudged to pursue a goal: only OpenAI's o1 was capable of scheming in all the tests (Marius Hobbhahn/Apollo Research)

Marius Hobbhahn / Apollo Research:
An evaluation of six frontier AI models for in-context scheming when strongly nudged to pursue a goal: only OpenAI's o1 was capable of scheming in all the tests  —  Paper: You can find the detailed paper here.  —  Transcripts: We provide a list of cherry-picked transcripts here.

Uber and Chinese autonomous vehicle company WeRide launch a commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, marking Uber's first international AV offering (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch)

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Uber and Chinese autonomous vehicle company WeRide launch a commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, marking Uber's first international AV offering  —  Ride-hail giant Uber and Chinese autonomous vehicle technology company WeRide have launched a commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi.

FEC filing: Elon Musk poured at least $274M into US political groups in 2024, including $238.5M for his America PAC, making him the biggest US political donor (Bill Allison/Bloomberg)

Bill Allison / Bloomberg:
FEC filing: Elon Musk poured at least $274M into US political groups in 2024, including $238.5M for his America PAC, making him the biggest US political donor  —  - Musk gave at least $274 million to elect Trump, GOP allies  — Trump has tapped Musk to help reshape federal bureaucracy

Industry insiders believe Pat Gelsinger's hasty exit could be a prelude to Intel moving away from manufacturing its chips altogether, in a blow to US ambitions (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Industry insiders believe Pat Gelsinger's hasty exit could be a prelude to Intel moving away from manufacturing its chips altogether, in a blow to US ambitions  —  The Silicon Valley-based company could scale back its semiconductor manufacturing business in a blow to American ambitions

The UK CMA clears the £15B Vodafone-Three deal after a 10-month inquiry, subject to investing £11B in UK digital infrastructure, creating the UK's biggest telco (Jillian Deutsch/Bloomberg)

Jillian Deutsch / Bloomberg:
The UK CMA clears the £15B Vodafone-Three deal after a 10-month inquiry, subject to investing £11B in UK digital infrastructure, creating the UK's biggest telco  —  - CMA approved the merger with Three in UK on Thursday  — Europe's telcos have spent years lobbying for consolidation

AT&T's stock is up 35% in 2024 after CEO John Stankey reversed course in 2022 and spun off Warner Bros. and DirecTV, and plans to return $40B+ to shareholders (Drew FitzGerald/Wall Street Journal)

Drew FitzGerald / Wall Street Journal:
AT&T's stock is up 35% in 2024 after CEO John Stankey reversed course in 2022 and spun off Warner Bros. and DirecTV, and plans to return $40B+ to shareholders  —  Investors have welcomed CEO John Stankey's return to boring wireless and broadband services after costly entertainment gambles

Q&A with White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar on AI risks, the CHIPS Act, immigration for the STEM fields, and more (James O'Donnell/MIT Technology Review)

James O'Donnell / MIT Technology Review:
Q&A with White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar on AI risks, the CHIPS Act, immigration for the STEM fields, and more  —  President Biden's administration will end within two months, and likely to depart with him is Arati Prabhakar, the top mind for science and technology in his cabinet.

Internal docs: in early 2021, Google's lawyers, policy team, and more worried that its $1.2B Project Nimbus deal with Israel may enable human rights violations (Nico Grant/New York Times)

Nico Grant / New York Times:
Internal docs: in early 2021, Google's lawyers, policy team, and more worried that its $1.2B Project Nimbus deal with Israel may enable human rights violations  —  The tech giant, which has defended the deal to employees who oppose supplying Israel's military with technology, feared the project might damage its reputation.