Hello friends, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch's regular newsletter summarizing the latest days in technology. ai is back in the headlines, with tech giants from Google to X (formerly Twitter) taking on OpenAI for chatbot supremacy. But also many things happened.
In this edition of WiR, we cover Google faking a demonstration of its new ai model (and handing out offensive notebooks to black summit attendees), defense startup Anduril unveiling a fighter jet weapon, the continuing fallout from 23andMe hack and the release of the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer. Also on the list are stories about patient scans and medical records spread online, Meta's new ai-powered imager, Spotify cutting jobs, and a self-driving truck startup leaving the US.
There is much to do, so we will not delay. But first, a reminder to sign up here to receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you haven't already.
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ai, fake: Google this week unveiled a new flagship ai model called Gemini. But it didn't release the full model, Gemini Ultra, just a “lite” version called Gemini Pro. In a press conference and in blog posts, Google touted Gemini's encoding capabilities and multimodal prowess, saying the model can understand images, audio and videos as well as text. But Gemini Pro, which is strictly text input and output, has proven to be error-prone. And worse for Google, the company was caught spoofing a Gemini demo by wrapping text prompts with off-camera still images.
Offensive notebooks: In another public relations blunder by Google, people who attended the company's K&I Black Summit in August received third-party notebooks containing highly insensitive language. My colleague Dominic-Madori writes that inside the notebooks was printed the phrase “I was just cotton moment, but I took your notes again” (emphasis ours). Needless to say, this would not have gone down well with the largely black audience in attendance; Google has pledged to “avoid similar situations as it engages with (merchandise) suppliers in the future.”
Anduril's new weapon: Anduril, the controversial defense company co-founded by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, has developed a new product designed to address the proliferation of low-cost, high-power aerial threats. Dubbed Roadrunner, the modular, vertical take-off and landing autonomous aerial vehicle powered by two aircraft (one version of which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead) can take off, track and destroy targets or, if there is no need, intercept them. , autonomously maneuvers back to base to refuel and reuse.
More victims of 23andMe: Last Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers managed to access the personal data of 0.1% of customers, or about 14,000 people. But the company did not initially say how many other users may have been affected by the breach, which 23andMe first revealed in October. A lot, it turns out: 6.9 million people had their names, birth years, relationship tags, the percentage of DNA they share with family members, ancestry reports, and self-reported locations exposed.
Grand Theft Auto goes viral: In just 22 hours, the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI racked up 85 million views, breaking the record for a MrBeast video for the most views on YouTube in 24 hours. The excitement for Grand Theft Auto VI has been a decade in the making; The previous entry in Rockstar Games' long-running franchise, Grand Theft Auto V, remains the second best seller video game of all time, only below Minecraft.
Patient records leak: Thousands of exposed servers are disclosing the medical records and personal health information of millions of patients due to security flaws in a decades-old industry standard designed for storing and sharing medical images. This standard, known as Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), is the internationally recognized format for medical images. But as Aplite, a Germany-based cybersecurity consultancy, discovered, security shortcomings in DICOM mean that many medical facilities have inadvertently made private data accessible to the open web.
Meta generated images: Not to be outdone by the launch of Google's Gemini, Meta launched a new standalone generative ai experience on the web, Imagine with Meta ai, which allows users to create images by describing them in natural language. Like OpenAI's DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, Imagine with Meta ai, which works with Meta's existing Emu imaging model, creates high-resolution images from text prompts.
Spotify makes cuts: Spotify is cutting around 1,500 jobs, or about 17% of its workforce, in its third round of layoffs this year, as the music streaming giant looks to become “productive and efficient.” In a note to employees on Monday, Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek, citing slow economic growth and rising capital costs, said right-sizing the workforce is crucial for the company to confront the “ future challenges.”
Your Simple Outputs: When TuSimple went public in 2021, it was flying high as the leading developer of autonomous trucks in the US. Now, after a series of internal controversies and the loss of a critical partnership with truck maker Navistar, TuSimple will exit the US entirely. TuSimple said in a regulatory document Monday that it will lay off most of its American workforce and sell assets here as it leaves the country for Asia.
ZestMoney closes: ZestMoney, a buy now, pay later startup whose ability to underwrite small-dollar loans to new Internet customers attracted many high-profile investors, including Goldman Sachs, is closing after unsuccessful efforts to find a buyer. The Bengaluru-based startup employed around 150 people at its peak and raised over $130 million during its eight-year run.
Audio
TechCrunch's list of podcast episodes continues to grow, just in time to listen to them on the weekends.
Equity featured a retrospective conversation from TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, when Alex sat down with Serhii Bohoslovskyi, the founder of a no-code app builder, Trible, that helps people create online courses. The pair caught up on the state of the creator economy, the current use of no-code tools (and how they are received by non-technical creators), and the security of startups with roots in Ukraine.
Later Found, the team spoke with David Rogier, CEO and founder of MasterClass, a streaming platform where you can learn from the world's experts on a variety of topics. Before Rogier launched MasterClass, he worked as a venture capitalist and, through his connections, he received a $500,000 seed round before even having an idea for a company.
And in Chain reaction, Jacquelyn interviewed David Pakman, Managing Partner and Head of Venture Investments at CoinFund. Prior to CoinFund, David spent 14 years at venture capital firm Venrock. He also led the Series A and B rounds in Dollar Shave Club, which was acquired by Unilever for $1 billion. And, in 1991, David co-created Apple Music when he was part of Apple's system software product marketing group.
TechnologyCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys, which you'll find out if you're already a subscriber. If not, consider registering. Here are some highlights from this week:
bitcoin Rise: Jacquelyn writes about bitcoin's rapid rise to $44,000, which came on the back of roughly 25% gains in the past week. Her article for TC+ explores what is driving bitcoin's price rise and similar value gains among other tokens, and whether the good vibes continue into the new year.
To exchange or not to exchange: Tim reports on how consumer EV battery swapping could provide freedom to a wide range of people, allowing them to participate in the transition to EVs in a way that traditional integrated batteries do not. The challenge is to make unit economics work.
Coinbase and Robin and the future of fintech: Investors are betting that consumer trading of stocks and cryptocurrencies is recovering, and consequently driving up the value of some former startups, Alex writes. That could be good news for startups that offer consumer commerce services directly or indirectly.
