Welcome friends to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch's weekly news roundup. The weather is warming up, but not as warming as the generative ai space, which saw a slew of new models released this week, including Meta's Llama 3.
In other ai news, Hyundai-owned robotics company Boston Dynamics unveiled an electric humanoid follow-up to its former Atlas robot, which it recently retired. As Brian writes, the new robot, also called Atlas, has a kinder, gentler design than the original Atlas and more contemporary robots like the Figure 01 and the Tesla Optimus.
Turning our attention to YouTube for a moment, Dom and Amanda wrote about how Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), the famous gadget reviewer, should not be blamed for the fate of ai startup Humane ai, whose product, the ai Pin, Brownlee gave a scathing review earlier this week. They point out that Humane is a well-funded company with plenty of money in the bank to spend, and discover that Brownlee's critics, who accuse him of being unfairly harsh, have lost their ire.
Many more things happened. We've rounded it all up in this edition of WiR, but first, a reminder to sign up to receive the WiR newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.
News
x publication charges: Elon Musk, CEO of x, plans to charge new x users a small fee to allow them to post on the social network in an effort to curb what he describes as a “bot problem.”
Change ransomware: An extortion group has released a portion of what it claims are private, confidential patient records of millions of Americans stolen during the ransomware attack on Change Healthcare in February.
Tesla adjusts prices: In more Tesla news, the automaker abandoned discounts on inventory prices for electric vehicles in what CEO Elon Musk characterized as a move to “streamline” sales and deliveries. Tesla also lowered the price of its advanced driver assistance package, Full Self-Driving, to $99 per month in the US.
Free Mars for all: Devin reports that space startups are licking their lips over NASA's decision to turn its 15-year, $11 billion mission to collect and return samples from Mars into essentially a commercial battle.
Problems with Waymo: Six Waymo robotaxis blocked traffic on an on-ramp in San Francisco on Tuesday. This isn't the first time Waymo vehicles have caused a road block, Rebecca notes, but this is the first documented incident involving a freeway.
Analysis
Google Cloud is committed to generative ai: Ron writes about how Google Cloud is investing heavily in generative ai, as evidenced by the series of announcements during Google's Cloud Next conference earlier this month.
Generative ai in health: Generative ai is coming to the healthcare sector, but not everyone is excited. Some experts don't think the technology is ready for prime time.
Airchat, to talk: Anthony discusses the hype over Airchat, an app launched by former AngelList founder Naval Ravikant and former Tinder product executive Brian Norgard that focuses on voice, not text.
