Welcome, Tech enthusiasts.

Is China prepping for a new battle… in space?

The world superpower just revealed an advanced simulation system to prepare for futuristic space warfare. Let’s dig deeper…

In today’s tech rundown:

• China develops simulation for space warfare

• NASA, Boeing, GE team up on hybrid electric planes

• 8 new products

• Apple rolls out pricing feature in App Store

• Blue Origin resumes flight schedule

• Tech giants face class action lawsuit over Apple Pay

Read time: 3 minutes

TODAY’S HEADLINES

MILITARY TECH

🛸 China develops simulation for space warfare

Image source: National University of Defence Technology

The Rundown: Though publicly opposing space weaponization, China just revealed its military now has a new advanced system to game out futuristic orbital combat scenarios and train personnel should conflict arise.

The details:

• China has used the simulation to sharpen tactics and identify elite talent — putting cadets through two months of mock space skirmishes while wielding advanced weaponry.

• The simulation provides vivid modeling of intricacies like debris collisions that could ensue, with space warfare having potential massive second-order impacts on satellites and infrastructure.

• The move comes amid broader space rivalry with the U.S., with China accusing the pioneering American Space Force of driving unwelcome militarization it must counter.

Why it matters: While nearly all countries seem aligned on the scary consequences of potential space warfare, it isn’t stopping the world’s superpowers from beefing up their military in the sector. Let’s hope humanity continues reach for the stars — without fighting each other in the process.

TOGETHER WITH MASTERWORKS

📊 Harvard data scientist shocks investors with opportunities in surprising market

The Rundown: The AI revolution has already begun to rewire Wall St, and its impact has been strongly felt in one growing market in particular. Because, thanks to a Harvard data scientist and his crack team, everyday people can now benefit from a previously “off-limits” investment.

The company that makes it possible is called Masterworks, whose unique investment platform enables savvy investors to invest in shares of blue-chip art.

Intrigued? The Rundown Tech readers can skip the waitlist.

Investing involves risk and past performance is not indicative of future returns. See important Reg A disclosures and aggregate advisory performance masterworks.com/cd

AVIATION TECH

✈️ NASA, Boeing, GE team up on hybrid electric planes

Image source: GE Aerospace

The Rundown: NASA is teaming up with GE Aerospace and Boeing on a major initiative to develop and test hybrid-electric propulsion for commercial airliners — aiming to produce new tech that decreases aviation's reliance on jet fuel.

The details:

• The hybrid electric architecture combines gas engines with electric motors and batteries for efficiency.

• NASA, GE and Boeing plan to retrofit a test plane with hybrid electric drives by the mid-2020s.

• Batteries currently can't fully power large aircrafts, but hybrid electric enables partial electrification — with electric motors filling increasing propulsion needs over time as tech progresses.

• Widespread adoption could significantly curb commercial aviation's carbon footprint, though many advances are still needed.

The relevance: With the massive current push in hybrid cars, it’s no surprise to see the same initiatives take to the sky. A scalable, reliable hybrid breakthrough would help cut down on gas-guzzling airplanes — and continue charting a greener path for transportation.

NEW PRODUCTS

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🔠 Username Generator- Create distinctive usernames (link)

🌱 GrowEasy- AI-driven tool for seamless lead generation in one app (link)

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🔍 FeedLens- Streamline your mobile app reviews with AI-enhanced analysis (link)

💬 Simple Analytics AI- Interact with your data analytics through conversation (link)

📊 Speak AI- Turn your language data into insights, fast and with no code (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

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SNIPPETS

The US House has passed an act to extend warrantless surveillance under Section 702 until April 2024.

Blue Origin is scheduled to resume flights with its New Shepard rocket today, following a year-long hiatus due to a launch failure last September.

Apple is piloting a new "contingent pricing" feature in the App Store, enabling developers to offer discounted subscriptions to users.

Florida officials refused $320 million in federal funds for climate change-related infrastructure, citing objections to the politicization of such funding.

Solana smartphone sales skyrocket as the value of a digital token related to its release significantly increases.

Apple, Visa, and Mastercard face a lawsuit alleging they colluded to dominate point-of-sale payments via Apple Pay.

Peloton expands its app compatibility to third-party treadmills, allowing users to track workout metrics, catering to subscribers of its premium subscription.

SPONSOR US

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❤️ Rundown review of the day

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

It’s been quite the end to the year for Sam Altman. Following his TIME ‘CEO of the Year’ award — the now-reinstated CEO just spoke candidly about AGI, AI risks, and more.

Understandably, Altman sounded more stressed about shepherding the super-intelligence to come than the juicy boardroom drama. Let’s get into it…

In today’s AI rundown:

• Sam Altman opens up on OpenAI drama

• Stability AI releases new image-to-3D model

• 10 new AI tools to try

• How to run powerful AI assistants locally on your phones

• Alibaba releases new image-to-video model

• OpenAI explores ‘weak’ models controlling strong AI

Read time: 3 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

👀 Sam Altman opens up on OpenAI drama

Image source: TIME

The Rundown: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just gave a candid, wide-ranging interview after being named TIME's CEO of the Year, reflecting on his short-lived firing, governing powerful AI, and why he remains hopeful despite risks.

The details:

• Altman felt the boardroom drama brought productive self-reflection on OpenAI's governance needing to support its mission as AI capabilities charge ahead.

• He believes AGI will “be the most powerful technology humanity has yet invented”, with huge implications for democratizing access to information globally.

• Altman also emphasized the risks of AI personal disinformation, particularly with the upcoming elections in 2024.

The relevance: Altman’s remarks sound like someone more stressed about shepherding a world-altering technology than petty boardroom drama. And despite the risks, Sam sounds confident that AGI and accelerating AI will change the world for the better — sooner rather than later.

TOGETHER WITH MASTERWORKS

🎨 Harvard data scientist upends finance community with opportunities in this market

The Rundown: The AI revolution has already begun to rewire Wall St, and its impact has been strongly felt in one growing market in particular. Because, thanks to a Harvard data scientist and his crack team, everyday people can now benefit from a previously “off-limits” investment.

The company that makes it possible is called Masterworks, whose unique investment platform enables savvy investors to invest in blue-chip art for a fraction of the cost.

Intrigued? The Rundown AI readers can skip the waitlist.

Investing involves risk and past performance is not indicative of future returns. See important Reg A disclosures and aggregate advisory performance masterworks.com/cd

STABILITY AI

🤯 Stability AI releases new image-to-3D model

Image source: Stability AI

The Rundown: Stability AI just released an enhanced image-to-3D model called Stable Zero123, alongside a new tiered membership structure that aims to stabilize the company’s revenue generation.

The details:

• The model can take a single image input and generate a 3D object, displaying subject from a variety of angles.

• Zero123 touts higher quality results by utilizing cleaner Objaverse dataset renders and adding camera elevation data.

• The open-source startup also announced a new membership model, which includes a free/research tier, a $20/mo professional tier, and custom enterprise pricing.

Why it matters: Stability ups the competition in the image-to-3D AI space, keeping their foot on the gas with yet another impressive model rollout. If the current pace of development keeps up, we will likely have text-to-video game creation within just a few years.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

TRENDING TOOLS

🛡️ DryRun Security- AI-powered security buddy empowers developers in their everyday workflow (link)*

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🔍 Unwrapped AI- Get a Spotify-like recap of your 2023 GitHub activity (link)

🛠️ Scade.pro- Access 1500+ AI tools without coding using this platform (link)

💬 MessengerX.io- Monetize with GPTs for uncensored information and entertainment (link)

📸 Snapby AI- Generate lifelike images directly in Figma for free (link)

🤖 GradesAI- An AI-powered app that forecasts exam questions for students (link)

📝 Copy AI- Generate content, such as blog headlines, emails, and social media posts using AI (link)

🔥 Jasper- An AI copywriter assistant that can generate any kind of marketing copy (link)

✍️ Rytr- An AI writing assistant that helps you create high-quality content, in just a few seconds (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

* = This is sponsored content

AI TRAINING

📱 How to run powerful AI assistants locally on your phone

Want access to powerful AI models on your phone, without needing WiFi or risking your privacy? Now you can with an incredible new app called LLMFarm — letting you run AI models locally on your iPhone or iPad, completely offline.

Here’s a tutorial on how to access it by Alvaro Cintas:

Step 1: Go to LLMFarm TestFlight page and click “Install with TestFlight". Download the TestFlight app first if you don't have it already.

Step 2: Return to LLMFarm and click "Start Testing" to install the app itself.

Step 3: Next, find the pre-trained AI model you’d like to use locally from HuggingFace. For this tutorial, we used the Mistral-7B model. Navigate to the ‘files and versions’ tab and download the model — note that some may take up significant space.

Step 4: Back in the LLMFarm app, select "Add Model" and navigate to the Mistral 7B file you just downloaded. In the ‘format’ section, type: <s>[INST] {{prompt}} [INST]. In prediction options, toggle on Metal and MLock.

QUICK HITS

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🎥 Alibaba releases new image-to-video model

Alibaba Group just released i2VGen-XL, a new image-to-video model capable of generating high-definition ouputs. The release brings yet another competitor to the ever-expanding AI video generation sector, with capabilities ramping up at a truly insane pace.

🦾 OpenAI explores ‘weak’ models controlling strong AI

OpenAI just released a new paper, introducing the concept of using small AI models to supervise more powerful ones — studying if they can generalize training despite limited capabilities. Aiming to tackle aligning superhuman AI, experiments show promising control of LLMs.

💼 New jobs in the world of AI

Product Manager at Anyscale

Senior Content Designer at Cohere

Media Relations, API Communications at OpenAI

Browse all available AI job positions with our job board.

SPONSOR US

🦾 Get your product in front of over 400k+ AI enthusiasts

Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, investors, engineers, managers, and business owners around the world. Get in touch today.

THAT’S A WRAP

That’s it for today’s news in the world of AI!

If you have anything interesting to share, please reach out to us by sending us a DM on Twitter: @rowancheung & @therundownai

❤️ Rundown review of the day

Welcome, Tech enthusiasts.

A new investigation just unearthed Mark Zuckerberg’s secret apocalypse-ready Hawaiian compound.

Featuring built-in bunkers, helipads, and blast-resistant doors — the $270M compound sounds like something straight out of a movie! Let’s investigate…

In today’s tech rundown:

• Zuckerberg building $270M secret Hawaiian compound

  Boston Dynamics teams with 'Avatar' animatronics firm

• 9 new products

• Robo-taxi firm Cruise suffers massive layoffs

• Elon Musk is establishing schools

• Netflix ramps up its gaming sector

Read time: 3 minutes

TODAY’S HEADLINES

META

🏝 Zuckerberg building $270M secret Hawaiian compound

Image source: Wired

The Rundown: A WIRED investigation just revealed Mark Zuckerberg's years-long construction of a lavish, bunker-equipped sprawling compound in Hawaii — which has bred island controversy over the tech giant’s secrecy, legal tactics and community engagement.

The details:

• The nearly completed Koolau Ranch spans 1,400 acres with over a dozen buildings, 30 bedrooms, off-grid power and food, helipads and underground bunkers with blast-resistant doors.

• Costs eclipse $270 million — with reports of extreme NDAs muzzling hundreds of workers, lawsuits targeting landholders, and Zuckerberg reps allegedly clashing with press.

• Political ties abound as the Chan/Zuckerberg donations flow, including hiring a former council chair and funding a former vice chair's nonprofit.

Our thoughts: While tech entrepreneurs have a history of doomsday prepping, Zuck sounds like he’s taking this Hawaiian hideaway to the next level. With blast-resistant doors and bunkers, the question is – are these measures just extra caution, or does he know something we don’t…?

TOGETHER WITH DIGIARTY SOFTWARE

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ROBOTICS

🤝 Boston Dynamics teams with 'Avatar' animatronics firm

Image source: The Boston Globe

The Rundown: Boston Dynamics is making moves into the entertainment realm – announcing a new partnership with Neon (the parent company of famed animatronics studio Animax) to design engaging consumer robots.

The details:

• While light on specifics, the duo plans a reveal by the end of 2024, aimed at ‘inspiring and dazzling audiences.’

• Animax has crafted life-like robotic creatures for several massive Hollywood IPs turned theme park attractions, including Avatar, Jurassic Park, Marvel, and Harry Potter.

• The move represents an increased focus on commercialization for the robot maker — and builds on Boston Dynamics' own long history of viral performances with its creations.

Why it matters: The combo of Boston Dynamics’ mind-blowing robots and a world-class animatronics studio could make for some serious fun. And if the company’s viral videos are any indication, theme parks might be in for an unforgettable overhaul very soon.

NEW PRODUCTS

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💡 Ask Viable- Quickly turn feedback into product requirements, FAQs, and reports (link)

💸 PriceGPT- Examine pricing strategies easily with AI (link)

🧠 MindOne 0.6- Enhanced AI-driven user interface (link)

🎥 Descript- A powerful all-in-one video and podcast editing tool using AI (link)

🕸️ 10Web- Build or recreate any website in minutes with the power of AI (link)

🎥 VEED- The easy way to create stunning videos and add subtitles (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

* = This is sponsored content

SNIPPETS

Cruise cuts 900 jobs following a pause in driverless operations due to a severe incident and a reduction in spending by GM.

Intel introduces Core Ultra notebook chips with integrated neural processing units for enhanced AI capabilities.

Elon Musk is set to establish a university and K-12 school focused on STEM education in Austin, Texas, as reflected in recent tax filings.

Apple rolled out the first public beta of macOS Sonoma 14.3 with new features like collaborative playlists in Apple Music.

Netflix is expanding its gaming division with nearly 90 new titles under development, including four games slated for release in 2024.

The FCC has voted to advance a proposal that aims to eliminate early termination fees charged by cable and satellite providers.

JPMorgan analysts anticipate that Ethereum will outperform Bitcoin in the next year due to a network upgrade that is expected to reduce transaction costs and increase throughput.

SPONSOR US

⚡️ Get your product in front of over 75k+ tech enthusiasts

Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, investors, engineers, managers, and business owners around the world. Get in touch today.

THAT’S A WRAP

If you have anything interesting to share, please reach out to us by sending us a DM on Twitter: @rowancheung & @therundowntech

❤️ Rundown review of the day

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

Tesla just took its humanoid robot to the next level — showcasing dramatically improved mobility, balance, and motor skills in a new demo.

And in case you were wondering — the robots are also pretty great dancers, too. Let’s dive in…

In today’s AI rundown:

• Tesla's Optimus 2 upgrades

• Google opens Google AI Studio

• 10 new AI tools to try

• How to give classic art a fun twist with DALL-E

• OpenAI taps Axel Springer for news in ChatGPT

• Channel 1 debuts AI news broadcast in viral demo

Read time: 3 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

TESLA

🤖 Tesla's Optimus 2 upgrades

Image source: Tesla

The Rundown: Tesla just unveiled a dramatically revamped the prototype of its humanoid Optimus robot, packing major improvements to speed, dexterity and balance that bring it closer to futuristic functions.

The details:

• Optimus Gen-2 sheds over 20 pounds to enhance mobility, while boosting walking pace 30% via new feet and smoothed-out movement.

• Finger sensors also enable delicate object manipulation — with Optimus able to delicately handle an egg in the demo.

• Upgrades like a more flexible neck, integrated electronics, and quicker hands with tactile feedback aim to replicate human advantages.

• It can also dance better than most humans — with super smooth movement shown off throughout the real-time footage.

Why it matters: Elon and co. have made some seriously staggering progress with this Optimus upgrade — with humanoid robots inching closer to the multimodal, hyper-capable robots previously only imagine in movies.

TOGETHER WITH TAPLIO

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GOOGLE

 ✨ Google opens Google AI Studio

Image source: Google

The Rundown: Google DeepMind just rolled out two new expansions to its AI roster, making the new Gemini Pro available for developers to build via Google AI Studio, while also releasing ‘Imagen 2’ text-to-image model.

The details:

• Google AI Studio enables prompting Gemini Pro with text and images to quickly build conversational agents, providing code for users to integrate into apps.

• It offers generous rate limits for free, with paid plans coming —  but Gemini Pro API costs come in higher than GPT 3.5.

• The web-based platform acts as an onramp to Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform for commercial deployment.

• Alongside the release of Google AI Studio, Google DeepMind also revealed Imagen 2: their most advanced text-to-image diffusion technology for photorealistic outputs

The relevance: Google continues to bring the heat with new advancements, integrating Gemini into its vast network and greasing the wheels for developers to continue experimenting with cutting edge AI.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

TRENDING TOOLS

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🤖 Gobble bot- Digest your website, PDF, YouTube Video, Notion pages and more into one text file to upload to your GPT chatbot (link)

🔍 Ask Viable- Instantly convert feedback into various product documents like PRDs and FAQs using AI (link)

🎙️ Audio Notes AI- Transform disorganized thoughts into structured notes with AI (link)

💲 PriceGPT- Audit pricing pages with AI analysis (link)

🧠 MindOne 0.6- Sophisticated AI-powered user interface enhancement (link)

🌐 Buenoverse- Create and explore 2D worlds collaboratively (link)

🐦 TweetHunter- All-in-one Twitter growth tool to create content using AI, build an audience, and schedule posts (link)

🎙Toasty AI- AI content creation for podcasts (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

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AI TRAINING

🎨 How to give classic art a fun twist with DALL-E

Tired of seeing the same old paintings and images? This simple, yet highly effective prompt by @Umesh_ai reimagines any image with DALLE-3.

Prompt: "Recreate [painting/image/meme] in [art style]"

Happy creating!

Example prompt for the image below: “Recreate the famous Rosie the Riveter poster in the style of Tim Burton”

QUICK HITS

⚡️ Join the world’s top enterprise AI leaders… (sponsor)

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🤝 OpenAI taps Axel Springer for news in ChatGPT

OpenAI just announced a partnership with Axel Springer to bring real-time news content to ChatGPT, with articles from brands like Politico and Business Insider set to be included in attributions to user queries. The partnership also highlights a new revenue stream opportunities for journalism outlets.

📺 Channel 1 debuts AI news broadcast in viral demo

Channel 1’s AI-powered personalized newscast is going viral — with several extremely realistic AI anchors detailing the news during the 22-minute demo. Using human editing plus trusted reporting sources, the startup plans to launch in 2024 with between 500 and 1000 segments produced daily.

💼 New jobs in the world of AI

Product Manager at Anyscale

Senior Content Designer at Cohere

Media Relations, API Communications at OpenAI

Browse all available AI job positions with our job board.

SPONSOR US

🦾 Get your product in front of over 400k+ AI enthusiasts

Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, investors, engineers, managers, and business owners around the world. Get in touch today.

THAT’S A WRAP

That’s it for today’s news in the world of AI!

If you have anything interesting to share, please reach out to us by sending us a DM on Twitter: @rowancheung & @therundownai

❤️ Rundown review of the day

Welcome, Tech enthusiasts.

The controversial Worldcoin project just got a major upgrade — with new security features and integrations with major platforms like Reddit and Shopify.

Despite skepticism and ethical questions, Sam Altman continues his ‘proof of humanity’ push as AI continues to disrupt. Let’s dig deeper…

In today’s tech rundown:

• Worldcoin launches ID 2.0, adds major app integrations

• Brain-inspired supercomputer to launch in 2024

• 8 new products

• Etsy axes 11% of workforce amid reorg, leadership drama

• Tesla issues ‘digital’ recall for nearly all U.S. vehicles

• Major X outage breaks links across platform

Read time: 3 minutes

TODAY’S HEADLINES

WORLDCOIN

👁️ Worldcoin launches ID 2.0, adds major app integrations

Image source: Worldcoin

The Rundown: Crypto startup Worldcoin just revealed app integrations with major platforms like Minecraft, Reddit, Shopify and more as part of its World ID 2.0 release — also adding security upgrades like facial authentication, new account options and more control.

The details:

• World ID 2.0 offers improved bot detection, with integration allowing platforms to grant special community access or privileges based on identity confirmation.

• Users can now pick from three tiers: casual account sign-up, iris scans at Orb kiosks, and extra facial verification for maximal security.

• The project’s global expansion also continues, recently launching ID services in Mexico and Singapore with plans to spread across Asia.

• Past data privacy concerns in places like Kenya remain, as does criticism around targeting developing nations with sign-up incentives.

Why it matters: As AI continues to improve and disrupt nearly every aspect of life, digital identity and proof of humanity will become increasingly vital. While it seems controversial, Sam Altman’s plan may eventually be more prescient than anyone imagined.

TOGETHER WITH TWEET HUNTER

🐦 Build and monetize your Twitter audience

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SUPERCOMPUTERS

🧠 Brain-inspired supercomputer to launch in 2024

Image source: Western Sydney University

The Rundown: Researchers at Western Sydney University are set to switch on a powerful new supercomputer in 2024 — the first capable of simulating the human brain's entire neural activity in real time.

The details:

• Named ‘DeepSouth’, the supercomputer’s hardware chip design directly mimics the brain's connections — using a more energy efficient approach than traditional computers.

• With performance equaling an estimated 228 trillion (!) synapse operations per second (on par with our brains), it aims to unlock new neuroscience insights.

• Developers believe crafting machines that harness biological thinking’s parallelism and low power needs is key to future computing.

• Neuromorphic systems like this further that goal of building brain-like intelligence.

The relevance: As computer energy consumption swells unsustainably, bio-inspired architecture offers a desperately needed shift towards efficiency. And learning new insights about human brain functionality could open the door for new technological leaps.

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👨‍💼 Aesop- Your AI-powered SaaS to find smart, distinctive names and the stories they tell – for your new brand, business, product, or project (link)*

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🎲 AI Adventure- Transform tales into interactive games effortlessly (link)

💡 App Mint AI- Unleash your creative potential with AI-driven text tools (link)

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🔗 Seemless- Create your ultimate bio link with AI-driven website generation, video/podcast editing, interactive file chats, and Notion-based site creation tools (link)

📝 Yarnit- Create engaging content at the speed of your thought (link)

👩🏽‍🍳ChefGPT- AI digital chef & kitchen companion (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

* = This is sponsored content

SNIPPETS

An outage on X (formerly known as Twitter), led to a temporary issue where users could not access outgoing links.

Etsy is reducing its workforce by approximately 11 percent, undergoing a leadership shuffle, and reorganizing internally.

EU regulators are expected to formally rule against Apple in response to Spotify's complaint regarding App Store policies.

Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads is commencing trials to integrate ActivityPub, allowing its content to be shared on Mastodon and others.

Barbara Furlow-Smiles, a former Facebook DEI executive, pleaded guilty to embezzling over $4 million from the company using a fraudulent scheme.

Tesla is recalling nearly all of its two million US-sold vehicles to update a driver monitoring feature linked to its Autopilot system — though the update will be pushed digitally.

Brazil's Senate has passed legislation that facilitates the creation of a regulated sports betting market, while rejecting the expansion into igaming.

SPONSOR US

⚡️ Get your product in front of over 75k+ tech enthusiasts

Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, investors, engineers, managers, and business owners around the world. Get in touch today.

THAT’S A WRAP

If you have anything interesting to share, please reach out to us by sending us a DM on Twitter: @rowancheung & @therundowntech

❤️ Rundown review of the day

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

It seems like ChatGPT is getting into the holiday spirit a bit early this year. Users are noticing the chatbot is becoming lazy — with data to support it.

According to the “Winter Break Hypothesis,” OpenAI’s assistant might’ve been trained to learn the human trends of laziness around the holidays. Let’s dig in…

In today’s AI rundown:

• Is ChatGPT getting lazy near the holidays?

• Microsoft ships small but powerful new model

• 9 new AI tools to try

• How to use DALL-E 3 in any mobile app

• Congressional candidate deploys AI for voter outreach

• SI publisher fires CEO over AI controversy

• Anthropic brings Claude to spreadsheets

Read time: 3 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

CHATGPT

🎄 Is ChatGPT getting lazy near the holidays?

Image source: DALL-E 3

The Rundown: A new theory dubbed the "Winter Break Hypothesis" claims that ChatGPT has gotten lazier by learning that people relax more around the holidays — with statistically significant data to support it.

The details:

• Complaints of ChatGPT laziness emerged in November, with users noticing shortened or denied responses.

• OpenAI admitted awareness of issues, but no causality behind the change in model behavior.

• The Winter Break Hypothesis suggests that since ChatGPT takes the date as input, trends around reduced human productivity this time of year impact its behavior.

• X user Rob Lynch ran a test that fed GPT-4 prompts specifying different dates, finding much shorter responses in December.

Our thoughts: AI is just like us! Before we know it, ChatGPT will be throwing up an automated ‘Out of Office’ reply between Christmas and New Year’s. The subtle quirks of LLMs continue to amaze (and scare) many users.

TOGETHER WITH INCOGNI

🕵️‍♂️ Keep your info off the dark web

The Rundown: Every day, data brokers profit from selling your phone number, birthday and SSN (and you don’t want to know who’s buying it).

Incogni fixes this:

• Scrub your personal data from the web

• Confront data brokers head-on for you

• Remove sensitive information from all broker types (even the scary ones)

Define your digital identity with Incogni. Click here to sign up and use code RUNDOWN60 for 60% off!

MICROSOFT

🤖 Microsoft ships small but powerful new model

Image source: Microsoft

The Rundown: Microsoft Research just released Phi-2, a surprisingly powerful 2.7B parameter ‘small language model’ capable of running on a laptop or phone — matching or exceeding the capabilities of larger models.

The details:

• Phi-2 achieves impressive results among models under 13B parameters in reasoning, language, math, and coding benchmarks.

• It outdoes the 7B parameter Mistral and Llama 2 models, and even surpasses Google's 3B parameter Gemini Nano 2 on some tests.

• Microsoft credits strategic data selection emphasizing textbook-quality content, plus innovative knowledge transfer techniques in efficiently scaling up Phi-2.

• But businesses can't tap the model yet, as Microsoft currently only licenses it for non-commercial research purposes.

Why it matters: Achieving these results in such a small package is quite the feat — and the ability to run on devices like a laptop or phone opens the door for more capable local, offline usage. With the release just a week after Google unveiled Gemini Nano, Microsoft is undoubtedly making a statement!

TRENDING TOOLS

🐻 BlitzBear- Outrank your SERP competitors in a few clicks. BlitzBear optimizes your blog SEO using AI without the manual work required (link)*

🔄 Recast Studio- Transform your podcasts effortlessly with AI (link)

💬 Chat with YouTube- Interact with AI to inquire about YouTube content (link)

💰 Mezzi- Minimize your tax expenses effortlessly (link)

📰 Brief- Get a custom AI-curated news digest (link)

📂 MagicDocs- Streamline your document management with AI (link)

🐦 Postwise- Craft viral Tweets in seconds (link)

🧠 AI-suggests- Generate tons of ready-to-use content and new ideas for your business instantly (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

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AI TRAINING

📱 How to use DALL-E 3 in any mobile app

Wish you had a way to harness the powers of AI image generation right in your favorite mobile apps? Now you can, with the help of the Microsoft Swiftkey keyboard (works on both iOS and Android).

Follow the steps below to integrate it on your phone by Paul Couvert:

Step 1: Download the Microsoft Swiftkey Keyboard (App Store, Google Play)

Step 2: Enable SwiftKey by toggling on the app under Settings → Keyboards

Step 3: Head to an app (iMessage, Twitter, etc.). Click on the globe icon to pull up your keyboards — you should now see a Bing icon. Tap create to access DALL-E and start generating directly in other apps!

In addition to DALL-E, you’ll also gain access to quick Bing AI chats, Microsoft Translator, an enhanced GIF selection and more. Happy AI image creating… now on the go!

QUICK HITS

📞 Congressional candidate deploys AI for voter outreach

Democratic congressional candidate Shamaine Daniels is deploying Ashley, the first AI phone banker in politics. The bot conducts personalized voter outreach using generative AI — with the ability to handle an infinite number of calls while using data on the candidate’s positions and key issues for voters.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

📊 Anthropic brings Claude to spreadsheets

Anthropic just announced that it’s Claude LLM is now accessible within Google Sheets via an extension and API access. The feature allows users to harness Claude’s writing skills via prompts directly weaved into a spreadsheet workflow. Access the new feature with Anthropic’s guide here.

🤯 SI publisher fires CEO over AI controversy

Sports Illustrated's publisher ‘The Arena Group’ just fired CEO Ross Levinsohn, following controversy surrounding the outlet’s AI-generated content. SI came under fire in November after a Futurism article exposed its use of AI authors, bios, and articles — scrubbing the evidence from the web post-inquiry.

💼 New jobs in the world of AI

Principal Technical Product Manager at OctoML

Research Director at Runway

VC Partnerships Manager at OpenAI

Browse all available AI job positions with our job board.

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THAT’S A WRAP

That’s it for today’s news in the world of AI!

If you have anything interesting to share, please reach out to us by sending us a DM on Twitter: @rowancheung & @therundownai

❤️ Rundown review of the day

Welcome, Tech enthusiasts.

Epic Games just secured a landscape-rattling legal victory — with a jury determining Google illegally monopolized power through its App Store model.

The court’s decision could have massive implications for the app economy as we know it. Let’s dig deeper…

In today’s tech rundown:

• Epic's legal bomb detonates App Store model

• Hybrid ‘biocomputer’ harnesses brain cells

• 8 new products

• Bezos, Blue Origin set date for next launch

• Adobe’s Spectrum 2 design system update

• Google Fiber announces prices, new U.S. cities

Read time: 3 minutes

TODAY’S HEADLINES

GOOGLE

💥 Epic's legal bomb detonates App Store model

Image source: The Verge

The Rundown: Fortnite creator Epic Games just scored a victory over Google in its antitrust lawsuit, with the jury unanimously ruling in favor of claims that the tech giant monopolized the market through its charging of commissions as high as 30% on developers.

The details:

• The unanimous consumer jury ruled Google engaged in anticompetitive conduct by forcing its billing system and making side deals with companies like Spotify.

• Legal experts and Epic's CEO say additional dominoes will now fall, requiring cuts to fees.

• Google makes an estimated $10B yearly from its Play Store cut, which analysts figure loses $1.3B per 5 percentage points reduced — with Apple's App Store revenue facing similar jeopardy.

Why it matters: In an epic (🥁) battle that Google has fought for over three years, the tech giant suffers a serious blow in a win for developers — with the walled gardens of app stores about to see some major reform.

TOGETHER WITH SUPERHUMAN

🚀 Fastest email experience ever made

The Rundown: Experience the fastest and most fun email experience ever with Superhuman’s AI features to fly through your emails.

Help your team move 2x fast with:

• Auto summarize conversations

• AI-email drafts written in your style

• Type at the speed of thought with auto-correct and suggestions

• Custom 1-click action items features

Join today to unlock 1 free month today!

BRAIN TECH

🧠 Hybrid ‘biocomputer’ harnesses brain cells

Image source: Science Photo Library

The Rundown: Scientists at the University of Indiana Bloomington just developed an innovative "Brainoware" system, integrating lab-grown human brain cells with electronic circuits to achieve feats like voice recognition.

The details:

• Researchers linked mini-brains called "organoids" made of human neurons to chips with thousands of electrodes, allowing a two-way flow of information.

• Brainoware recognized voices from recordings, with the tissue creating electric patterns that AI decoded to speakers with 78% accuracy.

• Such human-based computing could enable far more energy efficient AI someday, while also promising better lab models of brain disorders.

Our thoughts: The combination of brain tissue and electronics alone sounds like something right out of science fiction — but the future of biological computing as a field may be much wilder than we can even imagine.

NEW PRODUCTS

🐻 BlitzBear- Outrank your SERP competitors in a few clicks. BlitzBear optimizes your blog SEO using AI without the manual work required (link)*

💡 Ideaflow- Capture ideas instantly with an AI-powered voice app (link)

🗣️ EnVsion AI- Condenses hours of customer interviews into concise summaries quickly (link)

🗺️ 80days.me v3- Streamlines multi-city European travel planning with quick clicks (link)

🧑‍🎨 AirBrush Headshot- Create professional AI-generated headshots easily (link)

🤝 Intelogos AI- Boost team happiness and efficiency (link)

⚡️ Notion AI- Your notes, on steroids. Access the limitless power of AI, right inside Notion (link)

🖥 Userdesk- Build your AI ChatBot trained on your Notion, website and more (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

* = This is sponsored content

SNIPPETS

Blue Origin is targeting December 18 for the long-delayed return launch of its New Shepard rocket after a 15+ month grounding, pending FAA approval.

Google Fiber revealed its lightning-fast 20Gbps fiber internet service will cost $250 per month, starting rollout in early 2024 to Kansas City, North Carolina, Arizona and Iowa.

BlackBerry canceled its planned spinoff of its IoT unit and named John Giamatteo as its new CEO, dropping the previously announced restructuring plan in favor of reorganizing while aiming for profitability.

Adobe launched Spectrum 2, a refreshed design system coming to 100+ apps starting in early 2024, aiming for a more vibrant, accessible and approachable user experience.

Meta is launching an early test of multimodal AI features in its Ray-Ban smart glasses — which use the camera and mics to let the virtual assistant describe surroundings and suggest relevant info on visuals.

The FCC made a final rejection of SpaceX's Starlink subsidiary's application for $885M in government rural broadband funds, ruling that the company did not demonstrate it could deliver the proposed service.

Netflix published its first "What We Watched" report detailing viewing hours for all titles on the platform above 50K hours, aiming to boost transparency.

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THAT’S A WRAP

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❤️ Rundown review of the day

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

French startup Mistral just flexed some serious AI muscle — dropping a powerful new model alongside a whopping $415M raise at a $2B valuation.

With an impressive model and major funding — is there a new AI powerhouse brewing in France? Let’s investigate…

In today’s AI rundown:

• Mistral announces new open-source model

• Creator replicates Gemini demo with GPT-4V

• 9 new AI tools to try

• How to level up your notes with NotebookLM

• Google explores using AI for your life story

• Stanford researchers release W.A.L.T. for AI video

• Meta debuts Audiobox demo for AI voice, sound effects

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

MISTRAL

🚀 Mistral announces new open-source model

Image source: Mistral

The Rundown: French startup Mistral AI just released Mixtral, an open-source 45B parameter AI model using advanced “mixture of experts” architecture to match rivals with far lower cost — while also announcing an eye-popping $415M Series A round that values the company at $2B.

The details:

• Mixtral matches or outperforms models like LLaMA 2 and GPT-3.5 on most benchmarks while running 6x faster.

• It significantly improves on past Mistral multilingual and scientific reasoning abilities in areas like math and code generation.

• Mistral also introduced La Plateforme, which provides API access to hosted versions of Mixtral and its other models to quickly build apps.

Why it matters: With lean team of top researchers and rapid iterations, Mistral continues pushing boundaries on efficient yet powerful open models. Notably, the new $415 Series A round comes about 6 months after a $113m seed round — showing serious money is flooding into open-source.

You can try compare Mistral’s new model to GPT here.

TOGETHER WITH NOTION AI

🧠 A search bar for your second brain

The Rundown: Unlock new levels of productivity with Notion Q&A - your personal assistant in the digital realm.

Notion’s new Q&A feature lets you ask any question about your entire Notion workspace:

• What action items came out of my meeting with my manager last week?

• Where can I find my class notes on the nervous system?

• Summarize the activities I have planned for my trip to London

Elevate your workflow with instant knowledge  – ask, explore, and let Notion Assistant be your key to seamless productivity. Dive into your workspace and test it out today.

GEMINI OPENAI

🎥 Creator replicates Gemini demo with GPT-4V

Image source: Greg Technology on YouTube

The Rundown: In the wake of Google’s backlash around the ‘faked’ Gemini demo (covered yesterday), creator Greg.Technology just replicated the video using GPT-4V in real-time —  prompting without edits to highlight how far ahead GPT-4V is when even compared to the staged Gemini demo.

The details:

• Greg recreated key parts of the polarizing Gemini demo, which wowed viewers before being exposed as a misleading representation of the model’s capabilities.

• Greg voiced over GPT-4V generating live reactions to his drawings, emoji signals and games, achieving a responsive back-and-forth.

• He published the code and acknowledged the remake wasn't as polished as Google's production, but demonstrated ChatGPT's prowess in real-time.

The relevance: GPT-4 looks to still set the gold standard, excelling at voice tasks even without edits. Videos like this make the Gemini misstep look even worse — presenting serious questions heading into a critical launch for Google.

TRENDING TOOLS

🤖 Tars Copilot- Stop worrying about project management for good - let Tars (inspired by Interstellar) handle your tasks, deadlines and project status (link)*

🎥 Dubverse- Easiest (and magical) way to dub videos (link)

🔥 Krater.ai- Your one-stop AI powerhouse for a multitude of tasks. (link)

🌄 Freepik Pikaso- Real-time AI-powered sketch-to-image conversion (link)

💼 BoldDesk- An affordable Zendesk & Freshdesk alternative at half the cost (link)

📖 Depth Tale- Craft interactive stories easily with a modern, user-friendly platform (link)

🎧 Xound- AI-powered tool ensuring pristine audio and pitch for content creators (link)

📊 Sheet AI- Put AI in your Google Sheets (link)

🕵️‍♂️ GPT Zero- Detect whether an essay is ChatGPT or human-written (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

* = This is sponsored content

AI TRAINING

📓 How to level up your notes with NotebookLM

Google’s AI note-taking app just got a major upgrade with Gemini — and its available for free. Here’s how to take advantage of this productivity hack:

Get access: Sign up for NotebookLM here. If you're outside the U.S., just use a VPN or Opera Browser.

Add your docs: Click on "New source" and select the Docs you want to add to your Notebook (as many as you want). NotebookLM will automatically give you a summary or "Source Guide" for the Docs you upload.

Ask questions: In your Source Guide box, you'll also see auto-generated questions to try — it’s the ultimate ChatPDF. You can also opt to ask your own questions.

Pin quotes: NotebookLM automatically shares citations from your sources whenever it answers a question — so you can quickly jump from a citation to the source, letting you see the quote in its original context.

Change formats: NotebookLM also helps organize your notes into structured documents — simply select a set of notes you’ve collected and ask NotebookLM to create something new, like a study guide or email newsletter.

Take your notes to the next level with this amazing AI organizer!

QUICK HITS

🎙️ Meta debuts demo for AI voice, sound effects

Meta just launched a demo of Audiobox, its foundation model for generating highly realistic, voices, sound effects, and music — created from a combination of natural text prompts and/or voice inputs. Try the model for yourself here.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

📖 Google explores using AI for your life story

Demo drama aside, Google has reportedly floated "Project Ellmann" to leverage Gemini AI and generate users' life events from just data from your phone. Envisioning AI that knows "everything about your life," features could include chatbots detailing your bio and travel history from photos.

🎥 Stanford researchers release W.A.L.T. for AI video

Stanford researchers just introduced W.A.L.T., an AI system that generates photorealistic and consistent video from text prompts or still images — while also capable of outputs with consistent 3D camera motion. Check out some of the the wild demo generations here.

💼 New jobs in the world of AI

Senior Sales Engineer at OctoML

Applied Engineering: Head of Data Engineering at OpenAI

Senior Electrical Engineer at Shield AI

Browse all available AI job positions with our job board.

SPONSOR US

🦾 Get your product in front of over 400k+ AI enthusiasts

Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, investors, engineers, managers, and business owners around the world. Get in touch today.

THAT’S A WRAP

That’s it for today’s news in the world of AI!

If you have anything interesting to share, please reach out to us by sending us a DM on Twitter: @rowancheung & @therundownai

❤️ Rundown review of the day