This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through December 7)

The GPT Era Is Already Ending
Matteo Wong | The Atlantic
“[OpenAI] has been unusually direct that the o1 series is the future: Chen, who has since been promoted to senior vice president of research, told me that OpenAI is now focused on this ‘new paradigm,’ and Altman later wrote that the company is prioritizing’ o1 and its successors. The company believes, or wants its users and investors to believe, that it has found some fresh magic. The GPT era is giving way to the reasoning era.”

Falcon 9 Reaches a Flight Rate 30 Times Higher Than Shuttle at 1/100th the Cost
Eric Berger | Ars Technica
“Space enthusiast Ryan Caton also crunched the numbers on the number of SpaceX launches this year compared to some of its competitors. So far this year, SpaceX has launched as many rockets as Roscosmos has since 2013, United Launch Alliance since 2010, and Arianespace since 2009. This year alone, the Falcon 9 has launched more times than the Ariane 4, Ariane 5, or Atlas V rockets each did during their entire careers.”

NEUROSCIENCE

These Temporary Tattoos Can Read Your Brainwaves
Ed Cara | Gizmodo
“The future of diagnostic medicine is gearing up to look a bit more cyberpunk. Scientists have just unveiled technology that should allow people to one day have their brains and bodies monitored via customized, temporary electronic tattoos. Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin and others developed the tech, which aims to avoid the limitations of conventional electroencephalography, or EEG, testing.”

Another Crypto Revolution Is Here—and It’s Unlike Any From the Past
Yueqi Yang | The Information
“The new period of crypto that’s beginning to unfold is shaping up to be starkly different from previous ones. A few years ago, cryptonians wanted to talk about topics like Web3, DeFi and the metaverse, and they gambled heavily on speculative assets: most notably NFTs and crypto coins that traded on meme stock–like hype. For now, they appear far more temperate and are placing an enormous priority on stablecoins, theoretically a less risky form of crypto since they’re backed by dollar reserves.”

Waymo’s Next Robotaxi City Will Be Miami
Andrew J. Hawkins | The Verge
“Waymo is making the moves on Magic City. Alphabet’s robotaxi service said it would launch in Miami in 2026. The company has been testing its autonomous vehicles in the Florida city on-and-off since 2019, and more recently has begun to lay the groundwork in earnest. Waymo plans to start ‘reacquainting’ its autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles to Miami’s streets in 2025. And in 2026, it expects to start making its vehicles available to riders through its Waymo One ridehail app.”

The Inside Story of Apple Intelligence
Steven Levy | Wired
“Google, Meta, and Microsoft, as well as startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, all had well-developed strategies for generative AI by the time Apple finally announced its own push this June. Conventional wisdom suggested this entrance was unfashionably late. Apple disagrees. Its leaders say the company is arriving just in time—and that it’s been stealthily preparing for this moment for years.”

ChatGPT Now Has Over 300 Million Weekly Users
Emma Roth | The Verge
“OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed the milestone during The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday, which comes just months after ChatGPT hit 200 million weekly users in August. ‘Our product has scaled … now we have more than 300 million weekly active users,’ Altman said. ‘We have users sending more than 1 billion messages per day to ChatGPT.’”

Would You Eat Dried Microbes? This Company Hopes So.
Casey Crownhart | MIT Technology Review
“LanzaTech, a rising star in the fuel and chemical industries, is joining a growing group of businesses producing microbe-based food as an alternative to plant and animal products. Using microbes to make food is hardly new—beer, yogurt, cheese, and tempeh all rely on microbes to transform raw ingredients into beloved dishes. But some companies are hoping to create a new category of food, one that relies on microbes themselves as a primary ingredient in our meals.”

SECURITY

OpenAI Is Working With Anduril to Supply the US Military With AI
Will Knight | Wired
“OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT and one of the most prominent artificial intelligence companies in the world, said today that it has entered a partnership with Anduril, a defense startup that makes missiles, drones, and software for the United States military. It marks the latest in a series of similar announcements made recently by major tech companies in Silicon Valley, which has warmed to forming closer ties with the defense industry.”

Image Credit: Declan Sun on Unsplash