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Welcome back to Week in Review. I missed you! This week, we go into all the gadgets and ads outside of this year’s CES, Meta’s decision to bring back its fact-checking program, TikTok’s response to employees affected by the California wildfires, and more! Let’s do this.
CES 2025 has come and gone this week. The event featured major technology players such as Nvidia, Samsung, toyota, and more. In addition to this, there were, of course, the expected gadgets, gizmos and interesting AI claims out on the show floor. Our team of journalists was on the ground, and you can get everything that caught our eye at this year’s show. right here.
Meta is reviewing its content moderation policies which he created in response to criticism that he had helped spread political and health misinformation. The company is getting rid of his third-party fact-checking program in favor of an X-like Community Notes model, which critics see as an attempt to provide for the incoming Trump administration. The reaction was quick, with interest in research in relation to deleting Meta accounts turn up.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company loses money on its $200 per month ChatGPT Pro plan because people use it more than the company expects. Launched late last year, ChatGPT Pro gives users access to an updated version of OpenAI’s ‘reasoning’ AI model o1 and raises rate limits on many of the company’s other tools, such as its Sora video generator.
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News
Fires against the horrors of capitalism: TikTok has told members of its LA staff who have been affected by the fires to use personal/sick hours if they are unable to work from home. The company’s LA office remains closed as wildfires ravage the greater Los Angeles area. Read more
Hello, Project Figures: At CES 2025, Nvidia unveiled Project Digits, a “personal AI supercomputer” designed for AI researchers, data scientists and students that provides access to the company’s Grace Blackwell hardware platform in a compact form factor . Read more
More copyright issues for Meta: A new filing claims that Mark Zuckerberg gave the green light to the team behind Meta’s Llama AI models to use a dataset of pirated e-books and articles for training, including works by authors such as Sarah Silverman and Ta- Nehisi Coates. Read more
A robot cat that refreshes your tea: Yukai Engineering’s latest adorable gadget is the Nékojita FuFu, a tiny robotic cat that can be mounted on a mug or bowl and will blow air to help cool your coffee or soup. Read more
X clarifies his position on parody accounts: X said it will start tagging parody accounts on the platform. Users mistook posts from parody accounts as authentic statements since X ditched traditional verification badges in favor of paid verification. Read more
AI that simulates the real world: Google is forming a new team to work on AI models that can simulate the physical world. The team will be led by Tim Brooks, who was one of the co-leads at OpenAI’s Sora. He left for Google DeepMind in October. Read more
Cannabis brand hit by cyber attack: Stiiizy, the popular Los Angeles-based cannabis brand, has confirmed that hackers gained access to sensitive customer data, including government-issued documents and medical cannabis cards, during a November cyberattack. Read more
This electric spoon could make your food taste better: Why add more salt to your food when a $127 spoon could do it for you? Kirin Holdings has demonstrated an electronic spoon that uses a weak electric current to concentrate sodium molecules in your food. Read more
That’s a lot of money: A Delaware judge has approved a settlement that will see Tesla executives return up to $919 million to the automaker, officially settling allegations that they overpaid. Read more
The weirdest gadgets at CES 2025: It wouldn’t be CES without some really bold products, claims and highlights. We’ve rounded up the best examples of brows from the show floor. Read more
