IT on The Soothsayer / page 20

A small group of climate tech founders, including Halen Mattison and Luke Neise, have shifted their focus from space to Earth, developing technology that can convert carbon dioxide into methane for use in industries such as chemical and plastic manufacturing. Their company, General Galactic, has built a pilot system that can produce 2,000 liters of…

Mozilla’s Firefox browser is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and the company is refocusing on its core business. Interim CEO Laura Chambers aims to restore Firefox’s growth path by prioritizing product development, investing in user experience, and innovating with AI. Mozilla is also looking to reach new users, especially younger ones, and is running marketing campaigns…

OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence startup, has lost another top researcher, Lilian Weng, who served as Vice President of Research and Safety. Weng’s departure marks the latest in a string of AI safety researchers and executives who have left the company in the past year, raising concerns about OpenAI’s focus on commercial products over AI…

The FBI has warned that hackers are obtaining private user information from U.S.-based tech companies by compromising government and police email addresses to submit “emergency” data requests. This abuse of emergency data requests is not new, but the FBI has seen an uptick in criminal posts online advertising access to or conducting fraudulent emergency data…

Anthropic, a leading AI vendor, has announced a strategic partnership with Palantir and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies with access to its Claude family of AI models. This collaboration aims to operationalize the use of Claude within Palantir’s platform, leveraging AWS hosting to enhance analytical capabilities and operational efficiencies…

In a recent presidential election, two AI startups, xAI and Perplexity, attempted to provide accurate, real-time information to the public. While xAI failed miserably, Perplexity successfully offered helpful insights and maps, linking to reliable resources and providing historical context. This achievement sets Perplexity apart from other AI chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which refused to…

OpenAI has acquired the domain name Chat.com, redirecting it to its AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. The acquisition marks the latest move by the company to expand its digital presence. The domain name, which was previously owned by HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah, was sold for $15.5 million last year. Forecast for 6 months: OpenAI is expected to…

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has taken a sharp swing to the right by supporting President-elect Donald Trump. This unexpected move could have significant implications for Musk’s businesses, including Tesla, SpaceX, and X, as well as the future of government spending and space exploration. With Trump promising Musk a key role…

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that it will be taking action against the online cash app and neobank Dave, citing misleading marketing and hidden fees. The FTC claims that Dave’s marketing implied that its cash advances would be “instant,” without disclosing the fees involved until after the consumer completed the sign-up process. The…