Meta Connect 2024 was this week, showcasing new hardware and software to support two of the company’s big ambitions: AI and the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new Quest headsets, updates to Meta’s Llama AI model, and real-time video capabilities of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The biggest reveal, though, was Orion, a true AR glasses prototype touted as “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen.”
OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announced this week that she is leaving the company after more than six years. Hours after the announcement, OpenAI’s chief research officer, Bob McGrew, and a research VP, Barret Zoph, also left the company. The high-level departures come less than a week before the start of OpenAI’s annual developer conference.
One of CloudKitchens’ earliest employees is suing the company. In the lawsuit, Isabella Vincenza alleges wrongful termination, sex discrimination, and a hostile work environment, including an intense “bro culture” at the company. Vincenza also claims that she was “retaliated against for standing up for herself” following her pregnancy and subsequent maternity leave.
This is TechCrunch’s Week in Review, where we recap the week’s biggest news. Want this delivered as a newsletter to your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.
News
Talk to me, ChatGPT: OpenAI rolled out Advanced Voice Mode following some delays and controversy. The feature has an updated blue spherical look, five new voices, and improved accent capabilities for customers in ChatGPT’s Plus and Teams tiers. Read more
YC Demo Day: Y Combinator kicked off its two-day “Demo Day” event showcasing what the most recent YC batch companies are building. Here are the companies worth paying attention to out of the event. (Spoiler alert: They pretty much all use AI.) Read more
Amazon employees vs. RTO: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that employees will be expected to work from the office five days a week starting in 2025. But an anonymous survey created by workers reveals that many who have grown accustomed to a hybrid work structure are “strongly dissatisfied.” Read more
How much can a phone wallpaper cost? Marques Brownlee, known on YouTube as MKBHD, launched the wallpaper app Panels, where he’s curating high-quality digital wallpapers from artists. But in order to access high-resolution wallpapers without ads, users need to cough up about $50 per year. Read more
WordPress vs. WP Engine: A heated legal battle is brewing between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine — which hosts websites built on WordPress — after Mullenweg wrote a blog post calling WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress.” Read more
X switches up the block feature: X will soon change how its block feature works so that accounts you have blocked will still be able to see your public posts. Elon Musk clarified that blocked accounts still won’t be able to engage with users who have blocked them. Read more
RevenueCat turns up the heat: Subscription management platform RevenueCat acquired Dipsea, an app offering subscriptions to “spicy” audiobooks. The idea is to bring a subscription-based app in-house to serve as a testing ground for RevenueCat’s new features. Read more
RIP, TikTok Music: ByteDance is shuttering its music streaming service, TikTok Music, in November. TikTok Music was rooted in a ByteDance product called Resso, and the service was later available in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, and Mexico. Read more
Meta gets hit with another privacy penalty: Meta has been reprimanded and fined $101.5 million (at current exchange rates) by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission for a 2019 breach that exposed hundreds of millions of Facebook passwords. Read more
Hands-on with Plaud’s NotePin: TechCrunch’s Brian Heater has been testing Plaud’s $169 ChatGPT-powered NotePin to transcribe meetings and take notes. Unlike other AI pins, Plaud’s product feels like a solution to real issues, he argues. Read more
Analysis
Sam Altman goes “god mode”: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has historically pitched AI as the solution to the world’s problems, despite its significant impact on the environment. In a new rose-colored-glasses blog post, Altman presents an incredibly positive update on the state of AI, hyping its world-changing potential. But, as TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez notes, much of what he writes is seemingly meant to make skeptics see how much AI matters and could well have the opposite result. Read more