Meta Connect 2024 took place this weekshowcasing recent hardware and software to support two of the company’s biggest ambitions: artificial intelligence and the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced recent Quest headsets, updates to Meta’s Llama AI model, and real-time video capabilities in Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses. But the biggest discovery was Orion, an actual AR glasses prototype touted as “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen.”

OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announced this week that he’s leaving the company after greater than six years. Hours after the announcement, OpenAI’s chief research officer Bob McGrew and vp of research Barret Zoph also left the company. The high-level departures come lower than per week before the start of OpenAI’s annual developer conference.

One of the first CloudKitchens employees is suing this company. In her lawsuit, Isabella Vincenza alleges wrongful termination, gender discrimination and a hostile work environment, including an intense “brother culture” at the company. Vincenza also claims that after her pregnancy and subsequent maternity leave, she faced “retaliation for standing up for herself.”

News

Talk to me, ChatGPT: OpenAI has implemented advanced voice mode after some delays and controversy. This feature has an updated blue, spherical design, five recent voices, and improved accent capabilities for clients in the ChatGPT Plus and Teams tiers. Read more

YC Demo Day: Y Combinator kicked off a two-day “Demo Day” event showcasing what YC’s newest batch manufacturing firms are constructing. Here are the firms price being attentive to beyond the event. (Spoiler alert: almost everyone uses AI.) Read more

Amazon staff vs. RTO: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that by 2025, employees are expected to work in the office five days per week. However, an anonymous survey conducted by employees shows that many individuals who’ve turn out to be accustomed to the hybrid work structure are “definitely dissatisfied”. Read more

How much can a phone wallpaper cost? Marques Brownlee, often known as MKBHD on YouTube, has launched the Panels app where he collects high-quality digital wallpapers from artists. However, to access high-resolution wallpapers without ads, users have to spend around $50 per yr. Read more

WordPress vs. WP engine: A heated legal dispute is brewing between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine – the company that operates web sites built on WordPress – after Mullenweg wrote a blog post calling WP Engine “the cancer of WordPress.” Read more

X toggles the locking function: X will soon change the way the blocking feature works, so blocked accounts will still have the opportunity to see your public posts. Elon Musk explained that blocked accounts will still not have the opportunity to contact the users who blocked them. Read more

RevenueCat turns up the heat: Subscription management platform RevenueCat has acquired Dipsea, a “spicy” audiobook subscription app. The idea is to create a subscription-based application that can function a testing ground for brand spanking new RevenueCat features. Read more

RIP, TikTok music: ByteDance is shutting down its music streaming service TikTok Music in November. TikTok Music originated from a ByteDance product called Resso, and the service was later available in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, and Mexico. Read more

Meta is punished with one other penalty for violating privacy: Meta was reprimanded and fined $101.5 million (at current exchange rates) by the Irish Data Protection Commission for a 2019 breach that exposed lots of of hundreds of thousands of Facebook passwords. Read more

Practical use of Plaud’s NotePin: TechCrunch’s Brian Heater tests Plaud’s $169 NotePin, powered by ChatGPT, for transcribing meetings and taking notes. Unlike other AI pins, Plaud’s product appears to be an answer to real-world problems, he argues. Read more

Analysis

Altman himself goes into “god mode”: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long presented artificial intelligence as the solution to the world’s problems, despite its significant impact on the environment. In a brand new post on the rose-colored glasses blog, Altman offers an especially positive update on the state of artificial intelligence, highlighting its potential to change the world. However, as TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez notes, much of what she writes seems to be intended to make skeptics aware of the importance of artificial intelligence, which could have the opposite effect. Read more