Google updates Gemma 2 Models

Today’s Highlights:

📰 News: Google updates Gemma 2 family of models + New product rollouts from OpenAI, Midjourney, Perplexity, and more!

💰 Funding: Protect AI raises $60M+ Series B

⚡️ Top News Stories:

1. Google updates the Gemma 2 family of AI models, prioritizing safety and accessibility alongside performance.

• The release includes Gemma 2 2B, ShieldGemma for safety classification, and Gemma Scope for model interpretability.

• Gemma 2 2B delivers high performance and efficiency, surpassing GPT-3.5, and is optimized for various hardware deployments.

• ShieldGemma provides state-of-the-art safety classifiers to detect and mitigate harmful content, enhancing AI safety.

• Gemma Scope offers detailed insights into the model's decision-making processes, promoting transparency and accountability.

2. OpenAI’s advanced voice mode for ChatGPT is being rolled out to a select group of ChatGPT Plus subscribers, w/ early users showcasing the various applications, including language learning, storytelling, and entertainment, highlighting the mode’s impressive responsiveness and adaptability. Check out this cool example:

3. Perplexity announces a Publishers Program, which includes revenue sharing through advertising and free access to Perplexity’s APIs, to support media organizations and online creators by ensuring they thrive as Perplexity grows,

4. Midjourney released version 6.1, which is highlighted by significant improvements in rendering humans to make the images more natural, improving text legibility, and increasing performance.

5. Runway's new Gen-3 Alpha model now allows users to generate videos from still images, adding to its ability to create videos from text prompts, and significantly enhancing artistic control and consistency. 

6. Vimeo introduces an AI-powered video translation solution that translates video, audio, and captions into dozens of languages while maintaining the original speakers’ voices.

7. Synthesia has launched Personal Avatars, allowing users to create lifelike digital avatars from just 2min of footage, which are then capable of speaking 30+ languages, and can be used for sales outreach, marketing campaigns, leadership updates, and influencer content creation.

8. Stability AI introduces Stable Fast 3D, a tool that generates 3D assets from a single image instantly, enabling high-quality 3D asset creation for gaming, VR, retail, architecture, and rapid prototyping

9. Google introduces Gemini-powered search history and Lens integration to Chrome desktop, enhancing user experience.

10. Yum Brands aims to implement AI voices in hundreds of Taco Bell drive-thrus, after successful pilots have shown improvements in order accuracy and reduced wait times.

11. TikTok pays Microsoft nearly $20M per month for access to OpenAI’s models, constituting about a quarter of Microsoft's cloud AI revenue.

12. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman demands that companies like Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity pay for scraping Reddit’s data, now that they’ve secured deals with Google and OpenAI.

13. Microsoft officially lists OpenAI as a competitor in AI and search in its recent earnings report, perhaps reflecting the evolving dynamics between the two companies.

14. The Biden administration plans to introduce a new rule expanding U.S. powers to halt semiconductor manufacturing equipment exports to certain Chinese chipmakers, w/ exemptions for key allies like Japan, the Netherlands, and South Korea, ensuring their chip equipment manufacturers like ASML and Tokyo Electron are not impacted. 

15. The U.S. Copyright Office has called on Congress to urgently address AI-powered impersonation, which poses significant threats to IP rights and personal privacy.

16. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Nvidia's $700M acquisition of AI start-up Run:ai, which specializes in GPU virtualization technology, for potential antitrust violations along w/ fears that Nvidia's dominance in AI chips could stifle competition and innovation.

17. Over 300 video game performers and actors protested at Warner Bros. Studios, demanding protections against AI use in gaming.

18. An AI companion startup called "Friend", is garnering a lot of attention for its ‘always listening’ wearable device that is designed to offer companionship rather than productivity enhancements, with critics calling the vision to be dystopian. 

💰 Top Funding News:

1. Protect AI, which provides an AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) platform to safeguard AI+ML systems against vulnerabilities and emerging threats, raised a $60M Series B, led by Evolution Equity Partners.

2. Flo Health, which uses AI integrated into various wearables to provide personalized health insights and cycle predictions for women, raised a $200M in a Series C, led by General Atlantic.

3. Healx, which utilizes AI+ML to accelerate drug discovery for rare diseases, raised a $47M Series C, co-led by R42 Group and Atomico.

4. Ema, which offers a no-code platform for deploying AI agents, termed "universal AI employees," to handle tasks across various enterprise functions, raised a $36M Series A, led by Accel and Section 32.

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