Innovations in Spotify Wrapped and Apple's Smart Home Ambitions

Amid the Salt Typhoon hack, the US government wants you and me to go encrypted. Ubisoft shuts down XDefiant. Spotify Wrapped 2024 has NotebookLM baked right into it. And Google’s text to video AI model has beaten Sora to market, but is Sam Altman about to get all Santa on us?

Sponsors:

• Lumen.me/ride

Links:

• U.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid unprecedented cyberattack (NBCNews)
• Ubisoft shutting down XDefiant in 2025, laying off half of its team (Polygon)
• Spotify Wrapped 2024 adds an AI podcast powered by Google’s NotebookLM (TechCrunch)
• Smart Home Market Becomes Apple’s Next Strategic Target; New HomePod with Display Set to Be Key Product in Apple’s Smart Home Strategy (Ming-Chi Kuo)
• Google’s new generative AI video model is now available (The Verge)
• AWS announces Aurora DSQL, a new distributed SQL database that promises virtually unlimited scalability (TechCrunch)
• Kindle Scribe 2 review in progress: Is slightly useful AI worth the extra cash? (Engadget)

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