Zuck’s Threads gains 30m+ on first day | ChatGPT disables Bing integration

Meta’s Twitter alternative gains more than 30m subscribers on first day

Mark Zuckerberg claim Meta’s new Threads social media platform, launched to compete with Elon Musk’s Twitter, has seen record sign ups on the day it went live.

Facebook’s parent company launched its latest effort to compete with microblogger Twitter in the form of Threads – which it called ‘Instagram without the pictures.’ The platform went live on Thursday.

According to Zuck, who recently challenged Musk to a cage fight, the platform hit its five million subscriber goal within just four hours of launch, with more than 30 million people signing up by the end of its first day.

Threads was launched in the same week in which Musk, who bought Twitter last year, controversially introduced a daily limit to the number of tweets a reader can view.

ChatGPT removes Bing browser integration over firewall breaches

OpenAI has withdrawn integration for Microsoft’s Bing platform from its ChatGPT service after it found people were using the search functionality to bypass firewalls.

The AI-maker said it has temporarily disabled the ‘Browse with Bing’ beta tool from its service. This gave ChatGPT the ability to pull information from recently published sources so it could answer time-sensitive questions.

However, developers found that “if a user specifically asks for a URL’s full text,” the AI will fulfill the request, including displaying content from paywalled articles. OpenAI said it plans to restore the tool once the issue is resolved but gave no timeline for this.

Volkswagen partners Mobileye for autonomous vans test in Texas

Volkswagen has launched an autonomous vehicle test program in Austin using a fleet of 10 all-electric ID Buzz vehicles equipped with partner Mobileye’s technology.

The new program comes about nine months after autonomous vehicle technology startup Argo shut down after its two backers, Volkswagen and Ford, pulled financial support and gobbled up its remains. Argo had been evaluating its AV technology in Austin last year before it folded.

Volkswagen Group of America has bounced back though, by creating a new subsidiary called Volkswagen ADMT (autonomous driving, mobility and transport) that will have teams in Belmont, California and Austin. Volkswagen said it intends to employ former Argo engineers.

It will begin testing with partner Mobileye in Austin this month with plans to expand the fleet to 10 vehicles by the end of the year. The carmaker then plans to expand to at least four more American cities over the next three years.