Microsoft unveils Copilot keyboard key, OpenAI offers media companies $1M to $5M for model training

Top News

Microsoft unveils a Copilot keyboard key, shipping in new PCs and laptops from its partners, the first major change to the PC keyboard layout in nearly 30 years. - Link

OpenAI offered some media companies as little as between $1M and $5M per year to license their news articles for use in model training. - Link

Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth, who devised nine programming languages and won the Turing Award in 1984, dies at 89. - Link

Skyted, a Toulouse, France-based startup is bringing a face-worn ‘voice frequency absorber’ to CES 2024. - Link

GroupM forms a consortium with Disney, Roku, NBCU, YouTube, and others to push for standardized measurements and ad formats that can be used across streamers. - Link

SteamDB: developers released a record 14,531 game titles on Valve's Steam in 2023, or around 40 per day, breaking 2022's record by just under 2,000 games. - Link

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Advice of the Day

How to (Actually) Calculate CAC

Brian Balfour explores the intricacies of customer acquisition cost, distinguishing it from cost per acquisition and delving into the nuances of its calculation. Looking at Dropbox as an example, as a freemium product, CAC would be the cost to acquire a paying user. CPA would be used for items like the Cost Per Registration (of a free user), Cost Per Activated (free) User, and other actions that signal that someone has moved from being a visitor to a user of the product. - Link

Startup Demo of the Day:

CompressX helps compress videos with up to 90% file size reduction without significant loss of quality while working totally offline. The challenge of managing large file sizes can be a significant roadblock for content creators, businesses, and everyday users alike. What sets this product apart is its ability to work entirely offline, ensuring complete privacy and security of data.

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This Week in Startups

E1873: Sunny Madra and Jason discuss 2024 AI predictions, including bets on AI-generated music hitting the top 100, AI hosting a TWiST segment, an AI-generated Pixar short going mainstream, local deployment of small AI models on mobile devices, and the rise of open-source multimodal models. The conversation also touches on music industry dynamics, the New York Times lawsuit's implications, and OpenAI's financial success. - Watch

E1871: Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman covers key aspects of the residential real estate market, including tips for first-time home buyers, solutions for the housing crisis, and innovative concepts like "developer homes." He also discusses Redfin's success, simplifying business operations, and adapting to remote work dynamics for sustained productivity and company culture. - Watch

E1870: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr joins Jason to discuss regulatory harassment, Starlink subsidies, and China’s LOE ambitions. Topics include Amazon's position in the satellite internet race, the emergence of 5G, and the digital divide. - Watch

E1869: Author Steven Berlin Johnson joins Jason to speak about the significance of document organization and the concepts and features of "sources" in NotebookLM, a platform that gives you a personalized AI, grounded in the information you trust. - Watch

E1868: Avi Schiffmann of Tab AI discusses the origin and capabilities of Tab, a wearable device focused on building a mental model of the user. The conversation covers topics such as Apple's new wearable, Humane, safety concerns with wearables, Tab's supportive role, achieving positive change, and a comparison with Rewind AI. - Watch

This Week in Startups Paid Partnerships

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Miro offers collaborative online whiteboards. Sign up for a free account and experience a seamless, visual collaboration platform that brings your ideas to life at https://www.miro.com/startups.

Gusto provides cloud-based payroll, benefits, and human resource management software for businesses, designed to streamline and automate various aspects of payroll and HR processes. Get three months free when you run your first payroll at gusto.com/twist.