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1.	Cybertruck Exploded in Las Vegas Contained Gas Canisters, Fireworks By Laura Mandaro Source: The Information

A Tesla Cybertruck that exploded in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas Wednesday morning, killing the driver and injuring several bystanders, contained gasoline and other fuel canisters and large firework mortars, Las Vegas police said.

The findings, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk echoed in a post on X, showing the explosion was the result of an intentional act rather than any malfunction with the futuristic electric vehicle. Police said the bed of the truck limited the explosion's blast from damaging the hotel lobby's doors, details that Musk and Tesla fans seized on evidence of its unusual durability.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the explosion as a possible terrorist act. Kevin McMahill, sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said he was told the truck was rented on the Turo peer-to-peer vehicle rental app. This is the same app that the driver of a truck that ploughed into a crowd in New Orleans, killing more than a dozen people.

2.	Netflix's NFL Games Drew Millions of Additional Viewers Overseas By Sahil Patel Source: The Information

Netflix said nearly 5 million more viewers tuned in from overseas to watch its live telecasts of two Christmas Day NFL games. Overall, Netflix said the first game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers averaged 30 million viewers per minute worldwide, and the second game between the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans attracted 31.3 million viewers per minute.

In the U.S., Netflix said both games averaged 26.5 million viewers, citing measurement data tallied by Nielsen.

These figures are in line with what NFL games typically get on traditional broadcast TV during the regular season, though Netflix's U.S. viewership was a few million below what Paramount's CBS and Nickelodeon drew for a Christmas Day game between the Chiefs and the Las Vegas Raiders in 2023.

Still, Netflix is able to champion its ability to successfully live stream two NFL games attracting tens of millions of viewers as the streaming giant increasingly competes for live sports rights. The NFL, meanwhile, is focused on growing the popularity of its league overseas, with the NFL deal a major step forward on that path. Netflix said either or both games were in its daily top 10 lists in numerous countries including Germany, the U.K., Australia and Austria.

3.	US Army Soldier Charged With Cybercrimes Related to AT&T, Verizon Hacks By Aaron Holmes Source: Krebs on Security

A 20-year-old US Army Soldier has been arrested and charged with selling stolen phone records, federal prosecutors said in an indictment filed last week. The soldier, Cameron John Wagenius, was associated with hackers who broke into Snowflake's systems and stole phone records from AT&T, Verizon, and other Snowflake customers earlier this year, according to the cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs.

Wagenius attempted to extort AT&T and Verizon by threatening to publish phone records of customers including Vice President Kamala Harris and President-elect Donald Trump, but his identity was uncovered by security researchers in recent months, Krebs reported.

The arrest is the latest development following a cybercrime spree that stemmed from the Snowflake breach earlier this year. Snowflake said in June that hackers had used stolen passwords that leaked online to log into the accounts of hundreds of customers, including Ticketmaster and Lending Tree, as well as telecom companies like Verizon and AT&T. AT&T said in July that the hack impacted phone logs of "nearly all" of its 100 million cellular customers, sparking a federal investigation.

4.	Accel Raises $650 Million to Invest in Indian Startups By Natasha Mascarenhas Source: The Information

Accel has raised $650 million for a fund focused on backing startups in India, according to a securities filing. The fund's close, which has not been previously reported, marks Accel's eighth fund focused on India. Its last India-focused fund, closed in 2022, was also $650 million.

Some of Accel's most notable investments in India include seed investments into Flipkart, the Indian Amazon rival, which Walmart bought for $16 billion in 2018, and Freshworks, an enterprise software company that went public in 2021.

Earlier in December, Palo-Alto based Accel filed that it has raised $1.35 billion for its latest growth fund to invest in mature startups, The Information was first to report. That's nearly a quarter less than the $1.75 billion it raised for its last growth fund in 2021.

5.	Alibaba Cuts Pricing for Top Vision Language Model by 85% By Kevin McLaughlin Source: South China Morning Post

Alibaba is cutting pricing for its most advanced cloud-based visual large language model, called Qwen-vl-max, by up to 85%, the South China Morning Post reported. This is Alibaba's second LLM price cut this year and highlights the growing competition between it and rivals like ByteDance, Baidu, and Tencent for cloud AI spending.

Alibaba, the largest cloud provider in China's domestic market, is hoping that AI can revitalize this part of its business, where growth has slowed significantly in recent years. Last month, Alibaba launched an open-source reasoning model that generated positive reactions on social media and demonstrated its ability to compete in an emerging area of generative AI.

The AI competition in China is gaining steam despite U.S. authorities' efforts to block Chinese firms from using Nvidia's latest graphics processing units. ByteDance, which owns TikTok, plans to spend $7 billion to access Nvidia Hopper AI chips and its forthcoming Blackwell chips outside China in 2025, as we reported earlier this week.

6.	Nasdaq Composite Rises 31% for Year as Nvidia's Stock Triples By Rocket Drew Source: The Information

The Nasdaq Composite rose 31% in 2024 after investor excitement over generative artificial intelligence resulted in a boom year for the tech companies that make up more than half of the index.

Nvidia's stock price increased 179% over the past year to $134. In September, Nvidia was the third largest company in the Nasdaq composite by market capitalization. Apple, the index's top-weighted stock, rose 35% for the year. Microsoft, the second-biggest, rose 14%.

The high stock prices makes tech companies' stock acquisition offers more attractive. The 31% rally sets a high standard for performance of other investments, such as venture capital funds that offer exposure to startups.

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