Apple is set to board the runaway locomotive that is generative AI at next week’s World Wide Developer Conference.
First there’s the name: Apple Intelligence.
Apple Intelligence will arrive as an opt-in beta, similar to developer-focused operating system updates the company releases after WWDC.
Apple Intelligence will initially be focused on bolstering existing applications.
it sounds like Apple’s big push into AI is less about flash and more about making its operating system more intuitive and user friendly.
As the Gulf region gains growing strategic importance for the tech war between the U.S. and China, Microsoft makes a big move into one of its richest oil countries.
The minority stake will give Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, a seat on G42’s board of directors.
The funding comes amid U.S. politicians’ escalating concerns over G42’s ties with China.
Given the two countries’ increasing economic ties, it’s no surprise that G42, the AI poster child of the UAE, has also forged ties with Chinese firms.
Under the agreement, the Emirati company’s data platform and other key technology infrastructure will migrate to Microsoft Azure, which will power G42’s AI product development.
The 13-year-old cash-back startup looks to make its public debut after turning profitable and recording impressive revenue growth in 2023.
The company reported $320 million in revenue in 2023, up 52% from 2022 when it produced $210 million in revenue.
Ibotta’s gross profits grew 68% from 2022, $164.5 million, to 2023, $276 million.
According to the S-1, this partnership plays a big role in Ibotta’s revenue boost.
“Our revenue growth significantly accelerated with the addition of new publishers to the IPN,” according to the S-1.
The addition of music videos is included among these new features in the U.S.Spotify recently announced its plans to support music videos, saying in March it would test the option in beta in 11 select markets — which, at the time, didn’t include the U.S.
With the UMG deal, U.S. users will also have the option of watching music videos instead of just streaming audio.
To watch videos, Spotify users can access a new “Switch to Video” option from the app’s Now Playing Screen.
For instance, UMG artists will be able to share teasers of upcoming songs and users will be able to pre-save music before a new release.
By partnering with Spotify, UMG still has a way to promote its music to fans, even if its artists lose the ability to market themselves on TikTok.
Apple is looking to team up with Google for a mega-deal to leverage the Gemini AI model for features on iPhone, Bloomberg reported.
There is surmounting pressure on Apple to catch up with competitors in the AI field such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, and even Google.
Later, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that Gemini’s responses were “completely unacceptable”.
Earlier this year, the company partnered with Samsung to introduce Gemini-powered AI features on the Galaxy S24 series of devices.
We have reached out to Apple and Google for a comment, and we will update the story if we hear back from them.
Don Lemon announced on Wednesday that X owner Elon Musk has canceled the deal for his upcoming talkshow on the platform.
Lemon, a former CNN anchor, says Musk terminated the partnership hours after he interviewed the multibillionaire for the first episode of the show.
“Elon Musk has canceled the partnership I had with X, which they announced as part of their public commitment to amplifying more diverse voices on their platform,” Lemon wrote in a statement.
“He informed me of his decision hours after an interview I conducted with him on Friday.”Despite the canceled deal with X, The Don Lemon Show will live on.
The interview with Musk will remain the premiere episode of the show and is scheduled to air on March 18 on YouTube, podcast channels and X.
For instance, OpenSea has partnered with the music and arts festival conglomerate Coachella to release three NFT collections that offer both virtual and tangible real-life VIP experiences and merchandise.
The partnership will eventually produce three collections offering different perks and varying tiers of exclusivity (as well as cost).
There have been a lot of NFT collections announced since the term even gained adoption.
OpenSea alone has over 2 million collections and 80 million NFTs on its marketplace, according to its website.
But even with that much total volume, OpenSea isn’t the biggest NFT marketplace today.
Hyped AI startup Humane has announced plans for its first international market, inking a deal with South Korean carrier SK Telecom.
The announcement comes shortly after the San Francisco-based company revealed it was pushing back the shipping date of its Ai Pin device from March to mid-April in its domestic U.S. market.
The Ai Pin costs $699 up front, with a recurring $24 monthly subscription that gives the user a phone number and unlimited data to power as many AI-powered queries they like.
And just yesterday, SK Telecom announced a partnership with AI search engine Perplexity to bring its premium “Pro” plan to SK Telecom’s 32 million subscribers.
It’s also not yet clear when the Ai Pin might make it to market in South Korea, but given the delays currently surrounding its U.S. launch we maybe shouldn’t expect it too soon.
This “deepened” partnership will focus on commercial self-driving Ram delivery vans, a target that was first announced in 2020 and promptly faded from public view.
Discussions on this “improved” deal have focused, in part, on a crux around driverless delivery: how does the package get from the vehicle to the customer?
Waymo, which is owned by Google parent-company Alphabet, currently doesn’t operate a commercial delivery service using its self-driving vehicles.
That deal did include a future plan to include delivery via Uber Eats, but as of today, it has not launched, according to a Waymo spokesperson.
Under the deal, Fiat Chrysler — now known as Stellantis — would handle the manufacturing and provide Waymo with minivans that built in redundancies designed for autonomous driving.
Instagram said today that it is expanding its marketplace tool to connect brands with creators for paid partnerships or ads in eight new countries.
Meta added that apart from making the platform available to the brands in these eight countries, it will also invite Chinese export brands to connect with creators outside of China.
Marketers can approach creators for a paid partnership or even a partnership ad, which allows advertisers to boost organic content as ads.
On the marketplace, Meta helps brands match with relevant creators for a particular marketing campaign through its machine learning algorithm.
Instagram’s rivals like Snap, YouTube, and TikTok all offer creator marketplace functionality.
