Following a keynote presentation at WWDC 2024 that both introduced Apple Intelligence and confirmed a partnership that brings GPT access to Siri through an deal with OpenAI, SVP Craig Federighi confirmed plans to work with additional third-party models.
The first example given by the executive was one the companies with which Apple was exploring a partnership.
“We’re looking forward to doing integrations with other models, including Google Gemini, for instance, in the future,” Federighi said during a post-keynote conversation.
Apple says users will be able to access the system without having to sign up for an account or paying for premium services.
“Now you can do it right through Siri, without going through another tool,” the Apple executive said.
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NASA has given three space companies the chance to design the next-generation moon buggy — but only one design will go to space.
Footage obtained by TechCrunch shows the catastrophic ending that Astra’s Rocket 3.0 suffered during prelaunch testing in March 2020.
The one time that Europe is explicitly mentioned, however, is in relation to Apple’s grip on digital wallets, NFC and mobile payment technology within its iOS ecosystem.
For context, the EU filed charges against Apple in May 2022, concluding that Apple “abused a dominant position” around mobile wallets by preventing rival services from accessing the iPhone’s contactless NFC payment functionality.
For example, Apple allows merchants to use the iPhone’s NFC antenna to accept tap-to-pay payments from consumers.
Then there is cross-platform smartwatch compatibility, which the DOJ says Apple impedes by restricting certain features from third-party smartwatch makers.
However, NFC, digital wallets, and mobile payments are where they seem to be most neatly aligned on.
Pilot season has officially begun for the world of humanoid robotics.
Last year, Amazon began testing Agility’s Digit robots in select fulfillment centers, while this January, Figure announced a deal with BMW.
Now Apptronik is getting in on the action, courtesy of a partnership with Mercedes-Benz.
Apptronik can demonstrate clear interest from a leading automotive name, while Mercedes signals to customers and shareholders alike that it’s looking to the future.
Apptronik is a University of Austin spinout best known for its work on NASA’s Valkyrie humanoid robot.
Something I’ve always admired about Lenovo is the way the Chinese tech giant really lets its freak flag fly.
In fact, visiting the company’s booth nestled in the way, way back of Hall 3 has long been a highlight of MWC for me.
This year’s big scrum gatherer was Lenovo’s long-rumored transparent laptop.
Broadly speaking, it looks like a laptop, with a transparent pane where the screen should be.
Lenovo loves making weird tech for weird tech’s sake, and that’s totally fine.
Musk said last year that Tesla plans to spend “well over $1 billion” on Dojo.
Bringing the Dojo project to Buffalo is the latest shift in Tesla’s priorities for the location, which has turned into something of a boondoggle for New York state.
“We are scaling it up, and we have plans for Dojo 1.5, Dojo 2, Dojo 3, and whatnot.
“The governor is correct that this is a Dojo Supercomputer, but $500M, while obviously a large sum of money, is only equivalent to a 10k H100 system from Nvidia,” Musk wrote in the post on X.
“Tesla will spend more than that on Nvidia hardware this year.
Much of the intriguing climate tech that crosses our desks is theoretical or only just coming to market — think: tech that sucks carbon out of the sky, emerging lithium-ion battery alternatives and bio-plastics that’ve yet to seriously scale.
The Toronto-based venture firm just announced the close of a $335 million fund (USD) — its third and largest to date.
“If you’re not making money, you’re not having impact,” McCaig told TechCrunch.
“Climate tech tends to be fairly distributed around the globe, more so than AI and software, which tends to concentrate in California,” added McCaig.
The venture firm’s second fund clocked in at $150 million (USD), while its first — a seed fund — totaled $30 million.
Remember that robot chef Samsung “debuted” at CES 2020?
At least the “return” of Ballie demonstrated that Samsung hasn’t lost interest in the home robot.
So why — after 20+ years — do we have little more to show for it than a bunch of robot vacuums?
Instead, conservatively tens of millions of dollars go into R&D across countless companies aimed at building a better robot vacuum.
Matic is — for most intents and purposes — yet another robot vacuum looking to make a name in a very crowded space.
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