Meta Unveils Orion: Groundbreaking AR Glasses with Custom-Made Display

TECH BRIEF

Semiconductor Sector Soars as Micron Posts Impressive Earnings (10 minutes read)

Following a day of subdued trading, semiconductor sector buoyed technology shares ahead of Micron's robust earnings results. However, overall major indexes dipped amidst heightened yields. Tech optimism partially due to the market's response to Micron, coupled with strong demand at the 5-year Treasury note auction, but tepid agreement on inflation prognosis. AI trends also influenced the market as analysts forecast substantial annual growth in AI-related hardware and software for the next three years.

Nvidia's AI Dominance Challenged by Speedy Startups SambaNova, Groq, Cerebras (9 minutes read)

Nvidia's dominance in AI might be undermined by startups like SambaNova, Groq and Cerebras. As AI inference approaches maturity, anticipated in six months, these competitors aim to trump Nvidia's position through superior speed and efficiency. SambaNova, for instance, uses a reconfigurable dataflow unit (RDU) as opposed to Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPU). Even Nvidia admits inference is the larger market, with 40% of its data center workloads in inference, a figure expected to rise to 90% in the future. Furthermore, a performance comparison showed SambaNova, Cerebras and Groq as having the fastest inference APIs.

Meta AI Introduces Voice Input, Automatic Video Dubbing, and Image Understanding Features (4 minutes read)

At the recent annual Connect conference, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed developments in AI, with 400 million people using Meta AI per month. Voice input will be introduced on Meta's platforms in English-speaking countries. Additionally, automatic video and lip-syncing will be tested for multi-lingual audience accessibility. The AI will also allow users to modify uploaded photos with voice commands. Meta AI seems to be closing the performance gap with competitors like OpenAI. Furthermore, the AR headset prototype, Orion, was announced, emphasizing its readiness for market earlier than its hardware.

Key Executives Exit OpenAI Amid Company's Leadership Transition (7 minutes read)

OpenAI CTO Mira Murati and the company's chief research officer, Bob McGrew, have announced their resignation. These departures were followed by that of Barret Zoph, VP of Research. CEO Sam Altman assured that these changes were amiably decided and independent of each other. He detailed their leadership transition plans, including promoting Mark Chen to SVP of Research and assigning new roles to Matt Knight, Kevin Weil, Srinivas Narayanan, and Josh Achiam. This is the latest series of high-level departures at the company amid reports of its transition to a for-profit entity and a new funding round valuing it at $150 billion.

Meta Unveils Orion: Groundbreaking AR Glasses with Custom-Made Display (20 minutes read)

Orion, Meta's first pair of augmented reality glasses, was recently demoed to journalists. The glasses are elegant and incorporate features such as Micro LED projectors beaming graphics into your vision, immersive AI interaction, and a comfortable wristband controller, even though they're not market-ready. As per the CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Orion represents an advanced move towards glasses that could replace smartphones. Competition is brewing from Apple, Snap, and Google in this field. Forthcoming Hypernova will offer lighter interaction and might be on sale next year.

Klarna and Adyen Collaborate to Expand 'Buy Now, Pay Later' to Physical Stores (4 minutes read)

Swedish fintech firm Klarna is partnering with Dutch payments company Adyen to offer its Buy Now, Pay Later services in physical retail stores. This deal expands on a previous arrangement for e-commerce payments and aims to position Klarna across more than 450,000 Adyen payment machines. The rollout will initially be in Europe, North America, and Australia, with further expansion plans set to follow. Klarna also announced plans to return to profit by summer 2023.

OpenAI Restructuring, Plans to Shift from Non-Profit to For-Profit Model (7 minutes read)

AI developer OpenAI is planning to restructure its core business into a for-profit benefit corporation, reducing non-profit control, according to insider sources. This move, which could value CEO Sam Altman's equity at $150 billion, is expected to attract more investors. OpenAI's non-profit segment will retain a minority stake in the for-profit entity. The restructuring follows a series of leadership reshuffles and could modify how the company is held accountable for AI safety.