Here are the five biggest top trending news from the world of technology and AI in last 48 hours
1)
SpaceX’s Starship achieves Significant Milestone as it pulls off a Historic Booster catch
SpaceX achieved a historic milestone on Sunday during the fifth Starship test flight. SpaceX’s colossal rocket lifted off from Texas adjoining the Mexican border. It hovered over the Gulf of Mexico for quite some time before safely landing at the launch pad, which meant that the rocket did not get destroyed while making a landing. This is a first time that Starship has pulled off a booster catch. While Starship still has a long way to go to exit the experimental stage and become a full-fledge commercial rocket. Nonetheless, it is still an historic milestone in its quest to achieve inter-planetary mission. Elon Musk has the ambitious dream of using Starship for transporting mankind to Mars.
2)
WordPress vs WP Engine: WordPress snatches control of ACF Plugin
The ongoing tension between WordPress and hosting company WP Engine has deepened further, after WordPress took complete control of a plugin controlled by WP Engine. This plugin is known as ACF or Advanced Custom Fields. This plugin makes it easier for WordPress users to customize their edit screens. In response, ACF’s team has described the move in its X handle as unilateral and forcefully done without taking consent from the creator, adding that this has never happened in the last 21-year history of WordPress. However, WordPress has justified its action, citing its guidelines, which gives it complete right to disable or remove developer’s access if public safety is under any potential threat.
3)
Elon Musk Surprises everyone with Robovan at Tesla’s We Robot event
At Last week ‘s Tesla’s We Robot event, Elon Musk unveiled quite a few unsurprising products including a Cybercab robotaxi. But no one was quite prepared for the Robovan. Robovan is an electric and autonomous vehicle roughly the size of a bus. With capacity to carry nearly 20 passengers at a time, Musk claims that this bus can efficiently transport people through highly dense area. Robovan also stands out for its retro futuristic look. However, here is a bit of a dampener. It is still in prototype stage, with Musk refusing to give any fixed timeline for launch of this novel product.
4)
TikTok layoffs hundreds of employees globally
According to Reuters, popular short video platform TikTok has started rolling out pink slips to scores of employees across markets. TikTok’s Malaysian market has been most affected by the latest layoffs, with sources claiming that nearly 500 TikTok employees have lost their jobs. Most of the affected employees worked in the content moderation team, as per reports. The company has reportedly decided to increase its dependence on AI rather than human intervention for content moderation. Currently, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance employs nearly 1,10,000 employees globally.
5)
Khosla Ventures pumps additional $405 Mn in OpenAI
OpenAI, which recently closed $6 funding round, has got another $405 Mn more from Vinod Khosla’s s Khosla Ventures, according to regulatory filing. However, it appears that Vinod Khosla’s investment company has invested the capital through a special purpose vehicle or SPV. SPVs are typically used when the investor company does not have enough capital to fill the round. Khosla Ventures is actually an existing investor in ChatGPT’s parent company, having invested $50 Mn in way back 2019, a time when Sam Altman led company was relatively an unknown company. OpenAI’s massive funding round has coincided with the exit of slew of top executives including its CTO Mira Murati.
