Here is the top trending news from the world of technology. News that every tech enthusiast should keep a tab on.
1)
Apple Podcasts is now available on standalone Web App
Starting from today, Apple Podcasts will be available on a standalone web app in over 170 countries, giving its podcasts a wider availability. Its web app will offer all same the features that its native app offers, like accessing your library, viewing top charts, purchase subscription and more. The great thing is that this web app will be available across all devices and syncs everything with your Apple account; so all your favorite shows and subscription remains updated across all devices. The web app works on all the major web browsers including Safari, Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Apple Podcasts Users can access the web version on www.podcasts.apple.com.
2)
Waymo is developing a robotaxi that comes with less expensive tech features
Alphabet owned Waymo on Monday revealed many sketchy details of its upcoming self driving technology, billed as the ‘generation 6.’ The unique thing about generation 6 is that unlike earlier generations that it won’t come with too many advanced features, boosting less cameras and sensors. Speaking to the media, Satish Jeyachandran, the Vice President of Waymo, said that the company is confident that its generation 6 vehicles will hit the market pretty soon but didn’t give exact timeline of its launch. The company has assured that less tech features won’t end up compromising the safety measures of the generation 6 vehicles. First launched in 2018, Waymo has been scaling operation in recent months. In June this year, it removed the waitlist and opened the Waymo robotaxis to any users in San Fransico area.
3)
Zoom’s Webinar Calls can now host one million participants in one go
Zoom on Monday achieved an important milestone on Monday by increasing its webinar participants capacity to whopping one million. It achieved this milestone after several political groups used Zoom app to host a fundraising event through a webinar to raise funds for the US Vice President Kamala Harris. The video conferencing platform now offers several plans to host large webinar events like this, starting from 10k participants to 1 million attendees. Apart from political fundraising events, Zoom is confident that in future the large-scale virtual events will become a common affair across different industries. However, mind you, hosting such events will be pretty expensive. It will cost a hefty $1,00,000 to host one million participants.
4)
AMD is upping its AI game by acquiring ZT Systems for $4.9 Bn
AMD has thrown a $5 Bn challenge to Nvidia, which today is the runway market leader in AI chips. This after AMD announced on Monday that it is acquiring server maker ZT systems for nearly $5 Bn in a cash and stock deal. ZT has given extensive experience in making server computers for large data centers, something that is likely to help AMD in large scale AI computing. Investors have welcomed this deal as AMD’s shares surged as much as by 4.2% in New York on Monday. With Nvidia taking up huge leap in the AI chip race, there has been a growing pressure on AMD to play the catch game and ensure its competitiveness in the high-stake AI race.
5)
Salesforce releases ‘xGen-MM’ – its open-source multimodal AI models
Salesforce, the enterprise software giant, on Monday unveiled a new suite of open-source multimodal AI models. Dubbed a xGen-MM, Salesforce claims that its new AI model has achieved superlative performance on various benchmarks compared to similar-sized open-source models; though this has not been independently verified. This multi-modal model is now publicly available. Open-source AI has now become a competitive battle space with Mistral and Meta’s llama emerging as two big players in this space.