Here is the compilation of the biggest breaking stories from the world of AI and technology.
1)
iPhone 16 will be powered by Arm’s latest V9 chip
UK based and SoftBank backed chip maker Arm will have an important role to play in iPhone 16 line up, which is slated for big launch on September 9. According to a report published in The Financial Times, Arm’s newest chip V9 chip will be used in iPhone 16. This move was expected, considering that Apple had signed a strategic deal with Arm last year for using its powerful chips across its leading devices. If this report is true then powerful chips from Arm will also be powering the much talked about Apple Intelligence, which is a suite of advanced AI features that will embrace iPhone 16 phones.
2)
BlueSky keeps growing, it now has more than 9 Mn users
Following the ban on X in Brazil, Jack Dorsey’s decentralized social network platform BlueSky has seen an exponential growth in its userbase. BlueSky claimed that it has recently added 3 million new users, with most of the users coming from Brazil. This has propelled the BlueSky app to the second position in the free iPhone app charts in Brazil. Although the platform’s userbase count may have grown exponentially in recent week at the expense of X, it still has a long way to go before it becomes serious competitor to the popular microblogging platform. X, which is now owned by billionaire Elon Musk, currently has over 500 million monthly active users.
3)
Boeing’s Starliner lands on Earth after a failed mission to bring back astronauts
Last week on September 7, Boeing’s Starliner capsule made a landing in New Mexico. Although the landing was perfect and safe, it didn’t bring any smile and joy as the Starliner capsule failed in its critical mission to bring back the two astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Willams, who are still stuck in International Space Station. Nasa claimed that Boeing’s Starliner wasn’t secure enough to bring back the astronauts from ISS. Both astronauts will now come back home on SpaceX’s Dragon Capsule in February. This was Starliner’s first crewed flight and the failure of its maiden test will be seen as a huge setback for Boeing.
4)
Genmoji and Image generation feature delayed until IOS 18.2
Slew of Apple Intelligence features are slated to embrace 10S 18, which is mostly likely to be officially launched on iPhone 16 event on September 1. However, two of the highly anticipated Apple Intelligence features – Genmoji and Image generation – are unlikely to make a debut on IOS 18. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the launch of both these features will be incorporated in IOS 18.2 update, which is expected to arrive in market in December. Apple had showed teaser of both these features in June with Genmoji feature especially creating lot of excitement among Apple fans. Genmoji helps in creating custom emojis with the help of prompts.
5)
Elon Musk says Tesla cars won’t be using xAI’s AI models
Last week The Wall Street Journal published an article claiming that xAI’s monstrous AI models will be powering the FSD (Full-Self-Driving) technology in Tesla cars and also help in developing its voice assistant as well as Tesla’s humanoid robots. However, on his personal X handle, Musk has refuted this report by saying that there is absolutely no need for Tesla to license anything from xAI. He argued that xAI’s AI models are too large to run on the Tesla vehicle inference computer. Musk had founded xAI last year (2023) to challenge OpenAI, which Musk had himself cofounded but eventually departed following differences with Sam Altman.