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| 1 | | Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will report to prison on Tuesday to serve an 11-year, three-month sentence for wire fraud related to her failed blood-testing startup. Holmes will report to FPC Bryan, a minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas, about 90 minutes outside of Houston. Her case has become a symbol of the "growth at all costs" mentality that has permeated the tech industry. More: - Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford to start Theranos, promised revolutionary blood-testing technology that was later exposed as faulty, relying on third-party devices instead.
- In 2022, Holmes was found guilty of four of 11 criminal-fraud charges and received an 11-year prison sentence.
- Holmes' request to stay free while appealing was denied, and she was ordered to report to prison by May 30.
- Her former partner, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, has also been convicted, and the two were ordered to pay a combined $452M in restitution to victims.
- Holmes, now a mother of two, will be under supervision for three years after serving her sentence.
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| 2 | | The news: Meta Platforms is set to release its Quest 3 upgraded virtual-reality headset in October, around the same time that Apple could launch its own mixed-reality headset to consumers. Details: According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the upcoming Quest 3 is lighter, thinner, and has a stronger strap with fabric sides compared to the Quest 2. It's expected to have similar features to the rumored Apple "Reality Pro" VR/AR headset, such as hand-tracking and color pass-through video. However, it reportedly lacks the face and eye-tracking available on the already-released Quest Pro. Why it matters: The technology behind AR/VR, though nascent, is improving rapidly, and Meta and Apple are locked in a race to develop wearables that can appeal to consumers in the metaverse. However, Meta's Quest 3 is targeting the mid-range market segment, with an estimated price of around $500, while Apple is focused on the high-end market with its $3,000 headset. What the numbers say: AR/VR device shipments reached 9.86 million units in 2021, and are projected to rise to 18.8 million units in 2023, nearly doubling in two years. The larger metaverse market was valued at $63.8B in 2021, and is projected to surpass $1.5 trillion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 47.6%. 
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| 3 | | On Tuesday, U.S. chipmaker Nvidia became the ninth company worldwide to reach a market capitalization of over $1 trillion, joining the ranks of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon. As a key manufacturer of GPUs, Nvidia's chips drive generative AI, the technology powering AI systems like ChatGPT, Google's Bard, and Dall-E. More: - In early trading, Nvidia shares surged by 7.7% to a record high of $419.38, lifting the stocks of other chipmakers and AI companies and adding to its gains from last week.
- Nvidia is now the first chipmaker to reach a $1 trillion market value. The next largest chipmaker globally, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., is valued at $535B.
- Bolstered by huge demand for its AI chips, Nvidia last week reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings and a Q2 outlook that stunned analysts and investors.
- The company said it expects Q2 revenue of $11B, over 50% higher than Wall Street's forecasts, and a 64% increase over the same period a year ago.
- Before Tuesday's opening, Nvidia shares were up 166.5% year to date.
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| 4 | | Leading AI experts, including executives from OpenAI and Google DeepMind, have emphasized the need to address the risks of artificial intelligence, saying it poses a threat on par with nuclear war. In an open letter released Tuesday, more than 350 experts argued that mitigating the risks of AI should be "a global priority." More: - The message, published by the Center for AI Safety, was signed by tech CEOs Sam Altman of OpenAI, Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind, and Dario Amodei of Anthropic.
- Other high-profile signatories were Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, musician Grimes, and Turing Award-winning AI researchers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, who previously voiced concerns about AI, the technolog they helped develop.
- Contrary to the misconception that only a few AI community members are concerned, many experts have privately expressed their worries, according to Dan Hendrycks, the Center for AI Safety executive director.
- He described the letter as a "coming-out" moment for some industry figures who have been concerned about the risks of AI, including its impact on jobs and algorithmic biases from bad data.
Zoom out: - In March, a letter signed by over 31,000 industry members, including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, called for a six-month pause on advanced AI development, citing significant risks to society and humanity.
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| 5 | | Apple is shutting down its "My Photo Stream" service on July 26, signaling a full transition to iCloud Photos. The free service, which dates back to 2011, allowed users to upload the last 30 days of images and videos from their Apple devices to iCloud. More: - Unlike iCloud Photos, My Photo Stream did not count against users' iCloud storage cap, although the content was not saved at full resolution.
- From June 26, My Photo Stream will no longer automatically upload photos to Apple's servers.
- Existing photos and videos will remain on iCloud for 30 days until the official shutdown.
- Before then, Apple is advising users to save images to their device's Photo Library and switch to using iCloud Photos to preserve photos and videos.
- iCloud Photos is compatible with iOS 8.3 or later on iPhones and iPads, and OS X Yosemite or later on Macs.
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| 6 | | OpenAI's ChatGPT app for iOS achieved over 500,000 downloads within its first six days, establishing itself as one of the most successful mobile app debuts in 2022 and 2023, as reported by data.ai. The app was initially launched in the U.S. on May 18 and has since expanded to 11 additional countries, including the U.K., Brazil, South Korea, and Germany. More: - Comparatively, Microsoft's AI-enabled Bing and Edge apps garnered 250,000 and 195,000 downloads respectively during their best five-day periods after their February releases on iOS.
- However, ChatGPT surpassed them with 480,000 installs within the first five days of its iOS launch.
- ChatGPT also outperformed most generic-named AI chatbot apps, according to data.ai. Only "Chat with Ask AI" surpassed ChatGPT with 590,000 installs between April 4-8.
- Looking at the broader context, ChatGPT had the second-largest app launch in both 2022 and 2023, falling short only to Truth Social.
- Data.ai reveals that only 1% of apps manage to surpass 10,600 installs within their first five days, with the top 0.1% reaching 45,000 downloads.
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| 7 | | Community Corner Last week, we asked our community, "What is your company's tech stack and what makes it effective?" Here are some highlighted responses we received: - Paul Salzman (p/salzman), Founder at Wheelio, answered: "We began using a lot of cloud-based tools because of their ease of entry, relatively low cost, and scale. The challenge is when you scale up the costs goes up but now you've trapped your team into a platform who has quite a bit of control over your corporate communications and collaboration." Paul articulated the underlying principles guiding his adoption of tools such as Google Workspace, RingCentral, Element/Matrix.io, Dropbox, and Square, presenting his perspective in this comprehensive comment here.
- Krista Moon (p/krista-moon), Owner at Ascend Business Growth, answered: "We rely on HubSpot because it's super efficient to do sales and marketing and align both teams around the same revenue goals. And, the reporting is way easier because it houses the majority of sales and marketing functions. We also use Box for document management, Asana for project management, and Semrush for specialized SEO and competitive analysis."
Join the conversations at Inside.com, and we may shout out your name and business, or contact you for more! ⭐️ | | | |
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- Tech start-up Immertia introduces an AI-powered "Hologram Concierge" concept that turns product packaging into an interactive consumer experience.
- The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) is reportedly replacing its helpline staff with an AI chatbot named "Tessa."
- New York City's law governing AI technology used for hiring will begin enforcement on July 5. The law requires companies that use AI software to inform job candidates about the use of automated systems, conduct annual audits for bias, and disclose data when asked to do so.
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Term of the Day Gross domestic product: Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of the total value of goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a given year. Question of the Week Should companies take steps to avoid employee burnout, or should it be the individual's responsibility to manage it themselves? Join the conversation |
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a writer and editor at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily technology news. She has written the Inside AI newsletter since 2019. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Eduardo Garcia | |
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