Your weekly briefing on all things AI

This week, Apple's partnership with OpenAI hints at a future where interacting with our devices feels more natural than ever. Meanwhile, groundbreaking research is using virtual rats to crack the brain's code. But AI isn't just for labs anymore – with increasing accessibility, anyone can tap into their creative potential with AI tools.  So, how will these advancements reshape our reality?

Let’s dive in:

📰 Apple & OpenAI: OpenAI Fueling Apple Devices in Exchange for Exposure

📈 Mistral AI Closed Series B at $6B Valuation.

💡The Future of Neuroscience is Here: How a Virtual Rat Could Improve Our Lives.

 🛠️ AI Vision & Retail: Transform Video Footage into Searchable Data

📰 AI in the News

Apple’s Strategic AI Deal with OpenAI

A strategic alliance emerged this week between Apple and OpenAI. OpenAI's ChatGPT AI model is poised to be integrated into Apple devices like iPhones and iPads. While Apple won't provide a traditional cash payment, the deal hinges on a different kind of payment: distribution.  Apple gains a powerful chatbot to potentially boost user engagement, while OpenAI leverages Apple's massive user base for brand exposure exceeding any cash sum. Both companies may further explore monetization strategies like in-app purchases within the ChatGPT app, potentially transforming this initial brand play into a mutually beneficial financial partnership. (Link)

Apple Edged Past Microsoft to Become World’s Most Valuable Company (for a short moment)

Apple's stock price rose significantly after it announced its plans to integrate artificial intelligence features into its devices during a developer conference. This briefly pushed Apple's market capitalization above Microsoft's, making it the world's most valuable company. However, by the end of the trading day, Microsoft regained the top spot. Analysts believe Apple's AI strategy will boost iPhone sales and may also benefit Microsoft, as Apple plans to incorporate OpenAI's large language models, in which Microsoft has a major investment. (Link)

More Stories

AI Technology Breakthroughs:

• Introducing Apple Intelligence: a new standard of AI system. (Link)

• Nvidia releases a powerful new AI model for synthetic data generation. (Link)

• Former Meta engineers create an independent AI agent called Jace. (Link)

AI Industry & Investment:

• OpenAI’s valuation has tripled in the past 9 months, after releasing ‘Sora’. (Link)

• LinkedIn uses AI to enhance job hunting experience. (Link)

AI Regulation & Controversy:

• Elon Musk threatens to ban Apple devices over OpenAI partnership. (Link)

• Tesla shareholders sue Musk for competing with an AI company. (Link)

• Meta pauses AI model launch in Europe due to regulations. (Link)

• Microsoft delays AI feature release due to security concerns. (Link)

• OpenAI appoints a former NSA chief to its board. (Link)

• Andrew Ng highlights the high cost of intelligence. (Link)

📈 Venture Deals 

• Mistral AI, a Paris-based OpenAI competitor, closed their series B with $640M at a $6B valuation. (Link)

• Amazon invests $230M in cloud credits for AI startups. (Link)

• Belgian startup Gorilla raises $25M to help energy providers crunch big data. (Link)

• AI news reader Particle raises $10.9M in new funding and adds publishing partners. (Link)

• GPTZero founders raise $10M Series A for their profitable AI detection startup. (Link)

• Linq raises $6.6M to use AI for simplifying financial research. (Link)

• Flow Computing raises $4.3M to improve CPU performance by 100X through parallel processing. (Link)

• Google-backed Tempus AI closes the first day of trading up 9% in Nasdaq stock market debut. (Link)

💡 Industry Impacts

🏩 Healthcare

AI-Powered Virtual Rat Created by Harvard and DeepMind for Brain Research: A research team from Harvard University and Google DeepMind collaborated to create a virtual rat with an artificial brain. This AI-powered brain controls a digital rat model within a simulated environment, mimicking real rat movements. Researchers believe this can be a valuable tool for studying how brains control complex movements and potentially lead to new applications in areas like robotics and neuroscience. The team aims to further develop the virtual rat to grant it more autonomy in solving tasks, ultimately aiming to improve our understanding of how real brains work. (Link)

MIT's Cutting-Edge Tools Enable Detailed 3D Brain Imaging: A team at MIT led by Professor Kwanghun Chung has developed a new method for creating high-resolution 3D maps of brain hemispheres. This technique could provide valuable insights into brain function and disease.

The method involves three new tools:

1. Megatome: Precisely slices brain tissue without damaging it. (Designed by Ji Wang)

2. mELAST: Makes brain slices transparent for easier examination. (Created by Juhyuk Park)

3. UNSLICE: Stitches the slices back together to create a complete 3D image. (Developed by Webster Guan)

This combination allows researchers to study brain tissue at multiple scales, from individual cells to whole brain regions. (Link)

🤖 Tech

The Future of Self-Driving Cars Could Have Hands and Feet (But Needs Some Practice): Researchers at the University of Tokyo developed a humanoid robot named Musashi to explore a new approach to self-driving cars. Musashi can operate a car with its mechanical limbs and cameras, mimicking human driving. In a controlled environment, the robot successfully completed a turn at an intersection while following traffic lights. Although the current version of Musashi struggles with maintaining speed and efficiency, the researchers acknowledge the limitations and plan to develop a more advanced robot for future tests. (Link)

World's Most Human-Like Hand: Clone Robotics Debuts the Clone Hand: Founded in late 2021, Clone Robotics aims to make waves with affordable androids for daily tasks. Their first product is the Clone Hand, a biomimetic robotic hand designed to mimic human movement. This hand is claimed to be the most human-like musculoskeletal robotic hand globally, replicating the size, degrees of freedom, and even half the forearm of a human hand. Unlike traditional robotics companies, Clone Robotics prioritizes affordability, aiming to make their creations accessible to a wider audience. (Link)

🛠️ Tool of the Week

EdgeTrace is revolutionizing video data analysis with a platform that enables efficient and precise search, analysis, and annotation of video footage. Physical locations can turn their surveillance footage into a goldmine of data around shopping behaviors. Backed by prominent investors such as General Catalyst, Tiferes Ventures, and Y Combinator, EdgeTrace is poised to make video data effortlessly accessible and valuable for organizations.

The tool addresses the common pain point of manually reviewing hours of footage across industries like retail, product supply, and security. Key features include semantic search for pinpointing exact video segments, real-time event detection with alert capabilities, automated video annotations, and advanced analytics for actionable insights. Interesting use cases include, but are not limited to:

• Retail

  • Customer Behavior Analysis: Optimize store layout and product placement.

  • Loss Prevention: Enhance security measures with real-time alerts.

• Healthcare

  • Patient Monitoring: Detect falls and emergencies in real-time.

  • Operational Efficiency: Optimize staffing and reduce wait times.

• Construction

  • Site Safety: Ensure compliance with safety protocols.

  • Progress Tracking: Monitor construction progress and schedules.

Other AI Vision Tools for Retail:

• LabelBox

• Mashgin

• Chooch