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The company on Wednesday announced Astro for Business, a version of its household robot that it’s framing as a crime prevention tool for retailers, manufacturers and a range of other industries, in spaces that are up to 5,000 square feet. Astro for Business is launching only in the U.S. to start, and it comes at a steep price point of $2,349.99.

Amazon unveiled Astro, its first home robot, in September 2021. The squat, three-wheeled device can roll around the house to answer Alexa voice commands, and it has a 42-inch periscope camera that allows it to see over countertops or other obstacles to check if a stove has been left on, among other tasks.

Two years on from its debut, the original Astro, which costs $1,599, is available in limited quantities and on an invite-only basis.

Microsoft launched its big AI push earlier this year as part of its Bing search engine, integrating a ChatGPT-like interface directly into its search results. Now less than a year later, it’s dropping the Bing Chat branding and moving to Microsoft Copilot, the new name for the chat interface you might have used in Bing, Microsoft Edge, and Windows 11.

Microsoft initially talked up the Google search competition for its AI ambitions earlier this year, but it now looks like it has its sights set on ChatGPT instead. The Bing Chat rebranding comes just days after OpenAI revealed 100 million people are using ChatGPT on a weekly basis. Despite a close partnership worth billions, Microsoft and OpenAI continue to compete for the same customers seeking out AI assistants, and Microsoft is clearly trying to position Copilot as the option for consumers and businesses.

“Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise will now simply become Copilot,” explains Colette Stallbaumer, general manager of Microsoft 365. The official name change comes just a couple of months after Microsoft picked Copilot as its branding for its chatbot inside Windows 11. At the time it wasn’t clear that the Bing Chat branding would fully disappear, but it is today.

OpenAI has placed a temporary ban on new sign-ups for ChatGPT Plus following a surge in demand for the service.

ChatGPT Plus is the $20 per month, premium version of the now infamous chatbot. It includes a host of extra features, including the recently added GPTs—personalized chatbots that are focused on a specific task, such as teaching you how to play chess or negotiating better business deals.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims a surge in usage of the service since the launch of GPTs and other new features announced at its recent developer conference has forced the company to act.

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Fine-tuning large language models (LLM) has become an important tool for businesses seeking to tailor AI capabilities to niche tasks and personalized user experiences. But fine-tuning usually comes with steep computational and financial overhead, keeping its use limited for enterprises with limited resources.

To solve these challenges, researchers have created algorithms and techniques that cut the cost of fine-tuning LLMs and running fine-tuned models. The latest of these techniques is S-LoRA, a collaborative effort between researchers at Stanford University and University of California-Berkeley (UC Berkeley).

Barbara Corcoran almost missed out on “the best hire” she ever made — all because the prospective employee seemed too introverted.

“When I started my business [in 1973], I needed people to join my real estate company,” the millionaire investor and real estate entrepreneur said in a recent TikTok video. “But I had little to offer, and good people were really hard to get.”

In walked Esther Kaplan, who would eventually become Corcoran’s business partner and longtime president of The Corcoran Group. But at the time, Kaplan didn’t seem like the right fit for the sales position she’d applied for, Corcoran said.

As the dawn of generative AI unfolds, a distinct separation will emerge among professionals and businesses: those who leverage this transformative technology to enhance productivity and innovation and those who lag behind.

Discover how adopting a generative AI mindset, blending adaptability, curiosity, and collaboration, is key to thriving in the rapidly evolving professional landscape,.

Nvidia is on a tear.

But “there are no companies that are assured survival,” Huang warned Thursday at the Harvard Business Review’s Future of Business event.

Nvidia in its 30-year history has faced several existential threats, which helps explain why Huang recently told the Acquired podcast that “nobody in their right mind” would start a company. For example, it almost went bankrupt in 1995 after its first chip, the NV1, failed to attract customers. It had to lay off half its employees before the success of its third chip, the RIVA 128, saved it a few years later.

Continue reading “Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says his AI powerhouse is ‘always in peril’ despite a $1.1 trillion market cap: ‘We don’t have to pretend…we feel it’” »

Kynikos Associates founder and legendary short seller Jim Chanos has highlighted the disparity between the public perception and actual performance of Tesla Inc. TSLA.

What Happened: In an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Chanos pointed out a common misbelief held by many Tesla admirers. He said the electric vehicle giant is seen as a multi-faceted entity — an AI firm, an alternative energy business, and a robotics organization.

This image, Chanos argues, is a result of Elon Musk’s compelling portrayal of Tesla as a future-focused company.

Elon Musk is getting the Hollywood treatment. Variety reports that indie movie studio A24 has won the rights to adapt Walter Isaacson’s recent biography about the business magnate, with “Black Swan” and “Requiem for a Dream” director Darren Aronofsky slated to direct. There’s no official word on who’s playing Musk yet, though there’s plenty of wild suggestions online.

According to the report, studios were embroiled in “heated competition” for Isaacson’s latest book, which was released this September. The author’s last biography on a tech titan, Steve Jobs, was also adapted into a movie of the same name in 2015. Of course, the main attraction here is Musk, whose penchant for controversy is matched only by his enormous popularity.

Continue reading “A24’s Making an Elon Musk Biopic Directed by Darren Aronofsky” »