NerdNews

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that the company is 'out of GPUs', delaying the rollout of its newest model, GPT-4.5. The model will be available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers first, followed by ChatGPT Plus customers next week. OpenAI plans to add tens of thousands of GPUs to combat the shortage.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced Ocelot, its first quantum computing chip, developed in partnership with Caltech. The chip aims to reduce error-correction costs by 90% and has the potential to advance quantum computing for real-world applications such as drug discovery, cryptography, and AI.

Microsoft has unveiled Majorana 1, a quantum chip that leverages topological superconducting nanowires to produce more reliable and scalable qubits. The company claims it's the world's first Quantum Processing Unit (QPU), which could tackle complex industrial and societal problems. The chip uses a new material that can observe and control Majorana particles, and its topoconductor creates a unique state of matter for stable and controllable qubits.

Microsoft has released its Copilot AI assistant as a native app for macOS, available for free on the Mac App Store. The app offers various features like text translation, summarization, and image generation, using OpenAI models like GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. It requires an M1 or later Mac and macOS 14 or later.

Meta is planning to launch a dedicated app for its AI chatbot, which could help the company reach users outside Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The app is expected to launch in the second quarter of this year and will allow users to interact with Meta's AI, similar to other standalone AI apps like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

Stripe's CEO says AI startups are growing faster than traditional SaaS companies, with top 100 AI companies reaching $5 million in annualized revenue in 24 months, compared to 37 months for top 100 SaaS companies. Stripe cites examples of AI-powered startups achieving significant revenue growth, and argues that calling them 'wrappers' misses the point of their innovative solutions.

At least 24 stalkerware companies have been hacked or had significant data exposures since 2017, compromising millions of people's personal data. Experts warn against using these apps due to their insecurity and unethical nature.

Workhelix is a tech-enabled service startup that helps enterprises understand and monitor AI automation. It breaks down employee positions into tasks and scores them for AI suitability, creating roadmaps for adoption and monitoring effectiveness. Founded by Erik Brynjolfsson and others, Workhelix has raised $15 million in Series A funding and works with clients like Accenture and Wayfair.

Taktile's platform allows risk and engineering teams to create and manage workflows for automated decision-making, enabling them to experiment with data integrations, monitor predictive model performance, and perform A/B tests. The company has raised $54 million in Series B funding and has seen 3.5x year-over-year growth in annual recurring revenue.

Amazon has developed a quantum computing chip called Ocelot, which uses 'cat qubits' to reduce errors in calculations. The chip is designed to test the effectiveness of Amazon Web Services' quantum error correction architecture and can reduce the cost of implementing quantum error correction by up to 90%. Ocelot consists of five data qubits, five buffer circuits, and four qubits for detecting errors, and is a step towards making practical quantum computers a reality.

Snowflake is investing $200M in new capital to expand its startup accelerator, which supports early-stage startups building AI-based products on Snowflake's platform. The accelerator provides technical support, co-marketing opportunities, and access to Amazon's public cloud, AWS. This move is part of Snowflake's growth ambitions and its focus on AI.

Figure will start alpha testing its humanoid robot, Figure 02, in home settings in 2025. The robot uses a Vision-Language-Action model called Helix to process visual data and natural language input, enabling it to learn new tasks quickly. This development is a significant step towards bringing humanoid robots into homes, which could help with household tasks and assist older adults.

Amazon's Alexa Plus introduces a more conversational and capable assistant, allowing users to control devices with natural language and creating smart home routines through voice commands. The new Echo Show UI features a cleaner interface, larger widgets, and improved smart home control. Alexa Plus also includes new cooking controls, Ring camera integration, and compatibility with various devices.

Sesame, a new voice assistant from Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, is being developed with AI glasses that can carry a conversation. The assistant, named Maya, can have natural-sounding conversations and can even be interrupted without a hitch. Sesame plans to open source its models and expand to over 20 languages in the coming months.

Amazon has launched a new quantum computing chip called Ocelot, which has built-in error correction and can reduce the costs of implementing quantum error correction by up to 90%. The chip uses 'cat qubits' to suppress certain kinds of errors, differing from approaches by Google and Microsoft. This could lead to smaller, more efficient quantum computers.

A security researcher discovered that Spyzie stalkerware has compromised over 500,000 Android devices and thousands of iPhones and iPads. The stalkerware is vulnerable to a bug that allows anyone to access the phone data, including messages, photos, and location data. The researcher was able to collect 518,643 unique email addresses of Spyzie customers and provided them to TechCrunch and Have I Been Pwned. Users can check if their device is compromised by dialing **001 on Android or checking their Apple Account for suspicious activity.

Meta has unveiled the next generation of its Project Aria augmented reality glasses for research, Aria Gen 2, which adds new capabilities including a PPG sensor for measuring heart rate and a contact microphone. The glasses will be available to academic and commercial research labs in the coming months.

An investigation by WIRED reveals that Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet system is being used by scammers in Myanmar to run online scams, including 'pig butchering' scams that have netted billions of dollars. The scammers are using Starlink to stay online despite efforts by authorities to shut down their operations. At least eight scam compounds in the Myanmar-Thailand border region have been identified as using Starlink, with hundreds of devices logging over 40,000 instances of Starlink usage between November and February.

As workers return to the office, companies are increasingly using surveillance technology to track their employees' activities, including their location, behavior, and productivity. This technology includes RFID badges, GPS time clock apps, and indoor tracking systems that use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth beacons. While some companies argue that this technology is necessary to improve productivity and efficiency, others raise concerns about privacy and the potential for abuse.

The FBI has confirmed that North Korean hackers, known as the Lazarus Group, were behind the $1.5 billion crypto heist from Bybit. The hackers intercepted a scheduled transfer of funds from one of Bybit's cold wallets into a hot wallet, redirecting the cryptocurrency to a blockchain address under their control. The FBI has released a list of 51 Ethereum addresses linked to the hackers and is advising cryptocurrency service providers to block transactions from these addresses.