Some sleuthing has uncovered evidence that Google may be planning to use Tensor chips made for them by Taiwan Semiconductor, the same firm that furnishes chips to Apple for their mobile devices and M series computers. Androidpolice.com reports that the TSMC chips will be showing up in the Pixel 10 phones next year. The Pixel 9 phones will be out this fall, still powered by Tensor G4 chips from Samsung. Expect the Pixel 9 phones to emphasize more AI features.

Over the weekend, it was announced that Elon Musk has raised an additional $6 billion for his xAI startup…and its Grok chatbot, that Musk says is an edgier version of ChatGPT. According to theverge.com, the big cash came from Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and a Saudi prince. Musk has said he would “prefer to build products outside of Tesla” when it comes to AI and robotics unless he gets more control. Tesla shareholders will start voting this week on whether to restore Musk’s $56 billion pay package ahead of its annual meeting on June 13th. A substantial surge from the shareholders, led in some cases by some major holders that together have more stock than Elon, is opposing giving him $56 billion after big losses from a sales decrease first quarter. 

In his PowerOn Newsletter, Mark German says that Apple may choose to label its upcoming AI features iOS 18 as beta or preview. They also did this when they launched Siri years ago. Some might argue Siri is still beta…I certainly would! 9to5mac.com goes on to comment that truthfully, ALL AI should be categorized as beta. There are still numerous instances of what the industry euphemistically calls ‘hallucinatons’ by AI systems. In starker terms, it lies and makes stuff up. One outrageous example from earlier is the lawyer that wrote a brief with ChatGPT, and it included citations from cases it had made up…which the court and opposing counsel quickly pointed out. Another that was just taken down by Google was an AI overview of presidents. the AI said the US has had 42 presidents, and 17 of them have been white. It may be a while yet before AI takes over the world. 

FinalSpark, a Swiss startup, says it has made the world’s first bioprocessor. Bgr.com reports that the device incorporates what they call 16 human brain ‘organoids.’  The claim it uses a million times less power than traditional processors. FinalSpark also says the bioprocessor is capable of learning and processing information. Anyone else getting the vibe of the humans used for batteries in the Matrix movies? They have dubbed the system ‘wetware,’ as it is a mix of biology, software, and hardware. The trick now will be seeing if they can scale it up to a large enough system to actually be marketable. AI and human tissue…yeah, I am definitely getting a Matrix vibe…hope Neo is out there somewhere to get us out of this jam.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.