After the big shake up in AI with the introduction of DeepSeek out of China, OpenAI has responded with the release of the o3-mini reasoning model. Arstechnica.com reports that the faster, more accurate STEM-focused model will be free to all users. OpenAI crows that o3-mini ‘advances the boundaries of what small models can achieve. The model has been optimized for STEM functions and shows “particular strength in science, math, and coding” despite lower operating costs and latency than its predecessor o1-mini, OpenAI says.OpenAI says testers reported a 39 percent reduction in “major errors” when using o3-mini, compared to o1-mini, and preferred the o3-mini responses 56 percent of the time. Subscribers to OpenAI’s Plus, Team, or Pro tiers will see o3-mini replace o1-mini in the model options starting today.

Apple continues to bring in big bags of cash. According to 9to5mac.com, the Cupertino giant released first quarter earnings (Apple’s quarters don’t follow the calendar’s quarters) with $124.30 billion in revenue. That compares with $119.58 billion for the same quarter a year ago, up 4%. As usual for the last many years, iPhone brought in the bulk of it with $69.14 billion. Services revenue…subscriptions and the like hauled in $26.34 billion. Wearables, Home, and Accessories amounted to $11.75 billion, while Macs generated $8.99 billion and iPads $8.08 billion. 

Having had a couple of family members who had it, I can tell you that macular degeneration sucks. It hits millions of people worldwide, generally folks over 60. The drop outs and vision loss…a lot of it in straight ahead vision….really make things tough. Now, a firm called Soliddd Corp has shown some smart glasses that may be a big help. Bgr.com notes that injections can slow one type of macular degeneration, but there isn’t a cure. Soliddd’s smart glasses fill a gap, though. They use tiny cameras on each temple that capture images of the environment and send them to displays inside the lenses. The displays have 64 micro-lenses, each projecting a miniature image on the healthy peripheral part of the retina. They basically remove the blind spots the disease causes. The glasses were shown at CES, and are expected to be on the market by the end of the year. No pricing has been released as yet. Since they are glasses, and not a medication or an implant, no FDA approval is needed.

A recycling startup called Prism Worldwide which was started by Bob Abramwitz, who did bottled water for Costco, just scored $40 million from Costco’s co-founder Jim Sinegal. Geekwire.com reports that Prism uses patented tech that can turn the used tires into a polymer that can be used in a variety of applications. Right now, only a fraction of the over 300 million used tires in the US are recycled…mainly ground up and used in components of sports fields, asphalt, or back into new tires. They are also burned in power plants…but the dirty secret is that most end up on landfills. Prism’s recycled polymers are being used in rubber car mats, plastic tote containers, racks for shipping goods and other applications. They hope to expand to even more reuse for their polymers from the recycled tires.

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