Weekly Technology Summary: 1/3/24

The last week in technology was busy, here are the big things that happened last week.

Apple Cancels The Apple Car

Apple Logo

On the 28th of March apple has killed the apple car according to Mark Gurman from Bloomberg. Although apple had never publicly confirmed the existence of the project, dubbed ‘Project Titan’ is was known that Apple was working on a fully self driving electric car. The project reportedly had used up billions. With its cancellation some of the employees working on this project have moved to generative AI teams within the Cupertino firm. This now means that the only two successful American car manufacturers are Tesla and Ford.

Microsoft Takes Stake in Mistral AI

On the 27th of February Microsoft announced a $16 million multi year partnership with AI company Mistral. As a consequence of this deal Mistral now uses Microsoft Azure – their cloud computing service. Means that two major AI Companies have deals with Microsoft. Mistral played a key part in the EU AI act, so now questions are being thrown whether Mistral was fighting for their interests, or for Microsoft’s. It also could entail a path similar to OpenAI’s, in which the following months new models become closed source. This is something that the open source community is not happy about.

Nintendo sues switch emulator ‘Yuzu’

Nintendo has filed a federal lawsuit against the parent company of a switch emulator called Yuzu, citing claims of piracy. While using an emulator is not illegal, pirating games or content to run on it is, and that is the basis of Nintendo’s lawsuit. The companies lawyers are trying to take the stance that all emulation is illegal, and are hoping to overturn years of legal precedent that defend emulators.

UK Fusion Reactor Shut Down

The Joint European Torus (JET) facility, was constructed in oxford in the 1970s, and until the end of 2023 was the world’s most advanced fusion reactor, although now all experiments have ceased to run at this facility. The facility, which had only recently earned a world record for the most energy output in a fusion reactor is hoping to be replaced by a fusion power plant in the 2040s, with the STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) prokect being delivered by a new nuclear body.

Nvidia valued at $2 Trillion

The graphics card manufacturer Nvidia has been valued at $2 trillion, after creating chips that power AI. Nvidia are a computer chip manufacturer, primarily specialising in Graphical Processing Units (GPU)s. Although recently, with the rise of AI they have also been making specialised chips for AI. This valuation shows how large the AI industry is scrambling, as companies such as google and amazon try to capitalise on its growth.

And Some other things

  • Intel have added a 1 nanometer Process to their roadmap, of which they hope to release in the second half of 2027.
  • Apple are being investigated by the EU for stopping Progressive Web Apps support on iPhone
  • Apple Vision Pro ‘Crackgate’. Front glass on Apple Vision Pro Cracking.

Updates

A few things have changed since this article was written.

  • Apple has reversed their decision on Progressive web Apps in the EU.
  • Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla and SpaceX) has sued OpenAI as their goal of developing AI safely is not changed as they are effectively a subsidiary of Microsoft

Read more articles by me on the politics outlook!

Images belong to copyright holders.

Mistral + Microsoft – Microsoft

Nintendo Yuzu – Retro Dodo

Fusion Reactor – Euro Fusion

Nvidia Logo – Nvidia