AI-based search engine company Perplexity announced the debut of its Election Information Hub a few days ahead of the US presidential elections. It offers users AI-generated voting details, summaries of candidates, and live vote tracking using data from The Associated Press and Democracy Works as official partners for the hub. Though it faced some challenges such as failing to mention candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropping out of the race, Perplexity has been quick to tackle and fix such errors.
Facebook parent company Meta's recent plans of building a nuclear-powered AI data center were thwarted when a rare species of bee was found on the land where the data center was going to be built, reports the Financial Times. However, bees weren't the end of Mark Zuckerberg's problems, as the data center was likely to face environmental and regulatory challenges, according to people familiar with the matter. Due to limited nuclear power options in the US, Zuckerberg has reportedly been "unhappy" with the situation as Meta continues to look for carbon-free energy deals.
Former CEO and co-founder of a Twitter/X rivaling company Pebble, Gabo Cselle, has recently found himself in the midst of OpenAI's talent hires, joining to work on a "secretive project." Though his LinkedIn says he had been working at OpenAI since October, the announcement for it came only recently in a social media post, stating he would share what he has been working on "in due time." Coincidentally, Pebble, originally named T2, shut down last year on the same month due to struggles of maintaining meaningful growth, working on generative AI projects at South Park Commons in the meantime.
Known for its apps like Pixelmator Pro and Photomator, the Lithuania-based Pixelmator image-editing platform is being acquired by Apple as announced in a blog post. While Pixelmator says its products will remain unchanged "for now," integration with Apple's Photos app is expected eventually. Founded in 2007 in Vilnius, Pixelmator will gain broader reach under Apple, which is focusing more on AI-driven photo tools, with only regulatory approval left to wait for.
San Francisco-based robot startup Physical Intelligence has raised a staggering $400 million in a recent round of funding, achieving a $2.4 billion valuation. Backed by major investors like Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital, and more, the startup, whose team includes alumni from Tesla and Google DeepMind, is developing a "general-purpose" AI model for robots with the goal of AGI that can handle diverse physical tasks. Physical Intelligence envisions a future where users can "simply ask robots to perform any task they want, just like they can ask large language models and chatbot assistants."
Chinese autonomous driving startup DeepRoute.ai has recently secured $100 million from an unnamed automaker to scale up its assisted driving systems, aiming for installation in 200,000 vehicles by 2025. Currently fitted in around 20,000 vehicles, DeepRoute's system competes with Tesla's Full Self-Driving, which is set to launch in China in the coming months. This funding supports plans to integrate the system in over 10 different models, collecting essential data to improve AI capabilities in the competitive Chinese auto market.