Lots has happened this past week in the tech world! With robots playing soccer at a recent tech summit, new discounts offered by OpenAI, Amazon expanding its drone deliveries, and more, there’s much to catch up on. So, let’s get started!
Robots Play Soccer at Tech Summit
Teams of robots competed on a miniature artificial soccer pitch, answered trivia questions, and made jabs at human ignorance on May 30 at an artificial intelligence summit showcasing the technology’s diverse applications. The AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva highlighted how AI can improve and transform lives, according to organizers.
Exhibits featured prosthetic limbs that learn from a user’s behavior and adapt to muscle activity, devices to help visually impaired individuals avoid obstacles, and bionic cats and dogs designed to act as companions.
New Discounts Offered by OpenAI
OpenAI announced on May 30 that it will offer discounts on corporate ChatGPT subscriptions to nonprofit organizations as part of its strategy to expand sales of its AI product to enterprises.
Large nonprofits will receive a 50% discount on the enterprise-grade version of ChatGPT. Smaller nonprofits using ChatGPT Team will pay $20 per user per month, instead of the usual $25 or $30.
Since the release of the consumer-focused ChatGPT in Nov. 2022, the use of generative AI for daily tasks such as writing and coding has surged, making it the fastest application to reach 100 million users.
Amazon to Expand Drone Deliveries
Amazon announced plans to expand its drone delivery services and network across the United States after receiving permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate delivery drones beyond the visual line of sight of operators.
This approval marks a significant milestone in Amazon’s decade-long effort to develop drone delivery, an initiative first revealed by founder Jeff Bezos on “60 Minutes.”
Amazon stated that the FAA’s approval came after demonstrating the effectiveness of its onboard detect-and-avoid tech, which ensures drones can safely navigate around obstacles, as proven through testing and real-world flights.
Newly Discovered Hack Destroyed US Routers
An unidentified hacking group launched a massive cyberattack on a telecommunications company in the U.S. heartland late last year, disabling hundreds of thousands of internet routers, according to research published on May 29.
Security analysts at Lumen Technologies’ Black Lotus Labs discovered the attack in recent months and reported it in a blog post. The October incident, which was not disclosed at the time, took over 600,000 internet routers offline. Independent experts described it as one of the most serious cyberattacks ever against America’s telecommunications sector.
New AI Developments for Big Tech Companies
Major tech firms, including Meta, Microsoft, Advanced Micro Devices, and Broadcom, announced on May 29 that they have developed a new industry standard for networking in AI data centers, aiming to challenge the market dominance of Nvidia.
The “Ultra Accelerator Link” is designed to establish an open standard for communication between artificial intelligence accelerators, which are systems that help process the vast amounts of data used in AI tasks.
