Technology
Alexa Turns 10, Amazon Turns to Generative AI
Amazon is losing money on Echo smart speakers. That’s been an open secret for Alexa’s entire existence. It’s the product of a loss-leader strategy that only an organization the dimensions of Amazon can afford to sustain for a decade.
Selling hardware at a loss can in fact be an efficient strategy. Think of printers and razors, which get corporate feet within the door and make up the loss with ink cartridges and blades, respectively.
From a saturation perspective, Amazon’s strategy may be considered successful. Earlier this yr, the founder Jeff Bezos claimed, that Alexa is now available in 100 million homes, on 400 million devices.
But the financial reality paints a really different picture. According to a recent report by The Wall Street Journal, Amazon’s devices division lost a staggering $25 billion in five years between 2017 and 2021. Alexa section apparently he went missing $10 billion in 2022 alone.
At some point, the loss leader simply becomes a loss. This reality collapsed in late 2023, when a number of hundred were laid off from the Alexa unit. Eleven-figure annual losses combined with a bleak macroeconomic outlook are unsustainable, even for a corporation with annual revenues of $600 billion.
Alexa isn’t the one smart assistant to come back to earth lately. In addition to offerings like Bixby and Cortana, which have disappeared entirely, consumer enthusiasm around Google Assistant and Siri has also waned.
In recent months, nevertheless, each Google and Apple have made it clear they’re not ready to surrender. Siri took center stage at WWDC in June, as Apple breathed latest life into the brand with its latest Apple Intelligence initiative. Google similarly confirmed this week that Assistant will get Gemini support in the house.
A 2021 Bloomberg report noted that despite Alexa’s popularity, most queries involve one in every of three tasks: play music, control lights and set timers.
A former senior Amazon worker put it much more bluntly, telling the WSJ: “We were worried about hiring 10,000 people and building a smart timer.” Given all of the published criticism of Alexa over its decade of existence, this could be the simplest cut.
While the corporate has continued to release Echo devices, including the improved Spot announced last month, the corporate has taken its foot off the gas. There’s little question been a variety of soul-searching among the many Spheres. Like Google and Apple, Amazon sees generative AI because the lifeline Alexa needs.
The 10,000-person timer problem is a results of devices failing to meet customer expectations. Getting third-party developers to create skills was part of a bigger effort to make Alexa more useful. Amazon has also tried to improve the assistant’s conversational skills through the years.
In this respect, generative AI is a game-changer. Platforms like ChatGPT have demonstrated incredible conversational natural language capabilities. Late last yr, Amazon offered announcement Alexa’s AI-powered future.
“We’ve always seen Alexa as an evolving service, and we’ve been continually improving it since the day we launched in 2014,” the corporate wrote. “Our long-held mission has been to make talking to Alexa as natural as talking to another human, and with the rapid advancement of generative AI, what we imagined is now within reach.”
November marks a decade because the announcement of Alexa and Echo. There might be no higher time to reveal an image of what the subsequent 10 years might appear like. Whether the assistant gets one other decade will depend, partly, on how the subsequent few months play out.
Technology
US medical device giant Artivion says hackers stole files during a cybersecurity incident
Artivion, a medical device company that produces implantable tissue for heart and vascular transplants, says its services have been “disrupted” resulting from a cybersecurity incident.
In 8-K filing In an interview with the SEC on Monday, Georgia-based Artivion, formerly CryoLife, said it became aware of a “cybersecurity incident” that involved the “compromise and encryption” of information on November 21. This suggests that the corporate was attacked by ransomware, but Artivion has not yet confirmed the character of the incident and didn’t immediately reply to TechCrunch’s questions. No major ransomware group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Artivion said it took some systems offline in response to the cyberattack, which the corporate said caused “disruptions to certain ordering and shipping processes.”
Artivion, which reported third-quarter revenue of $95.8 million, said it didn’t expect the incident to have a material impact on the corporate’s funds.
Technology
It’s a Raspberry Pi 5 in a keyboard and it’s called Raspberry Pi 500
Manufacturer of single-board computers Raspberry Pi is updating its cute little computer keyboard device with higher specs. Named Raspberry Pi500This successor to the Raspberry Pi 400 is just as powerful as the present Raspberry Pi flagship, the Raspberry Pi 5. It is on the market for purchase now from Raspberry Pi resellers.
The Raspberry Pi 500 is the simplest method to start with the Raspberry Pi because it’s not as intimidating because the Raspberry Pi 5. When you take a look at the Raspberry Pi 500, you do not see any chipsets or PCBs (printed circuit boards). The Raspberry Pi is totally hidden in the familiar housing, the keyboard.
The idea with the Raspberry Pi 500 is you could connect a mouse and a display and you are able to go. If, for instance, you’ve got a relative who uses a very outdated computer with an outdated version of Windows, the Raspberry Pi 500 can easily replace the old PC tower for many computing tasks.
More importantly, this device brings us back to the roots of the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi computers were originally intended for educational applications. Over time, technology enthusiasts and industrial customers began using single-board computers all over the place. (For example, when you’ve ever been to London Heathrow Airport, all of the departures and arrivals boards are there powered by Raspberry Pi.)
Raspberry Pi 500 draws inspiration from the roots of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a non-profit organization. It’s the right first computer for college. In some ways, it’s a lot better than a Chromebook or iPad because it’s low cost and highly customizable, which inspires creative pondering.
The Raspberry Pi 500 comes with a 32GB SD card that comes pre-installed with Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based Linux distribution. It costs $90, which is a slight ($20) price increase over the Raspberry Pi 400.
Only UK and US keyboard variants will probably be available at launch. But versions with French, German, Italian, Japanese, Nordic and Spanish keyboard layouts will probably be available soon. And when you’re in search of a bundle that features all the things you would like, Raspberry Pi also offers a $120 desktop kit that features the Raspberry Pi 500, a mouse, a 27W USB-C power adapter, and a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable.
In other news, Raspberry Pi has announced one other recent thing: the Raspberry Pi monitor. It is a 15.6-inch 1080p monitor that’s priced at $100. Since there are quite a few 1080p portable monitors available on the market, this launch is not as noteworthy because the Pi 500. However, for die-hard Pi fans, there’s now also a Raspberry Pi-branded monitor option available.
Technology
Apple Vision Pro may add support for PlayStation VR controllers
According to Apple, Apple desires to make its Vision Pro mixed reality device more attractive for gamers and game developers latest report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
The Vision Pro was presented more as a productivity and media consumption device than a tool geared toward gamers, due partly to its reliance on visual and hand controls moderately than a separate controller.
However, Apple may need gamers if it desires to expand the Vision Pro’s audience, especially since Gurman reports that lower than half one million units have been sold to this point. As such, the corporate has reportedly been in talks with Sony about adding support for PlayStation VR2 handheld controllers, and has also talked to developers about whether they may support the controllers of their games.
Offering more precise control, Apple may also make other forms of software available in Vision Pro, reminiscent of Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop.
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