Good morning.Coins2Day’s Most Powerful Women Summit kicks off today in Washington, D.C. And there are quite a few notable tech folk on the agenda.
Notable attendees included Corie Barry from Best Buy, Shannon Clark of Palantir, Amy Coleman representing Microsoft, Hanneke Faber of Logitech, Radha Iyengar Plumb from IBM, Emma Chalwin of Workday, Gina Mastantuono of ServiceNow, Ellie Mertz from Airbnb, Tia Sherringham of DoorDash, Ania Smith of TaskRabbit, Doniel Sutton of Pinterest, and Anahita Tafvizi of Snowflake.
TL;DR
- Coins2Day’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, D.C. features notable tech leaders from various companies.
- OpenAI's Sora AI is facing backlash for generating videos of deceased celebrities without consent.
- Taiwan's semiconductor industry is not significantly impacted by China's new rare earth material regulations.
- Apple is reportedly shifting focus from a cheaper Vision Pro to developing smart glasses.
Not too shabby.
Interested? Peep the agenda here and watch the livestream here. Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Coins2Day Tech? Drop a line here.
Backlash erupts over Sora videos featuring deceased celebrities
With individuals globally experimenting with OpenAI's recently released Sora 2 AI for video creation, which transforms text prompts and images into videos, numerous accounts indicate we're nearing what's considered socially and legally permissible.
Is it permissible to attribute statements to individuals? Consider the implications if they are well-known figures. What if they are deceased? What if the purported words or actions are inappropriate, objectionable, or malicious?
From a policy standpoint, OpenAI prohibits the creation of videos showing prominent individuals without their consent. So-called historical figures are a different matter.
With Sora, Tupac Shakur is still alive in Cuba, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes is moonlighting as a professional wrestler, and Steve Irwin is stabbing the stingray that killed him with its own barb.
It’s not always humorous. Per the Washington Post, clips of Malcolm X show the civil rights activist “making crude jokes, wrestling with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. And talking about defecating on himself.” Yikes.
As expected, the relatives of famous individuals who passed away amidst controversy—including those of Malcolm, MLK, Bob Ross, Robin Williams, and others—are not pleased.
“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin, wrote last week on social media, adding: “It’s NOT what he’d want.” —AN
Taiwan's reaction to China's recent limitations on rare earth materials: NBD
Whenever China imposes stricter trade limitations on resources and goods it controls, the inquiry resurfaces: How will this impact technology?
On Thursday, China significantly tightened regulations on rare earth minerals, which are crucial for modern electronic devices and are largely controlled by China worldwide, prior to discussions between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.
A significant matter, isn't it? Taiwan, the hub of semiconductor manufacturing and home to leading contract chipmaker TSMC, suggests otherwise.
The economic ministry of Taiwan stated that the minerals subject to the new prohibition are distinct from those essential for its semiconductor producers. The majority of the substances it requires for manufacturing those oh-so-hot AI chips are sourced from Europe, the U.S., and Japan.
(That sound you hear is every hyperscaler breathing a sigh of relief.)
While this doesn't imply other areas will be unaffected, the rare earths in question are indeed components of electric vehicles and drones, adding further difficulty for two sectors already grappling with trade disputes. —AN
Anticipated features of Apple's smart glasses, based on current information
Apple is reportedly developing smart glasses, following the less-than-stellar sales of its $3,500 “spatial computing” Vision Pro headset.
More affordable, less weighty, and perhaps even more akin to Meta's approach? This seems to be the key to widespread consumer acceptance, according to long-time Apple observer Mark Gurman.
“It was the right call for Apple to pause work on a lighter, cheaper version of its Vision Pro (something that might have been dubbed the “Vision Air”) and refocus its engineers on smart glasses instead,” he writes. “The move fits both the company’s strengths and the broader industry shift toward always-on, AI-powered devices.”
This action would resemble comparable strategies throughout the sector. (For instance, Meta's Connected Ray-Bans seem to be selling significantly more units than their Quest VR headsets.)
Perennial consumer rival Samsung is exploring conventional connected eyewear in partnership with Google (of pioneering “Glass” fame) despite having its own top-tier mixed reality headset in the pipeline.
And credit where credit’s due: Snapchat parent Snap rolled out its Spectacles way back in 2016.
According to Gurman, Apple's smart glasses will be “likely to run the Vision Pro’s operating system, visionOS, so all the work on that software isn’t going to waste.” And, similar to iPhones and iPods, they'll offer enhanced functionality when connected to a Mac. —AN
More tech
—Crypto crash! A $19 billion sell-off, commencing Friday, is thought to have been prompted by Trump's threats of an additional 100% tariff on China.
—5.7 million Qantas records stolen. The customer records were pilfered in a July breach.
—The web browser wars are back, baby—thanks to AI.
—Dutch gov’t takes control of Nexperia. The Chinese-owned chipmaker had “serious governance shortcomings.”
—xAI is building world models. Elon Musk’s AI firm reportedly seeks to use them in gaming and robotics.
—Word of the day: “Cobots.” Robots that collaborate with humans are popping up in industrial facilities across the U.S.
—Thinking Machines Lab co-founder joins Meta. AI researcher Andrew Tulloch departs Mira Murati’s startup, which launched in February.