AppleMagazine #594

In the HBO series “The Last of Us,” a fungal infection has taken over Earth, rendering the United States an apocalyptic landscape protagonists Joel and Ellie need to traverse. Fans unfamiliar with the video game, from which the series was adapted, might assume this is just another zombie show packed with action and gore. However, the story and the characters have subverted expectations and received praise from all corners. “The Last of Us,” whose first season concluded Sunday, has not only won over gamers with high expectations, but also people who don’t play video games. The series premiere drew 4.7 million viewers in the U.S., based on Nielsen and HBO data, making for HBO’s second-largest debut, behind “House of the Dragon.” “No one could have anticipated this, this reaction and how positive…

The company behind the ChatGPT chatbot has rolled out its latest artificial intelligence model, GPT-4, in the next step for a technology that’s caught the world’s attention. The new system can figure out tax deductions and answer questions like a Shakespearan pirate, for example, but it still “hallucinates” facts and makes reasoning errors. Here’s a look at San Francisco-based startup OpenAI’s latest improvement on the generative AI models that can spit out readable text and unique images: WHAT’S NEW? OpenAI says GPT-4 “exhibits human-level performance.” It’s much more reliable, creative and can handle “more nuanced instructions” than its predecessor system, GPT-3.5, which ChatGPT was built on, OpenAI said in its announcement. In an online demo, OpenAI President Greg Brockman ran through some scenarios that showed off GPT-4’s capabilities that appeared to show it’s a radical…

Samsung Electronics said it expects to invest 300 trillion won ($230 billion) over the next 20 years as part of an ambitious South Korean national project to build the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing base near the capital, Seoul. The chip-making “mega cluster,” which will be established in Gyeonggi Province by 2042, will be anchored by five new semiconductor plants built by Samsung. It will aim to attract 150 other companies producing materials and components or designing high-tech chips, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Samsung’s new plants will be located near its existing domestic factories and will produce both computer memory chips used for storing data and higher-margin logic chips designed to perform a broader range of functions, the company said. A giant in the global memory business, Samsung…

Facebook parent Meta is slashing 10,000 jobs, about as many as the social media company announced late last year in its first round of cuts, as uncertainly about the global economy hits the technology sector particularly hard. The company announced 11,000 job cuts in November, about 13% of its workforce at the time. In addition to the layoffs, Meta said Tuesday that it would not fill 5,000 open positions. “This will be tough and there’s no way around that,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Meta and other tech companies have been hiring aggressively for at least two years and in recent months have begun to let some of those workers go. Hiring in the U.S. is still strong, but layoffs have hit hard in some sectors. Early last month, Meta posted falling profits and its…

Apple is transforming the way we interact with apps with Live Activities, allowing us to access time-sensitive information at a moment’s notice from our Lock Screen. But as the feature expands across more applications, some question how the technology can be used away from the iPhone and incorporated into Apple’s upcoming AR/VR glasses. LIVE ACTIVITIES ON IOS 16 The iOS 16 update brought several exciting changes to Apple’s operating system. Still, one addition that had everyone excited was the Live Activities feature, which helps users stay updated with real-time events such as sports games, ride-shares, food deliveries, and workouts right from their Lock Screen. Live Activities are a valuable addition to iOS 16, as they save time and effort by eliminating the need to unlock the phone to check real-time events. Moreover,…

Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse rattled the technology industry that had been the bank’s backbone, leaving shell-shocked entrepreneurs thankful for the government reprieve that saved their money while they mourned the loss of a place that served as a chummy club of innovation. “They were the gold standard, it almost seemed weird if you were in tech and didn’t have a Silicon Valley Bank account,” Stefan Kalb, CEO of Seattle startup Shelf Engine, said during an interview as he started the process of transferring millions of dollars to other banks. The Biden administration’s move guaranteeing all Silicon Valley Bank’s deposits above the insured limit of $250,000 per account resulted in a “palpable sigh of relief” in Israel, where its booming tech sector is “connected with an umbilical cord to Silicon Valley,” said Jon…