Month: May 2023

Enlarge / An electron micrograph of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). (credit: Getty | BSIP)

The Food and Drug Administration issued the world's first approval of a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), an achievement that researchers have worked toward for decades after a catastrophic clinical trial in the 1960s.

The vaccine, called Arexvy from pharmaceutical giant GSK, is approved for adults aged 60 and over. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will need to recommend the vaccine before it will be available for use. The agency's advisory committee for immunizations is next scheduled to meet June 21 to 22 and could discuss the vaccine then.

RSV is a common, highly contagious seasonal respiratory infection. It's often associated with infants, who are at especially high risk of developing severe disease. In fact, bronchitis from RSV infections is the leading cause of hospitalization among infants under the age of 1 in the US. But the virus is also dangerous for older adults, causing an estimated 60,000 to 160,000 hospitalizations and 6,000 to 10,000 deaths in older adults each year in the country.

Enlarge / An Amazon Echo Dot. (credit: Amazon)

While voice assistants initially seemed to be a convenient, futuristic way to get information and perform basic tasks, they have barely graduated from that role. And the lack of evolution has left voice assistants surrounded by uncertainty. Google, for example, has shut down third-party Google Assistant smart displays and reportedly shifted Assistant manpower to Bard. But while Google Assistant and Google's experimental Bard chatbot currently feel like different products with different uses, Amazon has dreams of uniting its generative AI efforts with its struggling Alexa business.

It's no secret that belts are tightening at Amazon, compounding interest in making Alexa a strong revenue source. Alexa was reportedly set to lose $10 billion in 2022, per an Insider report, and had failed to sufficiently engage users in ways that make Amazon money. Amazon is also enduring its largest round of layoffs and last week announced it is discontinuing Halo fitness and sleep trackers.

Can generative AI generate Alexa revenue?

Amazon reportedly tried incorporating more AI into Halo before killing it—like having trackers leverage a smartphone camera and computer vision to analyze and share data with Amazon of user workouts. We weren't eager to trust Amazon with such AI usage; however, Amazon is reportedly shifting some of that invasive AI energy to Alexa.

Enlarge / Star Wars: Luke's Awakening imagines a Game Boy Color game that never was. (credit: Shoehead)

Just in time for Star Wars Day, Irish pixel artist and indie game developer Shoehead debuted nine delightful mock-up images of a non-existent Game Boy Color game called Star Wars: Luke's Awakening. It's a fan tribute that melds the design sensibilities of the 1993 Game Boy classic Zelda: Link's Awakening with the storyline of the original Star Wars trilogy.

In the pixel art, Shoehead depicts a title screen and eight key scenes that reflect important events in A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. The scenes include watching the "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi" sequence with the Jedi master, an encounter with a Wampa on Hoth, a Darth Vader boss battle, evading the Rancor monster, getting zapped by the Emperor, and seeing the Force ghosts of Anakin, Yoda, and Obi-Wan at the end of Return of the Jedi.

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  Fan-made mock-up title screen artwork for a fantasy Star Wars: Luke's Awakening game. [credit: Shoehead ]

The images abound with delightful details, such as choices of weapons appropriate for each scene and how Shoehead perfectly adapted the "chibi" style of Zelda's Game Boy adventures to Star Wars.

Enlarge / Tim Cook posing for selfie at an Apple Store opening in New Delhi, India. Cook is optimistic about "switcher and first-time buyer metrics" in that country. (credit: Bloomberg/Getty)

Apple reported its earnings for Q2 2023 today, beating both Wall Street's and its own dour revenue estimates just a bit but continuing to show marked declines in new hardware sales.

Overall sales revenue was $94.8 billion for Apple's financial quarter ending April 1 (PDF), down 3 percent year over year, short of the 5 percent Apple's data had suggested in January. CEO Tim Cook emphasized Apple's "all-time record in Services" and a record iPhone month in March, despite a "challenging macroeconomic environment, in a press release. Services, which includes the App Store, AppleCare, iCloud, and Apple's subscription products, increased to $20.9 billion in Q2, up about 5.5 percent.

iPhone sales increased 1.5 percent to $51.03 billion. Cook told CNBC's Steve Kovach that "It was quite a good quarter from an iPhone point of view, particularly relative to the market when you look at the market stats."

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  The Google Fold. This is an official shot from Google's video. [credit: Google ]

I guess the Pixel Fold wasn't going to be a surprise to anyone after all the leaks, so why not just announce it? Google posted a teaser site for the long-awaited foldable, where you can join a mailing list for "The first foldable phone engineered by Google." This is the first time the company has acknowledged the Fold's existence.

We've already been through CAD-based renders, one very brief hands-on video, and the leak of the official renders, but we can still learn a bit from the video. Namely it's clear that the sides and camera bar of the phone have been polished to a mirror finish, just like the Pixel 7 Pro. That mirror finish will very quickly show scratches, and the camera bar on our Pixel 7 Pro hasn't held up well over time. Like we said in our Pixel 7 Pro review, the cheaper Pixel 7 went out the door with a matte sandblasted aluminum finish, and that both looks better and is more durable.

We're only getting official looks at the phone today—the specs and pricing will presumably be revealed at I/O. Rumors from CNBC have the phone shipping in June for $1,700-plus. The Fold is expected to have a 7.6-inch inner display and a 5.8-inch outer display and ship with the usual Google Tensor G2 chip.

Enlarge / Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks at Vox Media's Code Conference on September 6, 2022, in Beverly Hills, California. (credit: Getty Images | Jerod Harris )

Following Google's layoff of 12,000 employees and other cost-cutting moves, employees are reportedly expressing anger about CEO Sundar Pichai's $226 million pay package.

"In the weeks since Pichai's annual compensation was made public, internal Google platforms have filled with conversations and memes slamming the CEO for taking a pay bump while slashing costs elsewhere," CNBC reported yesterday. CNBC's report said internal memes shared by employees also criticized Google owner Alphabet's recent authorization of a $70 billion stock repurchase program, the same amount as last year. Pichai is the CEO of both Alphabet and Google.

According to CNBC, one "popular meme showed an image of Shrek character Lord Farquaad with the text 'Sundar accepting $226 million while laying off 12k Googlers, cutting perks, and destroying morale and culture.'" It also included the Farquaad quote, "some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make."

Enlarge / Snoop Dogg talking about AI at the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference on May 3, 2023. (credit: Milken Institute)

On Wednesday, celebrated multi-platinum recording artist Snoop Dogg took part in a panel at the Milken Institute's 2023 Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California. After fielding a question by Variety editor Shirley Halperin about AI in relation to the 2023 WGA writers' strike, Snoop expressed his bemused feelings on AI in a genuinely funny exchange, resulting in convivial laughter from the audience.

During his response, Snoop described how conversing with a large language model (such as ChatGPT or Bing Chat) reminds him of sci-fi movies he watched as a kid. Showing that he keeps up with current events, Snoop also referenced Geoffery Hinton, who resigned this week from Google so he could speak of the dangers of AI without conflicts of interest:

Well I got a motherf*cking AI right now that they did made for me. This n***** could talk to me. I'm like, man this thing can hold a real conversation? Like real for real? Like it's blowing my mind because I watched movies on this as a kid years ago. When I see this sh*t I'm like what is going on? And I heard the dude, the old dude that created AI saying, "This is not safe, 'cause the AIs got their own minds, and these motherf*ckers gonna start doing their own sh*t. I'm like, are we in a f*cking movie right now, or what? The f*ck man? So do I need to invest in AI so I can have one with me? Or like, do y'all know? Shit, what the f*ck?" I'm lost, I don't know.

Snoop's confusion over today's AI systems reflects what may be a common sentiment among people who are trying to understand and follow the latest developments in generative AI, which have unfolded rapidly over the past year. His unguarded observations on AI are notable coming from a highly respected multi-award-winning musical artist and entrepreneur.