Month: November 2023

Enlarge / The Amazon Q logo. (credit: Amazon)

On Tuesday, Amazon unveiled Amazon Q, an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT that is tailored for corporate environments. Developed by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Q is designed to assist employees with tasks like summarizing documents, managing internal support tickets, and providing policy guidance, differentiating itself from consumer-focused chatbots. It also serves as a programming assistant.

According to The New York Times, the name "Q" is a play on the word “question" and a reference to the character Q in the James Bond novels, who makes helpful tools. (And there's apparently a little bit of Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation thrown in, although hopefully the new bot won't cause mischief on that scale.)

Amazon Q's launch positions it against existing corporate AI tools like Microsoft's Copilot, Google's Duet AI, and ChatGPT Enterprise. Unlike some of its competitors, Amazon Q isn't built on a singular AI large language model (LLM). Instead, it uses a platform called Bedrock, integrating multiple AI systems, including Amazon's Titan and models from Anthropic and Meta.

Enlarge / Kaboom! (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Game engine-maker Unity has announced plans to lay off 265 workers—or just under 4% of its roughly 7,000-person workforce—as it winds down a partnership with special-effects house Weta Digital and refocuses on its core gaming business.

Unity spent a cool $1.625 billion in cash and stock to purchase the tech division of the Peter Jackson-led Weta Digital just over two years ago, taking in 275 company engineers in the process. The vast majority of those engineers are now being let go as Unity has "terminated its obligations to provide certain services to Weta FX and also amended certain intellectual property rights between the parties," according to a recent SEC filing and Reuters reporting.

The Weta Digital acquisition came as game engines like Unity and Unreal were increasingly being embraced by Hollywood studios as the basis for their digital-effects work. The deal was also part of an expensive wave of corporate acquisitions Unity undertook after its late 2020 IPO. That buying spree included cloud gaming-service Parsec, mobile ad giant Ironsource, and 3D collaboration company SyncSketch, to name just a few.

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

Apple has repeatedly trumpeted the success of its financial services, a product lineup that now encompasses the Apple Card credit card, high-interest savings accounts, and a buy-now-pay-later service called Apple Pay Later.

But even if those products have proven reasonably popular with consumers, they haven’t been working out for the bank that Apple has partnered with to supply those services. Goldman Sachs’ consumer services have been losing the company billions of dollars, according to reporting from Bloomberg, CNBC, and The New York Times, among others. These losses have been driven in part by a much higher-than-usual loss rate on its credit card loans—meaning that people with Goldman-backed credit cards like the Apple Card are actually making their payments less often than people with credit cards from other banks.

Today, The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has sent Goldman Sachs a proposal that will end their partnership within the next 12 to 15 months, leaving Apple to find a new backer for its financial products.

Enlarge / Democratic Senators Joe Manchin (L) and Debbie Stabenow (R) don't exactly see eye to eye on the auto industry's transition to electric vehicles. (credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The new and somewhat-complicated rules governing which cars do or don't qualify for the new clean vehicle tax credit look like they might get tweaked a little in the near future.

Before, the tax credit was linked to the battery-storage capacity of a plug-in hybrid or battery-electric vehicle. But the Inflation Reduction Act changed that—now a range of conditions must be met, including final assembly in North America and an annually increasing percentage of locally sourced minerals and components within that battery pack.

On the one hand, the domestic sourcing requirements are beneficial because they are stimulating the development of local battery mineral refining and manufacturing here in the United States, adding well-paying jobs in the process. But the new rules have also significantly reduced the number of EVs that qualify.