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Apple's 'Ferret' is a new open-source machine learning model

Plus: Quantum Computing’s Hard, Cold Reality Check

Author

Cash Nut
December 26, 2023

In Today’s Edition 

  • Humane’s AI Pin will start shipping in March 

  • The roadmap to Product/Market Fit… maybe 

  • New draft rules targeting in-game spending wipe billions from China’s tech giants

  • Universal banks on 'Migration' to expand its animation lead over Disney

  • Self-Checkout Haters -- and Retailers -- Can Rejoice: A New Machine Rings Customers Up Automatically

  • Quantum Computing’s Hard, Cold Reality Check 

🚀Startups Nuts

Humane’s AI Pin will start shipping in March 

Humane will start shipping orders of its AI Pin device based on the date of purchase starting in Match. The AI Pin can respond to user queries using a range of AI services without forcing users to look at a screen. It features a projection system that can display things for users to interact with on their hands. Prices for the AI Pin start at $699 and it requires a $24 per month subscription for a phone number and cellular data.

This article presents the eight-step process that brought WP Engine from an idea to a Unicorn. It describes a formula for going from initial product to Product/Market Fit. The progression goes from personal fit to market fit, customer fit, building and shipping the SLC quickly, marketing and sales, retention-driven product development, prioritizing systematically, ruthlessly, and strategically, and managing your psychology. The roadmap isn't failsafe, but it is supported by many years of experience.

🏭Business Nuts 

China has revealed new regulations to restrict online spending in the gaming industry. The news sent shares of several Chinese tech giants falling, wiping billions off their collective value. Online games will be required to set spending limits and in-game measures that could induce high spending will be banned. In-game measures that could lead to trading of virtual goods at high prices and large tips to livestreamers will also be banned. China is currently cracking down on the online gaming industry to reverse what it sees as a growing trend of gaming addiction among young people.

Disney’s animation studios have struggled to generate box-office returns in the wake of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Universal’s Illumination and DreamWorks studios continue to deliver. Universal’s “Migration,” from its Illumination studio, arrives in theaters Friday. Forecasters predict a $25 million opening.

📱Tech Nuts

Researchers from Apple and Cornell University quietly released an open-source multimodal LLM in October. Ferret is a system that can refer and ground anything anywhere at any granularity in an image. The model can examine a region drawn on an image, determine the elements within it that are of use to a user in a query, identify the elements, draw a bounding box around the detected elements, and answer questions about the elements. Ferret's release shows that Apple is starting to be more open with its AI work.

Self-Checkout Haters -- and Retailers -- Can Rejoice: A New Machine Rings Customers Up Automatically

Uniqlo has developed a new self-checkout technology that uses RFID chips to transmit product details and prices when shoppers are in scanning range. Customers just have to drop off their goods into a basket and the checkout machine will list the goods prices on a screen that tells them what to pay. The process takes around 30 seconds and has been highly popular with customers. The technology has been deployed at several locations, including the chain's New York shop on Fifth Avenue.

🎁Miscellaneous

A small but vocal set of prominent skeptics in and around the emerging quantum computing industry say that the quantum computer revolution is still further off and more limited than many have been led to believe. Quantum computers have been touted as a solution to a wide range of problems and some of the more ambitious timelines have suggested that these machines could be impacting real-world problems in just a handful of years. However, there's growing pushback against these expectations as more is discovered about quantum computing.

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

😎Fun Fact

The term "bull market" originated from the way a bull attacks—lifting its horns upward, symbolizing a rising market

🔥 Hot Book of the Day

Throughout his thirty years of work as a mindset expert and leadership coach, Erwin Raphael McManus has been obsessed with these questions:

Why do some people succeed despite having all the odds stacked against them? How do others achieve the unthinkable, only to watch their lives slip away? Are there mental structures for failure and success?

McManus has come to realize that too many of us have “near-life” experiences. We almost pursue our dreams. We almost make the decision that changes everything. We are always one choice away.

If we want to live without regret, we need to make a mind shift—trading beliefs that limit our potential for ones that help us move toward optimal performance and pursue the success of being fully alive. We must move from a life of obligation to a life of intention.

In Mind Shift, McManus brings together twelve mental frameworks that have helped some of the most accomplished people on earth create internal structures of success.

“This book will transform the way you think, act, and live.”

🐦Joke of the Day

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