Tag Archives: Finance

OpenAI’s revenue is reportedly booming

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We don’t know if OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is actually making any money so far. But thanks to a Wednesday report in The Information, what we do know is that the company doubled its annualized revenue — a measure of the previous month’s revenue multiplied by 12, as the publication helpfully explained — in the last six months.

OpenAI’s annualized revenue was $3.4 billion, CEO Sam Altman reportedly told staff. That’s up from $1.6 billion around the end of last year, and $1 billion a year ago. Most of this revenue came from a subscription version of ChatGPT, which offers higher messaging limits to people who pay at least $20 a month, as well as from developers who pay the company to use the company’s large language models in their own apps and services. About $200 million on an annualized basis comes from Microsoft, which gives OpenAI a cut of sales of OpenAI’s large language models to customers using Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform aimed at businesses.

Notably, an OpenAI spokesperson told The Information that the financials were "inaccurate" but did not explain which details it disputed. OpenAI did not immediately respond to Engadget's request for comment.

Earlier this week, Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI. The company plans to hook ChatGPT right into its operating systems for iPhones, iPads, and Macs, letting Siri reach out to ChatGPT to answer questions. The financial terms of that deal, however, are still unknown.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openais-revenue-is-reportedly-booming-230324957.html?src=rss

Jabra says it’s exiting the consumer headphones business just as it announces new earbuds

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Jabra is exiting the consumer earbuds business. The move is shocking, as Jabra's parent company made the announcement at the same time it unveiled new models of its Elite earbuds. Peter Karlstromer, CEO of parent company GN, said the decision is “part of our commitment to focus on attractive markets where we can deliver profitable growth and strong returns.”

The company will discontinue the Jabra Elite (consumer earbuds) and Talk (mono Bluetooth) product lines. In late 2023, it pivoted the Elite line towards the premium segment in a move designed to compete with industry heavyweights Apple, Sony and Bose. However, the company lamented that its target markets “have changed over time.” Its current assessment is that “we cannot generate a fair return on investment compared to the many other opportunities we have within our Hearing, Enterprise, and Gaming businesses.”

Jabra will reduce the inventory of the to-be-discontinued products, and it expects to complete the wind-down by the end of the year. However, GN says it will service and support its devices “for several years.”

Although a bit farther under the radar than obvious competitors like AirPods, Jabra made some high-quality audio gear. Engadget’s audio expert Billy Steele called the 2021 Jabra Elite 3 “the new standard for affordable wireless earbuds,” as the company struck an alluring balance between quality and value.

Now, who’s pumped for the new Jabra Elite 10 and Elite 8 Active earbuds coming later this month?

Update, June 12 2024, 1:15PM ET: This story and headline have been updated to note that Jabra's parent company made the announcement it was exiting the headphone business the same day it released new earbuds, not the day after.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/jabra-says-its-exiting-the-consumer-headphones-business-a-day-after-launching-new-earbuds-164518215.html?src=rss

General Motors revives its robotaxi service Cruise in Houston, with human drivers

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Cruise, General Motors’ beleaguered driverless taxi service, announced Tuesday that it will start testing again around Houston. Cruise announced that they would start with human taxi drivers behind the wheels of its cars before moving to “supervised autonomous driving with a safety driver behind the wheel in the coming weeks.”

The announcement from Cruise landed around the same time that General Motors’ chief financial officer Paul Jacobson announced at Deutsche Bank’s Global Auto Industry Conference in New York City that the carmaker would inject another $850 million into the robotaxi company to cover operational costs.

Cruise has been nothing but a huge money pit for GM. Last year, the company plugged the plug on its driverless taxis when one of its cars in its San Francisco fleet hit a pedestrian who was hurled into the driverless taxi’s path by another vehicle and dragged them approximately 20 feet after getting pinned under its tire. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspended the company’s permits less than a month later. Cruise laid off nearly a quarter of its workforce and dismissed nine of its executives including the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Kyle Vogy following an investigation into the accident.

Since then, Cruise has slowly but surely started showing new signs of life. In April, the company announced it would start redeploying its services in Phoenix. Just as in Houston, Cruise’s cars will still be monitored and operated by humans. The autonomous taxi company also plans to expand its services to other cities by engaging “with officials and community leaders,” according to the company’s blog,but gave no timeline on when an extension might happen.

Update June 11, 5:45PM ET: This article was updated after publishing to clarify that Cruise's return to Houston is currently limited to testing, rather than picking up fares.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general-motors-revives-its-robotaxi-service-cruise-in-houston-with-human-drivers-205002639.html?src=rss

OpenAI’s board allegedly learned about ChatGPT launch on Twitter

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Helen Toner, one of OpenAI’s former board members who was responsible for firing CEO Sam Altman last year, revealed that the company’s board didn’t know about the launch of ChatGPT until it was released in November 2022. “[The] board was not informed in advance of that,” Toner said on Tuesday on a podcast called The Ted AI Show. “We learned about ChatGPT on Twitter.”

Toner’s comments came just two days after she criticized the way OpenAI was governed in an Economist piece that she co-wrote with Tasha McCauley, another former OpenAI board member. This is the first time that Toner has spoken openly about the circumstances that led to Altman’s dramatic ouster from the company he co-founded in 2015, and his quick reinstatement following protests from employees.

In the podcast, Toner, who is current a director of strategy at the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown, said that Altman had made it hard for OpenAI’s board to do its job by withholding information, misrepresenting things, and, “in some cases outright lying to the board.” She added that Altman also hid the company’s ownership structure from the board. “Sam didn’t inform the board that he owned the OpenAI startup fund, even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company,” Toner said. Altman’s actions “really damaged our ability to trust him,” she said, and by October 2023, the board was “already talking pretty seriously about whether we needed to fire him.”

She criticized Altman’s leadership on safety concerns around AI, saying that he often gave the board inaccurate information on the company’s safety processes, “meaning that it was basically impossible for the board to know how well those safety processes were working or what might need to change.”

When asked for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson referred Engadget to the statement the company provided to The TED AI Show. “We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues,” Bret Taylor, OpenAI’s current board chief and co-CEO of Salesforce told the podcast. An independent review of Altman’s firing, he added, “concluded that the prior board’s decision was not based on concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI’s finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners.”

The exact reasons for Altman’s abrupt ouster last year were still unclear and have been a source of intense speculation in Silicon Valley. In March, Altman was reinstated to the board by a group of temporary board members which included Taylor, economist Larry Summers, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Instacart CEO and former Meta executive Fiji Simo, former Sony executive Nicole Seligman, and former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann. In an independent investigation, law firm WilmerHale found that Toner’s decision to fire Altman along with the rest of OpenAI’s previous Board “was a consequence of a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust between the prior Board and Mr. Altman.” WilmerHale also found that OpenAI’s previous board had fired Altman “abruptly” and without giving him a chance to respond to its concerns.

Toner’s revelations are the latest controversy that OpenAI, company that sparked off the modern AI revolution, has been involved in. Over the last few days, multiple safety researchers left the company, publicly criticizing its leadership on their way out. OpenAI also backtracked on non-disparagement agreements it had required departing employees to sign after a Vox investigation, and forced to explain itself after actor Scarlet Johansson accused the company of copying her voice for ChatGPT despite denying permission.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openais-board-allegedly-learned-about-chatgpt-launch-on-twitter-235643014.html?src=rss

OpenAI’s board allegedly learned about ChatGPT launch on Twitter

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Helen Toner, one of OpenAI’s former board members who was responsible for firing CEO Sam Altman last year, revealed that the company’s board didn’t know about the launch of ChatGPT until it was released in November 2022. “[The] board was not informed in advance of that,” Toner said on Tuesday on a podcast called The Ted AI Show. “We learned about ChatGPT on Twitter.”

Toner’s comments came just two days after she criticized the way OpenAI was governed in an Economist piece that she co-wrote with Tasha McCauley, another former OpenAI board member. This is the first time that Toner has spoken openly about the circumstances that led to Altman’s dramatic ouster from the company he co-founded in 2015, and his quick reinstatement following protests from employees.

In the podcast, Toner, who is current a director of strategy at the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown, said that Altman had made it hard for OpenAI’s board to do its job by withholding information, misrepresenting things, and, “in some cases outright lying to the board.” She added that Altman also hid the company’s ownership structure from the board. “Sam didn’t inform the board that he owned the OpenAI startup fund, even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company,” Toner said. Altman’s actions “really damaged our ability to trust him,” she said, and by October 2023, the board was “already talking pretty seriously about whether we needed to fire him.”

She criticized Altman’s leadership on safety concerns around AI, saying that he often gave the board inaccurate information on the company’s safety processes, “meaning that it was basically impossible for the board to know how well those safety processes were working or what might need to change.”

When asked for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson referred Engadget to the statement the company provided to The TED AI Show. “We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues,” Bret Taylor, OpenAI’s current board chief and co-CEO of Salesforce told the podcast. An independent review of Altman’s firing, he added, “concluded that the prior board’s decision was not based on concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI’s finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners.”

The exact reasons for Altman’s abrupt ouster last year were still unclear and have been a source of intense speculation in Silicon Valley. In March, Altman was reinstated to the board by a group of temporary board members which included Taylor, economist Larry Summers, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Instacart CEO and former Meta executive Fiji Simo, former Sony executive Nicole Seligman, and former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann. In an independent investigation, law firm WilmerHale found that Toner’s decision to fire Altman along with the rest of OpenAI’s previous Board “was a consequence of a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust between the prior Board and Mr. Altman.” WilmerHale also found that OpenAI’s previous board had fired Altman “abruptly” and without giving him a chance to respond to its concerns.

Toner’s revelations are the latest controversy that OpenAI, company that sparked off the modern AI revolution, has been involved in. Over the last few days, multiple safety researchers left the company, publicly criticizing its leadership on their way out. OpenAI also backtracked on non-disparagement agreements it had required departing employees to sign after a Vox investigation, and forced to explain itself after actor Scarlet Johansson accused the company of copying her voice for ChatGPT despite denying permission.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openais-board-allegedly-learned-about-chatgpt-launch-on-twitter-235643014.html?src=rss

T-Mobile to acquire majority of US Cellular, further consolidating carrier market

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T-Mobile will acquire the majority of US Cellular in a deal worth approximately $4.4 billion. This means that T-Mobile will own all of US Cellular’s stores, some of its spectrum assets and some of its customers. The deal includes a combination of cash and up to $2 billion of assumed debt, according to a press release by US Cellular. The companies expect to finalize the purchase by mid-2025, though the deal must attain regulatory approval.

All told, T-Mobile will walk away with around 30 percent of US Cellular’s wireless spectrum, which it hopes to use to improve coverage in rural areas and offer better connectivity to current US Cellular customers throughout the country. Current customers will be able to keep their plans or switch to a similar T-Mobile contract.

US Cellular will retain 70 percent of its wireless spectrum and towers. Additionally, it will lease space on around 2,100 additional towers to T-Mobile. "The decisions we announced today are in the best interests of our customers and our shareholders. T-Mobile is the right partner for our wireless operations," said Laurent Therivel, CEO of US Cellular.

This is just the latest consolidation move by T-Mobile. The company recently acquired the Ryan Reynolds-backed Mint Mobile, via the purchase of parent company Ka'ena Corporation for around $1.35 billion. T-Mobile also merged with Sprint back in 2020. It’s basically Pac-Man, but instead of dots it hoovers up smaller cellular carriers.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that T-Mobile had teamed up with frenemy Verizon to “carve up” US Cellular’s wireless spectrum, but it looks like that deal has either fallen through or will be significantly delayed.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/t-mobile-to-acquire-majority-of-us-cellular-further-consolidating-carrier-market-152212548.html?src=rss

T-Mobile to acquire majority of US Cellular, further consolidating carrier market

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T-Mobile will acquire the majority of US Cellular in a deal worth approximately $4.4 billion. This means that T-Mobile will own all of US Cellular’s stores, some of its spectrum assets and some of its customers. The deal includes a combination of cash and up to $2 billion of assumed debt, according to a press release by US Cellular. The companies expect to finalize the purchase by mid-2025, though the deal must attain regulatory approval.

All told, T-Mobile will walk away with around 30 percent of US Cellular’s wireless spectrum, which it hopes to use to improve coverage in rural areas and offer better connectivity to current US Cellular customers throughout the country. Current customers will be able to keep their plans or switch to a similar T-Mobile contract.

US Cellular will retain 70 percent of its wireless spectrum and towers. Additionally, it will lease space on around 2,100 additional towers to T-Mobile. "The decisions we announced today are in the best interests of our customers and our shareholders. T-Mobile is the right partner for our wireless operations," said Laurent Therivel, CEO of US Cellular.

This is just the latest consolidation move by T-Mobile. The company recently acquired the Ryan Reynolds-backed Mint Mobile, via the purchase of parent company Ka'ena Corporation for around $1.35 billion. T-Mobile also merged with Sprint back in 2020. It’s basically Pac-Man, but instead of dots it hoovers up smaller cellular carriers.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that T-Mobile had teamed up with frenemy Verizon to “carve up” US Cellular’s wireless spectrum, but it looks like that deal has either fallen through or will be significantly delayed.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/t-mobile-to-acquire-majority-of-us-cellular-further-consolidating-carrier-market-152212548.html?src=rss

The UK passes its version of the EU’s Digital Markets Act

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The UK has passed a bill that's the country's version of the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA). Legislators fast-tracked the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Bill before parliament dissolves on May 30 ahead of a general election in July.

The overarching aim of the DMCC, which is set to become law once it receives Royal Assent, is to “regulate and increase competition in digital markets.” It will come into force later this year.

The bill is broadly similar to the DMA, which led to the EU designating several large tech companies' services and products as "gatekeepers" and imposing stricter rules on them. The DMCC grants the Digital Markets Unit (DMU), a division of the Competition and Markets Authority, the authority to label companies with “substantial and entrenched market power” and “a position of strategic significance” as having Strategic Market Status (SMS).

Among other things, SMS companies will have to adhere to codes of conduct as determined by the DMU. Those will be based on the foundations of fair trading, openness and trust and transparency. The DMU has a broad canvas for defining the conduct requirements for each business. If a company breaches its code of conduct, it faces a fine of up to 10 percent of its global revenue.

There have been suggestions that the likes of Meta and Google may be forced to pay UK news publishers for using their work in the likes of Google News (and perhaps even for AI products). Others have suggested that Apple may be required to allow sideloading and third-party app stores on iOS, as in the EU. Companies may also be prohibited from prioritizing their own products and services in search results. However, the specific requirements for each SMS haven't been detailed yet. 

The DMCC also has implications for things like subscriptions, junk fees, fake reviews, ticket resales, mergers, antitrust and consumer protection. For the first time, the CMA will have the power to impose a hefty fine if it determines a company has violated a consumer law — and it won't have to go through courts to do so. 

There's already been at least one tangible consequence of the DMCC. Epic Games has pledged to bring its store and Fortnite to iOS in the UK in the latter half of 2025. The publisher previously said it would bring the Epic Games Store to mobile devices in the EU later this year after the DMA came into force.

Update 5/24 4:20PM ET: Added details about Epic Games' plan to bring its store and Fortnite to iOS in the UK.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-uk-passes-its-version-of-the-eus-digital-markets-act-175642166.html?src=rss

OpenAI will reportedly pay $250 million to put News Corp’s journalism in ChatGPT

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OpenAI and News Corp, the owner of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, The Sun, and more than a dozen other publishing brands, have struck a multi-year deal to display news from these publications in ChatGPT, News Corp announced on Wednesday. OpenAI will be able to access both current and well as archived content from News Corp’s publications and use the data to further train its AI models. Neither company disclosed the terms of the deal, but a report in The Wall Street Journal estimated that News Corp would get $250 million over five years in cash and credits.

“The pact acknowledges that there is a premium for premium journalism,” News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson reportedly said in a memo to employees on Wednesday. “The digital age has been characterized by the dominance of distributors, often at the expense of creators, and many media companies have been swept away by a remorseless technological tide. The onus is now on us to make the most of this providential opportunity.”

Generative AI has exploded in popularity ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT at the end of 2022. But the quality of the responses provided by AI-powered chatbots is only as good as the data that is used to train the models that power it. So far, AI companies have trained their models by scraping publicly available data from the internet often without the consent of creators. But in recent times, they have been striking financial deals with the news industry to make sure that AI models can be trained on information that is current and authoritative. Over the last few months alone, OpenAI has announced partnerships with Reddit, the Financial Times, Dotdash Meredith, the Associated Press, German publisher Axel Springer, which owns Politico and Business Insider in the US and Bild and Die Welt in Germany, and Spain’s Prisa Media. Last month, News Corp also struck a deal reportedly between $5 and $6 million with Google to train its AI models, according to a report in The Information.

Google and OpenAI aren’t the only companies striking these deals to train their AI models. Hours before the News Corp announcement, Business Insider reported that Meta, which recently stuffed its own AI chatbot into Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, and also sells AI-powered sunglasses, was thinking about striking its own deals with news publishers to get access to training data.

Money from AI companies is increasingly a growing revenue source for a struggling news industry. But some publishers are still wary of striking these deals. The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft over using content for training AI systems. And the NYT, the BBC and The Verge have blocked OpenAI from scraping their websites.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-will-reportedly-pay-250-million-to-put-news-corps-journalism-in-chatgpt-214615249.html?src=rss

Grand Theft Auto 6 will arrive in fall 2025

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Grand Theft Auto VI’s return to Vice City is officially scheduled for fall 2025. On Thursday, parent company Take-Two Interactive wrote in its Q4 2024 earnings report that it’s narrowed GTA 6’s previously announced 2025 window to autumn of next year.

“Our outlook reflects a narrowing of Rockstar Games’ previously established window of Calendar 2025 to Fall of Calendar 2025 for Grand Theft Auto VI,” Take-Two Chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick wrote in the earnings report. “We are highly confident that Rockstar Games will deliver an unparalleled entertainment experience, and our expectations for the commercial impact of the title continue to increase.”

The sixth mainline installment in the open-world series will be set in Leonida (Rockstar’s Florida equivalent), focused mostly on Vice City (Miami). The game appears to have a contemporary setting, as opposed to the charming '80s cheese from 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. You can catch a glimpse of protagonists Jason and Lucia in the trailer below.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/grand-theft-auto-6-will-arrive-in-fall-2025-205513138.html?src=rss