The week's developments in AI, quantum, and biotech, explained | 12.06.24

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This week Apple announced its all new ‘Apple Intelligence’, SpaceX successfully launched (and returned) their Starship Rocket and a new AI model has found the key for machines to understand emotions (spoiler, its mathematical psychology).

We cover this, plus the latest tools for coding, UI and watching TV…

— Charlie and the Research & Intelligence Team 

🚀You are now able to sign up for the super early bird offer (75% off) to the CogX AI Summit in London on October 7th here.

Innovation and Releases

🧠 Apple partners with OpenAI for new AI system: CEO Tim Cook just announced "Apple Intelligence," integrating ChatGPT into Apple devices. It improves Siri and personalised navigation features, with on-device processing to ensure user privacy.

👓 Eyebot raises $6M for AI vision exams: Their self-serve kiosks provide 90-second vision exams, without an optometrist, using computer vision, the results are confirmed by a teledoctor 24 hours later. Exams cost $30 but are free with partner purchases.

🚀 SpaceX launches and returns Starship rocket: SpaceX achieved a major milestone by successfully launching and recovering both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage. This marks a key step toward making Starship the first fully reusable rocket. 

🔬 Prolific Machines raises $55M for lab-grown proteins: Their bioreactor uses light to grow cells for food and medicine. Using light is cheaper, more controllable and consistent, and optimises cell growth for high-value bioproducts like natural proteins and antibodies.

AI Tools of the Week

📺 Create your own TV show: Showrunner lets you generate animated episodes with AI from text prompts, you can control dialogue, characters and shot types. 

💻 Streamline your UI: CodeParrot converts Figma designs or screenshots into production-ready frontend code, easy to integrate into VS Code. 

🧑‍💻 Your codebase virtual assistant: GitLoop enhances developer efficiency with features like natural language search, easy navigation, bug detection, and documentation generation.

Latest Research

🤖 Robotic device restores digestive function: Researchers have developed a wirelessly activated device that mimics the wavelike muscular function in the oesophagus and small intestine, aiding patients with compromised organs to help transport food and fluids.

🧠 New model lets computers understand emotions, using mathematical psychology. This advancement could make AI systems more intuitive, predicting and adapting to user feelings, thereby improving interactions and reducing frustration. 

🔬 The thinnest lens on Earth, enabled by excitons: Physicists Have created a flat lens only three atoms thick. The lens focuses light via diffraction, instead of refraction, and has huge potential for augmented reality glasses, by allowing undisturbed views.

💡 Towards a Personal Health LLM: Researchers at Google have developed a version of Gemini fine-tuned to interpret and provide recommendations based on personal health data from wearables. It shows promise in sleep recommendations and fitness coaching.

In case you missed it

‘Everything is going to be robotic’ — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang details the future of automation. 

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🚀 You are now able to sign up for the super early bird offer (75% off) to the CogX AI Summit in London on October 7th here.