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Apple, Microsoft leave board seats in OpenAI

Microsoft and Apple have both dropped their observer board seats at OpenAI following regulatory pressure on Big Tech firms and their influence over artificial intelligence. Last week, Apple announced it would be taking a board seat after the AI pact that Apple and the ChatGPT-maker reached but now OpenAI confirmed that they will not have any observer board seats. Yesterday, it was announced that Microsoft would forgo its seat at the board of the AI firm. 

The Satya Nadella-led company has invested up to $13 billion in OpenAI and took a board role after the sudden firing of CEO Sam Altman last year. Altman was reinstated soon and Microsoft took the seat. But since regulatory bodies in the EU and the US have been scrutinising the company’s AI deals, they were forced to cave in. The company said that governance in OpenAI now seems to be under control so they wouldn’t need to be on the board anymore. Microsoft isn’t the only tech mammoth that is being investigated. Other deals including Amazon’s investment in Anthropic and Nvidia’s stronghold over the manufacturing AI chips are also under the spotlight.

Samsung launches Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6

Samsung has launched the new Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Flip 6 series phones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Samsung says it has optimised the processor especially for processing GenAI tasks and offers enhanced graphics with better performance. The phones come with enhanced armour aluminium and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on both sides and also has improved cooling systems. 

The devices have a 4,400mAh battery however the charger isn’t included in the box. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 has a 7.6-inch main screen with up to 2,600 nits of brightness, adaptive refresh rate from 1-120Hz. Using the same processor in both models, the Fold 6 has 12GB RAM and up to 1 TB storage while the Flip 6 has 12GB RAM and up to 512GB in storage. Both operate on One UI 6.1.1 based on Android 14 out of the box. Samsung has promised security updates for up to 7 years for both phones.

Apple issues two new spyware alerts in India

Apple has sent out two fresh Pegasus-like alerts again to atleast two people in India on Tuesday with a warning that they could be targets of a “mercenary” attack. These spyware attacks allow threat actors to go through targets’ personal devices, see messages, photos and listen in via their microphone and camera feeds in real time whenever they like. While the hardware manufacturer had said that these attacks were “state-backed” initially, they changed their statement earlier in April. 

Apple did not respond to the query. The alert did not specify the attack as state sponsored but it did give Pegasus as an example. Pegasus was developed by the Israel-based NSO Group technologies and sold just to governments. Iltija Mufti, political adviser to former J&M chief minister Mehbooba Mufti received the alert as did Pushparaj Deshpande, the founder of the Samruddha Bharat Foundation whose goal it says on their website is to “forge progressive coalitions.”