There was a time when certain shops would resemble nightclubs at about midnight: a long queue of excitable people, some of them perhaps too young to be out that late, discussing the excitement that awaits inside. The sight of throngs of gamers looking to get their hands on the latest hardware when the clock strikes 12 is growing increasingly rare. But if you happen to walk by a Smyths toy shop at midnight on 4 June, you may encounter a blast from the past: excitable people, most in their teens or 20s, possibly discussing Mario Kart. They will be waiting to buy the Nintendo Switch 2, the first major games console launch since 2020 and potentially the biggest of all time. What's particularly notable about this launch isn't the queues but just how few there will be.

Panos Panay has a Diet Coke problem. It's a topic that quickly came up when I walked into the small interview room, after he offered me a choice of beverages and I said my partner has a similar addiction. After a quick conversation on the advantages of drinking plain water over diet colas, I knew his wife, like me, advocates for less soda, but I still knew nothing of how much the man actually consumed a day. It was Panay's first launch event with members of the media since he left Microsoft last year to lead Amazon's devices and services team. And the instant I walked into the event space at The Shed in New York, I thought "this feels like a Panos event."

If tech news is feeling a little repeaty, with new phones and gadgets arriving in a seemingly endless stream over the last few weeks, know that it's not Groundhog Day. But it is almost time for yet another Apple event where new hardware will show up. At an event at its company headquarters next week, Apple will unveil the iPhone 16, as well as the next Apple Watch and (most likely) some AirPods. But like most tech events these days, much of the presentation is likely to revolve around artificial intelligence. The promotional image for next Monday's event is an Apple logo wrapped in a colorful glow with all the shades commonly used for Siri, Apple's digital assistant.

The pathway leading into Rabbit's venue--for the launch event of the R1, an artificial intelligence-powered device announced at CES 2024--was paved with gadgets from the past. First was the orange JVC Videosphere, then the Sony Walkman, a Tamagotchi, a transparent GameBoy Color, heck, even the original Pokédex toy from 1998. At the very end of the hall was Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operator, and across from it, a few concept prototypes of the Rabbit R1. If the Pocket Operator stands out, seeing as it's barely a decade old, that's because the Swedish design-firm Teenage Engineering helped design the R1. And at the launch event, CEO Jesse Lyu announced on stage that Jesper Kouthoofd, founder of Teenage Engineering, has joined Rabbit as its chief design officer (while still maintaining his role as CEO of TE).

Young people catch heat for being overly focused on personal identity, but they've got nothing on ChatGPT. Toy with the bot long enough, and you'll notice that it has an awkward, self-regarding tic: "As an AI language model," it often says, before getting to the heart of the matter. This tendency is especially pronounced when you query ChatGPT about its own strengths and weaknesses. "As an AI language model, my primary function is …" The workings of AI language models are by nature mysterious, but one can guess why ChatGPT responds this way. The bot smashes our questions into pieces and evaluates each for significance, looking for the crucial first bit that shapes the logical order of its response.

Remember Tay? That's what I immediately fixed upon when Microsoft's new Bing started spouting racist terms in front of my fifth-grader. I have two sons, and both of them are familiar with ChatGPT, OpenAI's AI-powered tool. When Bing launched its own AI-powered search engine and chatbot this week, my first thought upon returning home was to show them how it worked, and how it compared with a tool that they had seen before. As it happened, my youngest son was home sick, so he was the first person I began showing Bing to when he walked in my office. I started giving him a tour of the interface, as I had done in my hands-on with the new Bing, but with an emphasis on how Bing explains things at length, how it uses footnotes, and, most of all, includes safeguards to prevent users from tricking it into using hateful language like Tay had done.

Let's honor the top European female entrepreneurs in AI: the pioneers who are taking the road less traveled; the women who are paving the way for others to reach even further and to dare to dream even bigger. The use of Artificial Intelligence technologies will expand across industries and entire societies, becoming a basic part of everyday life in the years to come. The lack of gender diversity that already impacts the tech industry in many other domains can be reduced if diversity amongst entrepreneurs is promoted. Therefore, this prize aims to have a positive influence on the future of current and upcoming professionals by encouraging profile equity. The purpose of this prize is to inspire women to take part in AI-related career paths, providing a platform to talents who have launched startups whose products are based on these technologies. For the second year, Women In AI and Capgemini join forces to launch this award, in order to support women as essential stakeholders in the development of emerging technologies, from data scientists to business leaders.

RIYADH: Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to contribute an estimated SR500 billion ($133 billion) to the Kingdom's gross domestic product by 2030, according to the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA). The SDAIA was launched last August by royal decree and is responsible for overseeing the country's data and AI strategy through the National Data Management Office, the National Information Center, and the National Center for Artificial Intelligence. The SDAIA said the value of Saudi Arabia's data and AI economy was currently estimated at between SR15 - 20 billion, and that there was an opportunity to generate additional revenues and savings of over SR40 billion by harnessing data insights to help guide government decisions. "We have witnessed firsthand the early impact of AI and data-driven initiatives and their potential to propel Saudi Arabia's future economy, but we are still in the early stages with several untapped opportunities available," Dr. Abdullah bin Sharaf Al-Ghamdi, president of the SDAIA, said at a launch event for the authority's new logo. The SDAIA seeks to place the Kingdom among the world's leading economies by adopting AI.

The idea has appeared in my head during a talk given by an Artificial Intelligence expert, Alejandro Saucedo, at my university. It felt really exciting: there was a huge amount of students interested in AI and there was no study group like that at my Uni. What I was waiting for then? That was the beginning of the story of how creating a study group boosted my knowledge about AI and helped me in getting a summer internship in Machine Learning. I have never suspected that it will have such a big impact on me and on students who joined the group.

Apple's AirPods have been staggeringly successful. Although at first some found them strange-looking or were convinced they would fall out of their ears, they quickly became the in-ear wireless headphone to aspire to. Rarely in the two years and three months since launch has demand eased off. As a result, the look has gone from curious to acceptable to – dare I say it – iconic. Now, the second-generation AirPods have been announced, I talked to Greg Joswiak, Apple's Vice President of Product Marketing and Kate Bergeron, Vice President of Hardware Engineering about the new arrivals.