Ive led the designs of the original iMac, the iPad, and the Apple Watch, among other era-defining products. Then, in 2019, he left Apple to start his own design firm called LoveFrom. The news of his move to OpenAI felt something like learning that LeBron James was joining the Miami Heat: Ive had become synonymous with Apple's success, perhaps second only to Jobs. Now, after a period of independence, he was choosing a new team. The announcement of the deal with OpenAI--for a reported 6.5 billion in OpenAI equity--came via a press release, featuring a rather cuddly portrait of Ive with OpenAI's C.E.O. and co-founder, Sam Altman (shot by the British fashion photographer Craig McDean) and a faux-casual videotaped interview session between the two at San Francisco's Cafe Zoetrope. In it, Altman describes "a family of devices that would let people use A.I. to create all sorts of wonderful things," enabled by "magic intelligence in the cloud."

Software tools can help you determine the origin of an image, but context is still key

Wayne Snitzky was 18 years old when he was sentenced to prison for murdering a girl four years his junior. It was 1995, beepers were the height of personal technology, and the most sophisticated video game he had played was "Leisure Suit Larry," a 2D adult-themed computer game that followed the sexual exploits of the sleazy main character. During the 23 years he has been locked up in Ohio's Marion Correctional Institute, Snitzky has been on the periphery of technology's rapid evolution. While he was able to maintain some of his computer skills through a work program with a nonprofit, where he now teaches other inmates basic tech skills such as composing emails and using a word processor, Snitzky's access to communication was limited. But in the early 2000s, inmates at Marion got their first taste of email--though a far different version than the one most users know.

A few weeks ago, I attempted to sit through Samsung's live-streamed Galaxy S9 smartphone launch event. I nearly fell asleep at my desk. Or the relocated fingerprint sensor, which is exactly what it sounds like. I realize this is a first-world problem, but in the 11 years since the release of the iPhone, advances in personal technology have gone from breakthrough to, well, pretty broke. What--and where--is the next revolutionary product, the thing that rewrites the rules and alters our lives forever?

Could robots change the way we think? While that might seem the stuff of dark science fiction, New Zealand artificial intelligence (AI) experts say there's real fear that computer algorithms could hijack our language, and ultimately influence our views on products or politics. "I would compare the situation with the subliminal advertising that was outlawed in the 1970s," said Associate Professor Christoph Bartneck, of Canterbury University's Human Interface Technology Laboratory, or HIT Lab. "We are in a danger of repeating the exact same issue with the use of our language." Bartneck has been working in the area with colleague Jurgen Brandstetter and other experts at the New Zealand Institute of Language Brain and Behaviour and Northwestern University in the United States.

Could robots change the way we think? While that might seem the stuff of dark science fiction, New Zealand artificial intelligence (AI) experts say there's real fear that computer algoritms could hijack our language, and ultimately influence our views on products or politics. "I would compare the situation with the subliminal advertising that was outlawed in the 1970s," said Associate Professor Christoph Bartneck, of Canterbury University's Human Interface Technology Laboratory, or HIT Lab. "We are in a danger of repeated the exact same issue with the use of our language." Bartneck has been working in the area with colleague Jurgen Brandstetter and other experts at the New Zealand Institute of Language Brain and Behaviour and Northwestern University in the US.