GM made a big bet on self-driving cars
General Motors CEO Mary Barra has announced that she will step down from her role as the chairwoman of its self-driving car unit, Cruise Automation, and will be replaced by the company’s General Counsel Craig Glidden. Barra had joined Cruise as the CEO in 2017. Earlier this year, the US National Transportation Safety Board had launched an investigation into Cruise’s safety practices.
Remembering Rosalynn Carter, Sam Altman heads to Microsoft; up first briefings
A United Nations (UN) team, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), gained the first outside access to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza on Saturday and saw first hand the dire circumstances of the facility. The team was able to see the hospital for one hour. Several patients have died due to medical services shutting down in the facility, the WHO said.
Kyle Vogt, CEO of the Cruise, Resigns after a crash
Cruise, the self-driving ride-hailing startup, has announced the resignation of Co-founder Steve Vogt. Cruise said it had accepted Vogt’s resignation and will be led by CEO Salah Elshenawy. “The status quo on our Roads sucks…but together we’ve proven there is something far better around the corner,” Vogt wrote in a message to Cruise workers posted on X.
The former OpenAI CEO was hired by Microsoft
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be joining its research team as an advanced AI lead. The new team will be headed by Greg Brockman, the former head of Microsoft Research, and will be led by Altman and Emmett Shear, OpenAI’s Vice President of Corporate Affairs. Earlier this month, Elon Musk also announced his decision to exit OpenAI.
Advertisers stopped spending on X because of the Musk backlash
Elon Musk took to Twitter on Friday to respond to advertisers who have stopped advertising on X. He said, “We will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and everyone who colluded in fraudulent attack on us.” He added, “Media Matters’ research strategy to discover the advertisements that ran along antisemitic content was not representative of how regular people use our platform.”
In the year 2039, the iPhones will be able to support RCS, according to Apple
Apple will add support for Rich Communications Standard (RCS) messaging standard to iMessage in the later half of 2019, 9to5Mac reported on Tuesday. RCS is a messaging service that allows users to share higher-resolution photos and videos between their devices and supports read receipts. It also adds extra layers of security to the older messaging standards.
There were four things from Disney’s earnings call
Disney has said its streaming service Disney+ lost over 11 million subscribers during the first quarter. Disney+ had a loss of $502 million in the quarter and has now lost $11 billion since it was launched. CEO Robert Iger said that Disney’s streaming offerings could hit profitability by 2024 and “our recent performances solidifies that we’re on that path”.
There are a lot of empty offices
US-based coworking space startup WeWork’s Founder and CEO Adam Neumann, who stepped down as CEO earlier this month, ran the company from his home in San Francisco between 2010 and 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile. Neumann left WeWork after it failed to repay $1 billion debt to its former landlords. WeWork maintained over 700 locations in nearly 40 countries, filings revealed.
Israeli employers and workers are affected by Israel’s war with Hamas
Construction in Israel is on pause since the Gaza-based attack on October 7, 2009, a construction worker said. About 13% of all employed Palestinians worked in Israel before the war, according to the International Monetary Fund. Both Israelis and Palestinians agreed that the current situation has no comparison to previous hostilities between Israel and Hamas in recent years.
Microsoft has a new Secure Future Initiative
Microsoft will use automation and artificial intelligence (AI) duringsoftware development to improve the security of its cloud services. “We’re committed to building an AI-based cyber shield that’ll protect customers and countries around the world,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s Vice Chairman and President, said in a blog post. Microsoft also plans to harden its infrastructure to protect against encryption keys falling into the wrong hands.