Apple Inc. has increased its offer to invest in Indonesia by almost tenfold, according to people familiar with the matter, in the US tech giant’s latest bid to persuade the government to lift its sales ban on the iPhone 16.
The proposal would see Cupertino-based Apple invest almost $100 million (roughly Rs. 844 crore) in Southeast Asia’s largest economy over two years, the people said, asking not to be identified because they’re not authorised to speak publicly. Apple’s previous investment plan of close to $10 million (roughly Rs. 84 lakh) would have involved the company investing in a factory making accessories and components in the city of Bandung, located southeast of Jakarta, Bloomberg News reported earlier.
After Apple submitted its increased offer, Indonesia’s Ministry of Industry, which last month blocked a permit allowing the sale of the iPhone 16, is now demanding that the technology behemoth alter its investment plans to focus more on research and development for its smartphones in the country, the people said. The Ministry of Industry hasn’t made a final decision on Apple’s newest proposal, they added.
Following Apple’s initial proposal, the ministry called for senior company executives to meet Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita. But after flying into Jakarta, Apple’s senior executives were told that the minister wasn’t available and so they had to meet with the ministry’s director-general instead.
Apple and the Ministry of Industry didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Apple’s new investment proposal came after the Ministry of Industry last month blocked sales of the iPhone 16 on the grounds the US company’s local unit hasn’t met a 40 percent domestic content requirement for smartphones and tablets.
According to the Indonesian government, Apple has only invested 1.5 trillion rupiah ($95 million or roughly Rs. 801 crore) in the nation via developer academies, falling short of a commitment of 1.7 trillion rupiah (roughly Rs. 907 crore). The Southeast Asian nation has also banned the sale of Alphabet Inc.’s Google Pixel phones because of a similar lack of investment.
Indonesia’s hardball tactics appear to be working, with the iPhone 16 ban becoming an example of the pressure new President Prabowo Subianto’s government is putting on international firms to increase local manufacturing as it seeks to boost domestic industries.
Indonesia also resorted to such tactics under the administration of former President Joko Widodo, who blocked ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok last year to shield its retail sector from cheap Chinese-made goods. This prompted the hugely popular video app to ultimately invest $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 12,660 crore) in a joint venture with Tokopedia, the e-commerce arm of Indonesia’s GoTo Group.
By offering to invest in the country, Apple is seeking to get unfettered access to Indonesia’s 278 million consumers, more than half of which are under the age of 44 and tech savvy.
But such strong-arm tactics by Indonesia risk frightening off other firms from scaling up their presence or establishing a footprint in the first place, particularly ones that are looking to decouple from China. It may also jeopardize Prabowo’s aim of attracting overseas investments to grow the economy and fund policy spending.
It’s unclear as to which companies Apple’s proposed investment might go. Apple typically backs assembly or components partners such as Foxconn in various countries, which in turn help produce or supply vital parts for its iPhones and iPads.
Dulquer Salmaan went to the Diljit Dosanjh concert in Hyderabad with friends.
Dulquer Salmaan at Diljit Dosanjh concert
Harmann posted a video on her Instagram, thanking Dulquer and Amal for taking her and their friends to the concert. She wrote, “Vibe!! Thank you chief and fav Mrs for this amazing experience @dqsalmaan. All my love to our best best crew.” Amal even left a comment under the video, writing, “you brought the vibe HK!!!!!!”
The video shows Harmann flaunting the numerous tickets they scored for Diljit’s concert – some at the Diamond Table, others at the MIP Lounge. She also posted clips of the singer performing on stage, apart from pictures clicked with Dulquer and Amal. She also posted clips of her and her friends dancing their hearts out.
Dulquer was recently seen in Venky Atluri’s Lucky Bhaskar. He will soon star in Kaantha and Aakasam Lo Oka Tara.
Diljit Dosanjh’s Hyderabad concert
Ahead of Diljit’s concert in Hyderabad, the Telangana government served him a notice, directing him not to sing any songs promoting alcohol, drugs or violence. The singer sang modified lyrics to his chartbusters Lemonade and 5 Taara, replacing the word ‘daaru’ with ‘Coke’ and ‘theke’ with ‘hotel’.
“If an artist comes from outside the country, they can sing or do whatever they want, there’s no tension. But when your artist is coming home to perform, you have a problem, you create trouble. But I’ll tell you something. God is with me, I won’t let this go,” said Diljit at the concert, according to PTI. Diljit will perform next in Lucknow, Pune, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Indore, Chandigarh, Mumbai and Guwahati.
Microsoft Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 are expected to launch with Arm chips in May, as the company continues its push to add new AI features to its operating system for desktop computers and laptops. The firm is said to be confident that its upcoming Surface laptops for consumers — expected to be equipped with Arm processors from Qualcomm, unlike their recently launched Intel counterparts — will be powerful enough to beat Apple’s powerful MacBook that runs on its latest 3nm Apple Silicon processor.
Citing sources familiar with the company’s plans, The Verge reports that Microsoft is planning to show off the capabilities of the Snapdragon X Elite chip that is expected to power the consumer versions of the company’s upcoming Surface laptop models at its upcoming event in May. The company is said to be confident that its laptops with Qualcomm’s Arm processor can beat Apple’s M3-powered MacBook Air in CPU and AI tasks.
In addition to the upcoming laptops’ performance, Microsoft is also said to be quite optimistic about the ability of Windows AI PCs to emulate x64 apps so that they can run on Arm computers. The company reportedly expects its x64 app emulator to offer better performance than Apple’s Rosetta 2 for Mac computers with M1, M2, and M3 series chips.
As per the report, this big gain in performance will also be accompanied by features that will be available on Windows on Arm devices. These laptops and computers will have features like the AI Explorer feature that uses the neural processing unit (NPU) on the Snapdragon chip to view a timeline and retrieve activity done on the computer over a period of time.
Windows on Arm laptops will also get access to other features that will be part of these AI PCs — this also applies to upcoming Arm computers, according to the report. These include the ability to create images using AI models, background blur tools using Windows Studio Effects, and personalised Copilot results based on data from the same computer.
Even streaming videos on Windows on Arm computers could son get better thanks to a new AI-powered feature that is reportedly being developed by Microsoft. We can expect to learn more about these laptops at the company’s next AI-centric event on May 20.
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Suriya and Siva’s recently released period action fantasy drama movie ‘Kanguva’ has now slowly opened Rs 70 crores and Rs 80 crores targets. Kanguva Movie Review
According to the Sacnilk website, ‘Kanguva’ has minted Rs 64.40 crores in 8 days and on 8th day the film has grossed Rs 2 crores from India as per the early estimates by the website.
Top Bollywood Headlines, November 13, 2024: Bollywood Faces Growing Death Threats; ‘Kanguva’ Receives Promising Reviews
‘Kanguva’ had an overall 12.91 percent Tamil occupancy on November 21, Thursday and the morning shows were recorded at 9.96 percent, afternoon shows at 15.14 percent, evening shows at 10.40 percent, and night shows at 16.13 percent. The occupancy percentage for the 3D version for ‘Kanguva’ in Tamil stood at 12.61 percent with morning shows at 11.03 percent, afternoon shows at 13.15 percent, evening shows at 11.41 percent and night shows at 14.85 percent. Directed by Siva, ‘Kanguva’ hit the big screens on October 10 and the movie explores a mystical connection between a tribal warrior and a young kid in 1070 as they reconnect in the present year 2024. The movie is getting mixed reviews from the audiences who doesn’t seem to be satisfied with the story, performances and other factors which were promised in the trailer. Our review for ‘Kanguva’ reads, “Watching it in 3D also gives you the effect of being part of blood baths and sea waters splashing out of the screen. Props to the acting, you also get a few emotional sequences. But the grand visuals – Vetri Palanisamy captures the bright streets of Goa and the scenic visuals of the past world aesthetically – and impressive fights are all you get in Kanguva, as the story meanders a lot without a central focus. For instance, after announcing a war, Suriya is temporarily exiled from his village for a few reasons. And immediately, we get a song where Suriya and the little kid are reconnecting. Now, as previously said, the bond between them is central to the whole film. However, their sequences are inserted randomly in the film’s runtime, mostly as montages, so you don’t get the chance to emotionally connect with them.”
New Delhi, India – When Raghav Bikhchandani found out on social media that Gangs of Wasseypur, the acclaimed Indian blockbuster released in 2012, was all set to hit the theatres in New Delhi again, he knew he could not miss it this time and even alerted several film clubs and WhatsApp groups he was part of.
For the 27-year-old copy editor, getting to watch the two-part film felt like “finally being introduced to the most memed movie in Indian pop culture” as he found himself commuting for three hours on an August afternoon to a seedy theatre in the city’s Subhash Nagar neighbourhood to catch the movie on the big screen.
“I came into Hindi cinema much later in life, and I had missed out on seeing this on the big screen. When I was studying abroad in Chicago, even NRIs in my university would quote dialogues from this movie but I had never gotten a chance to see it. So I knew I couldn’t miss this opportunity,” he told Al Jazeera.
Based in a mining town in eastern India on a decades-long feud between rival gangs mainly dealing in coal, “the black diamond”, the Anurag Kashyap-directed duology attained popularity and critical acclaim following its full-house premier at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival in France.
With an inventive cast, sharp dialogues, pitch-black comedy and gritty setting, the five-hour epic crime and political drama cemented its status as one of the most memorable Indian films of the past decade.
Actress Reema Sen poses during a Gangs of Wasseypur success party in Mumbai [File: Strdel/AFP]
But it isn’t just Gangs of Wasseypur. Bollywood, India’s much-vaunted Hindi film industry based in Mumbai, as well as regional film studios spread across the world’s most populous nation, are witnessing an unprecedented surge in re-releases of films celebrated in the past, some going as far back as the 1960s.
Dozens of such films have hit theatres in many cities this year – far more than ever before – as the country’s nearly $200bn film industry looks to revive its fortunes after taking multiple hits in recent years.
In a country like India, which produces more films a year than Hollywood, cinema is essentially a mass medium, most enjoyed in the dark and dreamy confines of a film theatre showing its latest offering on a 70mm screen. But the coronavirus pandemic hurt Indian films – as it did with movies globally. Since 2022, theatres across the world have been struggling to get people back, a crisis compounded by the rise of online streaming and OTT platforms.
India reeled under two deadly COVID-19 waves in 2020 and 2021, forcing the closure of nearly 1,500 to 2,000 theatres – a majority of them single-screen cinemas, which could not stand up to the corporate franchise-driven multiplexes mostly seen in shopping malls mushrooming across the country.
Then there is the rising cost of making a full-length film. Stars, mainly men, are now paid an unprecedented fee, some amounting to nearly half of a film’s budget. Moreover, the expense of their entourage – makeup and publicity crew, vanity vans, hotels and travel – puts further financial strain on producers and studios. Recently, prominent producer and director Karan Johar told journalists the star fees in Bollywood were “not in touch with reality”.
Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor promoting his 2011 film Rockstar at a college in Mumbai. The film returned to Indian theatres this year [File: Yogen Shah/The India Today Group via Getty Images]
To make matters worse, Bollywood in recent years has been witness to a string of flops, with even big multiplex chains such as PVR INOX incurring heavy losses – and therefore forced to be more imaginative in their offerings.
It was against such a backdrop that theatre owners and filmmakers decided to re-release old films. Many of films that have returned to theatres were runaway successes the first time around, while others weren’t – until now.
PVR INOX’s lead strategist Niharika Bijli was quoted in a report in September this year as saying the chain re-released a whopping 47 films between April and August this year. While the average occupancy for a new release during this period stood at 25 percent, re-releases enjoyed a higher average of 31 percent, according to the reports.
Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha, whose 2002 hit Tum Bin was released again this year to much fanfare, told Al Jazeera nostalgia has “a large role to play here”.
“There are usually two kinds of viewers going in for the re-releases. The first is the people who missed these films in theatres. Maybe they saw it on OTT and felt like having a theatrical experience of it. Or there’s people who have memories, nostalgia attached to a film, and want to revisit it,” he said.
Tum Bin’s actors: Sandali Sinha, right, Priyanshu, centre, and Himanshu [File: JSG/CP]
Indian film trade analyst Taran Adarsh agreed, saying the success of Tumbbad, a 113-minute mythological horror initially released in 2018, was proof that the formula of reruns was working. “It’s also about nostalgia, some people might want to experience the magic of a film on the big screen again,” he said.
Tumbbad did not do well when it first came out. But with rising popularity and critical acclaim, the film was re-released in September this year and went on to perform significantly better than the year it hit the big screen.
“When it re-released, Tumbbad actually collected over 125 percent more revenue in its opening weekend than it did back in 2018. People will watch things if there is word-of-mouth publicity and theatre owners and distributors are aware of it. Superstars like Shah Rukh Khan and Salman [Khan] are coming back to theatres, thanks to Karan Arjun getting a re-release,” said Adarsh, referring to the actors, who, despite being in their late 50s, continue to be the top two reigning stars in Bollywood.
First released in 1995, Karan Arjun, a rebirth-themed action drama directed by actor-turned-director Rakesh Roshan, is set to hit Indian theatres on Friday to mark its 30th anniversary, with a brand new trailer.
Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, widely regarded as one of the pioneers of India’s so-called art cinema movement of the 1970s, told Al Jazeera the decision to re-release such films is taken by the producers. Recently, Benegal himself saw the restoration and re-release of his 1976 classic, Manthan, India’s first crowdfunded film for which more than 500,000 farmers contributed two rupees each to tell the story of their movement that founded Amul, India’s largest dairy cooperative.
“Because it’s a complicated and time-consuming process, you only choose to restore those movies that you wish to preserve for long. Fortunately for us, it worked out well. The restoration was excellent and we got a great response from the audiences,” Benegal said, adding that the way a film is made, and not just its themes, contributes to its intergenerational appeal.
“A movie is very much part of your own time. A film’s theme can get dated very quickly. If people across generations are reacting to it, then it might be that its message appealed to them,” he told Al Jazeera.
Acclaimed Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah, centre, his wife and actress Ratna Pathak, extreme left, arrive with others for the screening of the restored version of Manthan at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, France [File: Kristy Sparow/Getty Images]
And it’s not just Bollywood – or Hindi cinema – that’s cashing in on nostalgia for the olden days and their movies.
Mahanagar, the 1963 Bengali classic by India’s most celebrated filmmaker, Satyajit Ray, was released in theatres across India – to some spirited celebration by the fans of Ray, who in 1992 was awarded an honourary Oscar award for a lifetime of acclaimed work.
Down south, megastars such as Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Chiranjeevi and Mohanlal also saw their popular hits making a comeback to the screens. Rajinikanth, 73 and Haasan, 70, are two of the most successful actors in Tamil language cinema, enjoying a cult following.
Sri, who only goes by one name, is a marketing professional in Chennai, the capital of the southern Tamil Nadu state. She told Al Jazeera it was the lure of Rajinikanth that first prompted her interest in the re-releases around her.
“The first time I heard about re-releases was when Rajinikanth’s Baashha was being screened again. The movie was originally released in 1995 when I was an infant, so I never got around to watching it on the big screen although it is a cult classic. My older sisters were influenced by nostalgia and wanted to go, so I also joined them,” she said.
Actors Avinash Tiwari, left, and Tripti Dimri, whose 2018 film Laila Majnu, based in Indian-administered Kashmir, had a successful rerun this year [File: Narinder Nanu/AFP]
Similarly, Haasan’s Indian (1996) and Gunaa (1991) also hit the theatres this year, as did Chiranjeevi’s Indra (2002) to celebrate his 69th birthday and Mohanlal’s Manichitrathazhu (1993).
Ajay Unnikrishnan, a journalist based in Bengaluru, the capital of the southern Karnataka state, said the trend of re-releasing old classics also marks “a form of cultural resistance”, particularly in light of the poor performance of most Bollywood flicks today.
“We just saw the release of the third sequel of Bhool Bhulaiyaa, a Hindi franchise, only weeks after the re-release of Mohanlal’s Manichitrathazhu, the original Malayalam movie that Bhool Bhulaiyaa is based on. So I see this as a form of cultural resistance because Manichitrathazhu is the original. It is so different, had more artistic value. Bhool Bhulaiyaa appropriated it,” he said.
Unnikrishnan said reruns are not a rarity in southern India’s “superstar-driven” industry. “Re-releases have always been there, it’s just that people are taking more notice now because today there’s a dearth of movies with popular appeal,” he said.
Experts and film trade analysts agree.
Ira Bhaskar, former professor of cinema studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the current phenomenon is only a repackaging of what has long existed.
“Before the era of multiplexes, films were in fact re-screened very often. If there was a Hindi movie coming out of Bombay [now Mumbai], it was quite common to see that film, say a year later in a smaller city or town like Varanasi,” Bhaskar told Al Jazeera.
While Adarsh agreed that the current trend is a “continuation of what we used to witness in the 1970s and 1980s”, he also pointed to a crucial difference: the influx of online streaming and people switching from 70mm screens to smartphones, forcing theatres to compete with other viewing options.
“But I don’t think there’s any competition because cinema is cinema,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The feeling of watching a movie on a big screen is so unique and simply can’t be matched. There will always be people who want that.”
WhatsApp rolled out a new feature on Thursday that aims to make sharing voice messages more convenient. It introduces voice message transcripts on WhatsApp for Android and iOS platforms, enabling users to see a text-based transcription of the voice message received from others. The feature is said to come in handy while on the move or in a loud environment. This development comes after WhatsApp recently released a drafts label for unread messages in chats and a new widget for the home screen of its iOS app.
WhatsApp Voice Message Transcripts
In a blog post, WhatsApp highlighted that voice message transcripts are generated on-device and no one else can hear or read the content of the transcripts. Voice messages still remain protected by the instant messaging platform’s end-to-end encryption, the company emphasised.
The feature needs to be turned on before use. Once toggled, a transcript automatically appears below the voice message in the selected language. As per the company, only the recipient will be able to see a transcript of the voice message and not the sender.
WhatsApp says it currently has support only for English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian on the Android platform, whereas its iOS app gets support for several more languages including Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Thai, Turkish, and Swedish.
How to use this feature:
Open WhatsApp Settings > Chats
Toggle Voice Message Transcripts on or off and select the desired language.
Tap and hold a voice message, then tap Transcribe.
Tap the expand icon in the voice message to reveal more of the transcription.
WhatsApp says it might take a moment for the transcript to appear. If the users run into the “Transcript unavailable” error, it might be due to unsupported transcript language, unrecognisable words background noise, or unsupported voice message language. The company also advises caution as voice message transcripts have a possibility of being inaccurate.
Mumbai: Amid the growing rumours and speculations surrounding the Bachchan family, Amitabh Bachchan has reportedly addressed the situation with his trademark grace and subtlety. Recent reports have been rife with claims about alleged rifts within the family, particularly involving his son Abhishek Bachchan and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
The rumours once again started after Aishwarya dropped daughter Aaradhya’s 13th birthday celebration pictures sans the Bachchan family. And now Amitabh Bachchan has reacted to the ongoing speculation with a long statement in his blog.
Amitabh Bachchan wrote, “It takes immense courage, conviction, and sincerity to be different and believe in its presence in life. I rarely say much about family because that is my domain, and its privacy is maintained by me.” He added, “Speculations are speculations… they are speculated untruths, without verifications.”
He even expressed his displeasure over question mark headlines especially related to Ash and Abhishek’s marriage,” But untruths… or selected question-marked information can be a legal safeguard for them that inform… but the seed of suspected belief is sown with this most-used emblem—the question mark”.
Bachchan further mentioned how news have been spreading without any verifications, “Verifications are sought by the seekers to authenticate their business and commercials of the profession they be in.”
The veteran actor’s response reflects his preference for maintaining dignity and privacy, a hallmark of the Bachchan family. Despite the ongoing chatter, the Bachchans continue to focus on their work, with Big B actively engaging with fans through Kaun Banega Crorepati and social media, keeping the spotlight on his professional commitments.
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory regarding multiple vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. Two separate vulnerabilities were found in various builds of Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server, the company’s platform for running network-based applications. The cybersecurity agency has flagged these vulnerabilities as medium risk. While no security patches for them exist currently, Microsoft has released a set of actions users can take to safeguard themselves. Notably, CERT-In highlighted several security flaws in older Apple operating systems earlier this month.
CERT-In Issues Advisory for Microsoft Windows OS
In an advisory issued on Monday (August 12), the cybersecurity agency highlighted two different vulnerabilities in Windows OS. These security flaws can allow an attacker to gain unauthorised privileges on the targeted system.
“These vulnerabilities exist in Windows-based systems supporting Virtualization Based Security (VBS) and Windows Backup. An attacker with appropriate privileges could exploit these vulnerabilities to reintroduce previously mitigated issues or bypass VBS protections,” said CERT-In.
The two vulnerabilities have been labelled CVE-2024-21302 and CVE-2024-38202 by the nodal agency, which comes under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Here, CVE stands for common vulnerabilities and exposures, and the format is a standardised method of identifying and describing security flaws in software. The full list of affected Windows software is shared below.
Windows Server 2016 (Server Core installation)
Windows Server 2016
Windows 10 Version 1607 for x64-based Systems
Windows 10 Version 1607 for 32-bit Systems
Windows 10 for x64-based Systems
Windows 10 for 32-bit Systems
Windows 11 Version 24H2 for x64-based Systems
Windows 11 Version 24H2 for ARM64-based Systems
Windows Server 2022, 23H2 Edition (Server Core installation)
Windows 11 Version 23H2 for x64-based Systems
Windows 11 Version 23H2 for ARM64-based Systems
Windows 10 Version 22H2 for 32-bit Systems
Windows 10 Version 22H2 for ARM64-based Systems
Windows 10 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems
Windows 11 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems
Windows 11 Version 22H2 for ARM64-based Systems
Windows 10 Version 21H2 for x64-based Systems
Windows 10 Version 21H2 for ARM64-based Systems
Windows 10 Version 21H2 for 32-bit Systems
Windows 11 version 21H2 for ARM64-based Systems
Windows 11 version 21H2 for x64-based Systems
Windows Server 2022 (Server Core installation)
Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019 (Server Core installation)
Windows Server 2019
Windows 10 Version 1809 for ARM64-based Systems
Windows 10 Version 1809 for x64-based Systems
Windows 10 Version 1809 for 32-bit Systems
As per the advisory, currently, there are no security patches available for the security flaws. While this presents a concerning situation, the scope of the vulnerability is not very wide as the attacker needs to hold some privilege within the system before exploiting these flaws.
Microsoft has also posted a set of recommended actions for each of the vulnerabilities to help users mitigate the potential for an attack. The tech giant has also highlighted that the CVE will be updated and the users will be notified once a security update is ready to be shipped.
Google was recently reported to have cancelled the development of the purported Pixel Tablet 3 and reassigned personnel working on the project to different divisions within the company. However, a new report suggests otherwise, claiming that the device whose development has been shelved is the Pixel Tablet 2, which was said to launch soon as the successor to the first-generation Pixel Tablet that debuted in 2023.
Google Pixel Tablet 2
A previous report claimed that Google had cancelled the development of a tablet which was internally known as “Kiyomi”. While not official, it was speculated to be the Pixel Tablet 3, but a recent report contradicts this rumour. Android Authority, citing sources, reports that “Kiyomi” is the internal codename for the Pixel Tablet 2 and not the third-generation model.
The aforementioned device is said to be powered by a Tensor G4 chip, reportedly increasing the likelihood of it being the successor to the Pixel Tablet. It was speculated to be in the prototype stage with a planned release in 2025 and two variants — Wi-Fi and 5G — were expected to debut, but that is not likely to be the case anymore.
As per the new report, this alleged move will not mark Google’s exit from the tablet market and the Pixel Tablet 3 could still very well be a possibility. The purported model is reported to be powered by a Tensor G6 processor, although it could be an inferior version of the chip. This is because Google will reportedly “fuse off defective parts of the TPU”, allowing it to use those chips on the Pixel Tablet 3. Consequently, the purported tablet could be unlikely to be as capable of handling AI tasks as the company’s other products.
The Pixel Tablet 3 might also reportedly get a second USB Type-C controller specifically meant for “tablet-only” use cases. This port is said to be USB 3.2 compliant, along with DisplayPort output support.
OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman has hosted hundreds of Fortune 500 company executives in San Francisco, New York and London this month where he and other OpenAI executives pitched AI services for corporate use, going head-to-head in some cases with financial backer Microsoft, attendees told Reuters.
The roadshow-like events illustrate how the company credited with sparking the explosion of generative artificial intelligence with its consumer offering, is looking to grow new sources of revenue from corporates all over the world – some of it potentially on the home turf of its biggest partner.
The three meetings with senior corporate executives – two in the US last week and one in London on Monday – have not been reported previously.
Altman directly addressed more than 100 executives in each city at the events, according to attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
At each event, Altman and chief operating officer Brad Lightcap offered product demonstrations, including ChatGPT Enterprise, the enterprise grade of its famous chatbot that generates text from simple prompts, software to connect customer applications to its AI services known as APIs, and its new text-to-video models.
OpenAI has promised that ChatGPT Enterprise customers’ data will not be used to train its models. Talking to potential customers from industries including finance, healthcare and energy, OpenAI executives highlighted a range of applications, such as call-center management and translation. They noted the consumer version of its chatbot is already in use by more than 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies.
Microsoft, the largest investor in OpenAI, offers access to OpenAI’s technology through its Azure cloud and by selling Microsoft 365 Copilot, a productivity tool powered by OpenAI’s models targeting enterprises.
Some executives in the audience at the events asked why they should pay for ChatGPT Enterprise if they are already customers of Microsoft, attendees said.
Altman and Lightcap responded that paying for the enterprise service allowed them to work with the OpenAI team directly, have access to the latest models and more opportunity to get customized AI products, according to attendees present.
OpenAI and Microsoft declined to comment.
OpenAI, last valued at $86 billion (roughly Rs. 7,18,998 crore) in a secondary sale, has been trying to diversify its revenue stream since its chatbot ChatGPT quickly gained popularity in late 2022. It is on track to achieve the $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,359 crore) revenue target it projected for 2024, sources have said.
While trying to build out new products of consumers such as the marketplace ChatGPT stores, the company expects selling to enterprises to become a more meaningful part of its revenue. Lightcap told Bloomberg last week more than 600,000 people signed up to use ChatGPT Enterprise and Team, up from around 150,000 in January.
Lightcap, the main OpenAI executive focused on enterprise adoption, has also spent time in Hollywood talking to studio executives to promote the company’s Sora video creation tool. That technology, which can create and refine videos based on a user’s text description, has caused both excitement and anxiety within the creative industry.
Two major Hollywood studios told Reuters they are seeking early access to begin exploring applications, though there are some concerns about the source of the video used to train Sora, the reliability of the output and its ability to protect copyrighted works.
Fox and News Corp also hosted Altman at a leadership retreat last October, where he took part in a question-and-answer session, according to one source with knowledge of the session.
