Technology News: Tech Giants Roll Out New Innovations: Apple, Google, Xiaomi, and OpenAI Lead the Charge

Yesterday, Apple refreshed the offer in its HomePod Mini series with a new Midnight color option that replaces Space Gray. The latest, priced at Rs 10,900 in India or US$99, comes in White, Blue, Yellow, Orange, and Midnight. Available from July 17, this compact 3.3-inch device delivers quality audio, Apple's S5 and U1 chips, Siri integration, smart home control, support for multiroom audio, Amazon Music, and Apple TV 4K pairing.

Apple has gone ahead to release an iOS 18 public beta for eligible iPhones. This will allow users to get a feel of new features weeks in advance before it goes live later this year. The update includes some major changes, such as enhanced home screen customization, a new control center, and the ability to schedule messages using Send Later. It also rolls out the game mode and enhanced protection features like Locked or Hidden apps. Some of the India-specific features include customizing the lock screen in 12 Indian languages and multilingual support from Siri. But the much-anticipated AI tools will appear only with the final release in concurrence with the iPhone 16 series.

The researchers at Google's DeepMind team have advanced the robotics industry further with Gemini1.5. This learnable and agile robotics technology empowers devices to interpret their surroundings and locations, perform tasks, and even remember where something is located. In a recent video demonstration, the result of this technology follows real-world scenarios—the robots move at locations—but have delayed response times for tasks. Locations—as described—are autonomously mental and cognitive maps of environments besides places, aside from executing complicated tasks that include checking for explicit items. Even in their early stages of development, Gemini robots have managed to show a success rate of 90% when it comes to executing assigned tasks. This may not be bad for future applications in homes or offices.

Xiaomi is set to launch the Mix Fold 4 on July 19 in China, aiming to enter the competitive foldable market. The device will feature a lightweight design at 226 grams and a thin profile of 9.47mm, powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and equipped with a Xiaomi-Leica camera system. While the launch in China is confirmed, there's still uncertainty about its availability in India. Xiaomi's recent moves indicate a potential push to introduce its foldable lineup to the Indian market.

OpenAI is working on a brand-new AI project, codenamed "Strawberry," to improve model reasoning. This would license the AI to handle autonomous navigation and execution of complex tasks—moves beyond generating answers to conducting deep research. Strawberry involves a specialized post-training process to make AI more adept at planning and solving problems. Details are kept tight, but this is part of a broader agenda that OpenAI envisions in developing AI reasoning for applications as wide-ranging as scientific discoveries and software development.