Apple Loses Top Spot in China Market with Shipments Down 6.6% in Q1
Huawei Launches New Software Brand for Intelligent Driving
Chinese tech company Huawei unveiled on Wednesday a new software brand for intelligent driving, marking its latest push to become a major player in the electric vehicle industry.The new brand Qiankun, symbolizing a combination of heaven and the Kunlun Mountains, plans to provide self-driving systems involving the driving chassis, audio and driver's seat, Jin Yuzhi, CEO of Huawei's Intelligent Automotive Solution (IAS) business unit, said during an event ahead of the Beijing auto show.
"2024 will be the first year for mass commercialization of smart driving and the cumulative number of cars on road equipped with the Huawei self-driving system will top 500,000 by the year-end," Reuters quoted Jin as saying.
He also expected within a year more than 10 car models adopting Huawei’s Qiankun system would hit the market.
The Shenzhen-based tech conglomerate launched its smart car unit in 2019 with the aim that it could become the equivalent of German automotive supplier Bosch of the intelligent EV era and supply software and components to partners.
Huawei said in November that the unit would be spun off into a new company which would receive the unit's core technologies and resources and take investment from partners such as automaker Changan Auto.
It has also unveiled seven EV models in partnership with Chinese automakers so far and they are selling well, Jin said.
They include three Aito brand models under partnership with Seres, the Luxeed S7 sedan co-developed with Chery , two models with Changan Auto-backed Avatr and one with Beijing Automotive Group (BAIC)-owned Arcfox.
On Tuesday, Huawei also unveiled the S9 sedan, the first model under the premium Stelato brand it launched with BAIC.
Its diversification into EVs comes amid an intensifying price war in the world's largest auto market, which is grappling with slowing sales momentum and deepening overcapacity concerns as more than 40 brands vie for consumer attention.
Earlier this month, Huawei-backed Aito offered discounts of up to 20,000 yuan ($2,760) on its new M7 SUVs until the end of April.
Apple Announces Event on May 7 amid Reports of New iPad Model Launches
Apple will hold an event on May 7, the company said on Tuesday, amid reports that it would roll out the long-anticipated revamped versions of iPad Pro and iPad Air next month. The Cupertino, California-based company did not disclose more details about the event that would start at 7 a.m. PT (2 p.m. GMT). Bloomberg News reported in March that Apple's overseas suppliers had ramped up production of the new iPads and a launch was planned for early May. The new models would represent Apple's first overhaul to that lineup since 2018. The potential launch comes at a time as iPad sales have declined. The sales dropped 25% to $7.02 billion in the first quarter, while those of iPhone, its most popular product, have also been slowing. The tablet market is under duress as economic uncertainty looms and consumers cut back on non-essential spending, but Apple expects to combat the slump in demand with new products. Apple's iPad sales contributed just 5.9% to the company's total net sales of $119.58 billion in the first quarter ended Dec. 30. Apple is also scheduled to hold its Worldwide Developers Conference from June 10 to June 14.Microsoft Launches Lightweight AI Model
Microsoft on Tuesday launched a lightweight artificial intelligence model, as it looks to attract a wider client base with cost-effective options. The new version called Phi-3-mini is the first of the three small language models (SLM) to be released by the company, as it stakes its future on a technology that is expected to have a wide-ranging impact on the world and the way people work. "Phi-3 is not slightly cheaper, it's dramatically cheaper, we're talking about a 10x cost difference compared to the other models out there with similar capabilities," said Sébastien Bubeck, Microsoft's vice president of GenAI research. SLMs are designed to perform simpler tasks, making it easier for use by companies with limited resources, the company said. Phi-3-mini will be available immediately on Microsoft cloud service platform Azure's AI model catalog, machine learning model platform Hugging Face, and Ollama, a framework for running models on a local machine, the company said. Last week, Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in UAE-based AI firm G42. It has also previously partnered with French startup Mistral AI to make their models available through its Azure cloud computing platform.Adobe to Bring Full AI Image Generation to Photoshop this Year
Adobe said on Tuesday it plans to place a tool for full artificial intelligence image generation in its Photoshop software later this year.Adobe's image and video editing tools are widely used by creative professionals, but it faces rising competition from startups such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Midjourney and Stability AI, all of which offer services that can generate images from text prompts, Reuters said.
Adobe is developing its own image-generation AI system called Firefly, which is trained on data that Adobe has rights to, in order to avoid copyright infringement claims against users.
Adobe previously released image-generation tools in Photoshop that can fill in or expand parts an existing image. At a conference in London on Tuesday, the company said full image generation will come later this year, based on a new AI system called Firefly Image 3.
Much of Adobe's focus has been on speeding up the work of professionals who use its software. The new image-generation tool will have the ability to tap a user's uploaded image as a reference for the general composition of an image.
For example, a designer could make a quick sketch of a scene on a napkin, snap a photo of that napkin with a smartphone and then ask Photoshop to generate fully featured images in a variety of styles, said Ely Greenfield, chief technology officer for digital media at Adobe.
"Rather than having to very carefully describe exactly what goes where and try to make sure that I'm specifying the things I want things and that I don't, it's borrowing from the reference. So this is an amazingly powerful capability," Greenfield said.
Adobe said a test "beta" version of the software is available to some users on Tuesday but did not give a date for general availability.
