Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 02/19 – The iPhone 16e

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Apple has announced the new iPhone 16e. I’ve got all the details for you. The Humane AI Pin is definitively dead, and HP is acquiring the ashes. Yet ANOTHER potentially big new AI player. And why some Bytedance investors kind of don’t care if TikTok US gets split off. In fact, they might even prefer it. Links: Apple launches new iPhone 16e: Here’s everything you need to know (9to5Mac) All of Humane's AI pins will stop working in 10 days (Engadget) ‘Pokémon Go’ Maker Nears $3.5 Billion Deal to Sell Games Unit (Bloomberg) Mira Murati debuts Thinking Machines Lab, her AI startup (Axios) ByteDance's US Backers Say China Growth to Counter Any TikTok Ban Damage (Bloomberg) Can AI Predict the Next Big IPO? Crunchbase Thinks So. (WSJ) 2000th episode livestream link: https://riverside.fm/studio/2000th-episode AI Engineer Summit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the tech meme right home for Wednesday, February 19th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. Apple has announced the new iPhone 16E. I've got all the details for you. The humane AI pin is definitively dead and HP is acquiring the ashes, yet another potentially big new AI player and why some bite dance investors kind of don't care if TikTok US gets split off. In fact, they might even prefer it. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. New iPhone. It's the iPhone 16E. This is Apple's new lower-end phone starting at $599. It's got an A18 chip, a 48-mepixel camera, Apple Intelligence, and the first Apple design 5G cellular mode in the C-1. All of this is available for pre-order Friday and shipping February 28th. This is a new design for the lower-end iPhone. Say goodbye, finally, to the home button, quoting 9-5 Mac. The iPhone 16E features a 6.1-inch OLED display with a notch. There's also face ID support, integrated into that notch, you'll find a USBC port at the bottom for charging and data transfer.

The device also features the action button instead of the classic mute switch. In terms of performance, the iPhone 16E is powered by the latest A18 chip. Apple says the six-core CPU is up to 80% faster than the A-13 bionic chip on the iPhone 11. There's also a four-core CPU and a 16-core neural engine. Apple says the neural engine is optimized for large generative models and runs. machine learning models up to six times faster than A13 Bionic. On the back of the iPhone 16E, you'll find a single 48 megapixel fusion camera with an integrated 2x telephoto option. By default, the iPhone 16E will take high-resolution 24 megapixel photos,

but you can also choose to take 48 megapixel images. The integrated 2X telephoto option lets you zoom in and retain that high-resolution image quality without having a second dedicated physical camera. There's also support for HDR, Portrait Mode, and night mode, end quote. As for battery life, Apple calls it the best battery life ever on a 6.1-inch iPhone, lasting up to six hours longer than an iPhone 11 and up to 12 hours longer than all generations of iPhone SE. As for that modem, the C-1 chip, this is Apple's first step in ending its reliance on Qualcomm's 5G modems. Quoting the verge, Apple says the chip contributes to the 16E's battery life. The company says the phone's internal design is optimized to support a larger battery,

giving it up to 26 hours of video playback. The C-1 starting in the 16E makes sense. 99 device is now the cheapest way to get one of Apple's thin bezel phones with Apple Intelligence. If this inaugural outing for the chip doesn't end up being great, people may chalk it up to this being a more affordable phone, end quote. And quoting Reuters, modem chips are hard to make because they must be compatible with hundreds of carriers and scores of countries. Only a handful of companies around the world, including Samsung, Media Tech, and Huawei have successfully created one. For years, Apple outsource modems from Qualcomm, the world's biggest supplier of the chips.

Qualcomm chips also power Android gadgets and Windows laptops that compete with Apple devices. Apple fought a protracted legal battle with Qualcomm, but ultimately settled and signed new supply agreements with it in 2019 after alternative suppliers such as Intel failed to deliver a viable alternative. But Apple is now confident it has created an advanced chip that will form the basis of a modem platform Apple will use for years to come, end quote. The Humane A. A.I. Pin is officially dead. Humane says AIPin's online features will stop working on February 28th, when all customer data will be deleted, and it will refund some customers. Quoting a gadget, AI hardware startup humane has given its users just 10 days notice that their pins

will be disconnected. In a note to its customers, the company said AI pins will continue to function normally until 12 p.m. Pacific time on February 28th. On that date, users will lose access to essentially all of their devices features, including, but not limited to calling, messaging, AI queries and cloud access. The FAQ does note that you'll still be able to check on your battery life, though. Humane is encouraging its users to download any store data before February 28th, as it plans on permanently deleting all remaining customer data at the same time as switching off its servers. The company says it will refund customers who are still within the 90-day return window, so long as they submit by February 27th. It also notes that users who opted

to wait for a replacement for the device's combo fire hazard and charge case will now be refunded the portion of their original purchase price that was allocated to the charge case. In the original recall note, that amount was $149 if ordered separately or $129 if ordered as part of the complete system bundle, end quote. So sad end to a sorry saga, but what of Humane? Well, HP plans to acquire their assets for $116 million. Wind down Humane's AIPIN business and add Humane's team, including its founders as an AI-focused division, quoting Bloomberg. Humane's team, including founders Imran Chaudry and Bethany Bonjourno, will form a new division at HP to help integrate artificial intelligence into the company's personal computers,

printers, and connected conference rooms, said, Contran, who leads HP's AI initiatives. Jodry and Bonjourno were design and software engineers at Apple before founding the startup. In April 2024, Humane launched a much-hyped wearable device meant to allow users to access AI models, calls, and texts via voice or gesture. The startup pitched the AI pin as an eventual smartphone replacement. But the device met a cascade of negative reviews, reports of glitches, and a quality issue that led to a risk of fire. The San Francisco-based startup had raised over $230 million and counted backers such as Salesforce chief executive officer Mark Benioff. Humane had been looking for a buyer for the business as early as May 2024 when it sawed a price

of $750 to $1 billion. A few months ago, Humane backed away from its hardware focus, instead rebranding around what it called Cosmos, an AI operating system for a slew of devices in the home and on the go. The software, the company said, had a new type of architecture built around AI agents. HP could use this underlying technology to help power its own future devices, end quote. Quoting Gergly Oros on Twitter, this might be unpopular to say, but this is a very good save by Humane's leadership. Humane raised $230 million, which sounds like much, but hardware is expensive. It had a a product launch that was, unfortunately, a massive flop, now sold for $116 million, and most employees

keep their jobs, end quote. Quoting Seth Miller on Blue Sky, call it an aqua hire, I suppose, but still, why would you pay that much to get those founders on board? They did not understand the demand, the challenges to develop the product, nor the potential capabilities of the efforts, end quote. And quoting Casey Newton, I look forward to H.P.'s forthcoming line of wearable printers that require a monthly data plan subscription and can't understand what you're saying, end quote. say Neantik is in talks to sell its games unit to Saudi Arabia controlled scoply for around $3.5 billion. The deal would include Pokemon Go and other mobile games, quoting Bloomberg. Any agreement would involve the Pokemon title as well as other mobile games, according to the

people who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. There's no assurance an agreement will be reached. The Pokemon Go game was a global phenomenon, but the company had trouble duplicating its runaway success and cut staff and canceled some titles in development in 2022 and 2023. It's Harry Potter Wizards Unite game shut down in 2022. Representatives of Niantic and Scoply declined to comment. Scoply is owned by Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's public investment fund. Neantic was spun out of Alphabet's Google in 2015. Its chief executive officer and founder John Henke worked in satellite mapping before leading Google's geo-product division. Pokemon Go encouraged players to walk around their neighborhood with an interactive map to find

the popular Nintendo characters. The San Francisco-based company makes other products, including tools to help capture and share 3D scans of real-world locations. Data generated through its apps have contributed to a large geospatial model the company announced in November. That model will use large-scale machine learning to understand a scene and connect it to millions of other scenes globally. Mobile Game Maker Scopely was acquired for $4.9 billion two years ago by Savvy Games. In 2024, Savvy Chief Executive Officer Brian Ward told Bloomberg News, that the company plan to add a genre leading mobile title to its roster through Scoply, the tip of the spear for its mobile investment strategy, end quote.

And another potentially big new AI player on the scene. Former Open AI CTO Mira Muradi has announced Thinking Machines Lab, a new AI startup that she's leading with Barrett Zoff as CTO and John Schulman as chief scientists. Their goal, developing a framework for human interaction with AI. Instead of focusing solely on making fully autonomous AI, systems, we are excited to build multimodal systems that work with people collaboratively, the company said in a blog post announcing itself to the world.

While current systems excel at programming and mathematics, we're building AI that can adapt to the full spectrum of human expertise and enable a broader spectrum of applications. The scientific community's understanding of frontier AI systems lags behind rapidly advancing capabilities. Knowledge of how these systems are trained is concentrated within the top research labs, limiting both the public discourse on AI and people's abilities to use AI effective, Despite their potential, these systems remain difficult for people to customize to their specific needs and values, the post concluded. Quoting Axios, other startups founded by former OpenAI executives, from more mature AI firms like Anthropic to other just out-of-the-gate startups like Iliusus'Saskever's safe superintelligence, have more single-mindedly dedicated themselves to creating AI that's more powerful than humans.

Thinking Machines Labs says it has about 30 employees, including a number of Murati's former OpenAI colleagues. Maradi is CEO. Barrett Zoff is CTO and John Schulman is chief scientist. Zoff left Open AI in September. Shulman departed Open AI in August for Anthropic and said earlier this month he was leaving Anthropic for a new opportunity. Maradi isn't disclosing a timeline or specifics on thinking machines first product nor any details on funding, though the company is confident in its abilities to raise the money it needs, end quote. And quoting TechCrunch. Marotti came to Open AI in 2018 as VP of applied AI and partnerships. After being promoted to CTO in 2022, she led the company's work on

chat GPT, the text-to-image AI Dali, and the co-generating system codex, which powered early versions of GitHub's co-pilot programming assistant. Marotti was briefly OpenAI's interim CEO after CEO Sam Altman's abrupt firing. Altman has described her as a close ally. For months, rumors have flown of Maradi hiring high-profile AI researchers and staffers for an AI venture. Thinking Machine Lab's blog lists 29 employees from OpenAI, Character AI, and Google DeepMind, among other top firms. Thinking Machines Lab is actively hiring machine learning scientists and engineers, as well as a research program manager per the company's post.

At one point, Marotti was said to be in talks to raise over $100 million from unnamed VC firms. The blog didn't confirm or deny this. Before OpenAI, Marotti spent three years at Tesla as a senior product manager of the Model X, the automakers crossover SUV, during which Tesla released early versions of autopilot, its AI-enabled driver assistance software. She also was VP of product in engineering at Leap Motion, a startup building hand and finger-tracking motion sensors for PCs, end quote. This is something that I've thought about before. Some U.S. BightDance investors argue that they

don't need U.S. TikTok for success, as China, which accounts for 80% of BightDance's revenue, is the real driving force. Quoting Bloomberg, some of these American shareholders argue that, while a ban will take a near-term toll on their stakes, bite-dances China business is the real driving force behind the lofty valuation and eventual payday. That's because roughly 80% of Beijing-based bite-dances revenue comes from China and products like Doyen, a TikTok look-alike specifically for the Chinese market.

And while TikTok boasts 170 million users in the U.S., the app has been downloaded some 5 billion times across other markets around the world, according to app intelligence firm Censor Tower, meaning it can continue to operate in several important countries no matter what happens in the U.S. Any resolution for TikTok in the U.S., even a ban, would also clear a major roadblock for BightDance if it ever decides to pursue an IPO, a long-rumored outcome for the tech giant that would be virtually impossible with a looming U.S. shutdown hanging over the company's head.

On private secondary markets, Bightance is trading at a huge discount to what it's really worth. That's because we don't know what's going to happen with TikTok, said Greg Martin, managing director at Rainmaker Securities, which facilitates trades in private tech companies, including BytDance. He acknowledged that losing TikTok U.S., a piece of the business that's nowhere close to reaching its potential, is nobody's preference, but the value of BytDance could go up immeasurably once this is sorted out, he said, even if it means TikTok going away, end quote. Finally today, CrunchBase has launched AI tools to predict where startups are heading, including funding, acquisitions, and IPOs based on its 17 years of startup data.

Quoting the journal, Crunchbase's new direction was one of necessity when OpenAIs chat GPT launched in late 2022, the moment sparked a crisis. What is the role of a database company like Crunchbase when chatbots can trawl the web for similar data and provide similar answers? If you deal with historical facts, once the AI absorbs it, it doesn't need you anymore, McConnell said. Historical data companies are already dead.

Like other startups that have been challenged by the emergence of generative AI, Crunchbase needed to pivot. At a leadership meeting convened to discuss its future, McConnell said the team decided it could make predictions using its most valuable asset, the proprietary data generated by the startup's 80 million users. That data isn't the public information on a company's profile. It's all of the data crunch base doesn't expose to its users, such as when company profiles have been edited, who edits them, and what they're editing. If a startup's employee makes edits to a company's profile and is searching for investor profiles, plus there's a spike in investor interest in that startup's profile, those are the kinds of signals crunch bases AI uses to indicate the startup is about to raise funding, McConnell said. Each startup has thousands of potential signals like those, pointing to whether they might be about to fundraise, be acquired, or make a play for an initial public offering, McConnell said. Public AI platforms don't have access to that customer usage data, he added, making it the cost. crown jewels of CrunchBase's assets. Based on CrunchBase's own testing, its fundraising predictions

are up to 95% accurate. Last year, the company predicted that AI startup Anthropic had a 74% probability of raising cash. Anthropic raised $2 billion in January. Last October, CrunchBase predicted that the startup CODA, maker of a productivity platform, would be acquired with a 93% probability. The company was bought by Grammarly, maker of an AI-based writing assistant two months later. What's much harder to predict is when startups shut down, McConnell said. The company's accuracy rate for startups that fold is below 50%. He said because companies can survive for a long time, even with slowed growth, end quote. Okay, a bunch of links to share with you today.

First up, if you check the bottom of the show notes, you'll see a link to the live stream recording of the 2000th episode, spectacular that we have planned for this Thursday night, tomorrow night at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific time. I encourage you all to tune in and join us and to raise your hand and ask a question on camera. What I'd like to do is have it be mostly questions about recent tech news and the like, but you can also ask questions about the show, about me, about the process of the show. Key thing to note, you need to be on a laptop or desktop computer to be able to be brought on stage and ask your questions live. Mobile won't cut it. And yes, again, we're recording the video, so if you do want to ask a question,

know that this will be out there for posterity. And then the very last link is to the AI Engineer Summit. It's taking place here in New York City starting tomorrow. It is put on by our friend Swix. There are still a few tickets available. And I will be there starting Friday. So if you're listening to this show right now and you're going to attend, hit me up at brian at techmeme.com so that we can find each other at the summit and buddy up.

Talk to you soon.