As we remember General Bradley, we present a snapshot of the week that was with thoughts courtesy InsideTech, the Information and Peter Diamandis:
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| | Amazon Starts Charging for Some UPS Store Returns | By Theo Wayt | Amazon has started charging fees to make some returns at UPS Stores, marking the latest effort by the e-commerce giant to cut down on costs associated with customers sending back items. While Amazon shoppers used to be able to return any product by dropping it off at a UPS Store without charge, the company began charging a $1 fee for some returns earlier this year. Amazon adds the fee if customers have another free return option, such as a Whole Foods or Kohl’s or an Amazon Fresh store, that is within equal distance to or closer than a UPS Store, an Amazon spokesperson told The Information. Amazon also started piloting free returns at some Staples stores in 2022. |
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PRESENTED BY 
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What happened: Amazon is jumping on the generative AI trend with today's unveiling of Bedrock, its cloud service featuring new artificially intelligent tools. What it is: The service from Amazon Web Services will allow developers to build and host generative AI apps and systems in the cloud. Generative AI refers to algorithms like ChatGPT and Midjourney that can create new text, images, and other content. Bedrock will feature foundation models for text and images from AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Stability AI, and other third parties, along with Amazon's own first-party language models known as Titan. Why it matters: AWS, the world's largest provider of cloud infrastructure, is not shying away from competing against cloud rivals Microsoft and Google in the generative AI race. AWS, however, is not tying itself to an individual AI startup, as Microsoft has done with ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Google is doing with chatbot creator Anthropic. 
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Japanese tech investor SoftBank Group Corp. is selling nearly all of its remaining stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which was once its most valuable investment, the Financial Times reported. SoftBank has offloaded around $7.3B in Alibaba shares this year after selling a record $29B worth of shares in 2022, according to regulatory filings. More: - SoftBank has sold the shares through prepaid forward contracts, which will now reduce its stake in Alibaba to only 3.8%.
- Last year, SoftBank lowered its stake from nearly 24% to under 15%.
- SoftBank made a $20M investment into Alibaba over two decades ago.
- Around three years ago, the Chinese e-commerce giant was SoftBank’s most valuable investment.
Zoom Out: FINANCIAL TIMES 
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Google has launched the first public beta of its Android 14 operating system. The general public can now test out the forthcoming software using a supported Google Pixel device. More: - This beta version includes a more prominent back arrow that can "improve back gesture understanding and usefulness" while using apps, Google said.
- The arrow adjusts to match the user's wallpaper or device theme.
- Additionally, Android 14 includes Google’s new privacy settings and per-app language preferences.
Zoom Out: - The rollout marks the first of four public beta releases planned for Android 14 following two developer previews.
- Once users enroll a Pixel device online, they can receive the first beta through an over-the-air-update.
ANDROID POLICE
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Apple has pledged to use only recycled cobalt in all of its company-designed batteries by 2025. The move is part of Apple's goal to make all of its products carbon-neutral by 2030. More: - Apple said a quarter of the cobalt used in its products came from recycled material last year, an increase from 13% the year prior.
- Cobalt, which is required for most smartphone batteries, has been linked to unsafe mining practices, environmental destruction, and child labor.
- In addition to the 100% recycled cobalt commitment, Apple announced that all magnets for its devices will only use recycled rare earth elements and all its circuit boards will have recycled tin soldering and gold plating.
Zoom Out: - Apple said it's also doubling its financial commitment to the Restore Fund.
- The company is contributing another $200M in the fund for carbon removal, adding to its initial $200M when the fund was created in 2021.
TECHCRUNCH
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Google will shut down Currents, its social media platform for enterprises, on July 5. Currents is a social network for employees within organizations to communicate and view content in a "home stream." It's the latest Google product to be discontinued. More: - Starting Aug. 8, Currents data will no longer be accessible to download or export using Takeout.
- In 2019, Currents launched as a successor to G Suite's Google Plus, which was officially shut down in July 2020.
- A year later, Google introduced Spaces, its real-time communication platform in Workspace, formerly known as G Suite.
- Google expects Currents users to migrate to Spaces and Google Chat, ensuring users won't have to collaborate in a "separate, siloed destination."
THE VERGE
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AI company Optic has launched AI or Not, a web service that attempts to identify whether an image was generated by AI. The company says its focus is on detecting risks in "AI-generated media, NSFW and NFT counterfeit in real-time." More: - To use the service, people can upload, paste a URL, or drag and drop photos or illustrations of up to 10 MB in size.
- Optic claims its system can identify images created by DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and GANs.
- The company also offers the ability to tweet images to @optic_xyz with the hashtag #aiornot, and it will reply with the likelihood that the image was AI-generated.
- According to the Wall Street Journal, Optic's accuracy rate fell from 95% to 88.9% after Midjourney launched its latest v5 image generator.
- Optic offers an API for bulk image analysis and is also developing a Google Chrome extension.
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- San Francisco police arrested a suspect in the fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee, according to the city's Board of Supervisors president. Mission Local reports that police arrested Nima Momeni, owner of IT consulting firm Expand IT, who knew Lee and drove with him hours before the murder.
- Apple has abandoned plans to change the iPhone 15 Pro's mute and volume physical buttons to a haptic-feedback design, according to trusted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The move has negatively impacted Cirrus Logic, which was supposed to supply a component for the nixed solid-state buttons.
- OpenAI has announced cash rewards to people for identifying bugs in ChatGPT and its other AI services.
- Verse Immersive, the world's first holographic theater, has opened at Block 37 in downtown Chicago after a successful five-month run at Chicago's Navy Pier.
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