OpenAI's first AI device with Jony Ive will not be a wearable, won't ship until at least 2026
While the court fight over branding continues, the public filings have offered a rare glimpse into OpenAI's first hardware product. Despite early speculation that the device could take the form of smart glasses or something similar to the Humane AI Pin, OpenAI's Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan has confirmed the product is 'not an in-ear device, nor a wearable device.' Tan, a former Apple executive, added in his statement to the court that the device's design is still evolving. He said it will be something that 'fits in your pocket or sits on your desk,' and that it's at least a year away from launch. Could it be a smart home device? Maybe.advertisementOpenAI has been hyping the project since it acquired Jony Ive's company IO Products for $6.5 billion, in May 2025. Altman has reportedly told OpenAI staff that the device could be the most significant product the company has ever launched, with a goal of selling 100 million units.Despite repeated claims that the device won't go in the ear or be worn, internal emails have reportedly shown that OpenAI was particularly curious about the ear-scanning process used by iyO to customise its earpieces. In fact, a member of OpenAI's hardware team apparently even suggested buying a database of ear scans from iyO's vendor as a 'helpful starting point on ergonomics.' However, Tan eventually rejected iyO's pitches to partner, invest, or even buy the company for up to $200 million.Evans Hankey, another former Apple executive now leading the design at OpenAI, made it clear in her court declaration: 'io has no current plans to offer a custom-moulded earpiece product.'Industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has also shared his predictions for the device. Last month, he shared a post saying that he believes the OpenAI hardware device will have a compact form factor – reminiscent of the iPod Shuffle – and might even be smaller than the Humane AI Pin. The device reportedly won't feature a screen but will rely on built-in cameras and microphones to understand its surroundings. That sounds like another hint that it could be similar to a smart home device? Something like an Amazon Echo Dot. advertisementAdditionally, Kuo predicts that instead of functioning independently, the device will connect to smartphones and computers for processing power and display use. Kuo also stated that OpenAI plans to assemble the product in Vietnam to avoid geopolitical tensions associated with Chinese manufacturing.Investor and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, who supports both Jony Ive's design firm and IO Products, reportedly saw a prototype of the device and called it 'a wondrous thing to behold.' Ive himself has said the project has 'reignited his optimism about technology' and expressed that 'humanity deserves better' than current screen-based gadgets.OpenAI had initially published promotional material about the partnership and acquisition on its website, but this was quietly removed following the trademark complaint by iyO. The company confirmed the takedown was related to the ongoing legal case. A spokesperson for Ive called the complaint 'utterly baseless' and said they plan to contest it. - Ends
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Business Standard
a few seconds ago
- Business Standard
Apple leases 2.7 lakh sq ft office in Embassy Zenith, Bengaluru for 10 yrs
Apple India Private Limited has inked a lease agreement for a 2.7 lakh sq ft office space in Embassy Zenith, located on Sankey Road in the upscale Vasanth Nagar area of Bengaluru. The 10-year lease has a total rental outlay of Rs 1,010 crore. This will be Apple's second office in India's tech hub and could be its largest, housing more than 1,200 people, according to industry watchers. It may also become one of the largest single-tenant office leases in Bengaluru's commercial real estate market. According to lease documents from Propstack, the terms of the lease specify that Apple India will occupy the 5th to 13th floors of Embassy Zenith, covering a substantial carpet area of 196,179 sq ft, or 268,737 sq ft including chargeable area. The monthly rent is Rs 6.315 crore, translating to an effective rate of Rs 235 per square foot. The lease includes an annual escalation clause of 4.5 per cent, which allows for steady upward revision in rent throughout the lease term. To secure the lease, Apple has deposited Rs 31.57 crore as a security amount, as per the agreement. In addition to base rent, the lease agreement includes payments for maintenance of common areas and car parking facilities, which contribute to the total cost burden borne by the company. Detailed financial disclosures indicate that Apple India will pay approximately Rs 1,010 crore over 10 years, covering rent, car park charges, and common area maintenance (CAM) fees. Apple has also expressed interest in potential future expansion within the same building, with plans to lease the ground to fourth floors as well. This additional area measures around 121,203 sq ft, which would nearly double their office footprint, bringing it to nearly 4 lakh sq ft. The building is owned by Mac Charles (India) Limited, affiliated with Embassy Group, a major player in Bengaluru's commercial property development sector. Queries to Apple and Embassy Group did not elicit a response as of Sunday night. In 2021, Apple leased 1.16 lakh sq ft at a monthly rental of Rs 2.43 crore in Prestige Minsk Square, a commercial building located on Cubbon Road in central Bengaluru, where it began operations in 2023. This office space expansion is part of Apple's large-scale plans to increase production in India and open four more retail stores in Bengaluru and Pune, in addition to stores in Delhi-NCR and Mumbai, as well as its two marquee stores in Mumbai and Delhi opened in 2023.
Mint
2 hours ago
- Mint
Gamblers now bet on AI models like racehorses
Now that AI developers are getting paid like pro athletes, it's fitting that fans are placing big bets on how well they're doing their jobs. On Kalshi, Polymarket and other sites where people wager 'predictions" on real-world events, gamblers lay down millions each month on their picks for AI's top model. The AI arms race is playing out in plain sight on social media, ranking sites and obscure corners of the internet where enthusiasts hunt for clues. The constant buzz makes the topic appealing for wagers, though not every scrap of information is meaningful. Foster McCoy made $10,000 in a few hours in early August by betting against the success of OpenAI's GPT-5 release. The 27-year-old day trader noticed people were misreading an online ranking site that appeared to hype GPT-5, so he put $4,500 on its competitor, Google's Gemini, to be 'Best AI This Month." As more bettors fell in line with his call, he cashed out. That's just another day for McCoy, who has traded $3.2 million on Kalshi since the start of 2025—making $170,000. He's part of a growing contingent of bettors making hundreds of trades a week on AI markets, on a range of wagers such as 'Best AI at the end of 2025," 'AI regulation becomes federal law this year," and 'Will [Chief Executive] Sam Altman be granted an equity stake in OpenAI this year?" Trading volume across AI prediction markets has surged to around $20 million this month. Kalshi, the only platform currently available in the U.S., is seeing 10 times the volume on AI trades compared with the start of the year, a spokesman says. Each bet, or 'contract," is priced in cents to reflect the odds: McCoy bought thousands of Gemini contracts at around 40 cents, meaning it had a 40% chance of winning. If the bet had settled and Gemini won, McCoy's 40 cents would become a dollar. If Gemini lost, McCoy would lose it all. But much of the action happens before the final outcome. As more people piled into the Gemini bet, the contract price rose. McCoy sold when it had reached 87 cents. It's like betting on a sports match, only with the option to cash out when the odds rise in favor of your bet. 'You're just betting against what the other guy knows," says McCoy, who credits his success to 'being chronically online." He trades from home on a triple-monitor setup tuned to the holy trinity of AI betting: X, Discord and LMArena, a leaderboard where people rate AI model performance in blind tests. Social-media beefs can be gold for gamblers. After GPT-5's debut, a flurry of Elon Musk posts claiming the superiority of his xAI Grok chatbot sent the 'Grok to Win" market up more than 500% within hours. Before long, it had fallen nearly all the way back down. Bettors end up down rabbit holes hunting for more obscure tidbits. Harvard undergraduate Rishab Jain often scans X accounts of lesser-known researchers. The day before GPT-5's release, OpenAI's Sam Altman posted an image of the Death Star from 'Star Wars." When a researcher from Google's DeepMind replied with an image of the killer globe under attack, Jain read it as a sign of confidence from Gemini's makers. Jain also scrapes source files from Google's apps and monitors public GitHub repositories tied to its products, looking for back-end changes that might signal a soon-to-be-released Gemini model. 'I'm almost obsessively up-to-date with what's going on in this world," Jain says. 'Google has so many products that need to integrate a new model before it officially launches, and you can see those changes happening in the back end if you know where to look." Since starting in June, he has won $3,500. Strategies vary. Some bet on the big industry players, others buy low on less-known or soon-to-be-updated models. Some compare odds on Kalshi and Polymarket to find arbitrage opportunities in the odds. As volume for these AI trades continues to grow, the incentive for good information will only increase, and the squeeze on casual bettors will get tighter, says Robin Hanson, a professor of economics at George Mason University. 'When you have better information in these kinds of markets, you can make better decisions," Hanson says. 'If you know a little more, you make more money." For now, the markets still draw a mix of sharks like McCoy and Jain along with casual bettors. 'I'm just a dude that likes tech and has some time and money," says James Cole, a 35-year-old who recently shut down a company he founded. 'I'm speculating with mostly instinct and 10 minutes of research." He says he's up for the year…so far. Write to Ben Raab at
Hindustan Times
4 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Apple India leases 2.7 lakh sq ft office space from Embassy Group in Bengaluru for 10 years at over ₹1,000 crore
Apple India Pvt Ltd has leased around 2.7 lakh sq ft of office space in real estate developer Embassy Group's project Embassy Zenith in Bengaluru for a 10-year term, with a total rental outlay of over ₹1,000 crore, setting a benchmark with lease rates touching almost ₹235 per sq ft per month, documents accessed by Propstack showed. Apple India Pvt Ltd has leased about 2.7 lakh sq ft of office space in real estate developer Embassy Group's project Embassy Zenith in Bengaluru for a 10-year term (Representational photo)(Pixabay) The tech giant will pay a total of ₹1,010 crore over 10 years, inclusive of rent, parking, and common area maintenance charges, the documents showed. The iPhones and IPads maker has leased nine floors, from the 5th to the 13th, with a carpet area of 1.96 lakh sq ft and a chargeable area of 2.68 lakh sq ft in Bengaluru's Sankey Road from Mac Charles (India) Ltd. Apple will pay ₹6.31 crore per month, translating to ₹235 per sq ft. Apple will receive a total of 362 car parking spaces as part of the deal, the documents showed. The company has deposited ₹31.57 crore as security, and the agreement includes an annual rent escalation of 4.5%, the documents showed. The company also has the option to lease additional space measuring 1.21 lakh sq ft across the ground to fourth floors, the documents showed. An email query has been sent to Apple India Private Limited and Embassy Group. The story will be updated if a response is received. Apple Inc has leased office space in a commercial project on a 2.3-acre land parcel, previously occupied by the Le Meridien hotel, overlooking Bangalore Golf Club and Cubbon Park. Embassy Group, which acquired the property years ago, is developing the tower comprising two basements, a ground floor, and 13 upper floors, the documents showed. 'Apple's 10-year commitment for prime office space in Bengaluru highlights their immense confidence in the Indian market. This investment in talent and operations runs parallel to their manufacturing scale-up for iPhones with companies like Foxconn. Together, these moves solidify India's crucial position at the heart of Apple's global supply chain and innovation efforts,' said Raja Seetharaman, co-founder Propstack. Other Apple India transactions in Bengaluru In May 2025, Apple India leased 7997.8 sq ft of retail space in North Bengaluru's upscale Phoenix Mall of Asia for an annual rent of ₹2.09 crore for 10 years, according to documents accessed by Propstack. The lease has a tenure of 10 years with a 15% escalation in both rent and security deposit every three years. Apple has paid a security deposit of ₹1.046 crore, the document showed. Also Read: Bengaluru: Here's how Foxconn's iPhone plant is reshaping Devanahalli's real estate market The lease also included a revenue-sharing component, almost 2% of revenue for the first 36 months and 2.5% thereafter. However, revenue share payments are capped at twice the value of the applicable yearly minimum guaranteed rent, the document showed. According to media reports, in 2023 Apple leased several floors of Prestige Estates Projects' commercial building, Prestige Minsk Square, in Bengaluru's central business district on Cubbon Road, for 10 years at a starting monthly rent of ₹2.44 crore. Foxconn facility in Bengaluru Real estate experts note that Foxconn's facility in Bengaluru is already fueling demand for residential and commercial properties in Devanahalli, driven by rising employment opportunities and infrastructure development. Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn's Bengaluru factory, its second-largest manufacturing unit, has commenced operation with production of iPhone 17 recently at a small scale, sources aware of the development told PTI. Also Read: Office leasing across top 8 cities clocks 48.9 mn sq ft in H1 2025; Bengaluru sees record absorption at 18.2 mn sq ft Foxconn is the largest manufacturer of iPhones, and the second-biggest facility outside China in Devanahalli near Bengaluru, being set up at an investment of $2.8 billion (about ₹25,000 crore). "Foxconn Bengaluru unit has commenced operation with the production of iPhone 17. This is in addition to the production of iPhone 17 at its Chennai unit," a source aware of the development told PTI.
