Tech Insights: GPT-4, Meta's new AI Tool and Canadian Crypto Takeover - IT Talk Trivia Newsletter

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?? Why is the Apple Vision Pro so expensive?

Analysts and others say a key part of Apple's strategy is something called "price skimming."

Price skimming is a strategy where a company sets the initial price of a product very high, then gradually lowers it over time. The idea is to "skim" off the top layers of a market willing to pay more, before moving to more price-sensitive layers.

?? Here's how Apple uses it and why:

Early adopters will pay: This targets early adopters – customers who value being the first to have the newest tech and are willing to pay a premium for it.

It keeps profits high throughout a product's lifecycle: By pricing products high at launch, Apple maximizes its profits from these early sales.?

As the product matures, they gradually reduce the price to appeal to more budget-conscious consumers. This skimming strategy allows Apple to make the most profit from all segments of its market.

It's good for the brand: The high initial pricing is a clear signal that they are not in the game to compete on price, but rather on quality, design, and user experience.

It funds innovation: The high profits from initial sales can fund Apple's ongoing research and development.?

There's a reason Apple was able to develop this product over many years. It had enormous piles of cash to burn through after pricing the last new product so high.

Apple has bought an AR headset startup called Mira

Just one day after Apple unveiled the Vision Pro, news that the big tech has acquired Mira, a Los Angeles-based AR startup that makes headsets for other companies and the US military.?

It’s unclear how much Apple paid for Mira, which raised about $17 million in funding to date. Jony Ive, Apple’s former design chief, was an advisor to the startup at one point, according to two former employees who requested anonymity to speak without the company’s permission.

Apple shared the typical statement it gives when it buys a company with The Verge: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”?

?? LinkedIn Is Trying To Add Generative AI into the app with an inbox featuring an AI assistant

Microsoft's LinkedIn has long been trying to find the best means to include generative AI into the platform.

Therefore, the app is now conducting trials where it hopes to include an innovative AI assistant in users’ inboxes. Through this means, it hopes the feature could make way for fast answers to queries while engaging in DMs.

The new AI-powered assistant is going to be up for grabs through dedicated icons and it is to produce a long list of responses.

It’s going to make it simpler to research some major key features while doing other useful tasks like spell checks and gaining feedback on topics that some might deem controversial.

Such additions would really help LinkedIn’s parent firm Microsoft get bigger and expand its AI endeavours as the tech firm searches for more useful ways by which it can create bonds through OpenAI.

This would entail the addition of ChatGPT and its parallel tools across each surface imaginable. You can similarly see this include AI-produced summaries of profiles as well as descriptions of your workplace and some prompts for the sake of creating posts. This would really make the whole LinkedIn experience better.

Remember, the platform even included some generative AI texts for the like of job candidates that are seen through such a platform for recruitment.

This might pave the way for the app’s assistant tool that’s found in users’ inboxes and something that was previewed in the year 2016. For no specified reason, the project was aborted and we never saw it come into effect.

?? This is what Instagram’s upcoming Twitter competitor looks like

One of Meta’s top executives showed employees a preview of the company’s upcoming Twitter competitor during a companywide meeting at the beginning of this month.

The new standalone app will be based on Instagram and integrate with ActivityPub, the decentralized social media protocol.?

That will theoretically allow users of the new app to take their accounts and followers with them to other apps that support ActivityPub, including Mastodon.

A Tesla Gigafactory in France? Speculation swirls before Elon Musk heads to Paris

Elon Musk recently met with the French president. The tech billionaire has said?Tesla is hoping to make a major investment in the country and that's sparked speculation about the company building a Gigafactory there.?

Read more about it here .

???? ?? Swipe your badge or get fired? Employers and workers face a reckoning over returning to the office.

Employers across corporate Canada and the US are hardening their demands for workers to return to their cubicles — and rebuffing employee resistance.

But workers are ready for this battle.

Amazon's top human resources representative rejected an internal petition signed by roughly 30,000 employees over the company's return-to-office policy. Apple is tracking employee attendance and has threatened action against staff who don't work from the office at least three days a week.?

In March, Elon Musk emailed Twitter staff at 2:30 a.m. to remind them of the company's policy, Platformer's Zo? Schiffer tweeted. The "office is not optional," Musk said.

More recently, Chipotle told workers they would have to head into the office four days a week, according to Bloomberg. The fast-food chain, which had been requiring workers to show up three days a week, announced the shift in late May, according to the report.?

In May, groups of Amazon corporate workers walked out, in part, to protest the return-to-office policies.

?? What are employees feeling?

Three years after the pandemic started, a large number of people have restructured their lives on a remote work model and aren't eager to return to 2019.

"People are saying, 'I had something that was working, and now you're telling me I have to commute, get dressed up, and that I can't pick up my kids from school,'" Shipp said, adding that many companies had overlooked the productivity gains derived from workers who have more time to balance their work and personal responsibilities.