Sam Bankman-Fried Was Sentenced to 25 Years in Federal Prison in This Week’s Tech Roundup
Over at Apple, there are reports of a toaster-like tool that update iPhone software.
Dominating headlines this week was the long-awaited sentencing of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. A year and a half after his arrest in the Bahamas, Bankman-Fried, who was previously found guilty of fraud and conspiracy charges, received his sentence in a Manhattan court.
Elsewhere in tech, Apple appears to be experimenting with a new gadget: a sort of toaster for wirelessly updating boxed iPhones. On the AI side, Elon Musk’s xAI shared its plan to launch an updated version of its Grok chatbot, designed to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as well as Google and Anthropic’s bots.
Below, Hypebeast has rounded up the top tech stories of the week so you can stay up to date on trends in the industry.
Apple Is Reportedly Launching an iPhone-Updating Machine That Looks Like a Toaster Oven
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Apple has a new tool for updating iPhones with the latest software without having to unbox them, French tech site iGeneration reported first. The device looks similar to a toaster oven and is apparently called “Presto.”
Capable of holding six phones on each rack, Presto is a streamlined way to ensure that devices offer the most recent iOS when a customer picks one up. It’s reportedly able to deliver the update wirelessly in just 20 to 30 minutes.
[Club] Apple Store : comment se passe la mise à jour des iPhone sous boite avec Presto https://t.co/VJCJ5pIGKj pic.twitter.com/pog9GRk0PE
— MacGeneration (@MacGeneration) March 26, 2024
Sam Bankman-Fried Was Sentenced to 25 Years in Federal Prison
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Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. After being arrested in late 2022, the FTX founder was found guilty last year of having defrauded users on the crypto exchange of $8 billion USD. The majority of the funds were used for Alameda Research, a sister site to FTX, as well as funding executives and Bankman-Fried’s lavish lifestyles.
Prosecutors in the case were pushing for 40 to 50 years in prison, while defense argued for a maximum of six and a half years. During the sentencing, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said Bankman-Fried had lied during the trial and showed little remorse for this actions.
“He knew it was wrong,” Kaplan said. “He knew it was criminal. He regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of getting caught. But he is not going to admit a thing, as is his right.”
Elon Musk’s xAI Revealed Plans To Launch Revamped Version of Grok Chatbot
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Two weeks after launching to the public, Grok is getting an update. Elon Musk’s xAI announced earlier this year that they would be launching a bot to rival ChatGPT and Claude. The original Grok was rolled out in mid-March, though it’s only available to X Premium+ subscribers.
The incoming Grok 1.5 promises “improved reasoning capabilities” and other advancements. According to xAI’s data, Grok’s performance is already quite similar to the levels of accuracy being delivered by Claude and ChatGPT, as well as Google’s Gemini.
The timeline for the revamped bot is unclear at the moment. xAI says that a beta of Grok 1.5 is expected to be released to a group of testers ahead of a public launch.
