Apple ushers in a new reality… Apple’s long-awaited mixed-reality headset could hit stores as early as next month. With the $3.5K Vision Pro, Apple wants to popularize “spatial computing” (no screens involved). It places digital content in your physical space (think: five tabs open in your living room), which you navigate without touching anything. But the price tag (7X higher than Meta’s Quest 3) could hamper its goal of selling at least 400K units, already revised down from 3M. Still, Apple has shown it can define and expand the markets it enters, and this headset could revive interest in the meta-reality.
Gene editing rewrites medicine… The US recently approved the world’s first gene-editing therapy using Nobel Prize-winning Crispr tech, which could transform the medical industry. By genetically modifying patients’ cells, Crispr can correct mutations that cause diseases. The first approved treatment (called “exa-cell”) is for sickle cell disease, but there are about 280 gene-editing therapies in the works. Because Crispr targets a disease’s root cause, experts think the tech could create once-and-done cures, especially for hereditary diseases like cystic fibrosis and certain cancers.
AI licensing becomes a thing… As genAI copyright-infringement claims intensify, household names are launching legal battles that could set a precedent. Last week, The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging they trained their bots on millions of Times articles. Authors including George R.R. Martin had already sued. 550+ publishers have installed blockers to prevent their articles from being used by bots. Last month, OpenAI said it would pay Axel Springer (Business Insider, Politico) to use its content in ChatGPT. Such deals may become common as AI companies try to avoid lawsuits that could wreck their biz model.