✏️ Jony Ive's OpenAI Device may be a Smart Pen ✏️
Apple Pencil designer may bring writing tools into the AI era

Following OpenAI's acquisition of Jony Ive's startup for $6.5 billion, Bloomberg reports that their first AI device will likely take the form of a pen. Recent court filings confirm the device won't feature a screen and won't be wearable, ruling out smartphone or smartwatch alternatives. The speculation aligns with Ive's personal affinity for pens and his involvement in designing the Apple Pencil.

The device could potentially include a built-in projector to cast content onto surfaces, along with cameras and microphones for environmental awareness. Sam Altman has described Ive's prototype as having "completely captured his imagination."

🚛 Amazon Hits 1 Million Robots with AI Traffic Control 🚛 
One million robots and one smart AI brain to rule them all

Amazon has reached a major milestone by deploying its one millionth robot, delivered to a fulfillment center in Japan. The company simultaneously launched DeepFleet, a generative AI foundation model that acts as an intelligent traffic management system for its robotic fleet.

🤝 Sakana's AB-MCTS unlocks Multi-Model AI Cooperation🤝 
Inference-Time Scaling Enables AI Team Performance

Sakana AI has developed AB-MCTS (Adaptive Branching Monte Carlo Tree Search), a new inference-time scaling algorithm that enables multiple frontier AI models to work together. The system allows AI models to perform trial-and-error while leveraging their unique strengths and biases as valuable resources for collective intelligence. Initial testing on the ARC-AGI-2 benchmark shows that combining o4-mini, Gemini-2.5-Pro, and DeepSeek-R1-0528 through AB-MCTS significantly outperforms each model individually.

INTERESTING TO KNOW

💰 xAI Secures $10 Billion to Challenge AI Leaders💰

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company has completed a $10 billion funding round, split evenly between equity investment and debt financing. Morgan Stanley, which advised on the transaction, reports the debt offering was oversubscribed with participation from prominent global investors. The proceeds will fund AI infrastructure expansion and Grok chatbot development, positioning xAI as a direct competitor to OpenAI and Anthropic. This follows OpenAI's $40 billion round at a $300 billion valuation, highlighting the intensifying competition in the AI sector.

📝 Grammarly wants to buy Superhuman 📝

Grammarly has announced plans to acquire Superhuman, the AI-powered email client, as part of its strategy to build a comprehensive AI productivity suite. The deal brings Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra and over 100 employees to Grammarly, with the product continuing to operate independently.