Now, Cognixion is bringing its AI communication app to the Vision Pro, which Forsland says has more functionality than the purpose-built Axon-R. “The Vision Pro gives you all of your apps, the app store, everything you want to do,” he says.
Apple opened the door to BCI integration in May, when it announced a new protocol to allow users with severe mobility disabilities to control the iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro without physical movement. Another BCI company, Synchron, whose implant is inserted into a blood vessel adjacent to the brain, has also integrated its system with the Vision Pro. (Apple is not known to be developing its own BCI)
In Cognixion’s trial, the company has swapped out Apple’s headband for its own, which is embedded with six electroencephalographic, or EEG, sensors. These collect information from the brain’s visual and parietal cortex, located at the back of the head. Specifically, Cognixion’s system identifies visual fixation signals, which occur when a person is maintaining their gaze on an object. This allows users to select from a menu of options in the interface using mental attention alone. A neural computing pack worn at the hip processes brain data outside of the Vision Pro.
“The philosophy of our approach is around reducing the amount of burden that is being generated by the person’s communication needs,” says Chris Ullrich, Cognixion’s chief technology officer.
Current communication tools can help but aren’t ideal. For instance, low-tech handheld letterboards allow patients to look at certain letters, words, or pictures so that a caregiver can guess their meaning, but they’re time-consuming to use. And eye tracking technology is still expensive and not always reliable.
“We actually build an AI for each individual participant that is customized with their history of speaking, their style of their humor, anything they’ve written, anything they’ve said, that we can gather. We crunch all that down into something that is a user proxy,” Ullrich says.
The online reatil giant had already made a major move into AI enhancements with the February launch of Alexa+, an upgraded version of the Alexa voice assistant.
Nearly 20 years after the launch of the Kindle e-reader, the Seattle-based online retail giant now offers a family of connected devices, from the Echo smart speaker to the Ring doorbell and Fire TV.
Amazon now aims to multiply their capabilities through AI, but wants to use it “without getting in the way,” said Panos Panay, head of devices and services, during a New York presentation.
The company had already made a major move into AI enhancements with the February launch of Alexa+, an upgraded version of the Alexa voice assistant.
Amazon’s ambition, like that of competitors Google, LG and Samsung, is to become the connected home nerve center.
But the sector has struggled to deliver on the promise of a fully connected home, with consumers forced to choose from competing ecosystems or left struggling with technology that fails to deliver on expectations.
“Alexa, what happened around the house today?” a user asks in a demonstration video. The smart assistant explains that the children walked the dog, a package was delivered and raccoons rummaged through the trash—using images captured by Ring or Blink cameras.
Has your dog run away? After the escape is reported on the Ring app, other Amazon doorbells in the neighborhood can detect if the animal passes by and alert you.
With the Kindle Scribe, readers can ask generative AI for a book summary to refresh their memory or ask questions about a character.
As for connected television, viewers can verbally request to see a scene from their favorite movie or receive a summary of a football game they missed.
Amazon believes in “ambient” AI, in Panay’s words, which “lives naturally in the products themselves.”
The generative AI revolution is playing out on both software and physical interfaces, with major tech players seeking to determine which product will prevail—smartphone, smart glasses, earbuds or speakers.
OpenAI is working on a new kind of device, while Meta is betting on glasses and Apple on earbuds.
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India has this year given the green light to 10 semiconductor projects worth about $18 billion in total.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared India’s “late entry” into the global semiconductor race, he pinned hopes on pioneers such as Vellayan Subbiah to create a chip innovation hub.
The chairman of CG Power, who oversees a newly commissioned semiconductor facility in western India, is seen as one of the early domestic champions of this strategic sector in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
“There has been more alignment between the government, policymakers, and business than I’ve ever seen in my working history,” Subbiah, 56, told AFP.
“There’s an understanding of where India needs to go, and the importance of having our own manufacturing.”
As US President Donald Trump shakes global trade with tariffs and hard-nosed transactionalism, Modi has doubled down on self-reliance in critical technologies.
New Delhi, which flagged its push in 2021, has this year approved 10 semiconductor projects worth about $18 billion in total, including two 3-nanometer design plants, among the most advanced.
Commercial production is slated to begin by the end of the year, with the market forecast to jump from $38 billion in 2023 to nearly $100 billion by 2030.
Subbiah, whose CG Power is one of India’s leading conglomerates, predicts “over $100 billion, if not more”, will flow into the industry across the value chain in the next five to seven years.
He said “symbiotic” public-private partnerships were “very exciting”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently said ’20 percent of the global talent in semiconductor design comes from India’
‘Ability to accelerate’
Chips are viewed as key to growth and a source of geopolitical clout.
India says it wants to build a “complete ecosystem”, and break the global supply chain dominance by a few regions.
The government has courted homegrown giants such as Tata, alongside foreign players like Micron, to push design, manufacturing and packaging in joint ventures.
CG Semi, a joint venture with CG Power, plans to invest nearly $900 million in two assembly and test plants, as well as to push its design company.
“We are looking to design chips, so that we can own the (intellectual property) too—which is very important for India,” said Subbiah, a civil engineer by training with an MBA from the University of Michigan.
Still, critics say India is decades late starting, and remains far behind chip leaders in Taiwan, the Netherlands, Japan and China.
“First we have to recognize there is a gap,” Subbiah said, noting Taiwan’s TSMC has a 35-year head start.
But he insists India’s scale and talent pool—the world’s most populous nation with 1.4 billion people—gives it “a significant ability to accelerate” production.
‘More complicated’
Modi this month said that “20% of the global talent in semiconductor design comes from India”.
India says it wants to build a ‘complete ecosystem’, and break the global supply chain dominance by a few regions.
But wooing talent who sought opportunities abroad back to India remains a challenge, even after Trump’s restrictions on the H-1B skilled worker visa program, heavily used by Indians.
India, the world’s fifth-largest economy, still struggles with bureaucratic inertia and a lack of cutting-edge opportunities.
Subbiah acknowledged that his own venture employs about 75 expatriates.
“That’s not the way we want to grow. We want to grow with Indians,” he said, calling for policies to lure back overseas talent. “How do we bring these people back?”
But the path is tougher than in 2021, when New Delhi first pushed for chip self-sufficiency.
While India has secured semiconductor and AI investment pledges from partners such as Japan—which pledged $68 billion in August—Trump is expected to be less willing than past US leaders to back ventures that build Indian capacity.
“The geopolitical situation overall has become more complicated,” Subbiah said.
Yet he remains upbeat for the long run.
“There are only going to be two really low-cost ecosystems in the world: one is China, and the other is going to be India,” he said.
“You’re going to see the center of gravity move towards these ecosystems, if you start thinking about a 25-30 year vision”.
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India ready to rev up chipmaking, industry pioneer says (2025, October 1)
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Online e-commerce platform eBay has started working with OpenAI to offer sellers on its website 12 months’ free access to ChatGPT Enterprise and custom eBay-developed GPT productivity tools.
Open from today, the eBay AI Activate training programme, worth over £3m, aims to skill up small UK businesses with fully funded access to the latest custom artificial intelligence (AI) productivity tools and training. The programme is open to all businesses that sell on eBay. The company aims to sign up 10,000 firms this year.
The programme aims to provide eBay sellers with access to ChatGPT Enterprise for up to 12 months, in addition to tailored training to help unlock its potential. The company said it will also provide dedicated support by working with sellers to develop custom GPTs to grow their business on the e-commerce platform.
According to eBay, there is a strong appetite for using AI among UK small businesses, but there is also a need for assistance in applying it to achieve business impact.
Eve Williams, general manager at eBay UK, said: “The issue is no longer whether businesses should adopt AI; it is how quickly they can start before their competitors do. Those businesses and economies that don’t invest in AI now risk being left behind.”
Data from eBay shows that 69% of online businesses feel excited (43%) or curious (26%) about the potential of artificial intelligence, but many are still working out how to make the best use of the technology.
Discussing the opportunity, Ronnie Chatterji, chief economist at OpenAI, said: “Small businesses power the UK economy, accounting for over 99% of the UK’s firms. Yet for too long, they have not had the tools to drive increases in productivity the way larger firms do. This collaboration could change that. By putting world-class AI tools in the hands of 10,000 UK entrepreneurs, we’re investing in the UK’s economic engine. If we want to close the productivity gap, this is where to start.”
By putting world-class AI tools in the hands of 10,000 UK entrepreneurs, we’re investing in the UK’s economic engine. If we want to close the productivity gap, this is where to start Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI
The International Monetary Fund has forecast that broader AI adoption could add as much as £470bn to GDP by 2035.
The minister for small business and economic transformation, Blair McDougall, said: “Increasing SME growth by just 1% per year could deliver a whopping £320bn to the economy by 2030, which is why programmes like this are so important to our Plan for Change.
“Our Small Business Strategy is giving SMEs the tools they need. This includes acting on the recommendations of the SME Digital Adoption Taskforce, launching new digital adoption pilots, and partnering with wider industry to provide support like this initiative from eBay and OpenAI.”
The launch of eBay AI Activate is part of a broader AI focus at eBay. The company has deployed ChatGPT Enterprise globally to enhance team creativity, exploration and productivity.
“AI is reshaping e-commerce and eBay is all-in. We see this as a generational opportunity to reimagine buying and selling for our customers, powered by three decades of marketplace insights and cutting-edge models,” said Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov, chief AI officer at eBay.
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