Anthropic Rolls on Towards IPO; OpenAI Crosses Revenue Milestone; Apple Sunsetting Almost 3 Decade Old Online Forum; Mosaic Intelligence Labs-AI Surgical Catheters

Anthropic is full speed ahead on its IPO, unlike OpenAI, which has pushed its own IPO off until next year. The maker of Claude is looking to go public with a valuation of a whopping $1.4 trillion. Mashable.com reports that investor expectations were as high as 2 trillion just a couple of months ago. It’s interesting that the company is moving on this IPO at a time when the air seems to be flowing out of the AI balloon. As both investors and regular humans have noted…none the big AI firms are remotely close to profitable, and may not be for a few years…or maybe ever. If you like to roll the dice, throw some cash down, ya might get really rich. Or not…

Speaking of the aforementioned OpenAI, and staying with the topic of the cash AI companies are throwing off…the ChatGPT maker just took in $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time. According to techcrunch.com, that’s a nearly 50% bump from second quarter. That’s great, but we have to keep in mind that many billions have been poured into OpenAI…as well as arch competitor Anthropic…and it is going to take massive profit to get investors a return.

It is sad to report that Apple is closing down its online community forum after 28 years. The pages will stay up in read-only state, but new posts will no longer be accepted after November 20th. Arstechnica.com notes that the forum has been and quick and handy way to get answers to problems with Apple gear and software when you can’t find them on Apple’s support pages and you can’t wait on hold for hours to talk to tech support. Admittedly, I have only used the forum a couple times in all my Apple years…dating back to a Mac Classic I had. I have usually been able to find what I needed on Apple’s support pages. Forums are terribly useful, though. A company I have worked for for many years has a thriving engineering forum. It has been a lifesaver when a radio station is off-air, or the automation is malfunctioning badly and you need help now. In almost all cases, some other station engineer has had the problem, and can give you the info you need to get things up and running again. A salute to the users who have helped others on the Apple forum…and a sad farewell.

AI has found some useful niches so far, and it seems especially in math, legal document production, and in medicine. Now, Mosaic Intelligence Labs of San Francisco is making AI-guided surgical instruments. Thenextweb.com says they have just come out oof stealth with $47 million in cash raised. Doctors have used catheters for years, to snake through blood vessels to check them and to check and treat organs. Mosaic is making what they call a semi-autonomous catheter that can ‘find its own way’ through blood vessels. Doctors have up to now relied on live X-ray images and pre-surgery scans…as well as just the feel of the instruments in their hands. Mosaic plans to put sensors where the instruments through the body…computing then rebuilds the vessels from inside…the thought is to give physicians a continuously updated 3D view. A robotic interface will support precise control. We are likely to see some amazing treatments as this tech evolves!

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.