ChatGPT first announced its advanced Voice Mode back in May during its Spring Update, and it’s been rather quiet on the rollout. But in a new post on X (formerly Twitter), OpenAI has delivered an update on the situation, indicating when it will finally become available more broadly.
According to the announcement, an official rollout won’t happen until “this fall,” clarifying that “exact timelines depend on meeting our high safety and reliability bar.”
A smaller alpha release, however, will come in late July. The post admits that it’s coming a bit late, stating: “We had planned to start rolling this out in alpha to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users in late June, but need one more month to reach our bar to launch.”
We're sharing an update on the advanced Voice Mode we demoed during our Spring Update, which we remain very excited about:
We had planned to start rolling this out in alpha to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users in late June, but need one more month to reach our bar to launch.…
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) June 25, 2024
Some will be disappointed to hear that the delay is official, especially since it was supposed to roll out “in the coming weeks,” as was stated in May. One X user was upset that OpenAI teased people into signing up for the paid ChatGPT Plus subscription, despite the fact that it’s taken months to roll out the feature. Even so, an official acknowledgment is always appreciated for those desperately waiting.
In the meantime, the post specifies that OpenAI is continuing to make improvements to the overall system: “For example, we’re improving the model’s ability to detect and refuse certain content. We’re also working on improving the user experience and preparing our infrastructure to scale to millions while maintaining real-time responses. We are also working on rolling out the new video and screen sharing capabilities we demoed separately, and will keep you posted on that timeline.”
The advanced Voice Mode made quite an impression when it was revealed in May, showcasing a latency-free, human-like response time — complete with emotions such as laughing. The demo even allowed the user to cut the AI off mid-sentence, while retaining continuity in the conversation.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.