Pokémon Day, OpenAI’s ChatGPT API, and Ford’s Scary Patent: This Week in Tech

This week the Pokémon Company held their annual Pokémon Day Pokémon Presents, OpenAI unveiled the ChatGPT API, and Ford filed a scary patent. Also, Tesla had their annual Investor Day; it’s been a busy week in space news and more in the other news section.

Pokémon Presents

On Monday, The Pokémon Company held a Pokémon Presents in celebration of Pokémon Day; during the event, they announced updates about the World Championship, the mobile games (including release details about Pokémon Sleep), and DLC for Scarlett and Violet. You can read more about it here.

ChatGPT API

On Wednesday, OpenAI announced the release of an API for ChatGPT, allowing third parties to integrate ChatGPT into their apps. Companies including Snap, Quizlet, Shopify, and Instacart have all announced implementations of it. For example, Snap’s implementation (called MyAI) is for general use and is “trained to adhere to the app’s trust and safety guidelines.” To use it, you’ll need Snap+. Quizlet’s implementation (called Q-Chat) acts like a tutor sourcing the information in their content library, and the feature will be age-gated for those 18+.

Tesla Investors Day

On Thursday, Tesla held their annual investor Day. They announced that they would be opening a Gigafactory in Mexico. They also showed off the robot again, but more importantly, they announced that their next-gen battery would be rare-earth element free. But, the most significant announcement of the night was that the Cybertruck would release later this year. In other lineup-related news, they intend to develop a Jeep Wrangler-like SUV and small car to fit below the Model 3.

Ford’s Scary Patent

Also on Thursday, The Drive reported that Ford filed a new patent for “connected-car technology.” The patent is for technology “to better aid in vehicle repossession” and that it is capable of “[disabling] a functionality of one or more components of the vehicle.”. The filing states that the tech will be included in future models.

Space News

Crew-6

NASA and SpaceX have successfully launched their Crew-6 mission from Kennedy Space Center on their second launch attempt. The crew consists of four members: astronauts Warren “Woody” Hoburg and Stephen Bowen, Sultan Al-Neyadi from the United Arab Emirates, and Andrey Fedyaev (Roscosmos). The mission aims to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit by conducting experiments on how specific materials burn in zero gravity, studying the heart and brain functions in space, and searching for microbe samples from outside the space station. The mission will last six months.

Other Space News

This week’s news included breakthroughs in space exploration and the study of the universe. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, conducted in September 2021, has been deemed a success in proving that asteroids can be deflected. The mission changed the orbit of the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos by launching debris from the asteroid at the impact point, altering its momentum. The study brings hope about humanity’s ability to protect itself from giant space rocks. In other news, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observed a supernova-hosting galaxy with three images thanks to gravitational lensing caused by the galaxy cluster RX J2129.

Other News

In other news, CNET is making major layoffs after their AI kerfuffle last month, BMW announces new ID.3 models (and that they’ll have an app store) and the US Marshals hit with major ransomware attack. Also, there are rumors that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision will be approved in the EU, and Lenovo showed off some cool devices with rollable screens at Mobile World Congress.


If you want more from The Tech News Source, follow the site on Twitter at @technewssoure and Me on Twitter at @SamGreenwoodTNS. If you’d like to support The Tech News Source, you can find out how to here. You can also go to my website to see more that I do, including my photography and the occasional movie review at samgreenwood.ca.