OpenAI may grab all the headlines, but Amazon has been quietly toiling on AI across all its divisions and even using AI-powered robots in its warehouses. Now, in a bid to attract new talent, the company is launching a free program called "AI Ready," with the aim of providing generative AI training to two million people globally by 2025. 

Consisting of eight free courses, the classes will be available through Amazon's learning website and offered to non-Amazon employees as well. They'll teach people AI skills including the generative AI technology that powers ChatGPT and other language models. 

They're designed for beginners and advanced users in both tech and tech-adjacent roles. Three courses are aimed at business and nontechnical users, while five are designed for developer and technical audiences. Along with the classes, Amazon announced that it's providing Udacity scholarships valued at more than $12 million to more than 50,000 high school and university students from underrepresented communities around the world. 

 "The goal of AI Ready is to help level the playing field of AI education, supported by the new initiatives we're launching here today," said AWS VP of data and AI, Swami Sivasubramanian. "If we are going to unlock the full potential of AI to tackle the world’s most challenging problems, we need to make AI education accessible to anyone with a desire to learn."

AI technology has been in use for some time now in field ranging from medical research to retail customer assistance — but it really exploded with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT virtual assistant. The field is still in its teething stages and systems are notoriously complex, however, so there's a serious shortage of qualified programmers, technicians and others. Amazon notes that 73 percent of employers say that hiring AI-skilled talent is a priority, but three of four are unable to find qualified people. 

Amazon said its aim is to "democratize" generative AI education, noting that the program will benefit not just its own employees but its enterprise customers who seek workers with prompt engineering and other skills. It could also help AWS (Amazon Web Service) customers as several courses are based on its own platforms including Bedrock AI and CodeWhisperer, a tool that automatically generates code. 

There has always been little more to swiping right or left on a person's Tinder profile than if you like how they look. Now, the dating app is finally introducing a range of features that provide a more rounded idea of people, such as profile prompts and basic info tags.

Anyone who has used apps like fellow Match Group-owned Hinge or Bumble will likely find many of these updates familiar. Profile prompts, for example, are a long-standing feature on both, with Tinder users now able to share their responses to statements like "The first item on my bucket list is" or the ever-popular "Two truths and a lie." Basic info tags let people share facts such as their zodiac sign, drinking habits and love language. More unique is the addition of a quiz, which should highlight a user's interests and preferences (they can add these results to their profile). Plus, there's now an option to report specific details of a person's profile that are alarming versus reporting the entire account.

Tinder is openly looking to engage Gen Z, and that couldn't be clearer than the pointedly named "Rizz-first Redesign." There are UI updates, enhanced animations, and even a new "It's a Match!" screen. At the same time, Tinder has also introduced a dark mode feature for more discrete swiping while out in public or dimmer lighting at night. 

The dating app points to Gen Z's responses in its recent Future of Dating Report as motivation for the updates. "At Tinder, we understand that connecting today is about authenticity, depth, and the desire for connections that go beyond the surface. This suite of features is the response to this evolving need," Mark Van Ryswyk, Chief Product Officer at Tinder, said in a statement. "We know the new generation of daters prioritizes value-based qualities such as respect (78 percent) and open-mindedness (61 percent) over looks (56 percent). They care about authentic connections formed through shared interests and common causes and have no time for the 'game-playing' of previous generations." Was connecting not about authenticity in the past? That's for someone else to debate.

OpenAI’s board of directors announced Friday it had fired CEO Sam Altman. But he’s doing okay. By Monday morning, he had joined Microsoft “to lead a new advanced AI research team,” according to the company.

Altman cofounded OpenAI with Elon Musk in 2015 as a nonprofit and served as the CEO for the for-profit arm since 2019. He was originally fired from OpenAI over “a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board,” according to an internal staff memo. Several key members also resigned, including co-founder Greg Brockman (who will now also join Microsoft) along with a few senior researchers. “Dozens” of OpenAI employees reportedly announced internally they’d be quitting too, with some expressing interest in joining a potential new Altman startup.

According to Bloomberg, the board had reportedly considered reversing Altman’s firing, though the ousted exec wanted the existing board to resign and issue a public apology — and I fully endorse all this drama, if true.

The company did not apologize, however.

— Mat Smith

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What is RCS and how is it different from SMS and iMessage?

Apple will finally support it next year.

Following the news that iPhones will support Rich Communication Services next year, what exactly is RCS? Well, positioned as a next-generation replacement for SMS and MMS, it adds modern features you may already use on WhatsApp, including read receipts and the ability to send high-resolution images and more. We wrestle with what this means, and how iMessage fits into it all.

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Nothing pulls its iMessage-compatible Chats app

The Sunbird-based app, which was still in beta, has been removed from the Play Store.

Nothing

It’s a weird week for messaging and texts. Nothing has pulled the beta of its new messaging app, Nothing Chats. The company touted the Sunbird-based app as the answer to the longstanding Android versus Apple texting woes, supporting RCS and iMessage. However, critics voiced concerns over the security risks workarounds like this bring. Nothing Chats does not have end-to-end encryption, and 9to5Google noted attachments sent by other users could easily be accessed in plain text.

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SpaceX loses another Starship and Super Heavy rocket

There was a double explosion during testing.

SpaceX

SpaceX's second test flight of its Starship spacecraft — which it hopes will eventually ferry humans to the Moon and Mars — ended in an explosion Saturday morning, minutes after taking off from the company's spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas. After completing stage separation, when the Super Heavy booster detached itself from Starship, the rocket's first stage exploded. Starship, however, continued for several more minutes, with a faint explosion heard around the eight-minute mark. Unlike its first test, Starship was able to reach space this time. The company is framing it as a success, even if it did… explode.

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The best Black Friday Deals we’ve found so far

From Amazon, Walmart, Target and more!

We’ve rounded up the best Black Friday deals on tech we’ve tested, and we expect many of the live deals to run through to Cyber Monday. As a taster, we’re already seeing record lows on iPads, wireless earbuds, PS5 controllers, Xbox consoles, Sonos gear, smart TVs and more.

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We're only a few days out from Black Friday, and the sales keep building. The latest deal worth checking out comes courtesy of a new all-time low price on Apple's ninth-generation iPad. The 64GB device is currently available for $230, down from $329 — a 30 percent discount. 

The ninth-gen Apple iPad is a great option if you want a simple, well-performing iPad that does everything you need. It's the cheapest option on the market (even more so now), with us naming it the best budget iPad for 2023. It first came on the scene in 2021, getting an 86 in our review thanks to updates like Apple's A13 Bionic chip and doubling the amount of storage it has for the same price. 

Apple's 2021 iPad also has True Tone technology, changing the color based on the room's ambient light, and has a 12MP front-facing camera. Plus, it offers up to 10 hours of battery life when watching videos, playing music or on the internet. Accessory-wise, it's compatible with the first-gen Apple Pencil. If you want a bit of an upgrade, Apple's tenth-generation iPad is also on sale, with a 22 percent discount dropping its price to $349 from $449. 

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

In another twist on the OpenAI saga that raged over the weekend, Microsoft has swooped in and hired Sam Altman and Greg Brockman just after OpenAI confirmed Altman's firing, CEO Satya Nadella announced in a post on X. The pair, along with colleagues are joining Microsoft "to lead a new advanced AI research team." Nadella added that Microsoft "remain[s] committed to our partnership with OpenAI," but the move looks a giant hedge on that bet. It also means the much of OpenAI's talent may be moving to Microsoft, which may stall the latter's progress with its widely-used ChatGPT product. 

The appoint was announced just after it was suggested that Altman may return to OpenAI, following his sudden firing on Friday. That was preceded by an outpouring of support for Altman from OpenAI employees, many of whom shared hearts on social media. 

In a bit of a surprising development, though, talks between the parties broke down and OpenAI subsequently said that Altman (and co-founder Greg Brockman) would not return, according to reports. Instead, Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear was appointed as the new CEO. 

Developing...

In another twist on the OpenAI saga that raged over the weekend, Microsoft has swooped in and hired Sam Altman and Greg Brockman just after OpenAI confirmed Altman won't be returning, CEO Satya Nadella announced in a post on X. 

The pair, along with colleagues are joining Microsoft "to lead a new advanced AI research team." Nadella added that Microsoft "remain[s] committed to our partnership with OpenAI," but the move looks a giant hedge on that bet. It also means the much of OpenAI's talent may be moving to Microsoft, which may stall progress on the widely-used ChatGPT product. 

Altman has largely remained quiet since news of his firing dropped Friday, other than thanking OpenAI colleagues for their support. However, he confirmed his hiring by Microsoft, saying on X that "the mission continues." In a reply to that post, Nadella said he was "super excited" to have Altman as CEO of the new group. "We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios," he added. 

The appointment was announced just after it was suggested that Altman may return to OpenAI, following his sudden firing on Friday. That was preceded by an outpouring of support for Altman from OpenAI employees, many of whom shared hearts on social media. 

Talks between the parties broke down and OpenAI subsequently said that Altman (and co-founder Greg Brockman) would not return, according to reports. Instead, Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear was reportedly appointed as OpenAI's new CEO. 

The story is likely far from over, as the confirmation of Altman's firing and subsequent hiring by Microsoft raise multiple questions. Microsoft has invested $13 billion and owns a 49 percent stake in the for-profit segment of OpenAI and recently unveiled its Copilot AI assistant that's powered by OpenAI's technology. 

However, OpenAI has an odd "capped-profit" corporate structure with both a for-profit and non-profit body that has an impact on Microsoft's investment. And despite Nadella's words, the partnership with OpenAI will no doubt be affected by Microsoft having its own AI research team — particularly since it will be led by OpenAI's former CEO. With all that, expect further developments. 

Update Nov 20, 2023 at 8:42 AM ET: OpenAI co-founder, board member and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has released a statement on recent developments: "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company," he wrote on X. 

Talks over reinstating co-founder and former CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI have apparently broken down. According to The Information and Bloomberg, the board has now hired Altman's fellow Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as OpenAI's new interim CEO. This appointment was apparently announced internally by co-founder and board director Ilya Sutskever.

Altman was originally fired from OpenAI over "a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board," according to an oddly blunt internal staff memo published by Axios earlier. The news was subsequently followed by resignations from several key members, including co-founder Greg Brockman (who was ousted as the chairman of the board), along with a few senior researchers.

Developing...

Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt has resigned. In his announcement on X, the 38-year-old exec expressed that "the last 10 years have been amazing," while reminding us that "the startup I launched in my garage has given over 250,000 driverless rides across several cities." As to what Vogt is doing next, he plans on taking a break first to "explore some new ideas." Vogt had previously co-founded video platforms Justin.tv, Twitch and Socialcam.

According to TechCrunch, General Motors has since promoted Mo Elshenawy, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Cruise, to President and CTO of its robotaxi subsidiary. No replacement has been named for the vacant CEO spot.

Vogt's resignation comes after General Motors installed its very own Executive Vice President of Legal and Policy (and already a Cruise board member), Craig Glidden, as Chief Administrative Officer of the autonomous vehicle firm last week. Cruise's legal, communications and finance teams now report to Glidden.

General Motors has yet to appoint a permanent Chief Safety Officer, though with the help of an independent engineering consulting firm, it continues to conduct an expanded safety probe on the infamous freak accident. The collision on October 2 involved a female pedestrian being hit by a human driver and landed in the path of a Cruise robotaxi, which ended up running her over and dragging her 20 feet. Both autonomous and manual vehicle operations at Cruise continue to be suspended, affecting a fleet of 950 robotaxis.

Newly ousted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and former president Greg Brockman are meeting with executives at the company’s San Francisco headquarters now as discussions about possibly reinstating their positions continue, The Information reports. Per The Information, interim CEO Mira Murati and others have been leading the push to get Altman reinstated as CEO, and invited the two to HQ on Sunday. Altman and Brockman showed up for talks this afternoon, sources told The Information.

Around the time of the report’s publication, Altman tweeted a photo of himself wearing a guest badge for entry into the building, writing, “first and last time i ever wear one of these (sic).”

After Altman was fired without warning on Friday, Brockman stepped down in solidarity, along with a slew of senior researchers. Other staff members have reportedly pledged to resign as well and follow the two to other projects, signaling their support on social media, according to The Verge. The state of Altman's position — and OpenAI’s future leadership — has remained up in the air this weekend as backlash against the board’s initial decision grows. 

On Saturday evening, The Verge broke news that the board was considering reinstating him as CEO, and had “agreed in principle” to resign if so. But, the board reportedly couldn’t make up its collective mind in time, and missed the deadline that had been set for the decision. 

According to Bloomberg, that’s at least in part because they’ve hit a brick wall in trying to agree on what the board will look and what its role will be if he’s reinstated. Altman reportedly wants the existing board gone if he’s to return, among other “governance changes” — including making former Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor a board member and possibly bringing on a Microsoft executive, Bloomberg reported, though the latter has not yet made a decision.

There has been much speculation over the reason behind Altman’s removal as CEO and from the OpenAI board of directors, which came as a surprise to Altman, staff, and investors. An internal memo sent that morning to staff and seen by Axios said that the decision to unseat Altman came as the result of “a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board.” It “was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” the memo from COO Brad Lightcap said.

Altman was reportedly fundraising for a custom AI chip project codenamed “Tigris” prior to his unexpected firing, Bloomberg reported. Per Bloomberg and The New York Times, which previously reported on his plans for other AI ventures, Altman has already pitched the idea of custom Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) that would rival NVIDIA’s to potential investors in the Middle East.

Altman was also reportedly looking for backers to fund his hardware collaboration with former Apple designer, Jony Ive, for which he approached SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son. Sources with knowledge of the discussions told Bloomberg that Altman is trying to raise “tens of billions of dollars” to get these projects off the ground.

If you haven’t yet hopped on the air fryer bandwagon, now is the perfect time to do so thanks to an Amazon Black Friday deal on one of Ninja’s DualZone Foodi air fryers that’s slashed $100 off the normal price. The XL Ninja DZ401 Foodi air fryer, which has two separate cooking compartments, is only $130 right now. The 10-quart beast of an appliance usually costs $230, and this is the best deal on it yet.

The DZ401 Foodi uses Ninja’s DualZone technology, which allows it to cook different types of food simultaneously in its two separate compartments. Each basket has a capacity of 5 quarts. With its Smart Finish setting, it can even coordinate the timing of the different dishes so they’re done at the same time. It’ll take up a fair amount of counter space, but would come in handy for anyone cooking for a large family or guests. In addition to frying, Ninja’s DZ401 Foodi can broil, roast, bake, reheat, and dehydrate food. It’s a versatile appliance, and one of the best air fryers on the market right now.

While it brings the option to cook with both baskets at the same time, you can also just cook using one for smaller or less complex meals. You won’t have to wait for it to preheat thanks to its rapid heaters, or worry about it being overly noisy. The current 43 percent discount on Amazon is far better than even the previous low of $180, so snatch one up now if you’ve been waiting for just the right moment.

Your Black Friday Shopping Guide: See all of Yahoo’s Black Friday coverage, here. Follow Engadget for Black Friday tech deals. Learn about Black Friday trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Black Friday deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Black Friday sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.