Amazon's “Project Kuiper” Unveiled 📡

On Tuesday, Amazon unveiled its ambitious satellite internet project, “Project Kuiper,” which is set for a market launch in the first half of 2024. Project Kuiper is poised to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink by offering "smaller, more affordable, and more capable" customer terminals.

Amazon has developed three satellite terminals to cater to different market segments:

1. Standard customer terminal: <$400 expected production cost, offers 400Mbps speeds, appealing to most consumers with its 11-inch square dimensions.

2. Compact terminal: A portable, low-cost option with 100Mbps speeds, measuring 7 inches square, perfect for on-the-go users.

3. Commercial terminal: Designed for large companies and government organizations, providing 1Gbps speeds and measuring 19x30 inches.

Amazon's new proprietary “Prometheus” chip power each terminal. Amazon says the chip ensures a fast and reliable satellite internet experience.

Scheduled to launch its first two prototype satellites in May on the Vulcan Centaur rocket, Amazon plans to deploy over 3,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit in the coming years. The company aims to have 50% of its entire 3,236-satellite Kuiper network operational by 2026.

With Project Kuiper's diverse terminal offerings and innovative technology, many analysts believe this will position Amazon as a key player in the satellite internet market.

OpenAI Releases GPT-4 🤖

The much-anticipated release of GPT-4 has come a mere 4 months after the release of GPT-3.

After many concerns that ChatGPT was inaccurate and unsafe, OpenAI says the new GPT-4 model has improved on both dimensions, mentioning that it is “40% more likely” to produce factual responses.

The biggest change in the new version comes from its ‘multimodal technology’, meaning you can now submit a picture as an input. Major companies have already started using the new model, with Morgan Stanley using it to organize wealth management data, payment company Stripe using it to combat fraud, and Duolingo integrating with the technology to allow users to practice real-world conversations.

The newest version is currently available only for ChatGPT Plus users; however, the image-processing features have not yet been released to the public. GPT-4 is also already powering the Microsoft Bing search engine.

Perhaps even more exciting than the GPT-4 announcement is Microsoft’s announcement that it will be integrating the technology into Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Word in the form of ‘Copilots’. These AI-powered assistants will be able to generate whole documents, emails, and slide decks from knowledge the software has gained scanning corporate files and listening to conference calls.

Microsoft plans to roll out the technology in the coming months and is already testing it with over 20 companies.

Rollercoaster Week for Regional Banks 🎢

Regional stocks experienced a tumultuous ride this week, with fear from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse driving the stocks down significantly before the Federal Reserve’s swift response to the crisis caused a strong rally.

On Tuesday, First Republic Bank ($FRC) was up 57%, PacWest Bancorp ($PACW) was up 54%, and Western Alliance Bancorp ($WAL) was up 48%. While these are jaw-dropping gains, they still don’t make up for the deep losses that occurred on Friday and Monday. First Republic for example, fell 75% from $78 to $19 on Friday and has only recovered to ~$30 as of Thursday.

Top Discussion This Week 🎙

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🗞️ What else you might’ve missed:

• Silicon Valley Bank CEO and CFO sued by shareholders.

• Samsung plans to invest $229B towards a chip-making complex.

• Volkswagen introduces its first affordable all-electric vehicle.

• Canada’s job numbers grew more than expected again.

• Meta lays off 10,000 employees in another round of job cuts.