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SYNQ3, a restaurant voice AI startup, is acquired by SoundHound AI

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SYNQ3, a restaurant voice AI startup, is acquired by SoundHound AI

SYNQ3 Restaurant Solutions, a voice AI startup, was purchased by SoundHound AI for $25 million. SoundHound will have more than 10,000 more locations in the restaurant industry thanks to the acquisition.

AI for Restaurants

This year, SoundHound has been working quickly to expand its food footprint with convenience stores and restaurant chains. Following a successful pilot in 2020, the company plans to deploy voice AI at over 100 White Castle drive-thrus by the end of the year. A few months later, Samsung provided a multimodal enhancement for that using its MagicINFO interactive digital sign technology. When the voice AI communicates the customers’ requests to the kitchen, the menu boards and voice AI work together to provide better service that the customers can see is accurate. Now that SYNQ3 has over 25 brands of customers across drive-thrus, fast casual restaurants, casual dining establishments, and convenience stores in more than 100,000 locations, SoundHound can work to add those brands to its list.

“In joining forces, SoundHound AI and SYNQ3 will be the go-to standard for cutting-edge voice and conversational AI solutions for the restaurant industry,” SoundHound CEO Keyvan Mohajer explained. “Restaurant operators are turning to technology en masse, and voice AI is now playing a key role in helping them drive sales, reduce costs, and alleviate the burden of increasing demand on their employees.”

Revenue increases are anticipated from the agreement as SoundHound cross-sells SYNQ3’s clientele with its suite of AI products. Using information from more than 50 million prior interactions, these include advancements in dynamic interaction, intelligent answering, and employee assistance programs. Of the $25 million asking price, SoundHound will pay about 20% in cash and the remaining amount in stock. Subject to SYNQ3 meeting specific revenue targets over the following three years, an additional $4 million could be available.

Executives with industry experience such as CEO Steve Bigari, a former McDonald’s operator, are also available on SYNQ3. Bigari stated, “Together, we plan to leverage those synergies to deliver best-in-class AI ordering supported by the world’s largest library of restaurant AI orders.” The acquisition quickens SoundHound’s plan to commercialize its technology by enabling ordering services for food and beverages on TVs, automobiles, and other gadgets.

“SoundHound AI and SYNQ3 will provide our restaurant partners with a formidable voice solution that we believe significantly surpasses the competition,” said SYNQ3 CEO Steve Bigari. “Our businesses are highly complementary, with both AI and industry expertise at the core of who we are. Together, we plan to capitalize on those synergies to provide best-in-class AI ordering methodologies backed by the largest library of restaurant AI orders in the world. This will power a rapid acceleration of our growth!”

SoundHound’s desire to grow aligns with its strategy to increase revenue following its acquisition of $100 million in strategic funding in April. For its restaurant and automotive clients, that translates to a ton of new tools and features. Using its Dynamic Interaction voice AI for business services and leveraging generative AI for tasks like converting automobile manuals into voice assistants are on the list. Following two rounds of layoffs that reduced its workforce from approximately 450 to 200 employees, SoundHound had previously projected that it would turn a profit and had raised $25 million in equity financing in January.

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Apple’s own 5G modem-equipped iPhone SE 4 is “confirmed” to launch in March

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Tom O’Malley, an analyst at Barclays, recently visited Asia with his colleagues to speak with suppliers and makers of electronics. The analysts said they had “confirmed” that a fourth-generation iPhone SE with an Apple-designed 5G modem is scheduled to launch near the end of the first quarter next year in a research note they released this week that outlines the main conclusions from the trip. That timeline implies that the next iPhone SE will be unveiled in March, similar to when the present model was unveiled in 2022, in keeping with earlier rumors.

The rumored features of the fourth-generation iPhone SE include a 6.1-inch OLED display, Face ID, a newer A-series chip, a USB-C port, a single 48-megapixel rear camera, 8GB of RAM to enable Apple Intelligence support, and the previously mentioned Apple-designed 5G modem. The SE is anticipated to have a similar design to the base iPhone 14.

Since 2018, Apple is said to have been developing its own 5G modem for iPhones, a move that will let it lessen and eventually do away with its reliance on Qualcomm. With Qualcomm’s 5G modem supply arrangement for iPhone launches extended through 2026 earlier this year, Apple still has plenty of time to finish switching to its own modem. In addition to the fourth-generation iPhone SE, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo earlier stated that the so-called “iPhone 17 Air” would come with a 5G modem that was created by Apple.

Whether Apple’s initial 5G modem would offer any advantages to consumers over Qualcomm’s modems, such quicker speeds, is uncertain.

Qualcomm was sued by Apple in 2017 for anticompetitive behavior and $1 billion in unpaid royalties. In 2019, Apple purchased the majority of Intel’s smartphone modem business after the two firms reached a settlement in the dispute. Apple was able to support its development by acquiring a portfolio of patents relating to cellular technology. It appears that we will eventually be able to enjoy the results of our effort in four more months.

On March 8, 2022, Apple made the announcement of the third-generation iPhone SE online. With antiquated features like a Touch ID button, a Lightning port, and large bezels surrounding the screen, the handset resembles the iPhone 8. The iPhone SE presently retails for $429 in the United States, but the new model may see a price increase of at least a little.

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Google is said to be discontinuing the Pixel Tablet 2 and may be leaving the market once more

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Google terminated the development of the Pixel Tablet 3 yesterday, according to Android Headlines, even before a second-generation model was announced. The second-generation Pixel Tablet has actually been canceled, according to the report. This means that the gadget that was released last year will likely be a one-off, and Google is abandoning the tablet market for the second time in just over five years.

If accurate, the report indicates that Google has determined that it is not worth investing more money in a follow-up because of the dismal sales of the Pixel Tablet. Rumors of a keyboard accessory and more functionality for the now-defunct project surfaced as recently as last week.

It’s important to keep in mind that Google’s Nest subsidiary may abandon its plans for large-screen products in favor of developing technologies like the Nest Hub and Hub Max rather than standalone tablets.

Google has always had difficulty making a significant impact in the tablet market and creating a competitor that can match Apple’s iPad in terms of sales and general performance, not helped in the least by its inconsistent approach. Even though the hardware was good, it never really fought back after getting off to a promising start with the Nexus 7 eons ago. Another problem that has hampered Google’s efforts is that Android significantly trails iPadOS in terms of the quantity of third-party apps that are tablet-optimized.

After the Pixel Slate received tremendously unfavorable reviews, the firm first declared that it was finished producing tablets in 2019. Two tablets that were still in development at the time were discarded.

By 2022, however, Google had altered its mind and declared that a tablet was being developed by its Pixel hardware team. The $499 Pixel Tablet was the final version of the gadget, which came with a speaker dock that the tablet could magnetically connect to. (Google would subsequently charge $399 for the tablet alone.)

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Windows 11 PCs with Arm Processors now have an Official ISO for Clean Installations

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Power users occasionally prefer to start over when they acquire a new computer, so they follow the pro-gamers’ advice and reinstall Windows using a brand-new ISO image that comes straight from Microsoft and is free of bloatware and needlessly complex “driver management programs.” Up until recently, the new Snapdragon laptops’ more specialized version of Windows 11 didn’t support that.

The Windows 11 build on these new laptops is unusual because of the Arm64-based hardware, which differs from the typical x86 and x64 innards found in most laptops and desktops. Microsoft has finally released a disk image (or ISO file) for these devices after several months of waiting. To perform a direct reinstallation or make a bootable flash drive for a different device, you may now download it straight from Microsoft’s website. It is identical to the installation media utility that is currently available.

Be aware that there may be some glitches if you use this method for a fresh install. Compared to previous designs, the Snapdragon X system-on-a-chip has a lot fewer hardware variables, but because it’s so new, Windows Update might not include all the necessary components. You may need to use an Ethernet connection or the old-fashioned sneakernet to manually load drivers from another computer. You may also need to do some Googling to locate all the files you require for that.

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