AI NewsGoogle DeepMind Hires a Philosopher to Study Machine Consciousness & AGI

Google DeepMind Hires a Philosopher to Study Machine Consciousness & AGI

5:53 PM IST · April 14, 2026

The move comes at a time when fast progress in AI is prompting questions about risks, governance, and how people will work with these systems.

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Apple CEO John Ternus says the best AI device is still the iPhone

Apple’s new CEO John Ternus used the opening of the company’s Surprise and Shine event Wednesday to make its AI strategy clear: the iPhone is already the best AI device out there, and Apple cares more about data privacy than its rivals. The comments come as Ternus takes the reins at Apple from Tim Cook, who is now executive chairman, and offer a clear picture of how the company plans to compete in the AI era. Instead of building new hardware for AI, Apple wants to make the iPhone the central way consumers interact with the new technology. During his introduction at the Cupertino event, Ternus described the ideal AI device, or “intelligent personal hub,” as he called it. He said such a hub would have a broad understanding of a user’s personal context, always be with them, and have both a powerful processor capable of running AI models on-device and an internet connection to access models in the cloud. The device would also have a large display, high-quality cameras and microphones so it could see and hear the world around it, along with long battery life, Ternus continued. Plus, “you’d want it to be super easy to use without a big learning curve. And finally, you’d want it to work seamlessly with your other devices, apps, and services, so it feels like one integrated experience,” he said. “In other words, you would arrive at something remarkably familiar, because there’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone,” Ternus said. Ternus also emphasized how Apple cares more about data privacy, adding that “others see [users’ personal] data as something to collect and store.” It was one of the sharper statements Apple has made about how it intends to differentiate its AI platform from the competition. “…Honestly, trust only goes so far when your data is no longer yours to control; that’s why Apple Intelligence runs on device whenever it can,” Ternus concluded.

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Apple has a new way prove your iPhone photos aren’t AI slop

In a world awash in AI slop, Apple wants you to trust what gets captured on its iPhones. The company announced Wednesday during itsSurprise and Shine eventthat it is introducing Apple Reference Image, a feature it says can prove whether an image taken with the iPhone 18 Pro is authentic. “This is vital for photojournalists and photographers,” the company said. When a photo is taken, the main camera sensor also captures signed sensor data which Apple’s Private Cloud Compute service then turns into an “unalterable image” viewable in the Photos app. The reference image can then be compared with other versions of the photo to determine whether any changes have been made. Apple likens the reference image to a “digital negative.” While reference images will initially be viewable only in the Photos app, the company is making APIs available to developers so they can integrate the feature into their own apps. Apple also said it will support the SynthID standard to help people determine whether images were created or altered with AI. Apple Reference Image is one of several new features and upgrades to the company’s hardware and software that is focused on the camera. The company said the iPhone 18 Pro includes its biggest camera improvement in years. One upgrade that will surely get the attention of photographers is the variable aperture on the new 48 megapixel fusion main camera. The aperture is what controls how much light enters the lens. This new main camera has a variable aperture, which means users have more control over the amount of light coming in and ultimately what the final image looks like. It should be especially helpful for those who like to take photos at night. To achieve this, Apple said it developed a system of six laser-cut blades, each thinner than a human hair and made from a specialized polymer composite, a new rotor mechanism to control movements, and a custom-designed lens.

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Apple’s revamped Health app will calculate your ‘health age’ and readiness score

Alongside the new Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, Apple on Wednesday introduced a redesigned Apple Health app that takes advantage of Apple Intelligence to make better sense of your health data. The changes deliver a new Insights tab that includes a summary of the most timely information, plus personalized guidance, assessments, a new “readiness” score, and a computation of your “Health Age.” The latter is a way to understand how your various health metrics compare with your actual age and uses data like your VO2 max, sleep, and more, including biomarkers from your blood. The additions also include a new longevity tab, which uses metrics from your Apple watch and iPhone to assess your health across sleep, movement, heart health, and other factors. Your lab results can be incorporated into this guidance, and Apple announced a team-up with Quest for a 50-biomarker panel for $119, giving users quick access to data that can only come from lab tests. With Apple Intelligence, Apple’s Health app has been improved to make sense of other health data, too, which comes into play in features like the readiness score and the Insights tab. For instance, the app could suggest that a user incorporate more intervals into their morning run to improve their cardio health. The app will also go deeper in areas like fitness and heart health as well, Apple said The Health app also allows users to take in-depth assessments of how well their bodies are moving, which can help people who are aging or recovering from an injury. A trainer can even demonstrate certain moves for you to try as you take the assessment, which Apple claims is like having a coach right there with you. The updated Health app rolls out later this year, starting in U.S. English.

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The hinge for Apple’s new foldable phone was built with AI

Apple’s long-awaited foldable phone, the Duo, contains a number of surprises, including a critical hinge that was designed and built with the help of AI and 3D printing. The new phone represents Apple’s first entry into the foldable phone genre — a category of devices that has seen significant consumer enthusiasm, butwhose form factorshaven’t always lived up to that enthusiasm. As you might expect from a product that, by design, undergoes twice as much wear as a traditional device, most foldables suffer significant degradation anddon’t have the durabilityof other smartphones. Apple claims that it has integrated innovative protections into the Duo’s design to keep the phone from falling prey to the typical wear and tear associated with foldables. That includes the hinge, according to Johny Srouji, the company’s chief hardware officer. “During manufacturing, we use AI algorithms to precisely match each individual hinge with its best-fit housing to ensure perfect alignment, and a confocal laser progressively scans the topology of every single unit, and 3D prints up to 25 micro layers of a custom photopolymer to eliminate residual waviness,” Srouji said during Apple’s Surprise and Shine event on Wednesday. Srouji also shared that Apple gave the foldable phone “a custom nano-texture finish that significantly reduces glare and reflections” as well as a multi-layer lamination strategy designed to increase the device’s durability. Of course, it remains to be seen whether those protections will be enough to keep the Duo in peak physical condition in the long run.

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Google DeepMind Hires a Philosopher to Study Machine Consciousness & AGI

Latest AI News

Apple CEO John Ternus says the best AI device is still the iPhone

Apple has a new way prove your iPhone photos aren’t AI slop

Apple’s revamped Health app will calculate your ‘health age’ and readiness score

The hinge for Apple’s new foldable phone was built with AI

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