Weekly Tech Recap: JioHotstar launched, Sam Altman vs Elon Musk feud intensifies, Perplexity takes on ChatGPT and morenews24

In a world overflowing with information, keeping up with the most important updates can be overwhelming. To make it easier, we’ve put together the Weekly Tech Recap— where we take a look at the biggest developments in technology each week. This time, Perplexity launched its Deep Search agent rivalling OpenAI and Google, Adobe rolled out its generative video model, JioStar launched its combined offering JioHotstar and more.

Top 5 tech news of the week:

1) Apple’s Siri revamp likely to be delayed again: 

Apple’s Siri overhaul has run into problems again and could be delayed yet again, according to a report from Bloomberg. The features, which were announced at WWDC in June last year, were not present in the original iOS 18 rollout and were expected to be released in April with iOS 18.4, but that could be postponed once again.

Reportedly, the Cupertino-based tech giant is facing technical issues and software bugs with its Siri overhaul and the new update could be pushed back to May or even later.

With ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini taking centre stage, the Siri overhaul was a key element of Apple’s bid to make a comeback in the AI race. While Apple has been able to bring its other Apple Intelligence features through numerous updates, the Siri overhaul has been conspicuously absent from the list.

2) Sam Altman vs Elon Musk rivalry reignites:

The rivalry between Elon Musk and Sam Altman was at full tilt this week as the X owner put in a bid with OpenAI board to buyout the non-profit arm of the company for $97.4 billion. The bid was first rejected by Altman during the Paris AI summit and later by the OpenAI board. 

Speaking in Paris, Altman said, “OpenAI is not for sale. The OpenAI mission is not for sale… I think he is probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor… He’s working hard and and has raised a lot of money for xAI, and they’re trying to compete with us from a technological perspective, from, you know, getting the product into the market and I wish he would just compete by building a better product” Altman said in the interview.

“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy… I don’t think he’s like a happy person” the OpenAI CEO added.

3) Perplexity goes head to head with Gemini and ChatGPT: 

Aravind Srinivas-led Perplexity AI has launched its own Deep Research tool, which it claims will help users save hours of time by performing in-depth research and analysis on their behalf while taking less than 3 minutes for most tasks. Perplexity already offered DeepSeek R1 on its platform, and the addition of Deep Research puts it in direct competition with AI giants like OpenAI and Google.

Perplexity says its Pro users will have access to 500 queries per day, while free users will get a limited number of answers. The new AI tool is already available on Perplexity’s website and the company says it will soon be rolled out to iOS, Android and Mac versions of its apps.

4) Adobe Firefly brings OpenAI Sora-like capabilities: 

Adobe has rolled out its text-to-video generation feature on Firefly AI, positioning it against OpenAI’s Sora and Google Veo AI models. The new AI model is available via the redesigned Firefly web app and is being positioned as the first “commercially safe AI video generation model”.

The new Generative Video model allows users to generate both text-to-video and image-to-video content. The text-to-video feature allows users to generate a video using only a text description, while the image-to-video feature allows users to reference an image along with the text prompt to create customised footage.

5) JioHotstar launched:

JioStar announced the launch of its new streaming platform, JioHotstar, integrating the company’s two current services, JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar. The new platform is touted to be the largest in the Indian market, with a combined user base of over 50 crore and over three lakh hours of content. It also offer international content from Disney, NBCUniversal’s Peacock, Warner Bros., Discovery, HBO, and Paramount.

The Disney+ Hotstar app has been rebranded to JioHotstar while the JioCinema app also redirects users to the new app.