Tech News of the week: Apple Vision Pro launch, Paytm Payments Bank ban and more

Apple Vision Pro headset is now available for purchase in the US with a starting price of $3,499 or around Rs 3,00,000, making it one of the most expensive consumer-grade mixed reality or spatial computing devices, powered by the M2 chip, which also powers the MacBooks and iPad Pro.

Seeing people’s reactions to trying Apple Vision Pro for the first time today was wonderful. Some people had tears in their eyes! Our mission is to enrich people’s lives, and I could feel that happening in real time. What a day! pic.twitter.com/VOOVBgrEbo

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) February 3, 2024

RBI has banned Paytm Payments Bank, which will be effective from March 2024, where, the bank won't be able to offer any sort of credit or deposit-related transaction due to non-compliance and material supervisory concerns. However, Paytm has confirmed that all the services will continue to work for users, where, the platform will soon partner with other banks to offer products like Paytm Wallet, Paytm linked FASTag, and more.

To every Paytmer,
Your favourite app is working, will keep working beyond 29 February as usual.
I with every Paytm team member salute you for your relentless support. For every challenge, there is a solution and we are sincerely committed to serve our nation in full…

— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) February 2, 2024

X, the Elon Musk-owned microblogging platform is currently focused on attracting more creators to its platform by incentivising them with lucrative payouts for the content that they natively publish on the platform. As a result of this effort, the platform recently paid a whopping $263,655 to Jimmy Donaldson, also known as MrBeast for a video that garnered over 169 million views, and according to the creator, this payout is much bigger than what YouTube pays for a similar number.

MY FIRST X VIDEO MADE OVER $250,000! 😲

But it’s a bit of a facade. Advertisers saw the attention it was getting and bought ads on my video (I think) and thus my revenue per view is prob higher than what you’d experience pic.twitter.com/nViVpZbWBb

— MrBeast (@MrBeast) January 22, 2024

Google's generative AI assistant Bard might soon get a makeover and is expected to be called Gemini, suggests a leaked document on X, previously Twitter. Google already calls some of its large language models Gemini, and with this rebranding, it will be much easier for the company to offer various AI-powered features under one umbrella.

Google added a new changelog for Bard, and — oh boy — it's a big one!

The availability in Canada is awesome! That said I don't really understand the limitations with the app. That's disappointing as someone who lives in Europe.

Oh by the way... https://t.co/xM2snHVYJ9 is real. pic.twitter.com/QKgKrRjmM4

— Dylan Roussel (@evowizz) February 3, 2024