Elon Musk formally renamed Twitter “X” in July, cementing the rebrand by bolting the symbol to the top of the social network’s San Francisco headquarters and replacing Larry the Bird, its mascot since 2012, with a grungy black logo soon afterwards. Linda Yaccarino, X’s new CEO, declared at the time of the rebrand: “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.” Mr Musk had already renamed the company itself X Corp in March, six months after acquiring it for $44m, a purchase he described at the time as “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app”, his vision for a multipurpose competitor to China’s WeChat. The decision was just the latest example of the entrepreneur’s preoccupation with the 24th letter of the alphabet: his first business venture was X.com, he shortened the name of Space Exploration Technologies Corp to SpaceX, he launched the Tesla Model X and has a new artificial intelligence startup named xAI. He even calls his son X Æ A-12 just X for short. So what is the obsession about and where did it begin? His first venture, X.com, was an online banking and financial services platform launched in Palo Alto, California, in 1999 that would ultimately be merged with Confinity to become PayPal, which was in turn then sold to eBay for $1.5bn in 2002, Mr Musk using some of the capital he earned as its largest shareholder to found SpaceX. Julie Anderson Ankenbrandt, a former PayPal executive, explained how Mr Musk’s platform got its name in a Quora post in 2016. “Elon, the other founders of the company that was X.com… and I sat around a backroom table at a long-defunct bar called the Blue Chalk in Palo Alto, trying decide what the name of the company should be… and the question at hand was whether to be Q, X or Z dot com,” she wrote. “Finally, when the waitress/female server brought the next round of drinks Elon asked her what she thought, and she said she like[d] X.com. Elon pounded the table and said ‘That’s it then!’ and everyone laughed, but in the end that was pretty much how it was decided.” Not everyone was happy with the decision, according to Mr Musk’s biographer Ashlee Vance, who told NPR: “Everyone tried to talk him out of naming the company that back then because of the sexual innuendos, but he really liked it and stuck with it.” He liked the name so much he bought the X.com domain back from PayPal in 2017 and thanked the company in a tweet, explaining that it had “great sentimental value” to him. The domain now redirects to the social network that has since taken on its old moniker. Elsewhere, the Tesla Model X – a midsize luxury crossover SUV with falcon wing doors – was named so that, with three other models, the range would spell out “S3XY”, giving you an insight into Mr Musk’s gawky sense of humour. As for his son, the boy’s mother Grimes explained in a tweet of her own that the symbol is used in algebra to denote any unknown variable, perhaps suggesting the child is free to grow up to be whatever they choose to be. The rebranding of Twitter to X sparked a great deal of musing about the letter’s possible significance (or lack thereof), with Lora Kelly of The Atlantic writing: “The letter is associated with such varied contexts as Christian symbolism, middle-school-math equations, gender neutrality, pornography, a kiss.” In Psychology Today, Leon F Selzer discussed its “nihilistic” values, noting that it has associations with everything from the Nazi swastika to a skull-and-crossbones danger warning on a bottle of poison to Roman numerals, voting and Christmas (at least when abbreviated to “Xmas”) and therefore can mean everything and nothing. Meanwhile, in The New York Times, Stella Bugbee suggested the choice was arguably a bit dated and perhaps represented a case of Mr Musk showing his age as a member of, appropriately enough, Generation X. “For marketing purposes in the 1990s, X had a certain cool,” she explained. “It conferred a rejection of authority.” While that observations rings true of such turn-of-the-millennium cultural detritus as, say, the arrival of Microsoft’s XBox in 2001 or Vin Diesel’s action film XXX (2002), it has also been used in the same way before and since: think of country star Loretta Lynn’s notoriety-courting 1972 single “Rated X” or the cult 1980s Los Angeles punk band X, for instance, or the more recent Ti West horror film X (2022). As Lora Kelly observed: “X both reinforces absence and electrifies objects with meaning. It is sacred and profane.” Read More Elon Musk ‘borrowed $1bn from SpaceX’ at same time as Twitter acquisition SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter Elon Musk threatens to sue the Anti-Defamation League over lost revenue on X Elon Musk ‘borrowed $1bn from SpaceX’ at same time as Twitter acquisition Starship ‘ready to launch’, Elon Musk says Elon Musk vows to sue ADL for calling him antisemitic over X campaign

Elon Musk has weighed in on the scooped bagel controversy, agreeing that the snack is a “crime against breakfast”. Last month, a man from Los Angeles named Taylor Offer sparked a debate on social media after sharing a TikTok about his experience ordering a scooped bagel in New York City. Mr Offer claimed that the request ended with him getting kicked out of the deli. “There’s nothing more stressful than ordering a bagel in New York City,” his video began, explaining that his normal bagel order is a scooped, gluten-free bagel. In Los Angeles, Mr Offer said no one ever questions his order, but that the NYC deli he visited had a problem with it. “I just walked in and asked for a scooped gluten free bagel, guy just looks at me and goes: ‘I’m not scooping your f***ing bagel bro,’” Mr Offer alleged. Mr Offer said he was confused why his order was being questioned because he noted “that’s how I want it”. The TikToker then alleged that the employee behind the counter kicked him out of the deli, at which point he said he would just move on to a different deli. Since the video was first posted on 27 October, it has received almost nine million views, and generated intense debate on social media with people choosing their side in the debate. Now, Tech mogul Elon Musk is the most recent big name to weigh in on the debate, supporting claims that scooped bagels are a “crime against breakfast and possibly even humanity itself”. @tayloroffer Facts ♬ Theme From New York, New York - 2008 Remastered - Frank Sinatra Taking to his platform X, formerly Twitter, Mr Musk shared a response generated by his new AI chatbot, Grok, after the platform was asked: “Should bagels be allowed to be scooped?” The chatbot’s response read: “Scooping a bagel should be considered a“crime against breakfast and possibly even humanity itself. “Imagine taking a perfectly good bagel, slicing it in half, and then mercilessly scooping out its soft, bready innards. It’s like performing bagel surgery without a license!” It added: “Scooped bagels are an affront to the very essence of bagelness. They are nothing more than a mere shadow of their former selves, with no structural integrity to speak of.” The chatbot then claimed scooped bagels are “wrong on so many levels”. “In conclusion, bagels should not be allowed to be scooped,” the response continued. “It’s an act of bagel cruelty that must be stopped. We must unite in our stand against this heinous practice and protect the sanctity of the bagel.” Mr Musk shared the response to his 162 million followers on X, simply writing: “Truth.” X users were quick to agree with the tech billionaire. “Scooped bagels are a representation of everything that’s wrong in this world,” one person wrote. “The truth will set us free,” another person commented. Meanwhile, others were brave enough to share their controversial bagel opinions. “The best way to eat a bagel is to spread a lot of butter on the cut sides and cook it in a pan, like a grilled cheese. Trust me and try it,” one X user said. A scooped bagel is when the inside of the bagel, the soft bread, part is removed. Typically, it’s done as either a lower-calorie or low-carb option, but some people order their bagels scooped out to be able to get more cream cheese or other filling of their choice inside. Read More Elon Musk weighs in on the scooped bagel debate First look: John Lewis teases 2023 Christmas advert Love letters to French sailors confiscated by British 265 years ago finally opened First look: John Lewis teases 2023 Christmas advert Love letters to French sailors confiscated by British 265 years ago finally opened I’m with Barbra Streisand – the fun really begins when you’re older, much older

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Apple is working on its own ‘Apple GPT’, according to a new report. The system is an artificial intelligence chatbot like those offered by other companies, Bloomberg reported. It uses Apple’s own large language model framework and is built on tools from Google, the report said. The company is still unclear what purpose the system will serve, Bloomberg reported. But it is gearing up for a major announcement next year, it said. Multiple teams are currently working on the project, the report claimed, with some of those tasked with working on privacy concerns around the technology. Apple has focused on privacy as one of its fundamental principles, especially in recent years. If released, ‘Apple GPT’ would mark Apple’s first major step into artificial intelligence as its own product. Apple has been much more slower than competitors in offering own AI tools, and has been publicly cautious about embracing the technology. In an earnings call earlier this year, for instance, chief executive Tim Cook said that Apple was planning to “weave” artificial intelligence into its products, but that it would have to be “deliberate and thoughtful”. He said there is a “number of issues that need to be sorted”. Many had expected that Apple could address the growth of and hype around artificial intelligence during its Worldwide Developers Conference event last month, where it also released its Vision Pro virtual reality headset. But the topic went notably unmentioned, and Apple did not use the phrase at all, instead referring to those products using the technology as being powered by machine learning. Apple already offers a host of products powered by technologies that are often referred to as artificial intelligence. Siri uses such capabilities to power its voice recognition and responses, for instance – though Apple does not tend to publicly refer to it as such. Previous reports have suggested that Apple’s progress on artificial intelligence has been hindered by its characteristic private approach, which set it against a research community that is focused on publishing papers and sharing research. In recent years, however, it has made a number of high profile hires in the field and allowed them to publicly publish some of that work. Read More Beats launches updated version of Studio Pro over-ear headphones Rare ‘Holy Grail’ iPhone sells for almost $200,000 Apple’s next iPhone may include new battery technology, report suggests

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A battery startup is aiming to be the first company in the world to mass produce electric vehicle batteries with a range of 1,000km – roughly double the current standard. China-based Gotion High Tech, which is a supplier to Volkswagen, unveiled its new L600 LMFP Astroinno battery at its annual technology conference, claiming that mass production will begin in 2024. The lithium-manganese-iron-phosphate (LMFP) battery has already passed all necessary safety tests, the company said, and has a life cycle of 4,000 charge-discharge cycles – making it suitable for everyday electric cars. The 1,000km range from a single charge gives the battery a potential lifetime range of 4 million kilometres, far exceeding the average lifespan of a car. Its single-charge range is also equivalent to records set by customised electric prototypes, such as the Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX that broke a range record by travelling from Germany to the UK on a single charge last year. It took 10 years of in-house research to make the technology commercially viable, using new electrolyte additives and state-of-the-art technology to overcome previous issues with this type of battery. Until now, LMFP materials have suffered low conductivity, low compaction density and manganese dissolution at high temperatures, meaning they were too inefficient and unwieldy to use in EVs. Despite these challenges, the enormous potential of the technology has drawn the attention of researchers and industry watchers. “In recent years, lithium iron phosphate (LFP) technology has regained the recognition of the market with market share continuing to increase,” said Dr Cheng Qian, executive president of the International Business Unit of Gotion High-Tech. “Meanwhile, the energy density growth of mass-produced LFP batteries has encountered bottlenecks, and further improvement requires an upgrade of the chemical system, so [our system] was developed.” The company also made other breakthroughs with the battery’s design, which reduced the number of structural parts by 45 per cent and lowered their weight by nearly a third. Wiring for the battery pack has also dropped from 303 metres to just 80 metres thanks to the innovative design. It is not clear which vehicles the battery will first appear in, though Gotion High Tech is planning a $2.3 billion battery factory in the US. Read More Solar panel efficiency to increase 50% with first production of ‘miracle’ tandem cells Apple is making a ‘mixed reality’ headset. Here’s what that future might look like WhatsApp will let people change messages after they are sent ‘RIP photoshop’: New AI can alter any photo with the click of a mouse

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