{"id":230244,"date":"2026-01-10T03:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/230244\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T03:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:44:09","slug":"mystery-ai-lab-that-poached-iphone-air-designer-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/230244\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery AI lab that poached iPhone Air designer revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Two months after reporting that the industrial designer who introduced the iPhone Air at Apple\u2019s September event had left for an unnamed AI company, Bloomberg has now shared<\/a> details on where he went.<\/p>\n

30 engineers hired away from tech giants to date<\/p>\n

According to Bloomberg, industrial designer Abidur Chowdhury has left Apple<\/a> to join Hark, a recently founded AI startup led by Brett Adcock, who also serves as CEO of Figure AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is little information available about Hark. Based on a memo seen by The Information<\/a>, the startup was launched just a few weeks ago with $100 million in funding from Adcock\u2019s personal capital, and will focus on:<\/p>\n

[\u2026] building \u201chuman-centric\u201d AI, which can \u201cthink proactively, recursively improve and care deeply about people,\u201d the memo said. Hark\u2019s first cluster of graphics processing units went online on Monday, the memo said, though it couldn\u2019t be learned how large the cluster was. Adcock will remain the CEO of Figure, in addition to his new role at Hark, according to a person with knowledge of the move.<\/p>\n

Back to Bloomberg\u2019s report, it says that Hark has already poached dozens of engineers from Google, Meta, and Amazon, and is \u201caiming to reach 100 in the first half of the year\u201d.<\/p>\n

9to5Mac\u2019s take<\/p>\n

Beyond the \u201chuman-centric AI\u201d description cited by The Information, it remains unclear what exactly Abidur Chowdhury will help build at Hark.<\/p>\n

So far, AI-based hardware has failed to capture the public\u2019s attention, with companies such as Humane<\/a>, Rabbit<\/a>, Limitless<\/a>, and Bee<\/a> either being acquired or all but forgotten.<\/p>\n

Meta, on the other hand, has found success<\/a> with its partnership with EssilorLuxottica. However, there\u2019s a case to be made that most of that success was out of timely luck, as the LLM boom happened after the release of the company\u2019s first Ray-Ban-branded connected glasses.<\/p>\n

To be clear, ChatGPT was launched a few months before that, but the actual boom happened later. Meta was quick to adapt its vision for the second version of its glasses, and is still reaping the benefits<\/a> of that move as the rest of the market scrambles<\/a> to react.<\/p>\n

Finally, OpenAI has also announced that it is working on a line of AI-based hardware, but so far, it has only confirmed<\/a> that its first product will not be a set of AI-powered in-ear headphones, or a wearable device.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your take on what a \u201chuman-centric\u201d AI product could mean? Let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n

Accessory deals on Amazon<\/p>\n

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