{"id":418195,"date":"2026-01-20T06:46:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/418195\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T06:46:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:46:06","slug":"openai-says-its-physical-device-is-on-track-for-an-unveiling-later-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/418195\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI Says Its Physical Device Is \u2018On Track\u2019 for an Unveiling Later This Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, Chris Lehane, OpenAI\u2019s chief global affairs officer, said his company is \u201con track\u201d to present its famously mysterious thingamajig to the public by the end of the year according to Axios<\/a>. This would mean the previously rumored release date, September-ish<\/a>, was not crazy after all.<\/p>\n

Lahane\u2019s announcement came during an event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. However, Lahane did not provide any details about what this thing is or does. He also, according to Axios, said what he had described was the \u201cmost likely\u201d release schedule, but that \u201cwe will see how things advance.\u201d<\/p>\n

For details about what the device is and does, you\u2019ll have to read the aforementioned rumors from the China-based leaks account Smart Pikachu<\/a>. That user posted a week ago that OpenAI is supposedly gunning for the market niche currently occupied by AirPods<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Smart Pikachu described manufacturing giant Foxconn working on something with the codename \u201cSweetpea,\u201d a \u201cspecial audio product\u201d within a company project called \u201cGumdrop,\u201d vaguely in the earbud or \u201copen-ear headphones<\/a>\u201d zone. It would be two objects\u2014one for each ear\u2014and a little egg-shaped, dental-floss-holder-sized charging dock. Sweetpea would pack heavy duty processing power via a 2-nanometer, smartphone-style chip. Its release might also be followed, or accompanied, by four other \u201cGumdrop\u201d devices between now and 2028, like a \u201chome-style device,\u201d and, um, a pen, according to Smart Pikachu. And once again: these are just unconfirmed rumors at this point.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019ll recall that the vast majority of the actual information OpenAI has given the world so far about its first device comes from two sources: 1) A very strange infomercial for the concept of friendship that OpenAI released in spring of last year starring OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and legendary iPhone designer Jony Ive\u2014whose product design company had just merged with OpenAI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And 2) a much longer\u2014but somehow less substantive\u2014interview<\/a> Ive and Altman gave in November in which they explained next to nothing, other than the fact that they\u2019re aiming for a product so sensual that you\u2019ll want to put various parts of your mouth all over it. Altman said it\u2019s \u201cso simple, but then it just does,\u201d whatever that means. Ive said he\u2019s into creating \u201csophisticated products that you want to touch and you feel no intimidation and you want to use almost carelessly and almost without thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

So there you go. It just does, and you won\u2019t even think about it, and you\u2019ll want to smooch it, and it might be available before the midterms. What more do you need to know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday, Chris Lehane, OpenAI\u2019s chief global affairs officer, said his company is \u201con track\u201d to present its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[181,60821,1283,7047,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-418195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-jony-ive","10":"tag-openai","11":"tag-sam-altman","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}