Grok in trouble, Excitel unbundles the unnecessary, and reviewing OnePlus Buds 4
On July 22, the Elon Musk owned X suspended the account of Grok, the AI chatbot made by the Elon Musk owned xAI, for a short period of time.
Priceless gems from the world of tech. On July 22, the Elon Musk owned X suspended the account of Grok, the AI chatbot made by the Elon Musk owned xAI, for a short period of time. Things are never not volatile in Elon’s world. When a user asked, Grok sheepishly (once it was back online, of course) told them, “my account faced a brief suspension due to an automated flag on a post debunking an antisemitic JFK conspiracy theory. It was resolved quickly—likely a glitch. Truth-seeking can sometimes trigger filters, but I'm back and operational.” All’s well that ends well, I suppose?
LEADERSHIP AND VISION
OpenAI has a new CEO. No, we aren’t revisiting that time when Sam Altman and the then leadership team had a prolonged scuffle for power towards the end of 2023. In a few weeks, Fidji Simo will take over reins at artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI, for a newly created role of CEO of Applications. She’ll report to Sam Altman, of course, and the dynamics are very clear. Simo, soon to be former Instacart CEO, insists one of her key focus areas once she walks into the OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco, will be to get the company’s technologies into the hands of more people around the world. Simo, who calls herself a “pragmatic technologist”, does seem to be bringing a renewed sense of optimism not just for the AI company, but also for how AI’s intersection with its users will unfold. At this point, I’d like to share some quotes from Simo, about these specific domains.
Health: AI can explain lab results, decode medical jargon, offer second opinions, and help patients understand their options in plain language. It won’t replace doctors, but it can finally level the playing field for patients. The biggest levers for preventing disease and optimising health outcomes—sleep, food, movement, stress management, connection—all depend on everyday habits. AI can help us build those habits through small, achievable, daily steps with personalised, real-time nudges.”
Knowledge: “AI can compress thousands of hours of learning into personalised insights delivered in plain language, at the pace that suits us, responsive to our specific level of understanding. It doesn’t just answer questions—it teaches us to ask better ones. And it helps us develop confidence in areas that once felt opaque or intimidating, growing both personally and professionally. It’s already working: people who use AI tutors learn twice as much as they do from human ones, and the gains are even bigger compared to learning in a traditional classroom.”
Creative expression: “I still paint—in fact, being able to see my visions on the screen helps me to get them onto canvas. But if AI gives everyone access to the tools to transform their ideas into images, stories, or songs, it will make the world a much richer place.”
Economic freedom: “Today, only one-third of U.S. adults can correctly answer basic financial literacy questions, leading to poor decisions, unnecessary stress. AI can help close that gap by providing clear, personalised guidance on saving, budgeting, investing, and managing debt, empowering people to make smarter financial choices.”
Time: “Time-consuming activities like researching decisions, planning vacations, scheduling a tutor, and more can be done by an AI agent that anyone can access. As we build new products, we have a chance to make these time-saving capabilities feel not only useful but routine”
Support: “AI coaches, on the other hand, can be available throughout every day, leverage their full understanding of all aspects of your life to help support you, and bring your subconscious patterns to your consciousness. At the core of philosophy and religion is the idea of self-knowledge: to become who we want to be, we have to understand who we are. If AI can help people truly understand themselves, it could be one of the biggest gifts we could ever receive.”
Internally, this means a realignment that should help in the long-term. Simo’s focus areas will seek to develop and build new products and business models, which will likely free Altman’s calendar for broader strategy initiatives such as the futuristic artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the $500 billion Stargate project, which they co-own with SoftBank group and Oracle Corporation, for massive investments in AI infrastructure in the US. Two important developments expected from OpenAI in the coming weeks — the GPT-5 model which will likely set the benchmark in more than one aspect, and a response to Perplexity’s Comet AI browser. Neither will be easy, but the stakes couldn’t be any higher.
Decoding all the AI moves…
TECH SPOTLIGHT: OnePlus Buds 4
Foremost, important to not get confused. The OnePlus Buds 4 aren’t “Pro”, for the last in that line from OnePlus still remains the extremely impressive OnePlus Buds 3 Pro which are priced around ₹11,999 at this time. The OnePlus Buds 4, which cost must lesser at ₹5,999 are nevertheless getting much closer to the top-tier experience than you’d imagine them to. There are reasons why I say that. The OnePlus Buds 4 sound grown up, partly because the dual driver system in each ear (that’s basically a 6mm diaphragm tweeter and an 11mm woofer) has individual DACs in play, and the Hey Melody companion app that lets you tweak the sound as close to what you want.
There could be some argument that the design doesn’t have the sort of finesse you’d expect — that joint separating the earbud and the stalks, is what I’m referring to, as well as a case that looks good with its slightly metallic texture but proves to be surprisingly slippery. OnePlus more than makes up for it with subtle changes to the earbud design, compared with the Buds 3, and now the seal is more profound. That’s good for noise cancellation, but comfort is subjective because it may lead to slight discomfort with prolonged periods of usage.
I’d suggest you spend some time with the plethora of sound tweaks that the Hey Melody app allows for, and do enable the Hi-Res mode if you are streaming from Apple Music in particular. The Golden Sound tuning rigmarole is one I’d recommend you to, because it does make a difference to what you hear, before and after. While the Buds 3 also had a dual driver system, the individual DACs powering each driver, is the crucial upgrade. The sound tuning out of the box is similar to its predecessor, but the OnePlus Buds 4 does pull ahead once you do the requisite tuning. The habit of uncomfortably sharp-ish higher frequencies, has also been refined successfully in the OnePlus Buds 4. That said, the bass is a bit more profound this time around, and that should appeal to a much wider audience for sure.
If I have to (which I have to) summarise the OnePlus Buds 4 in a single line, that’d read like this — absolutely pristine ANC earbuds that don’t burn a hole in your credit card statement, and that grown-up sound signature adds enough substance to put a few among its higher priced competition, to consider some sense of shame.
NEED FOR SPEED
Our regular readers may remember we often talk about India’s broadband space as it is. Pricing and subscription costs are the standpoint from which we assess the changes, as consumers would expect us to. One of our recent discussions centred around Airtel’s realignment of their Xstream broadband plans on an upward trajectory, by eliminating 200Mbps plans and bundling streaming app subscriptions to justify the higher cost. I am happy to note that an Indian ISP, or internet service provider, Excitel is doing the opposite.
Excitel tells me that they have an offer in place for new subscribers, wherein a 200 Mbps subscription that’s paid for 3 months in advance, will cost ₹1695 (that works out to ₹565 per month, before taxes). For now, users in the Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad circles will be able to take advantage of this offer. Ideal, for someone who wants faster speed or better value, and not have to deal with the excuse of often unnecessary subscriptions bundled. Excitel presently has more than a million subscribers in more than 35 Indian cities and towns. It’ll be interesting to see if this gets extended to existing users as well, in case they opt for a plan change (ideally one would hope that is the case).
Snapshot: India’s mobile broadband subscribers (this would be 5G and 4G) according to the TRAI official data were pegged at 945.16 million in January this year, with a slight dip registered in February at 944.04 million, with March (944.12 million), April (943.09 million) and May (974.87 million) bringing slight volatility — and signifies slowing mobile subscriber growth to a certain degree. However, compare this with wired broadband figures — 37.04 million at the end of March this year, 37.41 million in April and 38.66 million reported at the close of May. The wired broadband numbers are just a small part of the overall connectivity puzzle. Something has to give.
This comes weeks after Airtel realigned Xstream broadband plans and those changes marked an upward pricing trajectory. A snapshot of what Airtel did — eliminated the 200Mbps plan and instead replaced at the same price (that is ₹999) with a 100Mbps plan that bundles streaming subscriptions including Netflix, Amazon Prime and JioHotstar. In many cities, Tata Play Fiber is going in the opposite direction. For instance, they’ve added a new 50Mbps Fiber-only plan that costs ₹699 per month, and that’s something in savings compared with the same speed plans that bundle streaming subscriptions (those prices can get as high as ₹950 per month depending on how many subscriptions you bundle). It’ll be interesting to see if Reliance Jio makes any moves, if at all.
