VR/AR

Facebook’s Destiny = Owning Mixed Reality

Facebook says VR and AR are the next big thing in computing. At Wednesday’s Connect event, the social media giant showed how it plans to dominate yet another tech platform. 

Virtual reality

Oculus Quests are selling like hot cakes during the pandemic, but new headset owners may soon have buyer’s remorse. FB unveiled the $299 Quest 2, which drops Oct. 13. 

• The specs: 50% more pixels, 10% lighter, and one Benjamin Franklin cheaper than Quest 1. It’s also the first device to ship with Qualcomm’s newest VR/AR chipset.  
• Quest 2 will require a Facebook login, a buzzkill for some prospective buyers. 

VR isn’t necessarily having a niche → mass market moment, but Quest 2’s pricing is enticing...and likely enabled by selling at or below cost. FB could make up any lost hardware margins through an ever-expanding content library and services ecosystem: Quest 2 is getting exclusive AAA titles and Infinite Office, a customizable VR workspace. FB will also sell an enterprise Quest 2.

Augmented reality

It’s official: FB is developing AR smart glasses. But hold your holographic horses—Project Aria is a multi-year process. 

• The first step: In 2021, we’ll see smart glasses designed by Luxottica, the parent company of Ray Bans. They won’t have a display, nor will they be branded as an AR product. 

But AR specs are eventually coming (like Snap, FB is iterating with hardware). In the interim, FB will test sensor-laden research devices in the real world. 

R&D 

I stayed for the Facebook Reality Labs sci-fi power hour. Things got deep. 

FB is working on spatial audio and “neural click” technology, which I’ve demoed. It’s creating a working theory for the “second wave of human-oriented computing” and trying to think proactively about social implications (vs. its reactive approach to content moderation issues). 

Bottom line: Facebook doesn’t own or control the hardware rails its services currently run on. It hopes to change that with VR/AR—that’s why it’s invested in building interfaces, devices, and walled gardens.

CLOUD

Winter Is Here

Sherlock Holmes stored info in his mind palace; Snowflake stores info in a cloud-based data warehouse. 

But it’s no mystery that you’ve been hearing the latter’s name so much this week: Snowflake raised almost $3.4 billion Wednesday, making it the highest-valued software startup IPO in history.  

Shoveling the snow 

Snowflake’s business comes down to one thing: storing a massive amount of data on cloud servers. Companies across virtually every industry are investing in data analytics, and as they collect more and more info, they need somewhere to put it. 

In that sector—which includes giants like Amazon Redshift and Google BigQuery—Snowflake is freezing out its competition. As the space’s indie frontrunner, it has a rep for being low-maintenance and offering easy scalability. 

Big picture: We’re not going to get into the “data is the new oil” debate, but it’s clear that data-driven decision-making is here to stay...and grow. 

• “The future is data, and Snowflake is one of the top three companies selling a database to store that data,” Daniel Castro, VP of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), told us. “That’s what has generated so much buzz.”

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AV

50,000 Leagues Under the AV

When it comes to autonomous vehicles, the sea is the new frontier—in the eyes of the Department of Defense, at least. 

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper addressed the U.S.'s efforts to outpace China's long-range autonomous submarine ambitions. The Navy plans to build a fleet of “optionally manned, unmanned, and autonomous surface and subsurface vehicles,” said Esper. 

You might remember the Sea Hunter, a prototype of an autonomous surface vehicle developed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). 

• In 2018, it became the first-ever ship to complete an autonomous sail. 
• This month, it was paired with the Navy destroyer USS Russell to demo “unmanned teaming.” 

The tide’s not coming in on autonomous vessels anytime soon:

• Eventually, Esper said, “unmanned systems [will] perform a variety of warfighting functions—from delivering lethal fires and laying mines to conducting resupply or surveilling the enemy.” 

Big picture: Call it the military-industrial complex or the trickle-down effect, but there’s a definite connection between large-scale military tech investment and the civilian tech development that happens later. Since many tech giants prioritize massive defense contracts, that’s unlikely to change.

BITS & BYTES

Stat: More than 90% of Oculus Quest users hadn’t tried VR before they used the original headset, Facebook said this week. 

Quote: “I feel like I’m kinda the algorithmic guy.”—Mark Zuckerberg, discussing the merits of chronological and algorithmic feeds with YouTuber Marques Brownlee. 

See: RegretsReporter is an interesting new moderation project from the Mozilla Foundation. The browser extension crowdsources bad YouTube video recommendations.

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• The TikTok latest: Oracle and Walmart will reportedly own 60% of TikTok’s U.S. operations and an IPO could be in the offing. But the U.S. will block downloads of TikTok and WeChat on Sunday, Reuters reports. 
• LG Chem is spinning off its EV battery unit. The company counts Tesla, Hyundai, Kia, GM, Ford, VW, Renault, and Volvo as customers. 
• Chinese state media cautioned against the Nvidia/Arm deal, as we predicted Wednesday. 
• Cross-border investment between the U.S. and China has fallen to the lowest point in nearly a decade. 
• The NYT and Facebook are launching a multiyear AR reporting project. FB will fund the project; the Times will retain editorial control.  
• The safety driver in Uber’s fatal self-driving crash in Tempe, AZ, was charged with negligent homicide.

GOING PHISHING

Three of the following news stories are true, and one...I made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

1. A Chinese company will test-launch a space asteroid-mining robot. 
2. A new robot drinks water and does spit takes when you tell it a joke.
3. New Jersey motorists thought they saw a UFO that was really just the Goodyear blimp.
4. Xiaomi created a Lamborghini electric go-kart.

TECH THINGAMABOBS

For the techxodus: 83% of millennials who live near a major tech hub say they plan to relocate to a more affordable metro area, according to a survey of 500 U.S. tech workers.

For BTC as a monetary asset: Investment firm Ark published a whitepaper titled “Bitcoin: A Novel Economic Institution.”

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• SoftBank to Sell Arm for $40 Billion
• Walmart and Zipline will pilot drone delivery
• Chatbot usage is on the up-and-up

GOING PHISHING ANSWER

There's no spit-take robot that responds to your jokes...yet.