TechCrunch Newsletters - Week in Review - Facebook for your face

Saturday, September 19, 2020 • By Lucas Matney

Howdy friends, welcome back to Week in Review. This past week, I wrote about the TikTok nuclear option and this week I’m talking about the future of Facebook.

If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox here, and follow my tweets here.

The Big Story

I’ve been a bit of a virtual reality junkie for a few years. The tech is deeply interesting and I can’t think of a more interesting hardware or software challenge to be tackling in consumer tech right now than VR design. That said, VR headsets are — more often than not — made to gather dust in closets. For the mainstream consumer, there’s just not that much there to keep them busy.

This week, I reviewed the Oculus Quest 2, a $299 device that has made some major improvements over its predecessor which only launched about 18 months ago. I was a pretty big fan, here’s an excerpt of my review, which you can read more of here.

“Facebook’s virtual reality dreams have been a headache for the company.

At CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s prodding, the company has spent billions on Oculus and dealt with huge added complexities to their business, while encountering countless issues regarding the company’s founding team, a massive IP lawsuit, crippling supply chain issues and an impossible-to-satisfy user base. But for all the tears, that toil has given the tech world a weirdly poignant look at what’s possible when you attempt to brute-force an industry into existence.

Has Facebook convinced anyone out there that virtual reality is a technology we deeply need? Not so much.

And yet, six years after Facebook acquired Oculus VR, the company has released a device that feels meaningfully complete. In short, the new Quest 2 headset is a fantastic piece of hardware that showcases what a rewarding ecosystem can be built when you throw enough money and engineering talent at a dream. For all of the improvements that Facebook has driven to the Quest’s software since launch, I do still wish the platform was more diverse in its non-gaming offerings.

Arriving around 18 months after its predecessor launched, most users were likely expecting this update to host a minor spec bump, yet the Quest 2 is a true upgrade, making advances in about every way. It’s lighter, smaller, more powerful, easier to use and cheaper, now starting at $299. As the company kills off its Rift line of PC-only headsets, months after sunsetting its $199 Go headset, in some ways the Quest 2 feels like a last-ditch attempt at mainstream success.”

Your software should be a solution, not a problem.

What Apple announced this week
Apple didn’t show us the new iPhone this week, but we did get to see the next iterations of the Apple Watch and iPad Air. Most of the updates were fairly iterative, but we got an interesting look at the company’s services-focused future Read more here.

PlayStation gets ready for a console war
Sony delivered the pricing for the PlayStation 5 this week with the console clocking in at $499.99, meanwhile they also delivered a $399.99 version that does not include a Blu-Ray disc drive. It sets the stage for a major clash between Sony and Microsoft over the holiday season. Read more here.

Facebook gears up to launch a Snap Spectacles competitor
Facebook has been working on augmented reality glasses for quite some time, but they offered up new details on their upcoming work at their VR-focused event this week. The company has partnered with Ray Ban to launch a Spectacles competitor (that will notably not have a display) next year. Read more here.

Image Credits: Apple

TechCrunch Disrupt

We just wrapped up a fantastic TechCrunch Disrupt event, here’s a look at our Startup Battlefield winner…

“We started this competition with 20 impressive startups. After five days of fierce pitching in a wholly new virtual Startup Battlefield arena, we have a winner.

The startups taking part in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. It was an unprecedented year as we moved all of the nail-biting excitement of our physical contest to a virtual stage. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win $100,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup.

After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down to five finalists: Canix, Firehawk Aerospace, HacWare, Jefa and Matidor.

These startups made their way to the finale to demo in front of our final panel of judges, which included: Caryn Marooney (Coatue Management), Ilya Fushman (Kleiner Perkins), Michael Seibel (Y Combinator), Sonali De Rycker (Accel), Troy Carter (Q&A) and Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch).

We’re now ready to announce that the winner of TechCrunch Battlefield 2020 is…

Winner: Canix

Canix has built a robust enterprise resource planning platform designed to reduce the time it takes cannabis growers to input data. It integrates nicely with common bookkeeping software, as well as Metrc, an industry-wide regulatory platform. The founders say their platform can help growers increase margins through improved labor costs.

You can read more about Canix here.

Runner-up: Matidor

Matidor is building a project platform for consultants and engineers to keep track of projects and geospatial data in a single dashboard. It offers an all-in-one data visualization suite for customers in the energy and environmental services fields.

You can read more about Matidor here.”