Dark Matter & Tortured Poets 📧
New music releases in 2024 are a funny thing. They just... happen. I woke up this morning to a notification that the new Pearl Jam and Taylor Swift albums were now in my library. This wasn't like Tim Cook putting the new U2 album on everyone's phone, as I explicitly requested access to this music, but it was no less seamless. (For the record, I also wanted that new U2 album – I said what I said.) And it's just weird to me because I distinctly recall a huge part of my adolescence revolving around camping out for new album releases. In fact, I found a picture recently from the night I was waiting in line for Pearl Jam's Yield release.
Before I could drive myself, I used to have my parents drop me off to wait in line at record stores for such releases. (I also went to the midnight launch of Windows 95, for what it's worth, being the cool kid that I was.) Or, if that wasn't feasible, I'd wake up at dawn to go line up outside of Best Buy until it opened to get the new CD FIRST. It both sucked and was awesome. Kids these days just don't know.
Obviously, that same notion is more broadly true with music. I had cassette tapes I would wear down listening to and rewind to listen to again. The same songs over and over and over. You could skip tracks, but it usually wasn't worth it versus just listening from one song to the next. The notion of a full album has obviously suffered as result, but at the same time, the audience for so much more music – and, I suspect, more varied music – has expanded so greatly.
For the record, the new Pearl Jam album is fantastic. I mean, I would probably say this regardless of its quality – they've been my favorite band for thirty years, since I was 12 or 13 – but Rolling Stone agrees. I've ripped through it five or six times today. A few of these songs would sound great at the Super Bowl. Just sayin...
I have not yet listened to the new Taylor Swift album – while I appreciate that she and Beyonce apparently gave their respective work time to breathe in between releases, why no such considerations between Taylor and PJ? – but my wife seems to think I'll like it, as I was all about the emo-in-the-woods albums during the pandemic (read: I'm a big fan of The National and Bon Iver) and this led me down a path...
I'm just trying to convince my daughter it's "Pearl Jam Day" especially since every other day in our house is "Taylor Day". Or at least about the value of music in our streaming age. It's hard to recall now, but the picture kept will remind me.
Briefly...
Apple Ordered to Pull Meta Apps from App Store in China – I honestly didn't even realize you could download WhatsApp and Threads at all in the country. But China was simply blocking usage on their end via the Great Firewall. Which is important because it meant you could use a VPN to circumvent the blockade, but now you'll have to use such tool to switch App Store countries in order to download, which is harder to do given the way iOS is currently constructed. Interesting timing on this given that the bill to restrict TikTok in the US is once again starting to make its way through Congress...
The Quest 2 Gets a Permanent Price Cut to $199 – It's a great price for a nice device. Obviously, it's not as good as the Quest 3, let alone the Vision Pro (despite what Mark Zuckerberg may say), but $199 may as well be infinitely cheaper than $3,499. The question is what it means for any forthcoming, lower-priced Quest headset. Meta has so much room to maneuver here thanks to the ceiling Apple has set. Might they stick to a $199, $499, $999 pricing strategy? Can a next Quest Pro go to $1,499 without much concern?
AI Has a Measurement Problem – With new models launching seemingly weekly, it's increasingly hard to level-set, notes Kevin Roose. Obviously, there are various tests and benchmarks for this tech, but also obviously various companies are going to favor certain ones that favor their own AI. Ultimately all that will really matter is the end user experience, and even amidst this wild race, it feels like we're getting closer to that reality being the reality. And then we can all go back to arguing about the definition of AGI.
My Missives...
M.G. Siegler
Meta can push AI with polish at scale...
M.G. Siegler
A piece of "AI hardware" that seemingly makes sense...
M.G. Siegler
On the "next big thing" in consumer social...
M.G. Siegler
Nintendo games, on your iPhone. Who says "no"? (Probably Nintendo.)
Quoteable...
“We’re not, you know, trying to reinvent the wheel with lasers.”
-- Dan Siroker, the CEO of Limitless, who clearly couldn't help himself with the clear dunk on Humane. The Limitless Pendant definitely capitalized on the backlash against that company by announcing almost the Bizarro AI Pin.
Some Thoughts On...
🤠 Jonathan Nolan talking about 'Fallout' and 'Westworld'
👾 The first wave of game emulators for iOS
📢 Microsoft shoving ads into Windows
📱 Apple's falling iPhone marketshare worldwide
📺 Disney's move back to an old standard of television
Quickly...
- Those calling for Henry Cavill to be the next James Bond got an AI video to help make their case – sadly, it's not very good. I like Cavill, have since The Tudors, but still think I like Aaron Taylor-Johnson more for the assignment...
- Could the Sundance film festival really leave Park City, Utah? They're saying they might in a couple years...
- One thing Meta doesn't have is earbuds – but Nothing does, as is bringing ChatGPT to them... (Nothing is a GV portfolio company.)
- For All Mankind, one of the Apple TV+ original (and great) shows is being renewed for a 5th season, and a spin-off! How old with Ed be this go around?!
- Peter Jackson has restored The Beatles' 1970 documentary "Let It Be", using the same technology he used to make "Get Back". Oddly, for a range of reasons, it hasn't really been available for the past 40-plus years, but now it will stream on Disney+ next month!
- Though you've undoubtedly seen the footage from the rooftop of their Apple Corps. headquarters – their last recorded public performance. "I hope we passed the audition."
- This interview with director Michael Lindsay-Hogg is full of fascinating tidbits about those last days of The Beatles – including the notion that he had absolutely no idea they were on the verge of breaking up.
- Also, a new McCartney/Lennon song just dropped – James McCartney and Sean Ono Lennon, that is. It's pretty good!
- Ghost, the publisher platform which I use for Spyglass, is thinking about joining the fediverse. I'm not sure what exactly that means, but they're interested in figuring out what it could look like...
- Boston Dynamics retired their hydraulic robot in favor of an all-electric model. As you might expect, the accompanying video is incredibly eerie and fun.
- Microsoft's deal to invest in G42 to help it diversify away from China, which apparently was pushed for by the US government, is all sorts of weird. Too cynical to think this helps the company with their own regulatory concerns?
- Including those pesky security issues...
- Speaking of strange deals, Congress has some questions about that Disney/Fox/Warner sports streaming service tie-up...
- While the game emulators got all the headlines, the first third-party iOS app store, AltStore PAL, went live this week in Europe – still a big moment...
- Eleanor Coppola, the filmmaker who famously documented the making of her husband's Apocalypse Now with “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse" passed away last week at age 87.
- Amazon says Prime Video has 200 million monthly viewers, which feels big, but it's hard to compare to other streamers as they all give different viewing/usage/subscriber metrics (if they give them at all) – regardless, Andy Jassy is making it clear that it's still a key part of Amazon's strategy going forward (I'm always worried the tech players pull back eventually).
- Not pulling back? Netflix. Well, except for subscriber numbers, which they'll stop sharing next year... They're saying other stats are more meaningful now to the business, such as, you know, profit. That's all fine, but it's obviously also because the company is now quite mature and can't keep growing those numbers as impressively as in the past...
- The Daily Beast is coming back under new ownership and management. They're already looking for a Lauren Sánchez – the fiancé of Jeff Bezos – beat reporter, which somehow already makes it all sound incredibly vapid.
- Quentin Tarantino's 10th (and presumably still final?) movie will apparently no longer be The Movie Critic, which was to star Brad Pitt. Is he aiming to go out with more of a bang, bang, bang?
"He Just Put It In Bold."
The first Papyrus was so good. The sequel features a wider emotional range as Ryan Gosling heatseeks that Emmy with a run like no other. Related: if the Beavis & Butthead live action movie wasn't greenlit the moment this hit, we've failed.