Signal: Meta's $800 Question 📧
Are people going to buy $800 smart glasses? When you're getting up to high-end smartphone prices, it's going to be a challenge since, of course, you'll still need to carry a smartphone with them. They're going to have to be overall really good but weirdly, ideally just at a few things, not trying to do it all, to sell a viral use case.
The wristband should be enough to get early adopters to try it, but it's probably going to be the AI that really needs to seal the deal with the broader public. And is Meta's AI up to that task?
M.G. Siegler
Tiking Toking...
There's still no firm deal announcement yet, but the details seemingly keep dripping out ever... so... slowly... It really is like a gameshow!
- President Trump said there was the "framework" of a deal in place between "two private parties" which seems to suggest there's a lead company (or investor) on the US side as well, as opposed to a consortium? [CNBC]
- That consortium had included Oracle, Blackstone, and Andreessen Horowitz. But while Blackstone later dropped out, I'm going to guess that if a16z is still in, other VCs will want in too...
- Trump is also saying that there remains "a group of companies" interested in buying TikTok? But again, presumably that just means being a part of the group that's buying it out? [Xitter]
- Is one of those companies still Microsoft? Is Xitter/xAI off the table now with Elon on the outs with the administration?
- Oracle is still said to be playing a key role (no surprise since they've been involved from the get-go of this fiasco dating back years). But they're certainly in a much better position of power thanks to their AI position these days. Are they now in the key role here? [CBS News]
- China says the US version of TikTok will still be using the Chinese-made algorithms, which seems to be some sort of PR power play to showcase that China-made tech can be exported too. [FT 🔒]
- Uh, how exactly will this work with the key aspect of the initial law to begin with: data security? Nobody knows. [Platformer 🔒]
- Are we still going to get TikTok 2, aka M2, the re-built app?
- It sounds like the deal still could take another 30 to 45 days to close – so yeah, technically another extension would be needed but we're way past "technically" mattering at this point... [CNBC]
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