The CMS Ate My Homework 📧

This was a sort of random week as I'm both on the road again and I had written about half of this newsletter today when suddenly the CMS ate my homework. Anyone who writes online knows what an utter disaster this can be and anyone who doesn't, doesn't care. But I needed to state it just to get something out of the pain :) (Update below...) It will be a bit of a pain to tie all the posts this week together, let's see...

Firstly, something we can all agree upon: the Kia logo sucks. But not as much as GameStop does for killing Game Informer.

Would you buy a living room, table-top 'FacePod' from Apple? What if it was $1,000 and had no clear use case? I mean, at least it's not $3,500 with the same problem, I guess? But it could showcase Apple's AI! They're very rudimentary AI at the moment. And people think Google is behind? No one thinks OpenAI is behind, but many think that others are quickly catching up, including, perhaps Microsoft, which keeps on hedging that mega bet.

Back in the living room, companies keep building set top boxes when what we really need to change the equation there is a unified streaming service. Yes, yes, insert the cable joke here. And while you're at it, insert HBO into Apple – it really might make sense this time! And such a bail out might help in those awkward conversations with George Clooney and Brad Pit.

At least having Nine Inch Nails do the Tron 3 soundtrack will make the lack of Daft Punk less awkward. Also on stage at D23 was Disney's head of Experiences, Josh D’Amaro, who seemed in command of a rapidly expanding empire (despite the weak Parks results last quarter). The EU commissioner Thierry Breton was not on that stage, though he'd love nothing more. Will the EU fine him for his comments directed at Elon Musk? Awkward.

Musk may soon have plenty of other fines thanks to his freewheeling approach to generative AI. As might Apple, if Patreon goes on the offensive against arbitrary App Store fees. But hey, an 'iPhone Air' should help them pay those.

Rest in peace, Susan Wojcicki.

Remains of the Week

🤖 California's Controversial AI Bill Is on the Verge of Becoming Law – Good overview of SB-1047 by Casey Newton. Even with the recent tweaks, it's still clearly too broad in such a nascent space. It's not as bad as the EU one, but the EU is often just ridiculous and political. California should know better and put more care and thought forward with these companies in their own backyard – lest these companies leave said backyard. Which is less a threat more than it is a reality. This is silly as a states issue and makes it seem about playing politics. As fun as it would be to see Elon Musk put in prison for some random Xitter user creating an image of Super Mario with an uzi... Though I guess Xitter is already leaving CA... [Platformer]

💸 Has the Friendship of Bill Gates & Warren Buffett Reached Its Final Act? – An interesting deep dive into how the long and lucrative relationship between the two men has evolved over time. It's framed that the two have drifted apart, perhaps because Buffett has been souring on the direction of The Gates Foundation – notably since Melinda French Gates left post-divorce. But it also probably has to do with Buffett being 93 years old and the fact that the money was only promised to flow into the foundation while he was alive. Now the direction the $100B heads after that is being figured out... [NYT]

🦊 Mozilla Wants You To Love Firefox Again – Reading this, it sort of feels like Mozilla has no idea what to do in 2024. Re-focusing on Firefox sounds good, but to what end? All the angles mentioned are covered by other browsers. And it's not clear any can move needles in the space. Perhaps the forthcoming remedies against Google in their antitrust case will open a window with Chrome, but any changes are likely to hurt Mozilla more than even Google if the default payments go away. I still have a place in my heart for Firefox, while saved so many of us from Internet Explorer back in the day – an actual glass of ice water in hell – so I'm rooting for them, but skeptical. [Fast Company]

🐦 Musk’s X Reeks of Failing Social Network Syndrome – Dave Lee of Bloomberg follows up on his last column about Xitter (which I linked to here), checking in on the state of the social network. He smartly compares it to Anthony Bourdain's infamous “Failing Restaurant Syndrome”, as Xitter clearly flails and thrashes about. How and where does it end? It feels like the upcoming US presidential election may hold the key one way or another... [Bloomberg 🔒]

⌧ How Elon Musk Is Using His Empire to Kickstart xAI – Speaking of, here's a current look into some of the ties between the various Musk companies. Per above, when people ask what the likely outcome is for Xitter, it increasingly feels like there will be some sort of Solar City-to-Tesla-type deal. Maybe even xAI acquires it, using data as the rationale, if they can boost that valuation high enough? Or Xitter "hackquires" xAI if the AI hype cycle fades? If you bet on one Elon company, you may end up betting on all Elon companies. [WSJ 🔒]

⭕️ The Inner Ring ⭕️

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Google Isn’t Lazy, It’s Timid. As It Sadly Must Be.

Provocative soundbites aside, it’s obvious why Google isn’t OpenAI…

SpyglassM.G. Siegler

We Don’t Need Another iPod for Streaming TV, We Need An iTunes

One service to rule them all. And in the darkness, bind them.

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Potent Quotables

"Vestager is out. Nobody owes her anything."

-- An anonymous former minister from one of the EU coalition parties talking about the outgoing Danish commissioner, Margrethe Vestager. This means, of course, she will no longer oversee the competition committee when her term is up in November. Will this "reset" anything with all the ongoing battles she has been overseeing in tech?

Beyond American "Big Tech", she clearly has some enemies amongst her own ranks as well. Very curious how history will look back at her term. At least she doesn't seem to showboat (though still a bit, alongside many questionable decisions) in the way some of her peers do – speaking of, one obvious candidate cited to potentially replace her as overseeing competition? Thierry Breton.

The Quick & the Read

• Google has opened up Imagen 3 to testing. But it's not a part of Gemini, which still cannot generate images despite all of the competition offering such features. Confusingly, it's not even found on its own site, but through ImageFX. It's also quite limited in what it will produce, basically the opposite end of the spectrum from Xitter's Grok implementation. There must be a middle ground, though some are too timid... [VentureBeat]
• Remember when Meta hyped up Grand Theft Auto coming to VR on the Quest exclusively? We've heard basically nothing in a few years. And now it turns out that the project is "on hold indefinitely." [IGN]
  • Meanwhile, Microsoft may be getting back into Mixed Reality? [The Verge]
• Fortnite is about to feature Doctor Doom in a major way, which makes sense given Disney going all-in on the villain in the MCU. While the initial hoopla around their Epic investment died down quickly, it feels like we're going to see a lot more of these worlds colliding. Will Disney eventually acquire Epic? Will they be allowed to? [The Verge]
  • Meanwhile, Disney may have to pay upwards for $5B more for their control of Hulu, which may escalate what feels like a brewing war with Comcast in streaming. [Variety]
  • Disney also hired Adam Smith away from Google/YouTube to lead product and technology for their streaming efforts – including the all-important forthcoming stand-alone ESPN one next year. Also interesting that he will jointly report to Dana Walden, Alan Bergman, and Jimmy Pitaro – unclear if that means something for reading the succession tea leaves... [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Speaking of Bourdain... Dominic Sessa – fresh from his breakout roll in The Holdovers – seems like an excellent choice to play a young version of the chef and writer in his early years in an upcoming biopic. As for the elder Bourdain, I would say Elliot Gould would be perfect, but he's also 85 years old – nearly 25 years older that Bourdain was at the time of his untimely passing. Eric Bogosian may be closer even though he's 71. [Variety]
• Speaking of Buffett... Berkshire's halving of its Apple stake would seem to have bigger ramifications across the market than it may at first seem [Yahoo Finance/Bloomberg]
• Netflix is going to partner with CBS to produce their upcoming NFL games, which makes sense (and is similar to what Amazon has done with NBC). That may or may not include their on-air talent – my vote would be for no Romo, please. [The Wall Street Journal 🔒]
• Instagram is testing a 'Snap Maps'-like feature for finding your friends on a map. I'm still annoyed that they removed the pictures-on-a-map feature (and ruined their location database) long ago, maybe they should copy that from Google Photos now. [The Verge]
• The Financial Times dives into the key ingredients in a riot – they include online discourse and coordination, a feeling of (or a longing for) camaraderie – yes, really – amongst those participating, and yes, heat. Literal heat. [FT 🔒]
• Front Porch Forum, on the other end of the spectrum, is a social network that you've undoubtedly never heard of but has deep usage in Vermont and sounds pretty wonderful. A reminder that it all doesn't have to be shit in the general space. [The Washington Post 🔒]

Several Things Not Gotten To...

• The new Google Pixel devices and their AI implementation (to combat Apple!)
• Epic's launch of their alternate app store (to combat Apple – just happened!)
• The Safari "Block Distraction" feature in the new iOS betas (amazing!)
• Are we actually going to get a competing Paramount bid (a few days left!)

Update August 20, 2024:

Ghost, the service I use to publish this site/newsletter, reached out almost immediately after my post last week to get more details on the lost post issue. It turns out it was a bug they accidentally pushed live for a short period of time and fixed quickly, I was just working in the CMS at the exact time it was live. I'm told extra tests have been added to ensure it doesn't happen again (just in case it happened to others who were wondering about the situation). I continue to be impressed by Ghost.