Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 08/11 – Unleash The Robotaxis!

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

A major regulatory breakthrough is going to open the floodgates for self-driving taxis in California. Two different stories about dealing with the China restrictions, including one US company that is directly benefiting, and Meta’s AR ambitions, which are not. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions. Links: Robotaxis score a huge victory in California with approval to operate 24/7 (The Verge) Skydio closing consumer drone business (TechCrunch) Behind Meta’s ‘Made in USA’ AR Glasses: a Military-Grade Material (The Information) Weekend Longreads Suggestions: Where have all the fitness bands gone? (The Verge) 4 Actual Use Cases for Blockchain and AI That Are More Than Just Hype (CoinDesk) The Looming Catalog Crisis (Vulture) Paul F. Tompkins Is Getting Back Into It (Vulture) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the TechMeme right home for Friday, August 11th, 2020. I'm Brian McCullough today. A major regulatory breakthrough is going to open the floodgates for self-driving taxis in California. Two different stories about dealing with the China restrictions, including one U.S. company that is directly benefiting,

and meta's AR ambitions, which decidedly are not. And of course, the weekend long-rate suggestions. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. I've been following something for a couple of weeks, but didn't want to tell you about it until it actually happened. And it has happened after a contentious six-hour public hearing, the California Public Utilities Commission has agreed to let Waymo and Cruise operate driverless cabs 24-7 throughout San Francisco, quoting the verge. The California Public Utilities Commission, CPUC, voted three to one in favor of allowing the two companies to operate their vehicles at any hour of the day throughout the city of

San Francisco while charging for rides. Today is the first of many steps in bringing AV transportation services to Californian. CPUC Commissioner John Reynolds said at the end of the hearing. Reynolds, a former general counsel at GM-backed Cruz, had recused himself from previous votes, but said the passage of time allowed him to vote on today's resolution. The commissioners urged the companies to address problems raised by San Francisco officials and residents about AVs blocking roads, causing traffic jams, and impeding emergency vehicles. If there are further reports of incidents, the CPUC could vote to limit the number of vehicles allowed on the road or revoke the company's permits altogether, Commissioner Darcy Hauk said. A broad range of opinions have been presented to us by the public regarding the resolutions before us today, Hauk added, I do not take this decision lightly, end quote.

Currently, the companies only offer limited service. The vote in favor of the companies essentially gives robotoxys full access to the peninsula and its residents. They are now able to operate similarly to Uber or Lyft, travel anywhere in the city at any time of day, and charge money for their rides. The six-and-a-half-hour hearing featured a variety of voices, many of them from the disabled community, speaking to the pros and cons of autonomous ride-hailing services. Residents opposed to the companies spoke of malfunctioning cars breaking down in the middle of intersections, streets already teeming with enough motor vehicles, and robot cars allowed to run roughshod throughout the city. Supporters praised the vehicles as safer than human drivers and the potential boon for disabled riders who currently lack adequate transportation options. After hours of public testimony, those opposed to the vehicles appeared to have a slight edge over the supporters,

though hundreds spoke for both sides. A running theme was skepticism of big tech companies that don't have the best interests of the city of San Francisco at heart. Opponents also dismissed the autonomous vehicles as tools of the surveillance state, festooned with cameras and other sensors that could be handed over to law enforcement, upon request. For months, San Francisco City officials have been pleading with the state to delay the vote, citing a spate of incidents in which autonomous vehicles have stopped traffic, blocked buses, or obstructed emergency vehicles. The city's transit agency and fire and police departments have all logged complaints with the CPUC, calling for the commission to reconsider the plan for 24-7 service.

But the CPUC said that Waymo and crews have met all their obligations laid out in the state's regulatory framework covering autonomous vehicle testing and commercial operations. operation, quote, we must base our decision on this data and evidence and on the proper scope of our authority. Alice Bushing Reynolds, president of the commission said, we do expect the AV companies to engage with first responders, with law enforcement, with city officials, and we do expect actions to address concerns, end quote. Skydeo is shutting down its consumer drone business and plans to expand its enterprise offerings instead. This comes after it raised a $230 million series E at a $2.2.2 billion dollar valuation just this past February. So am I sharing this because this is bad news?

Another example of a company that raised big recently but has to retrench. Well, actually, this is a success story about a company that has actually benefited from all of the China tech bands we've been talking about recently, quoting TechCrunch. Beginning today, the firm will no longer be selling its Skydeo 2 Plus starter, sports, cinema, or pro kits, although it will continue to offer the Skydeo 2 Plus Enterprise kit to business customers. Skydeo also promises to continue supporting those customers who have already purchased a drone. That includes offering vehicle repairs and other support-related warranties. The company says it will also stock batteries, propellers, and other accessories, quote, for as long as we can. Skydeo is closing up its consumer wing as it expands

support for various enterprise offerings. The firm has established 1,500 clients that also include various public service applications. Our drones are making the core industries that our civilization runs on, public safety, transportation, energy construction, and defense, safer and more efficient. Founder Adam Brie writes in a post outlining the news, and it's becoming more and more clear every day that we need trusted, secured drones to meet these critical applications. The impact we're having with our enterprise and public sector customers has become so compelling that it demands nothing less than our full focus and attention, end quote. The Bay Area-based Skydeo has seen a massive boost as drone giant DJI has landed on the wrong side of various government bands amid rising

U.S.-China tensions. It's been a large driver in domestic security adoptions of its system. Government contracts are understandably an extremely enticing model, maybe more so than consumer sales. And besides, DJI continues to dominate that world, end quote. But here's another example of tech attempting to navigate the recent China angle. The information says that meta plans to build only 1,000 units of its first-gen-AR glasses, which we're expecting sometime in 2024. But the reason that they will only produce that limited number might be because of its use of silicon carbide in the lenses, which requires assembly in the U.S. for, you guessed it, quote, meta-platforms plans to build only around a thousand units of the first generation of its augmented reality glasses due out next year, a tiny

batch that it will just use for internal development and to demonstrate the device to the public. And yet, to build the glasses, META is using a convoluted and expensive arrangement involving factories in China, Taiwan, and the U.S. That's due in part to Mata's decision to experiment with a special pricey compound inside the lenses that, because of government rules, can't easily be exported out of the U.S. As a result, Mata has to assemble the lenses in the U.S. while other parts of the glasses, the wristband that controls it, and a wireless computing pack that acts as the brains of the device, are made in China and Taiwan, respectively. Meta's decision to only release the first generation of its AR glasses as an in-house product

was itself a cost-cutting move, as the information has previously reported. Still making the first-generation version at all won't come cheap. This version, internally codenamed Orion, will use a compound called silicon carbide in its lenses, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Silicon carbide allows a wider image to be projected into a lens than glass, which is what companies such as Microsoft and Magic Leap have used in past AR products. That means users can see more digital imagery when light is projected into the material because of the compound's superior optical properties, but it's much more expensive than glass. Because the military uses silicon carbide in radars and sensors, the U.S. government has controlled its export for decades. META is buying the silicon carbide from Wolfspeed, one of the world's largest producers of the material,

which makes wafers based on the compound at a production facility in New York. The wafers are first sent to a facility in Sunnyvale, California, where another company applied materials processes them and places them into lenses. Then the lenses are shipped to a facility in Washington State for final assembly into the frames of META's AR glasses. A Wolfspeed spokesperson said the company couldn't confirm whether it was a supplier to META, applied materials didn't reply to a request for comment. Meta could have applied for a license to export silicon carbide wafers to China for final assembly, but the federal government likely wouldn't have approved it given recent tensions between Washington and Beijing. The whole concept of

exporting material for commercial or civilian use in China is over, at least for now, said Jonathan Larkin, founder of Larkin Trade International, a Beijing-based trade compliance consulting firm. As a result, meta had to figure out a way to make and assemble the lenses and frames in the U.S. as it makes other components for the glasses in China and Taiwan, end quote. Time for the weekend long read suggestions. First up, the title of this verge piece, kind of sums it up. Where have all the fitness bands gone? Quote, it all started with an innocent Vergecast hotline question.

The gist was, what are some screenless wearables that offer health tracking in the vein of the Fitbit Flex, but aren't as expensive as the $300 aura ring? Not a single good answer came to mind. For better or worse, the simple fitness bands of just a few years ago aren't really a thing anymore. The aforementioned Fitbit Flex and other bands like Jawbone Up or Misfit Ray don't really have modern-day analogs. The closest thing I've seen these days are devices like the Amaze Fit Band 7, the Fitbit Inspire 3, the Garmin Vivo Smart 5, and Jaumie's Me Band 7. The problem is they've all got screens. The only answer I had for or our collar was the equivalent of an apologetic shrug because, unfortunately, the expensive

aura ring was the best option, that or cobbling together a bunch of half measures that would be more expensive than the aura ring. The whole experience left me unsettled. When I started wearing fitness trackers in 2014, I was a diehard Fitbit charge fan with no lack of alternatives. These days, I can barely find any interesting ones to review. It left me wondering, where have all the fitness bands gone? End quote. Read the whole thing because it's interesting, but TLDR, It seems that screenless fitness bands have largely been replaced by either more powerful and cheaper smartwatches or wearables with pricey monthly subscriptions. I guess there's just not enough margin in just selling a $100 fitness band.

Next, I've been waiting for someone to do this. Someone had to do it at some point. This probably even isn't the first time it's been done, just the first time I've seen it. And by it, I mean someone eventually making the case that generative AI and crypto are potentially complementary technologies. I don't have an opinion on this, just presenting the argument. Quoting Coindesk. Blockchain, an open source globally distributed ledger, offers us a new place to store all that data where it might finally be independent of third-party companies that place profit incentives

over consumer privacy. Yet data on the blockchain is publicly available by default, which is not ideal for most of our information. This transparency is causing many of us to think critically, perhaps for the first time, about what types of personal data we want to exist on the internet and how we should renegotiate Web2's social contracts that have allowed centralized platforms like Facebook and Twitter to own our data in exchange for services. That's where artificial intelligence could come in. In an ideal future, third-party companies don't track and analyze our data. AI does. Let's imagine in this ideal scenario that we understand well enough how AI learning models work and therefore trust them to develop insights about who we are while tracking digital provenance

and verifying the credibility of our information. Sounds great, right? But unfortunately, most new AI use cases are still experimental and nobody can predict success. As happens with new technologies, the true capacities of AI and blockchain are currently getting lost in hyperbole, misunderstandings, and fear, uncertainty, and doubt. We spoke to several data experts and Web3 insiders to better understand where AI and Web3 might successfully converge to create consumer-friendly solutions for verification, ownership, and creativity, end quote. In fact, the cases they make are in the areas of news verification, copyright and intellectual property protection, new kinds of smart contracts, and interactive NFTs. Look, I said I don't have an opinion on this. I'm just sharing.

As we've been covering the streaming wars, it's become clearer that the golden era, or at least the Gold Rush era of television is over. But that might be more true than you thought, because there's a very simple bottleneck that's coming down the pike that could wreck our ability to binge. Quoting Vulture, one of the hottest shows on streaming this summer isn't some critically adored masterpiece or a bold new statement by an international autore. Nope, the warm weather winner this year might just be the new to Netflix reruns of suits, a basic cable drama that lasted nine seasons and produced well over 100 episodes during its USA network run. In other words, exactly the kind of decade-spanning hit the streaming giant has helped

make all but obsolete. While Netflix loves acquiring older shows with hefty episode libraries, think Gray's Anatomy or Seinfeld, when it comes to original content, it can be a little more, shall we say, promiscuous, lots of relationships, little long-term commitment. And because so many other platforms have followed its lead, even successful series on streaming, now regularly disappear in as little as three years, and typically lead behind no more than a few dozen episodes. They're literally not making shows like they used to, and that's a big problem. it's not that there wasn't some valid reasoning behind the peak TV model of greenlighting more shows, but then making fewer episodes of them. Research has demonstrated that while established series

helped prevent people from canceling their subscriptions, flashing new titles, are a much more effective way to get them to sign up in the first place. So if you're a streamer whose only goal is to get as big as possible, as quickly as possible, quote, all that matters is the new and shiny, says one exec who's worked for both streamers and linear platforms. There's no weight put behind making shows that keep people invested in coming back because all they wanted to say was, we've got X amount of subscribers this quarter, end quote. Throw in the fact that many streaming shows have production budgets on par with modest feature films, and you end up with a TV ecosystem in which genuinely big hits such as Prime

Video's Jack Ryan, and Netflix's Never Have I Ever, signed off for good this summer, having produced just 30 and 40 episodes respectively. For the most part, Netflix and other streamers haven't really seen much downside to not building shows with sizable libraries because they've been able to simply license those kinds of shows from other parts of the TV ecosystem. After all, until just a few years ago, basic cable networks were still cranking out a healthy number of original series with binge-friendly episode counts. Suits was still airing new episodes until fall 2019. Similarly, as recently as 2018, the broadcast networks could still be counted on to collectively launch at least a few new five-to-six-season

warhorses every season, further ensuring the nation's strategic sitcom and procedural reserves remained well-stocked and available for purchase by content-hungry streamers. But the big four broadcasters have cut way back on scripted shows in recent years and rarely make 22 episodes of all but their biggest hits, while the CW, which once made hundreds of millions selling its angsty dramas to Netflix, has been reduced to importing shows from Canada. And on the cable network side, networks such as Paramount, USA, TNT, TBS, A&E, TV land, and Lifetime have either abandoned high-quality scripted series or make just one or two. shows per year. Even the two basic cable brands with substantial scripted portfolios, AMC and FX,

make shows mostly for the benefit of their partner streaming platforms and then limit the number of episodes they produce to 10 or fewer per season. Bottom line, the content factories that produce shows like suits either dramatically downsized or shut down, and streamers haven't picked up the slack by creating similar shows. At some point, platforms are going to run out of quirky, linear shows from the 2000s and 2010s that zoomers can rediscover on streaming. After you, years of ignoring this looming catalog crisis, some industry insiders are starting to sound the alarm. If we don't start building the library shows of tomorrow, we're going to regret it, says a content exec who works at a Netflix rival. Indeed, even before the WGA and SAG strikes, the conventional

wisdom among industry insiders was that peak TV had finally really truly peaked, and the number of new shows ordered every year was about to plummet. If that's the case, it means there will be far fewer shiny objects to attract new subscribers and more need for the kinds of old-school shows that keep existing subscribers from hitting that cancel button. You've got to start investing in shows that viewers care about the exasperated content exec says, and episodic libraries stop churn, end quote. Finally, also from Vulture, though definitely not tech, an interview with the King of Comedy Podcasts, Paul F. Tompkins. If you don't know Paul F. Tompkins, I feel sad for you, son. But let's put it this way. There are only three celebrities I'd be afraid to meet in person,

because I had fan girl out way too much. Those three would be Bob Dylan, Patrick Stewart, and Pall F. Tompkins. So that shows you the league I put him in. And I actually know people in the comedy community in L.A. who know him. I've been offered the chance to meet him, but I'm legit afraid. Anyway, the whole profile is great. It goes deep into podcasting, and for no particular reason, I'll share with you this little nugget of life advice from probably the funniest man on the planet quote. There's a thing that I call the tyranny of the template, which is when you think you've figured out, this is what I do, and it goes like this, and then you start trying to just refill that template over and over again, and you're like, I hate doing comedy. I'm putting myself in a box,

and that's why I'm angry at it, but I'm in control of the box. I'm the one who's building the box, and so it can be whatever I want it to be. But I have to remind myself of that, because when you get into a groove with a template, you're like, this is great. Then after a while, when you've kind of learned that thing. It becomes boring and you don't want to do it anymore. I have to be vigilant about that because I can talk myself into thinking, I don't like doing this thing anymore, when in reality, it's that I don't like the way I'm doing it right now, end quote. No weekend bonus episodes this weekend. Go out and touch grass. Enjoy the weather if you can. Or, you know, football's back, baby. Talk to you on Monday.