Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 01/08 – Vision Pro Announce Steals CES Spotlight

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

We now know when the Vision Pro is coming. February 2nd. But you can pre-order on January 19. Xreal’s new Vision Pro competitor. New Wifi announcements from CES. That big Elon possibly using drugs story from the Journal this weekend. And for the first time ever, Netflix is cutting back on producing new shows. Sponsors: Miro.com/podcast Links: The Apple Vision Pro will launch in February (The Verge) Apple’s Biggest Challenges in 2024 Have Little to Do With the iPhone (Bloomberg) Wi-Fi’s next big upgrade is officially here (The Verge) Xreal’s new AR glasses are aimed at the Apple Vision Pro (The Verge) Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders at Tesla and SpaceX (WSJ) Netflix Cuts Over 100 Shows In Major Programming Shift (Bloomberg) The CES YouTube Playlist 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 Tech meme right home for Monday, January 8th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough today. We now know when the Vision Pro is coming, February 2nd, but you can pre-order it on January 19th. XREL's new Vision Pro competitor, new Wi-Fi

announcements from CES, that big Elon possibly using drugs story from The Journal this weekend. And for the first time ever, Netflix is cutting back on producing new shows. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Well, CES kicks off today. And though Apple never attends, they do like to steal some of the headlines if they can. For example, word this morning that Apple plans to start shipping the Vision Pro on February 2nd in the U.S. after opening pre-orders on January 19th, quoting the Verge. In addition to announcing the availability of its $3,499 headset, Apple also revealed the pricing for the Zeiss prescription lenses that users can get with it. Readers will be available for an extra $99, while prescription lenses will cost $149.

unquote. Also, some details on the actual specs of the device itself. Apple revealed that Vision Pro ships with 256 gigabytes of storage. So that's what 3,500 bucks gets you. Better hope you don't have too many of those spatial videos stored in there. Hopefully we can attach some sort of add-on storage. Here's what you'll get inside the box in addition to the unit itself. Solo knit band and dual loop band, a light seal and two light seal cushions, some sort of. sort of cover for the device. Have we seen that yet? A polishing cloth that I guess they'll sell separately like that $19-dollar polishing cloth they have for the studio display, a battery and USBC charging cable and USBC power adapter. The era of spatial computing has arrived, said Tim Cook,

Apple's CEO, Vision Pro is the most advanced consumer electronics device ever created. Its revolutionary and magical user interface will redefine how we connect, create, and explore, and quote. More on those special headbands and how you will be. be able to personalize the fit on these bad boys. Quoting Apple's announced directly, Apple Vision Pro is designed as a modular system so users can personalize their fit. A singular piece of three-dimensionally formed laminated glass gently curves around the user's face and flows in the custom aluminum alloy frame. The light seal is made of a soft textile and comes in a range of shapes and sizes, flexing to conform to a user's face for a precise fit. Flexible straps ensure

that audio remains close to the user's ears, while the included solo knit band and dual loop band, and allow users to find the optimal fit for them. For those with vision correction needs, Zyce optical inserts are available with a prescription or as readers that magnetically attached to the Vision Pro, allowing users to take full advantage of the display's incredible sharpness and clarity, end quote. I also need to make you aware of the fact that over the weekend, sources were telling the New York Times

that the United States Department of Justice may file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple that targets the company's strategies to protect the dominance of the iPhone and may do so as soon as the first half of this year. And in his newsletter this weekend, Mark German points out, 2024 is going to be a difficult needle for Apple to thread. They have to manage the Vision Pro's launch while trying to revive revenue growth, though no one expects them to sell enough Vision Pros to meaningfully move the needle on that. They still need to turn around those quarters of shrinking sales somehow.

And now they have to worry about antitrust battles to boot. Quote, the company is estimated to be very close to reporting a fifth quarter, order in a row of sliding sales, which would be its second consecutive holiday window with declining revenue. There are already major concerns from Wall Street about iPhone sales this year, and those fears could be compounded in a few weeks if Apple reports that revenue in China came in below expectations. In terms of generative AI, Apple's tools, when they launch, will come nearly two years after ChatGPT began to take the world by storm, about a year after Amazon announced its revamped Alexa, and about a year and a half after Microsoft and Google debuted their new services. Even for Apple,

quite a miss. The company plans to announce its offerings, as I've previously reported at its worldwide developers conference in June as part of iOS 18. The underlying work is being done on a large language model dubbed Ajax internally, and the company has been testing it since early last year. Most notably, the company's hot new product will do little to nothing for Apple's bottom line in the next few years. Wall Street might fret over the limited initial return on investment from the Vision Pro Mixed Reality headset. Consumers may be unhappy about the range of uses for the device, as well as its perplexing design and weight, and developers may stay away, given the small market. The other major headwind is the way regulation will affect the App Store, particularly the

Digital Markets Act in Europe. Come March, Apple will need to split the profit-generating App Store into a version for the EU and a version for everywhere else. Those living in the EU will get to install apps from outside the store, use outside payment processors to pay for services, and get better integration between first-and-party apps and features, end quote. Again, as I said, CES is kicking off in earnest, more on that in a bit. But in conjunction with the big event, the Wi-Fi Alliance has begun certifying Wi-Fi 7 devices, which could offer big speed and efficiency gains over Wi-Fi 6 in new phones, laptops, and routers, coming to us all in 2024, quoting the verge. The Alliance says in its announcement that Wi-Fi 7 will be better

than existing standards for things like high-bandwidth streaming and low-latency wireless gaming, and that's crucial as virtual reality gains popularity and people continue commuting to their kitchen tables or home offices to commune with coworkers over Zoom. Kevin Robinson, CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance told the verge that Wi-Fi 7 is the, quote, first generation built from the ground up for the 6 gigahertz band, the fastest broader swath of wireless spectrum first used by Wi-Fi 6E devices. You might be tempted to point out that Wi-Fi 7 routers already exist, and you'd be right. routers have already hit the market from companies like Netgear, TPLink, and ERO, and the first two came months ago. They may or may not get certification. ERO's existing Wi-Fi 6 routers don't show up on the Alliance's certified product finder. That doesn't mean they won't work well with Wi-Fi 7 devices in the future, but certification allows companies to guarantee that they will.

Certification aside, nothing's changed about Wi-Fi 7 since we published our guide about it in October. it still offers double the channel bandwidth from 160 megahertz to 320 versus the fastest devices on the Wi-Fi 5, 6, or 6E standards, and that means the potential for wireless downloads at over 2 gigabits per second, end quote. I'm not at CES this year, but the last time I was, I was very intrigued by the NREL AR glasses. Well, NREL, you might recall, is now XREL, and at this CES, they've unveiled the $699 Air 2 Ultra AR glasses, adding dual 3D cameras to map the user's environment and add features like hand tracking. This is all shipping in March of this year. This is, I think, strategically aimed directly at the Vision Pro doing things Apple claims the Vision Pro can do for a lot less money and with a device that feels more like glasses than, I don't know, a scuba mask. Quoting the Verge.

The Air 2 Ultra Glasses, which developers can pre-order today for shipment starting in March, are ultimately meant to compete with meta's Quest 3 and Apple's Vision Pro headsets. They're more full-featured than the $399 Air2 model that XREL formerly Enreal launched late last year, offering full positional 6 degrees of freedom tracking in XREL's typical sunglasses-style form factor. That makes them right for not just watching TV or playing flat-screen games on a projected screen, but also running immersive AR apps, which is exactly what X-Real hopes developers will do with them. X-Real pitches the Air 2 Ultra as a full-fledged spatial computing device, similar to its earlier light-mixed reality device,

which also featured 6 degrees of freedom tracking, like the rest of the air lineup. The Air 2 Ultra projects a floating image in front of users' eyes, but it adds dual 3D cameras, one on each side of the glasses, that can map the wearer's environment and enable special features like hand-tracking. That allows developers to build apps that blend physical and digital space, rather than simply displaying a conventional game application or video feed like the Air 2, end quote. The Air 2 Ultra boasts a wider 52-degree field of view, and it weighs slightly more at 80 grams versus 72 grams for the Air 2.

Both models feature a 1080p screen per eye, 500 nits of brightness, and up to 120 hertz refresh rate. They connect to various devices including MacOS and Windows computers, Samsung, Android phones, and iPhone 15. Additionally on Android, MacOS, and Windows, they support XREAL's nebula AR environment. The Air 2 Ultra is available for purchase through XREL's website and ships to the U.S., UK, China, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. The Air 2 is already available to consumers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. This launch follows XREAL's announcement of shipping 350,000 AR glasses and plans to expand Air2's availability in 2024. So I debated even sharing this with you, but people were talking about it a lot over the weekend, so I feel it's my duty to tell you about the big Wall Street Journal story over the weekend that had sources telling them

that some executives and board members on his various companies fear that Elon Musk's use of LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, ketamine, and other drugs allegedly could harm operations, quoting the journal. The world's wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, ketamine, and other drugs allegedly, could harm operations, quoting the journal. The world's wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it. Musk has previously smoked marijuana in public and has said he has a prescription for the psychedelic-like ketamine. In 2018, for example, he took multiple tabs of acid at a party he hosted in Los Angeles. The next year, he partied on magic mushrooms at an event in Mexico. In 2021, he took ketamine, recognition. recreationally with his brother Kimball Musk in Miami at a house party during Art Basel. He has taken

illegal drugs with current SpaceX and former Tesla board member Steve Jervitson. People close to Musk, who is now 52, said his drug use is ongoing, especially his consumption of ketamine and that they are concerned it could cause a health crisis. Even if it doesn't, it could damage his businesses. Illegal drug use would likely be a violation of federal policies that could jeopardize SpaceX's billions of dollars in government contracts. Musk is intrinsic to the value of his company, companies potentially putting at risk around $1 trillion in assets held by investors, tens of thousands of jobs, and big parts of the U.S. space program. SpaceX is the only U.S. company now approved to transport NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The Pentagon,

meanwhile, has stepped up purchases of SpaceX rocket launches in recent years, and the company has also been looking to develop a large business selling satellite services to national security agencies. One former Tesla director, Linda Johnson Rice, grew so frustrated with Musk's volatile behavior and her concerns about his drug consumption that she didn't stand for re-election to the electric car company's board in 2019, according to people familiar with the matter. An attorney for Musk, Alex Spiro, said that Musk is, quote, regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test, end quote. Spiro, who said he represents Tesla, added in response to detail questions that, quote,

there are other false facts, end quote, in this article, but didn't detail them. Some Tesla board members over the years have talked among themselves about their concerns over Musk's alleged drug use, but haven't said anything formally that would end up as an official board agenda item or in meeting minutes, people familiar with the discussion said. Some directors, including current Tesla chair Robin Denham, has gone to Kimball Musk, who is a Tesla board member and was a SpaceX board member until early 2022 for help with Musk's behavior without using the word drugs, the people said. Some on the board and others close to Musk are worried he was on drugs when he tweeted in 2018 about plans to take Tesla private people familiar

with the episode said, Kimball Musk informally approached Musk about it on behalf of some board members. Some of the people said the tweet brought on an SEC investigation into whether the statement was misleading or false and resulted in Musk's agreement to step down as Tesla chairman for a time. Some close to Musk said they learned he was under the influence during a media interview he gave soon after the tweet when he choked up describing how difficult his year had been. Part of the issue directors have grappled with over the years is whether drug use by Musk is to blame for his unusual behavior, or if it is something else, such as his consistent lack of sleep, which he has talked about, end quote.

Finally, more signs that peak TV has happened. According to what's on Netflix data, Netflix released about 130 or 16% fewer original programs in 2023 than the year before. This comes after a decade of increasing output in original content pretty much every single year, quoting Bloomberg. After increasing the number of new original programs for the last decade, Output fell in every quarter last year. That was true in every major programming category. Netflix released fewer movies, TV shows, documentaries, and stand-up specials. In the final three months of

23, Netflix had its lightest slate of new releases in five years. There is one obvious reason for this decline. While the company has said the strikes by writers and actors didn't impact its slate much, output fell off a bit more in the second half of the year than the first. Netflix released about 60 fewer series in the second half, according to what's on Netflix, a drop of about 25 The aftermath of the strikes will continue to impact Netflix's release scheduled for at least a couple of years. Streaming services had finished work on many of the shows scheduled for release in 2023, but they were just starting many titles due out in 2024 and 2025. Many of those programs have been delayed or cancelled.

But this also isn't just a temporary dip. Netflix plans to make fewer shows going forward. Film Chief Scott Stuber has outlined a strategy to make fewer and hopefully better projects. And while the strike may have reduced its output of new scripted programs, The Surface also released fewer new documentaries and stand-up specials to genres largely unaffected by the labor stoppage. Netflix still produces at such a high volume that it's not clear if customers even notice when there are fewer shows. After all, Netflix is still making more scripted programming than any other company. Writers and producers will notice the change in the form of fewer jobs,

however. Management has concluded it can maintain current spending, reduce output, and still increase sales, at least for now, end quote. So I am not at CES this year, but even when I have attended, it's always been a question of how to cover it on the show. I have gone and recorded audio interviews in person, of course, but this is another time we're having a visual of what we're talking about is valuable. So all this week I'm going to continue my little video experiments. The bottom link in the show notes today is to a YouTube playlist where I will post video segments about cool products I've seen bubble to the surface this week.

These will be things that I've found interesting, but maybe you're aren't big enough deals to report on the regular show about. I'll eventually collect all the segments that I do produce and repost the audio as a bonus episode, but if you head to that YouTube playlist, you can see the videos as I post them in real time. I'm going to post several more today. While you're there, why not subscribe to the podcast YouTube channel? We'll be posting videos of the interview episodes we do this year, so if you subscribe, you can get notified when those videos post, and, hey, check out some cool gadgets from CES in the meantime, like the Kohler Smart Toilet I found yesterday,

and the cool new thing that can pull water out of thin air, the better to get you fully off the grid, like having an array of solar panels can do. Yes, my dad-preper tech fetish continues. Check out the playlist. Talk to you tomorrow.