Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 01/09 – Gurman Tells Us When Apple’s “Reality Pro” Will Be Announced.

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

Mark Gurman tells us when Apple’s “Reality Pro” headset will be announced, made available to developers, and made available to consumers. Valve’s Steam gaming platform is breaking records. John Deere will let you repair your hundred-thousand-dollar smart tractor. A literal ThinkPad for smartphones. And why one big buzzword was largely missing from CES this year. Sponsors: Bombas.com/techmeme, code techmeme at checkout Zocdoc.com/techmeme Links: Apple Will Talk Up Its Mixed-Reality Headset in 2023 But Not Much Else (Bloomberg) Steam hits 10 million concurrent in-game players in record-breaking weekend (The Verge) Deere & Co. will allow farmers to repair their own equipment (Reuters) Insurer Beazley launches first catastrophe bond for cyber threats (FT) The Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola is a ThinkPad owner’s dream (The Verge) Where was 5G at CES? (The Verge) 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 TechMean right home for Monday, January 9th, 2023. I'm Brian McCullough today. Mark German tells us when Apple's reality pro headset will be announced, made available to developers, and made available to consumers. Valve's Steam gaming platform is breaking records. John Deere will let you

repair your $100,000 smart tractor, a literal think pad for smartphones, and why one big buzzword was largely missing from CES this year. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Mark German, Apple Scoop Monday. In his weekly newsletter, German reports that Apple plans to unveil its reality pro headset. That seems to be the name, this spring, announcing it before WWDC. He also says that the new Mac Pro that we all think is coming will end up looking a lot like the 2019 model, but will also lose user-upgradable RAM, quoting the man himself. Apple, after seven years of development, is nearly ready to launch its first mixed reality headset. But the focus on this new product will lead to an otherwise muted 2023 for the rest of the Apple lineup. Up until fairly recently, Apple had aimed to introduce

the headset in January 2020-23 and ship it later this year. Now the company is aiming to unveil it this spring ahead of the annual worldwide developers conference in June, I'm told. Apple has already shared the device with a small number of high-profile software developers for testing, letting them get started on third-party apps. The device's operating system dubbed Borealis, inside the company will be publicly named X-R-O-S. With the current plan, Apple could introduce the device to consumers, likely under the name Reality Pro, and then get developers up to speed on its software features in June. On this timeline, the company would then ship the product later in the fall of 2023. While Apple still has many kinks to work out with the device involving hardware,

software, and services, as well as how it will be marketed and sold, the company is banking on the product as its hot new introduction for this year. To make that happen, Apple roped in resources, from several hardware and software engineering departments. That's hampered other projects, some of which were already suffering from their own delays and budget cuts stemming from the economic slowdown. And it could mean Apple has fewer major breakthroughs to show off this year. Here's what to expect, starting with the Mac lineup. The new MacBook Pros coming in the first half of this year will have the same designs and features as the current 14-inch and 16-inch models, but include M2 Pro and M-2 Max chips. These are marginal leaps.

from today's MacBook Pro processors. A high-end configuration of the Mac Pro, a model with 48 CPU cores and 152 graphics cores, has been cancelled. Instead, Apple plans to release a version with the M2 Ultra, making it unclear beyond the machine's expandability why most users would buy it over the cheaper and smaller Mac Studio. In another disappointment, the new Mac Pro will look identical to the 2019 model. It will also lack one key feature from the Intel version, User Upgradable Ram. That's because the memory is tied directly to the M2 Ultras motherboard. Still, there are two SSD storage slots and for graphics, media, and networking cards. A larger iMac pro, meanwhile, has been on and off Apple's roadmap, and I would be surprised at this point if it arrives in 2023. A spec bump

upgrade for the 24-inch iMac won't arrive until the M3 chip is ready, which likely won't happen until late 2023 or 2024 at the earliest. If there's any major saving grace for the Mac lineup in 2023, it's a planned 15-inch MacBook Air. A new 12-inch MacBook is no longer on Apple's near-term roadmap, however, end quote. Mark says for the rest of our favorite Apple products, well, get ready to be underwhelmed this year. Mark says larger iPads are in the works at Apple,

but not expected for a release this year. While updates to the iPad pros will likely get new designs, don't expect those until 2024. Meanwhile, updates to the iPad Mini and iPad Air will come this year, but will largely be spec bumps. Same for the Apple Watch. Minor performance boosts at best. As for the iPhone, Mark says this, quote, the new iPhone's hardware, though, could still be impressive. I'm told to expect the same screen sizes as the iPhone 14 family, but the dynamic island will expand to all four models. a titanium frame replaces stainless steel on the pro models, and there will be haptic volume buttons. The phone also will switch to USBC and faster processors, end quote.

Really? That's meant to be impressive. I hope you can hear the sarcasm in my voice there. But, you know, the shift to USBC is all I care about this year, which is also why I assume we'll get some form of update to the AirPods, at least to accommodate that. Valve's Steam platform claims it has crossed 10 million concurrent in-game players for the first time ever on January 7th and recently exceeded 33 million concurrent online users. Quoting the verge, according to SteamDB, a non-valve-affiliated database, Steam racked up 10,082,055 active in-game players and 32,186,301 concurrent online users, folks who were online, but not. necessarily playing a game on Saturday, September 7th, surpassing previous user milestones. In fact, Steam has already surpassed the record for concurrent online users in the last 24 hours since SteamDB's initial announcement on Saturday, with a new all-time peak of 33,000, 78,963 users being reported by the database website. Steam has increasingly broken records for concurrent

online users since the beginning of 2020, coinciding with the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic. By March of that year, the platform had smashed its then all-time record for concurrent users at 20 million, which had increased to a new record of 30 million users by March 2022. The two most popular games aren't too surprising. Counter-Strike Global Offensive took the crown, having achieved over 1 million concurrent players during the weekend, with Dota 2 sitting ever comfortably in second place. A surprising newcomer in third place, however, was the recently released Goose Goose Duck, a free-to-play multiplayer social deduction game reminiscent of Among Us,

a title that also saw explosive popularity during COVID lockdowns, that since achieved an all-time peak of 640,324 players at the time of writing, end quote. Super News, if you, like, you know, not being locked out of hardware you buy, John Deere has signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation, promising farmers the right to repair their equipment or to go to an independent technician. Quoting Reuters, as the agriculture sector accelerates its adoption of technology, the reliance on high-tech machinery such as GPS-guided combines and tractors has become more commonplace. But equipment makers, such as deer, have generally required customers to use their parts and service

divisions for repairs, and until recently, only allowed authorized dealers the means and tools to access the complex computerized systems of their tractors and others. other machinery. The Farm Bureau's Memorandum of Understanding with Deer, quote, will ensure farmers everywhere are able to repair our own equipment. Farm Bureau President Zippy Duval said, speaking at the Federation's Convention in Puerto Rico. The MOU aims to find a solution to the right to repair debate in the private sector, rather than through legislation or regulation, according to the document. It benefits farmers and independent repair facilities in the United States in Puerto Rico for the, quote, lawful operation and upkeep of agricultural equipment. The MOU states, the MOU states that,

among other things, equipment owners and independent technicians cannot compromise any safety features and protocols on the equipment that deer's intellectual property, including its software, are protected from infringement, and no federal and state emissions control requirements can be compromised because of modifications made to the machinery. For deer and rival equipment manufacturers such as CNH Industrial and AGCO Corp, repairing machinery has given them a solid boost for their parts and services businesses. Consumers have filed a slew of lawsuits against deer over the issue, and the Biden administration has been pushing for more competition in the rural economy amid rising inflation, end quote. Sign oh the times, as Prince once said.

UK-based insurer Beasley is launching the first ever cyber catastrophe bond, typically used for hurricanes and extreme weather as the industry combats ransomware claims. Quoting the Financial Times, catastrophe bonds work like normal bonds in that they give investors interest payments, typically at a floating rate in this market, and hand back the principle at maturity. But investors can lose some or all of their money if certain tightly defined triggers are hit. Generally, those triggers relate to the level of claims from hurricanes and other extreme weather events. Institutional investors seeking returns have poured tens of billions of dollars into such insurance-linked securities, forming a significant source of reinsurance for underwriters.

The $45 million private bond will pay out to Beasley if total claims from a cyber attack on its clients exceed $300 million. A structure intended to give some protection to the insurer's balance sheet from, quote, remote probability, catastrophe, and systemic events, end quote. Adrian Cox, Beasley's chief executive, told the Financial Times that the new instrument gave the ensure access to a much larger source of capital. What that taps into is a pool that is trillions of dollars rather than hundreds of billions and is a pathway for us to be able to hedge and grow, Cox said. Beasley hoped he added to scale this new tool to eventually provide billions of dollars worth of reinsurance cover. Beasley's cyber bond, the combination of a three-year

project was structured and placed by broker Gallagher RE and bought by investors, including Connecticut-based specialist Fermat Capital Management. The interest rate on the deal was not disclosed, but Beasley said the bond could be followed by additional tranches this year and beyond, end quote. One straggler headline for you from CES last week. Are you someone who lives the Lenovo lifestyle as in you use Lenovo's think pad as your daily driver, then maybe it's worth considering the think phone. It is basically a smartphone version of the think pad.

Quoting the verge, The think phone has a Snapdragon 8 plus Gen 1 chip set, a 6.6-inch OLED screen, a 5,000-m-a-amp-hour battery, a bunch of fancy enterprise security features, a phrase thinkpad enthusiasts will certainly be familiar with, and two rear cameras including a 50-m-pixel stabilized standard wide and a 13-magixel ultra-wide plus a depth sensor. It's M-I-L-S-T-D-810H certified, and IP68 rated for dust-and-water resistance. It ships with Android 13, but the coolest point. part and the differentiating feature, in my opinion, is how much fun it is to use with a think pad. My favorite software feature is called Unified Clipboard. When you have this enabled, any photo you take,

text you copy, documents you scan, or video you take with the Think Phone is automatically copied to a clipboard that your Think Phone shares with your ThinkPad. You can then paste that media instantly on your connected ThinkPad, which seems very handy for dropping photos into presentations and documents as you're creating them. This was fun to use and worked perfectly. each time I tried it, and I did try many times. It was really fun. This unified clipboard feature is part of a whole suite of features called the Think-to-Think connectivity. Come on, that's cute. That connects the Think phone and the ThinkPad. You can also drag-and-drop files, and the two devices can quickly discover each other and connect over Wi-Fi while nearby. You can even use the Think Phone as a webcam while taking

conference calls on the ThinkPad. The latter works with any video conferencing software, Lenovo told me, so it's not like some other fancy webcam features. Companies have come out with this year where your company's conferencing software of choice needs to decide to support them. Physically, there are some other touches that make this phone look blissfully think-patti, the black textured back.

Come on, you can't miss that similarity, but the most striking homage to Lenovo's premium business laptops is the red button on the side of the think phone, which isn't quite a keyboard nub, but you know what, it's close. You can map both a single and double-tap of this button to shortcuts of your choice, which I'm sure some thinkpad users who may, for example, have experience remapping some of the think pads unconventionally placed keyboard keys will appreciate. All in all,

this phone seems like a fun idea to me. There are lots of think pad lovers out there. Why not give them a phone to match? And quote. And finally today, you know what was a touch interesting about CES this year, at least as far as I could tell from the coverage, was the lack of something. After years of hype, 5G seemingly took a backseat at CES 2023, as the industry seemingly focuses on laying the groundwork for all of that self-driving car, AR, and Internet of Things magic that it's been hyping up for the last few CES cycles, quoting the verge. Why? It's not as if all of the things we were promised with 5G have come to pass. I don't remember getting into a fully autonomous vehicle to get my robot performed surgery. At best, best, what we have now is a slightly faster version of 4G. So why did the pep rally stop? For starters, we're all sick of hearing about it. And CES has a unique way of rallying around a technology one year and then leaving it for dead the next. How's your 3D home theater working out? Exactly. And there was always a time limit on 5G's newsworthiness. At a certain point,

when it becomes the prevailing wireless technology, it's not going to be 5G the new thing. It'll just be the internet you use when you're not on Wi-Fi. More than any of the above, the time is past where wireless CEOs feel they need to sell 5G to the general public and, of course, their shareholders. It's not a niche new service anymore. It's the default option in the U.S. at least. Basically, every new phone sold on their shelves is 5G compatible, and mid-band 5G finally exists on all major carriers in large parts of the U.S. The next time you walk into a wireless store to buy a new phone or sign up for a new service, you'll have a very hard time leaving without a 5G device and plan, regardless of whether you really wanted them. So,

Now we have 5G phones in our hands. 5G networks are here, and not much has changed. Maybe the web pages load a little faster, but that's hardly robot surgery. What gives? The thing is, rolling out 5G is a long ongoing process. The hype made it seem like all the good stuff was just around the corner, but truthfully, it was and still is years and years away. We're only now entering the phase of 5G development where the industry moves beyond mobile

broadband improvements. All that talk of blazing fast wireless data you've been hearing about ad-nodonized. and focuses more on laying the groundwork for things like self-driving cars, augmented reality, and expanding Internet of Things in smart cities and industry. You know, all the stuff we were promised 5G would do. According to a couple of network executives that I talked to at the end of 2022, moving network functions closer to the end user will play a big role in unlocking these new capabilities. Even once the network capabilities are there, it takes time to build out an ecosystem that takes

advantage of them. Verizon's Sreeni Kalapala, Senior Vice President of Technology and Product Development, describes the challenge, quote, In the world of automotive, there's a lot of talk about 5G being able to allow cars to communicate with each other, allow cars and pedestrians to cohabitate in a given environment, but it's an ecosystem. Just having one car and one customer on the road doesn't work. You've got to get everybody on board, end quote. So yes, you may have a 5G icon on your phone, but the most transformative aspects of 5G are supposedly still in the works. That's a tough message to sell in a flashy keynote, especially when everyone in the room has access to the technology you're talking about, end quote.

So if you follow this show's YouTube channel, you might have noticed two odd videos show up there this weekend. Links to both of the videos are the final links in the show notes today, because you might want to check it out. I wanted to test out these AI tools for myself, the ones we've been talking about so much these last few months. So I generated two videos entirely using AI, or let's call it maybe 90% using AI. All of the text and content was created entirely by me querying and refining my queries using chat GPT. The audio voiceover of the text was generated entirely by different text-to-speech tools. Some worked better than others.

That's why I did two different ones. Some of the images and video were even auto-selected by AI, though to a large degree I found the images I used using Google Image Search. I did all this for a couple of reasons. I wanted to learn about the functionality of these tools, how these tools are or are not already game-changing tools, say for creators. I want to talk to Chris about this the next time we do a bonus episode because believe me, I have a lot of thoughts. But also, because the next step is I want to take a crack again at producing this show generating the audio of my voice, or at least of my text, using AI. You might hear additional experiments to this end, maybe even tomorrow. I wanted to find out,

could I completely replace the two hours of editing audio I do every day to produce this show? Early results seem to be maybe I can soon. You'll hear maybe tomorrow. The robot voices are rapidly getting better than the last time we tested this, which was, I think, maybe two years ago. I would estimate that within five years for sure, I could probably produce this show without ever speaking into a microphone like I'm doing right now. I still need to be a microphone. I still need to be convinced that I could properly train an AI with my own voice, but some folks have given me some interesting new avenues to explore in that regard as well. As I say, this is an experiment I ran to learn, to learn for me and for you, to see how far the technology really is right now. Is it

all hype at the moment, or are we already at the point where you can craft these tools into an existing workflow today? But also, as I say, this will be grist for the bonus episode Mill when Chris and I finally get down to talking about this, maybe this week even. Anyway, as I said, maybe you'll hear more tomorrow. Talk to you tomorrow.