Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 03/11 – The Roblox Debut

Episode Date: March 11, 2021

Roblox’s public market debut and why people are so excited about it. Twitter to open up spaces to everyone next month. An Apple silicon friendly version of Photoshop sports so eyebrow raising performance gains. Are iPhones about to get heavier? And the NFT sales record has been shattered thanks to Beeple. Sponsors: StartMail.com/techmeme Links: Roblox jumps to $38 billion market cap as public investors get their first crack at the popular kids game app (CNBC) Twitter plans to let anyone start hosting Twitter Spaces in April (The Verge) Verkada Workers Had Extensive Access to Private Customer Cameras (Bloomberg) Google paves way to monetize Pay users’ data in India (TechCrunch) Photoshop now runs natively on Apple’s M1 Macs (The Verge) iPhone 13 to Finally Feature Bigger Batteries (MacRumors) Oppo Find X3 Pro goes official w/ Snapdragon 888, 120Hz display, ‘microlens’ camera (9to5Google) Beeple sold an NFT for $69 million (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 TechMame right home for Thursday, March 11th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. Roblox's public market debut and why people are so excited about it. Twitter to open up spaces to everyone by next month.

An Apple Silicon-friendly version of Photoshop sports some eyebrow-raising performance gains. Our iPhone's about to get heavier and the NFT's sales record has been shattered thanks to people. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Roblox is out the door. Robux closed its first day of trading as a public company at $69.50 valuing the company at $38.26 billion, quoting CNBC. Shares began trading at $64.50, which represented a 43% increase from a private financing round just in January when the company sold shares for $45. The NYSE set a reference price on Tuesday of $45, though no stock changed hands at those

levels. The reference price tends to reflect private market trading and does not indicate where a stock will open. Roblox hits the market coming off an explosive year of growth, primarily from kids who were stuck at home because COVID-19 forced schools to close and sports leagues to shut down. Within Roblox, which is one of the top grossing apps on Apple and Google devices, users create avatars that they can move between the millions of games on the service, navigating theme parks, adopting virtual pets, and fighting enemies with their friends. Revenue last year jumped. 82% to $923.9 million. Still, Roblox's net loss widened to $253.3 million from $71 million in 2019, as the company almost tripled the amount of money it paid to developers through its revenue-sharing program.

More than 1,250 developers made at least $10,000 last year through virtual sales in their Roblox games, end quote. Now, I've said before that in the universe of unicorns, among the company's inventors, investors I'm friendly with are most enthused about. Roblox has been at the top of that list. The yardstick I'm using here to measure the level of investor excitement is, basically when I hear investors say something like, damn it, I wish I had gotten in early on that company. Roblox has been the name most mentioned in that context for about a year now. The other one, by the way, is Stripe, which people have FOMOed on forever. But over the last year, the frenzy around FinTech has reached a fever pitch.

So Stripe has become the company everyone still wishes they were. in on early or still wants to get in on now, if they can. Anyway, back to Roblox. You don't have to take my word for it in terms of people's excitement around this company. Here's Ben Thompson, describing how, by bringing disparate parts of gaming into one place, Roblox has basically created the conditions for interlocking feedback loops that are very exciting. Quote, By controlling everything, Roblox can bring all of the disparate parts of gaming into one place. Instead of one app for social interactions, another app for purchases, and a different app for every different game, everything is all in the same place. This also makes Roblox easier to develop for.

By constraining graphics to a consistent toolbox, it's very easy to build something new. This creates the conditions for the interlocking feedback loops that characterize transformational products. By reducing the prominence and feature set of games, Roblox made it possible to create something bigger. A microverse. This actually fits the pattern of other transformational products. The feed, for instance, relies on reducing all types of content from posts to photos to links to the same format, such that they can all be incorporated into a greater hole. It's a reason why I think that Clubhouse, being all audio, actually gives it an advantage

relative to Twitter. That leaves more room for user entrepreneurship, both in the kinds of rooms created and also norms around behavior. Twitter realized the same benefits relative to blogs with its 140 character. constraint. Similarly, Roblox games aren't really competitive with non-Roblox games. They're worse, in any sort of traditional sense, because the things that make them better are the parts that are enabled by imposing constraints, end quote. Twitter says it is aiming to let anyone start hosting spaces sometime next month, quoting the verge. Amusingly, we overheard the news in a Twitter space

itself hosted by the company. Twitter's plans aren't set in stone, but the gist is that they're trying to get the product into a state where anyone can host a Twitter space starting in April. April is the goal. In the meanwhile, users on both iOS and Android can both join and talk in existing spaces, end quote. Remember, we are going to try to do our first spaces experiment next week once Chris gets back on busy. And this one might be a smaller deal, but Who knows, depending on how you use Twitter, maybe this is the bigger deal, really. Twitter says it is also testing, displaying larger images, instead of those cropped previews that we're used to on our timelines.

Also support for 4K photo uploads is coming, quoting Imore. 4K image uploads can be enabled through the data usage settings in the Twitter app for iPhone, where you can select options for both viewing and uploading high-quality images to save cellular data. Twitter says that the settings will appear if you're in the text. showing not everyone is going to get the new features right away. Beyond Twitter's over the next few weeks statement, there's no clear indication as to a more specific timeline, end quote. Following up on that hack into those Verkata security cameras, three former employees

say that more than 100 employees at Verkata actually had access to those super admin accounts, one of which was apparently utilized by the hackers, and that any of those 100 employees could thus as superadmins view the camera feeds of basically any Verkata customers, quoting Bloomberg. The use of superadmin accounts within Verkata was so widespread that it extended even to sales staff and interns, two of the employees said, quote, we literally had 20-year-old interns that had access to over 100,000 cameras and could view all of their feeds globally, said one former senior-level employee who asked not to be identified discussing private information. It is unclear whether most Verkata customers knew,

its employees could peer through the cameras they purchased from the company. One former employee said it was implied that employees wouldn't have access, but said engineers were routinely looking at people's cameras every day, end quote. And this is a follow-up, sort of, to that story about the confusion and controversy around the new versions of Google Pay. Google says it will soon give Google Pay users the option to share their Google Pay transaction data with Google so that Google can make personalized offers. They can't resist, can they? Transaction data is just too delicious for Google to resist mining, quoting TechCrunch. Three and a half years after launching Google Pay in India, the Android Maker is paving the way to tap

its users' transaction data for monetization purposes, though it plans to give them ample warning and the option to opt out. Google said on Thursday that it will roll out an update to Google pay next week that will ask users to choose whether they wish to share data with the company. Currently, Google makes limited use of users' data based on their behavior on the app, for instance, to prominently display relevant offerings. But the company has so far not used its users' transaction data for monetary purposes. That changes starting next week. Users can choose to prevent Google from making any usage of their data, even those that

are not transactional, the company said, and by default, users are assumed to be opting out of sharing their data with Google, the company said. But for those users who do agree to share data with Google, the company will be using it to make personalized offers. The company asserted that it will not show ads to pay users and reiterated that it will not sell their data to anyone, and the transaction history will not be shared with any other Google products for targeting ads, end quote. Sure, for now, right? Unless I'm reading this wrong, this is only for the time being for Google pay users in India. But as that previous article about Google Pay made the point, apparently when it comes to Google Pay, Google iterates in India first and then tends to bring whatever the iteration

is to the rest of the world sometime after that. Adobe has rolled out a version of Photoshop that is optimized for Apple Silicon, and in doing so, it is claiming a 1.5x performance improvement over most Photoshop tasks on old Intel Macs, quoting the verge. Photoshop for Apple Silicon was previously in beta, but now it's being widely rolled out to Creative Cloud customers with an M1 Mac. Those include the MacBook Air, entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini. These great performance improvements are just the beginning, and we will continue to work together with Apple to further optimize performance over time Adobe's Pam Clark wrote in a blog post. In this case, just the beginning also means there are a small number of Photoshop features and tricks that haven't yet made the move to the Apple Silicon version. According to Clark, these include recent additions like Invite to Edit Cloud documents and preset syncing. However, the performance gains across the rest of the application were so great we didn't want to hold back the release for everyone, while the team wraps up work on these last few features, she added, noting that customers

can always switch over to using the Intel build of Photoshop with Rosetta 2 if they urgently need those features, end quote. Meng Chi Kuo says that all four of the forthcoming iPhone 13 models will feature larger batteries with higher capacities, and hence they might be ever so slightly heavier than iPhone 12 models, quoting Mac rumors. The change will be implemented through a number of space-saving design choices, such as integrating the SIM card slot into the motherboard and reducing the thickness of the front-facing true-depth camera array. Larger batteries in the iPhone 13 models will presumably lead to improve battery life in contrast to the iPhone 12, which saw battery sizes reduced to,

across the board compared to the previous generation. The iPhone 12, 12 Pro Pro Max have batteries of 295 mill-amp hours, 231, 282, respectively, smaller than their predecessors, but battery life has been largely the same due to efficiency improvements. One downside of the internal design changes noted by Quo is that the iPhone 13 models are expected to be slightly heavier due to these larger batteries. Changes to the display technology used in the iPhone 13 Pro may also be responsible for improving battery life. The iPhone 13 Pro Pro Max are widely expected to gain ProMotion displays with variable refresh rates, as well as delivering high refresh rates up to 120 hertz when needed. ProMotion also enables slower refresh rates when there is less movement on screen to improve battery life.

In addition, the A15 chip is also likely to deliver some iterative efficiency improvements to support battery life, end quote. But heck, let's talk about a phone that is actually right here right now. Apo has unveiled the FindX3 Pro, which sports a Snapdragon 888, a 6.7-inch, 120-hertz display, 12 gigabytes of RAM, a 50-mixel ultra-wide camera, and a 3-mepixel microlens for taking microscope-style macro shots. That's new, quoting 9 to 5 Google. A 4,500-m-amp hour battery is included with Apo's signature Super V-O-O-C charging, offering 65-watt charging speeds. Unlike the FindX2 Pro, though, wireless charging is included at 30-watt speeds. Other hardware notables include an IP68 rating, NFC, plus stereo speakers.

Apo's design language with the FindX3 Pro is an odd mesh of existing smartphone hardware tropes with a single piece of shaped glass fitting over a quad camera setup that is reminiscent of the iPhone camera bump. Op also unveiled the standard X3 Neo and X3 light alongside the FindX3 Pro. These two devices are offering much of the same experience but at a lower entry price point. The entire Apo FindX series will go on sale from April 14th, 2021. The FindX3 Pro starts at 1,09 pounds in the UK and is available in gloss black and blue. The Findx3 Neo will start at 699 pounds and is available in starlight black and galactic silver. And finally, the Findex3 light will be priced at 3 79 pounds and comes in astral blue, starry black, and galactic silver, end

quote. And finally today, more NFT headlines, actually the biggest NFT headlines yet. Remember how we mentioned, either it was on the weekend bonus episode or maybe we did a segment from last week, that Christie's, that venerable auction house, was holding its first ever digital art sale. Well, Mike Winkleman, the digital artist, otherwise known as Beeple, has indeed sold an NFT of his work for, wait for it, $69 million, quoting the verge. Until October, the most Mike Winkleman, the digital artist known as Beeple, had ever sold a print for was $100. Today, an NFT of his work sold for $69 million at Christie's.

The sale positions him, quote, among the top three most valuable living. artists, end quote, according to the auction house. The record smashing NFT sale comes after months of increasingly valuable auctions. In October, Winkleman sold his first series of NFTs with a pair going for $66,66,66 each. In December, he sold a series of works for $3.5 million in total, and last month, one of the NFTs that originally sold for that 6666666 was resold for $6.6 million. in. Quote, he showed us this collage, and that was my eureka moment when I knew this was going to be extremely important. Noah Davis, a specialist in post-war and contemporary art at Christie's told The Verge, it was just so monumental and so indicative of what NFTs can do, end quote.

A few factors explain why Beeple's work has become so valuable. For one, he's developed a large fan base with around 2.5 million followers across social channels, and he's famously prolific. as part of a project called Every Days. Winkleman creates and publishes a new digital artwork every day. The project is now in its 14th year. Christie's, though, is also a legitimizing force for both Winkleman's art and NFTs as a technology. The 255-year-old auction house has sold some of the most famous paintings in history from the only known portrait of Shakespeare created during his lifetime to the last discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

Combined that with Winkleman already being at the forefront of NFT sales, and today's auction was destined to set records. I do view this as the next chapter of art history, Winkleman said. Now there is a way to collect digital art, end quote. The piece that was sold, every days, the first 5,000 days, is a collage of Winkleman's work starting at the beginning of the project when he was posting somewhat crude sketches. It runs through years of evolving digital shapes and sceneries up through the beginning of this year when he was posting extremely crude political illustrations, end quote. There is no word that I could find on who actually bought. this NFT, but they apparently get, I guess, a digital file and some vague rights to present the

image, IRL. But Winkleman expects to work with the buyer to figure out ways to display the piece, and let me quote from the verge once more, whether that's on a TV in their house or projected on, quote, the side of a fucking building at Art Basel, end quote. By the way, of course, I told you I sold one of the 10 NFTs I minted from an episode of this show, and the amount I had to pay in gas fees was more than the amount I got for the sale. As of this writing, the bidding for another one of the remaining episodes is up to the equivalent of $34.52. But sure enough, it would cost me the equivalent of $88.46 in gas fees, which is more than I have in my wallet, since, By the way, I also have wrapped ETH in there now, and I haven't been able to successfully unwrap it, which is a whole other issue.

But now, on top of all this, I just learned that I don't actually have to accept the gas fees. I can basically adjust them down. But I'm wondering if I do that, if I adjust the fees all the way down to something I can accept, does that mean no one will be willing to do the transaction for me? Am I doing this wrong? Or every time the bidding price goes up on my NFT, can I just basically, assume the gas fees will be double whatever the price is. I kind of don't care these solutions to all of these,

because this is just an experiment. But also, yeah, if anyone knows the answer to any of this, let me know. Can I adjust the gas fees down, or is that counterproductive? Is there any way out of this gas fee nightmare? Talk to you tomorrow.