Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 10/28 – Facebook’s New Name Is Meta

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

Facebook’s new name is… Meta. All the headlines from Facebooks’ Connect event today. Also, is Copilot taking over Github? The new Raspberry Pi device. And how to handle the notch on the MacBook Pro if its driving you crazy. Sponsors: Wealthfront.com/techmeme Dataiku.com Links: Facebook unveils Horizon Home social VR, Messenger VR calls, and fitness VR on road to metaverse (VentureBeat) Slack is coming to the Oculus Quest (TechCrunch) Facebook says it doesn’t want to own the metaverse, just jumpstart it (Engadget) Facebook unveils Horizon Home social VR, Messenger VR calls, and fitness VR on road to metaverse (VentureBeat) Slack is coming to the Oculus Quest (TechCrunch) Facebook says it doesn’t want to own the metaverse, just jumpstart it (Engadget) Facebook tells employees to preserve all communications for legal reasons. (NYTimes) Nearly a third of new code on GitHub is written with AI help (Axios) The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is ideal for DIY projects (Wired) Apple Reveals 'Scale to Fit' Setting to Prevent a Mac App's Menu Bar Items From Being Hidden Under Notch (MacRumors) 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 Thursday, October 28th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. Facebook's new name is, well, you're going to have to listen to the first segment to find out if it even has a new name. That's what we in the business call a teaser, but also because at the time of this recording, I don't know yet.

Also, all the headlines from Facebook's Connect event today is co-pilot taking over GitHub, the new Raspberry Pi device, and how to handle the notch on the MacBook Pro if it's driving you crazy. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Meta. Facebook's new corporate name is Meta. M-E-T-A. Yes, because it's all about the Metaverse now. So, this Mark Zuckerberg production is now called Meta.

Mark Zuckerberg himself said, quote, From now on, we're going to be Metaverse first, not Facebook first. The word meta comes from the Greek word beyond. To me, it suggests that there's always something more. Building our social media apps will always be an important focus. for us, but right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can't possibly represent everything that we're doing today, much less in the future. Over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company, and I want to anchor our work and our identity on what we are

building towards, end quote. As for the actual event at which this news was made, I sat through all of it, so you didn't have to, and just to get to that new name right at the end. So here you go. First of all, I tried to watch it on my Oculus, but all that happened is they put me in a virtual theater, standing on a virtual balcony, looking at a virtual screen, seeing the event that you all saw on your normal screen. So despite the fact that Zuck took the time in this event to try to tell everybody how great the Metaverse is going to be and how Facebook is going to help build it, the actual, you know, opportunity to demonstrate that with this event was still seriously underwhelming. So I'm going to skip over a lot of the Metaverse Mumbo-Jumbo because, I mean,

it is still not here yet. Though let me share this choice bit from Engadgett quote, instead of looking at a screen or today how we look at the internet, I think in the future you're going to be in the experiences. And I think that's just a qualitatively different experience, Zuckerberg said. It's not quite virtual reality as we think of it. And it's not just augmented reality, but ultimately he sees the metaverse as something that will help to deliver more presence for digital social experiences, the sense of being there instead of just being trapped in a Zoom window. And he expects there to be continuity across devices so you'll be able to start chatting with friends on your phone and seamlessly join them as a hologram when you slip on

AR glasses, end quote. Now, Zuck did take the time to acknowledge recent events, quoting Venture Beat. Acknowledging recent controversies, Zuckerberg said, quote, I just want to acknowledge that I get that probably there are a bunch of people who will say that this isn't a time to focus on the future. And I want to acknowledge that there are clearly important issues to work on in the present. and we're committed to continuing to do that and continuing the massive industry-leading effort that we have on that. At the same time, I think there will always be issues in the present, so I think it's still important to push forward and continue trying to create what the future is, end quote. As for actual headlines made at the event, well, for me, for one thing, Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas is being developed for the Quest 2. I would be very excited to give that a try, but no word on when it's actually coming.

As for what Facebook would probably say are the big headlines. Let me run down some of those. Horizon Home Social VR spaces was announced. Messenger VR calls are coming to the quest. There were all sorts of fitness VR applications announced coming next year. Also, Quest for Business, including work accounts. Quoting Venture Beat again. Zuckerberg continues to invest in VR, noting how his Facebook Reality Lab division, which includes Oculus, will invest more than $10 billion this year in Metaverse efforts. Facebook also plans to hire more than 10,000 people in Europe for the division. Zuckerberg said the Metaverse should feel like you're embedded in a place with a sense of presence,

the feeling that you are transported to someplace. He said that gaming will be the way that people step into the Metaverse for the first time, as gaming has the infrastructure for economies through virtual goods and engagement with fans. Soon, when you join an Oculus party in VR, you'll be able to invite your friends into a new social version of your home where they'll be embedded as their avatars. You'll be able to spend time together with friends, co-watch video, together and launch games and apps together. On top of that, you will also be able to communicate with your friends across all your apps and devices, including portal, with messenger

calling in VR coming later this year. From anywhere in VR, you'll be able to invite your Facebook friends to join a messenger call and eventually spend time together or travel to VR destinations. The new fitness offerings on Oculus includes supernatural boxing, new FitXR Fitness Studios, and Player 22 by Resil, which is currently used by pro athletes, and that is adding guided and hand-tracked body weight exercises. Next to your Facebook will also release active pack for Quest 2. The company is making a fitness accessories pack that makes Quest 2 more comfortable, with controller grips for when things get intense,

and a facial interface that you can wipe the sweat off, making your sessions more comfortable. The first 2D apps in the Oculus store arrived today, including Facebook, Instagram, SmartSheet, and Spike. More apps will soon follow like Dropbox Monday.com, mural, My5, Pluto, TV, and Slack, all built using the progressive web app industry standard. Facebook has also added a new personal workspace environment in Horizon Home. This is a place to focus and work using the new suite of 2D panel apps, or just check a few things off your to-do list, end quote. Facebook also dropped a

mini bomb by announcing they will soon let you log into Oculus without having to use your Facebook account. You might remember that was a bit controversial when they decided they were going to force everybody to use Facebook. What else? Along with the work focus, those 2D apps are new. 2D apps previously hadn't been permitted on the Oculus, quoting TechCrunch. The Quest has previously had very light support for 2D experiences with most confined to the Oculus web browser. Facebook also previously rolled out native support for Messenger on the Oculus Quest 2 and announced today that they'll be bringing support for audio calls to the platform. In August, Facebook showed off its Horizon Workrooms meeting simulator which integrated with Zoom and promised to bring users a more productive VR experience.

The lack of app support was a major roadblock on the way to this goal. And typing in VR isn't exactly a solved problem, so it's likely that this will be an experience most suited for users that have paired their keyboards to the headset or are more comfortable just checking up on notifications rather than firing off a ton of lengthy messages, end quote. Again, what else? Facebook is teaming up with BMW to test AR usage in cars. Facebook is adding a mixed reality. Facebook is adding a mixed reality platform to the Oculus Quest 2. Basically, that's that pass-through visual feature that already exists on the Quest 2. It is being built out as a sort of quick and dirty way for Oculus developers to begin working with AR right now. Zuck also teased what he called Project Cambria, which is an upcoming

high-end Oculus headset with pancake lenses and advanced pass-through to show the real world even as you're wearing a full headset. More to come on that next year, he said. No more details on what would represent the next generation of VR hardware than that. But of course, all anybody's really going to be talking about, since Facebook didn't really actually have anything new to show, just new things to talk about coming sometime in an ill-defined future, all anyone's going to talk about is the name. What do you think of the name? We'll have to round up some of the reactions tomorrow. I make such a dad joke, but maybe we'll have a bit of a meta-discussion. Also, there's this. Facebook has reportedly begun telling employees to preserve internal

documents and communications related to its business since as far back as 2016. As governments and legislative bodies begin inquiries, after all, the Francis Hogan and Facebook papers revelations recently, quoting the New York Times, As you are probably aware, we are currently the focus of extensive media coverage based on a swath of internal documents. Facebook said in the email to employees, which was obtained by the New York Times, as is often the case following this kind of reporting, a number of inquiries from governments and legislative bodies have been launched into the company's operations, end quote. A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the legal hold was sent to employees on Tuesday evening, but declined to elaborate on what caused the action. quote, document preservation requests are part of the process of responding to legal inquiries, she said.

Facebook has previously issued legal directions to employees last year, for example, after the Federal Trade Commission and State Attorneys General sued Facebook for illegally crushing its competitors. The company advised workers to avoid discussing issues related to the litigation and required them to take online training courses to understand competition compliance policies. The company is also involved in an online ads price-fixing investigation with Google, as part of an antitrust lawsuit against the search giant filed by 10 state attorneys general last year, end quote. By the way, this is another one of those time travel moments for the podcast where

I wrote this segment and recorded it in the morning before the Facebook Connect event. So, if you are hearing this in the future when Facebook Connect is in your past, and I'm supposed to now be referring to them as the company formerly known as Facebook or something like that, I apologize. but again, time travel. I'm speaking to you from a simpler time, a better time win, at least right now. I'm 100% sure the company is named Facebook. GitHub says as much as 30% of new code on its network is now being written with its AI tool known as copilot, and 50% of developers who tried co-pilot since July have apparently kept using it, quoting Axios. Co-Pilot can look at code written by a human programmer and suggest further lines or alternative code

eliminating some of the repetitive labor that goes into coding. Copilot is built on the OpenAI Codex algorithm, which was trained on terabytes of openly available source code, and can translate human language into programming language. It serves as a more sophisticated auto-complete tool for programmers. The company will announce at its GitHub Universe conference today that it will be rolling out copilot support for all popular programming languages, including Java. Not unlike OpenAI's massive text-generating natural language product, GPT3, copilot is much more effective in augmenting human work than in creating its own code. Like any algorithm, it is dependent on the quality of its training data.

In a study, a group of academics from New York University found 40% of the code produced by copilot had cybersecurity flaws. Yes, but humans are far from perfect either. By one estimate, developer creates 70 bugs per 1,000 lines of code, end quote. Last night I saw Nathan Batchez's tweet, quote, I just got access to GitHub co-pilot, and it is scary good. I'm having an OS. This changes everything moment, end quote. I can't remember.

Did we know there was a new Raspberry Pi thingy coming? If we did know, I have forgotten about it. But here is a review from Wired UK of Raspberry Pi's new $15.02W, featuring a 64-bit CPU, 512 megabytes of RAM, and Wi-Fi 4, which the reviewer says is surprisingly powerful and ideal for emulation and automation projects, and again, all for 15 bucks. Quote, if you're looking to buy your first Raspberry Pi for general or desktop PC use, the Pi 02W probably isn't the best choice, a 4-gigabyte Raspberry Pi 4. or 400 will cost more, but they use a more typical set of standard PC ports and peripherals,

making it less likely that you'll have to buy anything special to go with them beyond a power supply. If you already have all the cables and peripherals, a Pi-Zero requires, then this is a surprisingly capable emergency PC for around 15 bucks. And if you're already using a Raspberry Pi-Zero for anything where performance matters, this is an upgrade, you'll definitely be getting sooner or later. And you'll really appreciate it when you do. You should probably wait a couple months for the software support to catch up, though. The same applies to users of operating systems other than Raspberry PiOS, of course.

Finally, if you like making your own embedded device projects with a bit of oomph, this is the tiny pie for you. From doorbell cameras to DIY music players, there's loads of potential for compact builds with this surprisingly powerful spec, end quote. Finally today, I hadn't discussed this yet, but yes, I too, all that video that's been going around where that guy expands the menus on the new MacBook Pros and stuff gets hidden behind that new notch on the screen of the new MacBook Pros. Many of you, including my cousin Kevin, took to Twitter to almost ask me to answer for this dumb design choice by Apple, which is something I cannot do. Yes, I dearly want the new Apple Silicon, and yes, the MacBook Pros are now the

laptops of my dreams. But look, remember, the whole reason I was desperate for this update was because Apple so thoroughly borked their MacBook lineup for half a decade through dumb design decisions. And, you know, also I had to friggin' charge my magic mouse overnight last night, because remember, Johnny, I thought it would be cool to put the charge port on the underside of the mouse so you can't use it while charging it. So I'm no Apple Apologist, even if I am an Apple fan and an ecosystem lock-in. I know John Gruber is what I'm saying. So no, I don't intend to make excuses for The Notch. And I share all of your being tickled by this or outraged by it, given your predilections. It does seem weird to me that Apple's software side seemingly didn't account for the

notch suddenly showing up on the hardware side. But I will tell you this. Apple's support documents apparently say 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro users can turn on something called Scale 2.3.5 fit below built-in camera to avoid notch app compatibility issues, quoting Mac rumors. Apple today shared a new support document that explains how users can ensure that in apps, menu bar items do not appear hidden behind the notch or the camera housing, as Apple calls it, on the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. In the support document, Apple says users can turn on scale to fit below built-in camera for an app to adjust the active area of the display, thereby ensuring that the app's menu bar items appear below the notch and are always visible.

Menu bar items appearing hidden behind the notch was demonstrated by Quinn Nelson, host of the YouTube channel Snazzy Labs. To turn on Scale to Fit Below Built-In camera for an app on the new MacBook Pro models, open the Finder app and click on applications in the sidebar. Then right-click on the desired app and select Get Info. In the info window that opens, check off the Scale to Fit below Built-in camera box and the display will automatically adjust when the app is open, end quote. In other words, if you do this, it just moves everything down

and makes a black bar on the screen to hide the notch by virtually expanding the bezel. So not a very elegant solution either, but there you go. By the way, this is for sure anecdotal, but I've got a new Apple Watch coming to me, and you know how they show you that tracking information step-by-step Whenever you order a device, like it leaves the factory, heads to Shanghai, then gets on a plane and heads to Anchorage, Alaska.

Then it lands in the lower 48, and then it heads to your local hub, and then it's out for delivery to your house, right? In recent years with phones and other devices I've ordered from Apple, it usually takes four or five days. If I get the first notification on a Monday, that means I'll get the device by Thursday or Friday. Well, not this time. I got my first notification on Monday that the watch was shipping.

but that bad boy hasn't left Shanghai yet. And the estimated delivery is saying Monday or Tuesday of next week. So something-something supply chain issues. I don't know. Not the biggest deal in the world and definitely first world problems. But yeah, even for Mighty Apple, shipping is slower than we've been used to. So plan for the holiday giving and gifting season accordingly, I guess. Talk to you tomorrow.