Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 8/16 - Now Bezos Wants Movie Theaters?

Episode Date: August 16, 2018

Amazon might buy a chain of movie theaters, why the Saudis invest the way they do, Twitter pisses everyone off because… what else is new? And reviews of the Note 9 and Android Pie are in. Links:Amazon in Running to Acquire Landmark Movie Chain (Bloomberg)Saudi Arabia Goes High-Tech in Approach to Investing (WSJ)Twitter company email addresses why it’s #BreakingMyTwitter (TechCrunch)Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review: A better Note for most of us (Engadget)You Can Really Feel the Samsung Note 9's $1000 Price Tag (Gizmodo)Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review: Sleek and new, but too much déjà vu (BGR)ANDROID 9 PIE REVIEW: THE PREDICTIVE OS (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, August 16th, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Amazon might buy a chain of movie theaters. Why the Saudis invest the way they do. Twitter pisses everyone off because

what else is new. And reviews of the Note 9 and Android Pie are in. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. I guess if you're Jeff Bezos and you really, really want your Amazon Prime video to become a Netflix level player, and you're willing to do things like buy whole foods simply because you want to break into groceries in a big way, then why not do something bold like get into movie theaters? According to Bloomberg, Amazon is in talks to acquire landmark theaters, a chain of about 50-plus movie theaters that tends to focus on indie movie fair. Landmark is owned by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, who's Cuban's partner from way back in the broadcast.com days, but Amazon is apparently not the only

suitor and supposedly Netflix is sniffing around a theater chain purchase as well. Interesting bit of history here, even though this wouldn't be the biggest acquisition in the world by any means, it might actually trigger a historically significant bit of antitrust law. The so-called Paramount Pictures Consent Decree came out in 1948 as the result of a Supreme Court case that said film studios could no longer own the movie theaters. Their films were shown That decree effectively destroyed the classic Hollywood studio system as it functioned during the heyday of movies when, for example, during the Great Depression, fully 90% of the American public attended at least one movie every single week. The law is now considered to be outdated and anachronistic, of course, and U.S. antitrust officials have recently signaled that the judgment could be terminated, which would be good for Amazon because the obvious play here is, if you've paid 250,000, $50 million for a Lord of the Rings adaptation, you might want the option of showing it on the big screen.

As Josh Constine tweeted, here comes Amazon having red carpet premieres for Prime Video Originals at its own movie theaters. And Howard Lenzon said, quote, I imagine Amazon will have Prime and a Prime Media Plus for unlimited moviegoing, end quote. Which, hey, just because Movie Pass can't pull it off doesn't mean there's no scenario where movie theater subscriptions can work. Since I mentioned the rumors yesterday that some of Uber's biggest investors want it to exit the self-driving car game because they want the company to sharply pare back losses ahead of an expected IPO next year, I did want to briefly note that Uber released its financials yesterday, and it's basically the same story we've come to expect from them. Revenues were up at an amazing clip, but losses were widening. Revenue was up 51% year over year to $2.7 billion in

Q2, but losses came to $404 million up from $304 million just in Q1. Overall gross bookings increased 41% year-over-year to $12 billion. As always, Uber is not required to disclose its financial results, but it's done so in the past few quarters in order to smooth the way for that expected IPO. Uber had no comment on the information's reporting about calls to sell off its self-driving car unit. but if the information's reporting and math are correct and that unit contributes as much as 200 million a quarter to Uber's losses, then there you go. If you got rid of the self-driving car unit, you'd cut the losses in half just by taking that out of the equation.

And following up on the recent stories about Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, possibly helping Tesla go private, did you know that that same fund has a pretty big stake in Uber as well? The Wall Street Journal has a timely profile up of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the $225 billion that it has, so certainly plenty of money to play with, and the Saudi's overall investment strategy, as I suggested earlier this week, it's all about, as the journal puts it, moving the country from a stayed petro state to a technology-focused economy. Quote, officials at the Saudi Fund are seeking Tesla's expertise to tie into broader plans

to create new industries in solar power generation, battery storage, and electric vehicle production. The Wall Street Journal has reported the fund, which is in talks with banks to raise billions of its own debt, hopes its investments in technology will act as a hedge against the decline of the energy sector. The PIF's first major international technology investment in Uber Technologies was hatched in 2016 after a barbecue in Riyadh, attended by PIF's Mr. Rumayan and then Uber policy head and former White House official David Plough. People familiar with the deal said. Uber's then-chief, Travis Kalanik, subsequently visited Saudi Arabia to meet Crown Prince Mohammed, and the PIF bought a $3.5 billion stake within weeks, people familiar with the deal said.

The PIF soon after made an even bigger wager than Uber. It committed $45 billion into SoftBank's $100 billion Vision Fund. That deal was famously agreed upon in a 45-minute conversation between Crown Prince Mohammed and Mr. Sahn, before the two sides then spent months agreeing on the details, end quote. As with everything else lately, it all comes back to Masa Sahn eventually. If you're a heavy Twitter user, you've probably seen the news, or at least the frustrated tweets. But as we've known for a while now, Twitter is today ending support of its legacy API, which is heavily used by third-party Twitter apps,

like my go-to favorite tweet bot. This move essentially breaks key functionality of these third-party apps, and of course the developers of these apps aren't happy, but nor, frankly, are users. I could run down the whole history of what Twitter is doing, but I'll point you instead to a nice summation by Sarah Perez in TechCrunch. Twitter Today released an email explaining the rationale behind the changes, saying, quote,

we are facing technical and business constraints. We can't ignore and need to turn these off, end quote. Sarah and a lot of other people are calling straight-up BS on this, and I'm going to straight-up editorialize here, and add my own two cents. Twitter is like a classic drug dealer. Those of us who are hooked on their product are in so deep. Twitter knows they can repeatedly kick us and we'll just come back for more. I'm personally waiting and seeing how broken tweetbot really is today.

I've never quite taken to tweet deck, and of course, Twitter famously depreciated their native Mac app recently. I can tell you this. If Twitter's endgame really is me coming to their stupid web page to engage with their product, that is pretty much the one scenario in which I can guarantee I would use Twitter as a product way, way less. I had heard some rumors about this, but now both BuzzFeed and the news, New York Times are reporting on it. Remember the rumors of Google's plans to create a censorship-friendly search product for the Chinese market? Well, a lot of Google employees are not happy about this, and they're getting organized. The New York Times says about a thousand Google employees have

signed a letter demanding more transparency about Google's plans. Quote, currently, we do not have the information required to make ethically informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment. We urgently need more transparency, a C.E. at the table and a commitment to clear and open processes. Google employees need to know what we're building, end quote. The letter is circulating on Google's internal communications network. If you'll recall, this is the second time this year. Google employees have organized against rumored company plans after 4,000 employees

signed a petition and about a dozen resigned in protest. Google eventually agreed earlier this year not to renew its Project Maven drone contract with the Pentagon. The Galaxy Note 9 reviews are in, and I'd say they're basically warm to mild. In general, people like the performance upgrades are impressed with the new S-Pen functionality, but since it's shipping with Android Oreo

and the Bixby Smart Assistant is apparently still a bit of a mess, the reviews are generally saying, if you're a note fan already, this is a good upgrade. But if you're not a note fan, eh. Over at Engadget, Cheryl Lynn Lowe says, quote, the Galaxy 9 lives up to the lofty expectations. In addition to a huge battery, large screen,

and generous onboard storage, Samsung taught the old S-pen a few new tricks that should make the stylus more useful to a wide audience. You'll have a hard time finding a phone that does more, and though I'm reluctant to recommend any device that costs this much, I have a feeling power users will want to get their hands on this thing. The Note 9 has a few minor quirks, but overall it feels more than the sum of its parts, end quote.

The NGadgett's score of the Note 9 is 92 out of 100. Over at Gizmodo, Sam Rutherford says that you'll definitely feel the Note 9's $1,000 price tag, and he means that in a good and a bad way, quote, what does 1,000 really get you? Here goes. The Note 9 boasts the biggest, most captivating screen, blazing performance, top-tier photography, and some of the best battery life you can get in a phone.

Then you pile on things like the S-Pen, Dex Mode, massive optional storage, more RAM than an average laptop, and important supporting components like a headphone jack, wireless charging, IP68 water resistance, and more, and what you get is a big phone that's at the top of its class. Nothing else out right now has as many tools, tricks, or features as what Samsung smashed into the Note 9. And while its price tag means this isn't a device for everyone for the people who want to push the limits, of what a phone can really do, the Note 9 is here to give them that opportunity, end quote. And at BGR, Zach Epstein says his problem is that the Galaxy Note 9 is just a faster Note 8 with some new features. Quote, that might seem a bit blunt, but it's important.

Apple reached the $1,000 price point with a brand new smartphone that was a complete reimagining of the iPhone. In fact, Apple reused the same designs on the iPhone 6, iPhone 6, iPhone 6S and iPhone. So the iPhone 10 was actually the first truly new iPhone in more than three years when it was released last November. Apple fans were starred for a major redesign and they got one that's packed with new tech and novel features. Meanwhile, the $1,000 galaxy Note 9 doesn't have a new design and it only has a few notable new features.

Finally, as I just said, the Note 9 doesn't get the latest version of Android, but real quick, because it's related. I wanted to share with you Dieter Bones' review of the new Android OS, Android Pi. You can only get Pi, basically on Android phones made by Google, and it won't trickle down to other new Android phones until next year. But Dieter wants everyone to clamor for this upgrade now, because he says it's pretty great. There's great notification management, among other things,

even if the move towards gestures is complicated and not exactly smooth. quote, although a few of the promised features aren't shipping or are still in beta, I think this version of Android is good enough that users should demand the update for their phones. The many features in Android 9Pi cohere into something that feels more polished than the last few versions of Android. There's a lot to like and fewer excuses than ever for updates not to come out for existing phones in a timely manner. Android 9Py is a great update and I wouldn't want to go back. I love that it's chock full of ideas about how an operating system can be smarter, even though some of them, pardon the inevitable pun, don't feel quite fully baked, end quote. I've already been pitching about this extensively on Twitter, so I'll save you the whole saga.

TLDR, I bought a kitchen table for our new house on IKEA.com, ordered home delivery, did not know what everyone else in the world seemingly knew already, which was one does not simply walk into mortar, I mean order IKEA delivery. Big mistake. Not only did the table never come, IKEA says they cannot tell me when or even if it will come. This has been going on for six days now. They already charged my credit card, of course. They won't even let me cancel the order because they don't know where it is. Yesterday, the 1-800 number was down completely, so I couldn't even subject myself to their runaround for another afternoon. So a huge multinational corporation has stolen my money and then ghosted on me. And apparently they do this to people on the regs.

But what did I say about Twitter kicking us and we'd still come back for more? Guess what I'm doing this Saturday? Renting a truck and going to IKEA. I know. I should never, ever do business with IKEA again, but I need a kitchen table, guys. I need a cheap, mid-century modern kitchen table for less than $4.4. $400. Pretty pathetic. I probably deserve whatever poor treatment I get, right? Talk to you guys tomorrow.