Linked List: February 3, 2023

Friday, 3 February 2023

“2001: A Space Odyssey” Directed by George Lucas? 

Holy hell this is absolutely amazing.

Now do Star Wars directed by Stanley Kubrick. Wait, they did it a year ago — not quite as sublime as Lucas’s 2001 but the docking scene is great.

Dithering 

February 2023 cover art for Dithering, depicting a woman, circa the mid-20th century, at a large computer terminal/printer of some sort. She is quite dapperly put together.

Yours truly and Ben Thompson’s podcast — two episodes per week, 15 minutes per episode. Not a minute less, not a minute more. If you’re not listening, you’re missing out. Best $5/month you’ll ever spend, trust me.

Or, for a remarkable price of just $12/month or $120/year, subscribe to Stratechery Plus and get Dithering and Stratechery, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, and the latest podcast in the bundle, the NBA-focused Greatest of All Talk (Ben’s personal favorite podcast).

The New York Times’s ‘Big Tech’ Jihad Has Little Room for Per-Company Nuance 

Tripp Mickle, Karen Weise, and Nico Grant, writing for The New York Times in a story that seemingly didn’t need three bylines:

Now chastened, many tech companies have begun the year by championing a new and unfamiliar business strategy: austerity.

In recent months, several companies have said they are looking for ways to cut costs and eliminate futuristic projects that have become money pits. Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta have each announced plans to lay off more than 10,000 workers.

I’m not sure why Apple is included in this story — let alone the subject of the hero photo illustrating it. The other companies have laid off 10,000+ employees and cut benefits and perks. Apple has, at worst, cut a few hundred retail positions — so few that it’s gone under the radar — and hasn’t cut any benefits or perks. Apple’s Q1 revenue was down 5 percent year over year, yes, but the company claims they took an 8 percent hit from international currency conversion headwinds. The complete shutdown of the massive Foxconn plant responsible for assembling Apple’s flagship iPhone 14 Pro models was a serious setback, but utterly unlike any of the problems facing Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Meta. But seemingly nothing can stop The Times from presenting “big tech” as a single monolithic narrative.

(Via Glenn Fleishman.)

Report It All, See What Sticks 

Mark Gurman, over the weekend in his Power On column/newsletter at Bloomberg:

Apple’s first mixed-reality device, likely to be dubbed the Reality Pro, will launch this year with an immense amount of new technology, ranging from dual 4K displays to a flexible OLED screen on the front that shows a user’s eyes.

I am once again reminded of the fact that, two weeks prior to its unveiling, Gurman reported that 2021’s Apple Watch Series 7 would be “all about a new design with a flatter display and edges”, when in fact the Series 7 was more rounded.

In addition to making me as curious as ever how he (along with fellow rumormeister Ming-Chi Kuo, who also fell for the flat-sided Series 7 bullshit) vets sources, just consider how dumb an idea a front-facing display on a set of VR goggles would be, putting aside how much dumber it would be to use such a screen to display fake eyeballs. Good displays are expensive. All displays consume large amounts of energy. Why add significant cost to an already expensive headset, and consume additional energy from a device so power-thirsty it’s going to ship with an external tethered battery (a fact Gurman does, I am told, have right), for a front-facing display that the user themself will never see?

Samsung’s Plans for XR Devices 

Chris Velazco, writing for The Washington Post:

Roh would not elaborate on the specifics of Samsung’s first new XR product, which will not appear at Wednesday’s launch event. “We’re getting there, but we’re not too far away,” he said.

Translation: Just waiting to see what Apple launches.

Tom Brady Retires Again, Before Dawn 

Dan Lyons, Sports Illustrated:

A source told Sports Illustrated’s Greg Bishop that Brady called the team around 6 a.m. ET. on Wednesday morning to inform them of his decision, two hours before he announced the decision to the rest of the world. He was weighing whether to retire until Tuesday, and had decided he would either play for Tampa Bay or retire, and would not join another franchise. ESPN’s Jeff Darlington was first to report on the timing of Brady’s decision.

Why in the world would you make a phone call like this at 6 in the morning? You call me at 6 a.m., someone better be dead or hospitalized.