Microsoft's Miss Minutes
Ring Wearables • Microsoft's AI Browser • Elon's Robots • RIP Ozzy, Hulk, & Ryne • Avatar 3 Trailer
Shades of cute, sort of weird, and with a dash of menace, Microsoft's new 'Appearance' mode for Copilot is here. And while I suspect we're going to see a lot more anthropomorphizing of AI as we build towards eventual robots (more on that down below), this clearly also needs to be a mode and not the main way you interact with such things, just as voice itself is a mode. More:
🥴 Microsoft Puts a Face to Their (Bad) AI Bot Name
The anthropomorphized Copilot is interesting – in ways good and bad.
• Written on an M4 MacBook Air 💻
• Sent from London, England 🏴 Loose Leaf
Remember when 'HBO' rebranded as 'HBO Max' and then 'Max' and then as 'HBO Max' again (how long until it's just 'HBO')? Well, now the parent company is doing the same basic thing as Warner Bros. Discovery splits into yes, Warner Bros. (Company) and Discovery (Global Media). [TheDesk]
Feels inevitable that Discovery Global Media eventually mergers with Versant, Comcast's own discarded TV networks, while Warner Bros. Company also must now look more attractive to suitors. Apple? Still makes some sense! The new Paramount Skydance? [THR]
Google is set to show off their new Pixel hardware on August 20, and it's easy to predict the focus: AI, AI, AI, AI, AI. Fascinating to watch Apple and Google continue to diverge in this way after years of convergence. Feels good for consumers to have some actual choices. [Bloomberg 🔒]
Per my note about AI web browsers below, I missed this a few weeks ago, but apparently Dia, the (very well made) native AI browser, is going to roll out their first subscription model soon, ranging from $5/month to potentially hundreds of dollars depending on AI usage/model/etc. But yes, there will always be a free version for more casual AI users. [NYT]
I suspect there will be some backlash here as people aren't used to paying for web browsers. On the other hand, many are already used to paying for (heavy) AI usage. And yeah, Dia clearly needs to be built to be sustainable. But presumably OpenAI will bake it into their premium tiers...
The Switch 2 was indeed the fastest launch ever in console history in the US with 1.6M sold in its first month – far ahead of the 1.1M the PS4 sold in 2023. Thankfully, this is actual unit sales and not revenue – cough movie industry cough – so we don't need to couch such numbers for inflation. [Verge]
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses clearly helped EssilorLuxottica beat their earnings – sales "more than tripled" in the first half of the year. And they expect the forthcoming Oakley Meta glasses to be just as big. You catch all that, Apple? [Bloomberg 🔒]
Is Meta also on the verge of launching a smartwatch? This had been rumored a while back, but seemingly back-burnered. But this report suggests something could come at Meta Connect in September to complement the Smart Glasses push. Or are they conflating it with that other wrist-wearable? [DigiTimes]
Forget 'Superintelligence' or 'Personal Superintelligence' or even 'Humanist Superintelligence' because now we're going to have 'Mathematical Superintelligence' (MSI) so says Harmonic, an AI startup (co-founded by Robinhood's Vlad Tenev). [TechCrunch]
I Quote...
"The signal strength for us is about 50 to 100 times stronger than the wrist."
– Tom Hale, the CEO of Oura, talking about how his company differentiates versus the other health/fitness trackers on the market. Interestingly, Jessica Lessin didn't even mention the Apple Watch until after his answer, but that's clearly what he was going for with that comment.
I actually just bought a new Oura Ring to try it out. I had the first gen way back in the day – so long ago that the form factor was such that my wife referred to it as my "mood ring" – it's much more svelte now. And the battery life seems pretty great versus what it was back then (amazing what you can do when you don't need to power a screen). Speaking of, I'm still wearing the Apple Watch too (my Ultra 2, whose battery life seems to be degrading quickly as we come upon two years since an actual Ultra upgrade – clearly coming in a couple months) as I have since day one of that product ten years ago!
Will report back if it's useful to be this bionic, or if one is obviously better than the other. The signal strength point is interesting though and suggests why Apple might be interested in this space – well that, and the nice business Oura has clearly built ($500M in revenue last year, growing 120%). Some people prefer "regular" watches. Can such a device augment the Vision Pro and future wearable? Etc. Might we see an 'Apple Ring' – sort of an 'Apple Watch Nano'?
Notebook
🧑✈️ Microsoft Edge's New 'Copilot Mode' – With the AI Browser Wars now kicked off, Redmond is moving fast to try to capture what they couldn't with Bing: an AI-led consumer usage wave. It seems a bit redundant to offer this on Windows, which already has Copilot baked in, but perhaps it's to meet users exactly where they are, in the browser (and it gives it parity with the Mac version). This new Edge attempt seems to be in-between the "native" AI browsers like Dia and Comet and the clearly tacked-on attempt by Google in Chrome. It's more integrated (including voice mode, but not 'Appearances' yet), but also opt-in. That also makes sense since Microsoft will have more regulatory leeway to bake this fully in than Google right now – which is seemingly on the verge of finding out what, if anything, they need to do with Chrome to solve their antitrust woes. [TechCrunch]
🤖 Optimus, Not Prime – You can both believe that humanoid robots are inevitable with AI having put us on the path there and that we're still nowhere close to that reality. That's the takeaway from the look inside Tesla's struggles with the Optimus project. Obviously, Elon is famous for over-promising and under-delivering, but often the promises are so wild that even the under-delivery ends up still being impressive – and sure, on some levels such bombast makes sense to rally both the public and internal employees – but the problem is almost always timing. And the fact that the company seems far behind in this project while at the same time Tesla's actual current business of selling cars is struggling seems like a bad combination – certainly for a $1T stock, trading at, um, 173x earnings (behind only Palantir at 273x!). It just feels like we need a couple steps in between where we are now with robots and what Elon is promising for Optimus (even beyond the whole walking on Mars in 2027 thing), one of which is the actual robotaxi business they're also trying to get off the ground concurrently. Oh, and drive-up diners, apparently (which I do think is sort of clever/fun). FWIW, I'm also skeptical of China's efforts in robots – certainly in cheap viable robots anytime soon. I do appreciate the reported obsession with robot hands though, which is the actual plot of Edward Scissorhands. [Information 🔒]
RIP
🦇 Ozzy Osbourne – Of the many wild things about his life, up there is the fact that he not only starred in a reality TV show, but that it was the most popular show of all time on MTV. Also, I didn't realize Ozzfest was started because they wouldn't let him in to Lollapalooza. What timing he had with that final farewell performance just a few weeks back... [NYT]
🤼 Hulk Hogan – Speaking of reality TV stars with complicated lives, David Shoemaker's look at the life of Hulk Hogan is a fantastic read. I had no idea that he was fired for the WWF for his part in Rocky III, with Vince McMahon's father (Vince Sr.) thinking it ruined the mystique of their "sport". That led to the younger Vince buying the league and bringing back Hogan as his vessel to spread wrestling far and wide. See also: Elizabeth Spiers on the Gawker lawsuit angle. [The Ringer]
🐻 Ryne Sandberg – For a wholesome change of pace – an actual sports star of the 80s. Sandberg was one of my favorite players as a kid (even though I was not a Cubs fan), he always seemed like the prototypical great ballplayer as he was excellent at fielding (9 straight gold gloves) and hitting (see: "The Sandberg Game"). Also wild that his unique first name came from another (seemingly random) baseball player that his parents liked (Ryne Duren). Two great video tributes. [NYT]
I Spy...
Just to follow up on yesterday's item about the new Avatar trailer here, Fox (Disney) has now released it in all its full resolution glory.
I'm neither an Avatar hater or lover. I think they're incredible achievements in filmmaking (even just this trailer is an absolute visual feast), but also not the type of content I would ever watch more than once – ideally on the biggest screen possible! And to that end, I'm both surprised and not at all surprised at how popular the franchise is (though, as always, let's keep it in perspective).
I'm also excited for James Cameron to be past the halfway point on them so he can start lining up his next projects (which he's already doing). He has not made a non-Avatar original movie since... Titanic. In 1997.