We’ve known since last year that Cloud Gaming was coming to Meta’s VR platform, but now we know when. Zuckerberg (who accidentally almost called the platform “XCloud” on stage) mentioned the partnership while talking about the Quest 3 as an entertainment device for games and TV – but Cloud Gaming goes a long way toward this being a truly great console.
Zuckerberg is talking about the big vision for mixed reality here, in which rooms are filled with both real and virtual objects. You’ll go to a meeting with some IRL people, he says, plus some holograms and some AI bots as well. It’s digital, it’s virtual, it’s all happening in real world.
And, Zuck reminds us, he loves the real world. The real world is great.
Some deeply confusing timer situations, but now Mark Zuckerberg is on stage and it appears we’re going to get some news for real.
The Connect keynote starts in about 20 minutes, and it’s likely to be a busy one! We’re obviously going to hear all the details on the Quest 3, potentially see some new Ray-Ban Stories glasses, and there will definitely definitely definitely be a lot of talk about generative AI. Meta doesn’t typically get mentioned alongside ChatGPT and Bing and even Snap’s My AI stuff... but you can bet it would like to change that.
Personally all I want is for the Portal line to come back. But I don’t think I’m getting that one.
This week I bought a DVD, for journalism. Because with Netflix’s disc-delivery service coming to an end, we wanted to know: what’s next for physical movies and TV? We asked Redbox’s owner that very question. Then we talked about streaming metrics, why they matter, and whether they actually mean anything at all.
(Also, we wrapped this episode just before the news hit that the writers’ strike was over. We’ll have lots more on that later this week.)
The Hollywood Reporter has a good read this morning on the last-minute negotiations to end the writers strike. It seems to come pretty much entirely from the studios’ perspective, but it’s a good read anyway.
Apparently the writers guild and the studios were barely even negotiating — everybody was waiting on the other side to make a move. But with the help of some showrunners and some late-night negotiating, a deal finally got done. And then almost fell apart. And then finally got done for real.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
Google certainly doesn’t seem to think so. In his questioning of Apple’s Eddy Cue this afternoon, Google’s John Schmidtlein took Cue on a journey through Safari history, and Cue said that Safari’s integration of a search box and URL bar was part of what made the browser worked. And that only worked because Google was there — or so the argument goes.
Also, Cue dropped a classic Apple Reality Distortion Field line: “One of the benefits that Google gets from Apple is that we’re telling the world Google is the best search engine, because that’s what customers expect us to pick.”
Apple’s agreement with Google doesn’t allow for that, Apple’s Eddy Cue said in court. And Cue said he doesn’t want to do it anyway: “we try to get people up and running as fast as possible.” But the DOJ is showing exhibits about all the “Ask App Not To Track” screens you see, and the Appearance settings in setup, and more. Their question is: for something as important as search, shouldn’t you let people choose for themselves?
Cue, again, says no. “We pick the best one and let users easily change it,” is his approach. And he says that’s Apple doing right by customers.
