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Wes Davis

Wes Davis

Former Weekend Editor

Former Weekend Editor

    More From Wes Davis

    Intel’s backside power delivery process could make CPUs a whole lot more efficientIntel’s backside power delivery process could make CPUs a whole lot more efficient
    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Amazon is dropping native Windows and Mac Luna apps — also, there were native Windows and Mac apps for Luna.

    It’s doubling down on the web app for the almost 3-year-old Luna game streaming service, as previously mentioned by AFTVnews. Here’s part of the company’s statement to 9to5Google:

    We saw customers were spending significantly more time playing games on Luna using their web browsers than on native PC and Mac apps.

    That leaves the streaming box app for Fire TV, Android TV, and Google TV as the only native app for the platform. Luna recently expanded to three new countries despite layoffs and disappearing games.

    Amazon Luna will drop Windows and Mac apps as it 'doubles down' on web app

    [9to5Google]

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    The AI and streaming provisions of a tentative Directors Guild deal fall flat with the WGA.

    Members of the Writers Guild of America spoke out against the deal, as seen in a report in Deadline. Several with membership in one or both guilds tweeted complaints that the DGA had “made a deal behind our backs” and didn’t get “close to no AI source material.”

    WGA negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser was quoted in another Deadline article today:

    If [AMPTP President] Carol Lombardini thinks negotiating with the DGA while we’re out on strike is some kind of trump card, she’s going to find out that her 2007-08 playbook doesn’t belong in the negotiating room; it belongs in a museum.

    Writers React To Directors Guild-AMPTP Contract Deal: “WGA Takes A Stand, DGA Reaps The Rewards”

    [Deadline]

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    The Cooler Master Orb X is a $25,000 gaming chair.

    The Verge’s Monica Chin sat in it at Computex, and says the Orb X is ideal if you love gaming and hate other people. It’s covered in the requisite RGB lights, while a reclining chair, 34-inch curved gaming monitor and “freaking dope” sound system rounds it out.

    I haven’t asked, but I’m guessing she means that sci-fi villain. Would try.

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Kuo: Investors are taking a wait-and-see approach to Apple’s AR headset.

    While many are champing at the bit to see Apple’s new AR headset, some investors are more interested in potential AI announcements at WWDC, according to a tweet today from supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

    As Kuo explains it, the headset “may not be a substantial revenue and profit contributor for suppliers in the next two years compared to AI.”

    A short history of every time Apple CEO Tim Cook praised augmented reality

    The rumored debut of a ‘Reality Pro’ headset is right around the corner, but Tim Cook has been singing the praises of AR for years.

    Kim Lyons and Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    This scientist’s posts got more proportional engagement on Mastodon than anywhere else.

    Second place? Instagram. The Nature Conservancy’s chief scientist, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, decided to track social engagement on a post about her recent Scientific American essay (via Hacker News).

    The numbers are all relative — of six platforms, Mastodon won according to the percentage of engagement per follower, calculated as (likes + shares + comments)/followers. But for absolute numbers, Hayhoe’s experiment has Twitter on top.

    A bar graph representing engagement on a social media post, with Mastodon at over 12 percent engagement, Instagram at less than six, and Twitter, LinkedIn, and Post under 2 percent.
    It may not say anything broadly, but Hayhoe’s informal study showed Mastodon was far better in one instance.
    Image: Dr. Katharine Hayhoe
    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Linda Yaccarino is officially Twitter’s CEO, starting tomorrow.

    And joining her is NBCUniversal executive vice president Joe Benarroch (via Wall Street Journal). From the Journal:

    “Tomorrow, I start a different professional adventure at Twitter, taking on a role focusing on business operations,” Benarroch wrote in the memo. He noted that he has worked with Yaccarino to champion and grow the company’s business priorities and help build partnerships, among other things. “I am looking forward to bringing my experience to Twitter, and to working with the entire team to build Twitter 2.0 together.”

    Yaccarino’s hiring has helped rid the company of its “high risk” label, and bringing in NBCUniversal’s top ad sales person is another attempt to connect with advertisers.

    The Verge’s Alex Heath has confirmed both will start tomorrow.

    Incoming Twitter CEO Hires Executive from NBCUniversal for Business Operations Role

    [WSJ]

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Engineered Arts plugged its lifelike robot into ChatGPT.

    When we wrote about Engineered Arts’ Ameca android last year, the company said it wants to integrate chatbot functionality, and since then it has done so, using one of the most prominent chatbots, ChatGPT-3 (GPT-4 was too slow). In his conversation with The Verge, Engineered Arts CEO Will Jackson said:

    It’s amazing the simple things you can do to make a machine look sentient.

    The most human-like trick from the video below was not so much its response, but its double-take after being told “you stink.”

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    These are issues Apple may fix in later versions of the “Reality Pro.”

    We may not know until after WWDC, but Apple’s mixed reality headset probably won’t address every AR issue right out of the gate. As pointed out by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter today:

    I expect that future versions will fix problems in the first model — such as nausea complaints, performance hiccups, overheating concerns and a lack of cellular connectivity — and bring down the price.

    That’s not surprising, and doesn’t paint the “Reality Pro” as doomed, just a first attempt likely aimed at developers and very early adopters. As Casey Newton writes for The Verge, whether Apple’s new platform succeeds depends more on its evolution than on tomorrow’s device.

    Apple’s (AAPL) First Mixed-Reality Headset Arrives After Years in Development

    [Bloomberg.com]

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