Facebook VR – Wii the second.

Oculus should not need advertisements The rapid push back against the idea of advertisements in VR is a clear signal that this monetisation model will not work in this instance but given where Facebook is, this model is not needed. The Oculus Quest 2 is showing signs of being this generation’s version of the Nintendo Wii which launched in 2006....

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  • 267

Arm & NVIDIA – The unthinkable pt. VI.

Simon and Jensen make their case. Arm and NVIDIA have made a good case as to how the technology industry (excluding Intel and AMD) will benefit from NVIDIA’s acquisition from Arm, but I doubt that this was enough to win over its opponents meaning that momentum for RISC-V is likely to continue. Simon Segars (CEO Arm) and Jensen Huang (CEO...

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ByteDance – Fundamental break.

ByteDance’s business model has a fundamental problem. ByteDance had its best year ever last year in terms of revenue, but because it employs over a 100,000 people, it is still losing a fortune which is a situation that a company of this size should have long left behind it. ByteDance grew revenues 111% YoY in 2020 to $34bn with 1.9bn...

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  • 290

Waymo – All guns blazing

Waymo is racing to market. Waymo has raised more money clearly indicating that Waymo’s technological edge has been eroded as the data suggests and that it is now a straight race to the finishing line in terms of the six leading contenders. Waymo has raised another $2.5bn at a valuation that was probably around $30bn which comes on top of...

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OpenRAN – Haphazard jigsaw

The OpenRAN pieces may not fit together very well. Vodafone is launching OpenRAN on its network in what looks like an experiment to test whether or not OpenRAN can fulfill any of the promises that its proponents have so often made. I suspect that it is going to struggle to do so. OpenRAN is an industry movement to make the...

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Didi Chuxing – State of play pt. II

Best of a difficult bunch. Didi Chuxing has filed its documents to go public which reveals a company with brighter prospects than most of its rivals and a Chinese economy that has fared far better than its Western rivals. Didi has filed under the name of its holding company Xiaoju Kuaizhi and the F-1 filing can be found here. In...

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Google Fuchsia – Sideline sneak.

Google sneaks its new OS into the wild. With zero fanfare Google has launched its new Fuchsia OS onto consumers, the vast majority of whom are very likely to not even notice that this has occurred. Hence, this looks like a soft launch of the new OS where Google will look and see how well it performs in the wild...

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Crypto – Gone fishing

El-Salvador goes fishing for business. El Salvador’s move to grant Bitcoin legal tender status is not an endorsement of Bitcoin but a recognition that there is still a lot of capital swirling around in the sector and a move to attract some of that to El Salvador. With 62 out of 84 votes, Bitcoin has become legal tender in El...

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USA vs. China – Build the wall!

The war will not be fought in semiconductors. The technological war between the US and China will not be fought in semiconductors as commentary around the US Senate’s new bill seems to suggest, but in the new frontiers of AI, autonomous driving quantum computing, and future wireless standards. The US Senate has passed a bill that aims to curb China’s...

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Apple WWDC 2021 – Inching juggernaut.

Apple takes no risks at WWDC 2021. Apple inched the juggernaut of its ecosystem forward with a series of incremental updates that bring it into line with the competition and beyond that focused on user experience tweaks that took no real risks at all. This is exactly what happens when a company reaches this level of size and power because...