Latest from Darrell Etherington
Featured Article
As layoffs deepen, AI’s role in the cuts is murky – but it definitely has one
Layoffs season is extending into a sustained state, defying more typical formations of cyclical boom and bust periods in tech. Meanwhile, AI continues to be ascendant — or at least the current version of neural networks trained on large datasets that drives developments like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. One…
9:25 am PST • January 29, 2024
Startups
Apple’s reluctant, punitive compliance with regulators will burn its political and developer goodwill
12:47 pm PST • January 26, 2024
Apple is on a roll when it comes to having its hand forced by state entities and governing bodies: Alternative payment methods, stripping features from existing hardware, allowing alternate app…
Featured Article
VR needs to build for its best use cases — not for all-around computing
Apple’s Vision Pro launch resembles its Apple Watch debut in more ways than one, but to me the most telling similarity is in the marketing approach. Apple has striven to distance the Vision Pro from the existing crop of virtual reality (and even mixed reality) devices — many of which…
10:11 am PST • January 23, 2024
Featured Article
Forget Apple Vision Pro — rabbit r1 is 2024’s most exciting launch yet
The year is off to a quick start in terms of new product launches and availability, even leaving aside the usual mid-tier smorgasbord that is CES. Apple just started pre-sales of its Vision Pro mixed reality headset, with shipments beginning in early February; meanwhile, Samsung debuted the next generation of…
10:47 am PST • January 19, 2024
Hardware
Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales ban to resume January 18
12:43 pm PST • January 17, 2024
Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 sales will be halted again in the U.S. starting at 5 PM tomorrow, January 18, due to the rejection of a…
AI
Elon’s Tesla robot is sort of ‘ok’ at folding laundry in pre-scripted demo
11:27 am PST • January 15, 2024
Elon Musk’s Optimus humanoid robot from Tesla is doing more stuff — this time folding a t-shirt on a table in a development facility. The robot looks to be fairly…
Hardware
Apple’s fix for the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales ban could be disabling a useless feature
10:30 am PST • January 15, 2024
Apple is readying a more permanent fix for the ITC ruling that ended up temporarily blocking sales of its Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Series 9 models in the U.S.…
Featured Article
The year of ‘does this serve us’ and the rejection of reification
2024 has arrived, and with it, a renewed interest in artificial intelligence, which seems like it’ll probably continue to enjoy at least middling hype throughout the year. Of course, it’s being cheerled by techno-zealot billionaires and the flunkies bunked within their cozy islands of influence, primarily in Silicon Valley —…
7:21 am PST • January 15, 2024
Featured Article
Will Apple’s Vision Pro launch be a Groundhog Day for immersive computing?
Apple’s Vision Pro headset is set to finally launch in the U.S. on February 2, at a retail price of $3,499. At that price, there’s no doubt it’ll have limited appeal, which seems just fine with Apple given reports about their initial sales expectations. Apple originally announced Vision Pro last…
7:44 am PST • January 8, 2024
Hardware
I broke my wrist: Meta Quest 3 and Supernatural helped me through
9:56 am PST • January 3, 2024
A few weeks ago, I broke my wrist (in a very stupid way, e-scooters are bad) and the prospect of a protracted recovery period with extremely limited mobility in that…
AI
AI isn’t and won’t soon be evil or even smart, but it’s also irreversibly pervasive
6:53 am PST • December 14, 2023
Artificial intelligence — or rather, the variety based on large language models we’re currently enthralled with — is already in the autumn of its hype cycle, but unlike crypto, it…
Media & Entertainment
Xbox Cloud Gaming now available on Meta Quest 2, 3 and Pro
10:48 am PST • December 13, 2023
Xbox has brought is Cloud Gaming service to Meta Quest VR headset devices, as both companies said it would at the launch of the latest Quest 3 hardware earlier this…
Startups
With iMessage thanks to Beeper Mini, the OnePlus Open is my new favorite phone
9:20 am PST • December 5, 2023
Multi-platform messaging startup Beeper, founded by YC and Pebble alum Eric Migicovsky, delivered an iMessage experience for Android that doesn’t use any intermediaries and, as such, should be (always a…
Standing on the rear bed of his greatest boondoggle, his face obscured in shadow, the billionaire who built a rabid fanbase through seemingly inhuman feats of engineering and willpower cut…
AI
With AI chatbots, will Elon Musk and the ultra-rich replace the masses?
11:50 am PST • November 27, 2023
Elon Musk is hyping the imminent release of his ChatGPT competitor Grok, yet another example of how his entire personality is just itself a biological LLM made by ingesting all…
Featured Article
OpenAI will benefit from unity of purpose with Sam Altman’s return
In case you missed it, Sam Altman is back as OpenAI CEO. His reinstatement comes after a whirlwind few days in which we saw unusual corporate governance lead to an attempt to oust Altman, despite support from both Microsoft and the vast majority of OpenAI’s workforce. While the whole process…
4:18 am PST • November 22, 2023
Featured Article
Microsoft is the only real winner in the OpenAI debacle
OpenAI is in the process of fully collapsing on itself, following the ousting of former CEO Sam Altman in a shocking board decision. Exactly why the board decided to fire Altman is still unclear, but it seems increasingly likely that it was more about power-play shenanigans than anything else. What…
7:05 am PST • November 20, 2023
Startups
Building digital infrastructure for developing countries with Nasrat Khalid from Aseel
1:10 PM PST • November 7, 2023
Host Becca Szkutak is joined by our old friend Darrell Etherington to talk with Nasrat Khalid of Aseel.
Apple is relatively fresh off its annual iPhone refresh, having just released the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro in September. The hardware updates for this generation are solid and meaningful,…
Gadgets
The iPhone 15’s best friend is an ultra-budget, stripped-down version of Apple Vision Pro
11:52 am PDT • November 2, 2023
iPhone 15 got USB-C, a great upgrade just for the sake of cable management sanity, but that also brought support for native video out. That means you can connect displays…
In tech, “dogfooding” means using your own stuff in the way you intend for your users to, which is helpful to make sure your stuff lives up to your marketing…
Gadgets
Apple brought back the best Mac colorway with the new M3 MacBook Pro
5:31 pm PDT • October 30, 2023
Apple has a new range of updated MacBook Pro notebooks, and while they get a pretty nice internal upgrade courtesy mostly of the new M3 processor lineup, the big news…
Gadgets
Privacy will die to deliver us the thinking and knowing computer
10:53 am PDT • October 30, 2023
We’re getting a first proper look at much-hyped Humane’s “AI pin” (whatever that is) on November 9, and personalized AI memory startup Rewind is launching a pendant to track not…
Gadgets
Amazon’s eero Max 7 mesh Wi-Fi router offers amazing speeds and few (if any) compromises
9:00 am PDT • October 25, 2023
Amazon’s eero acquisition continues to bear fruit, and the latest off the vine is the eero Max 7, by far the company’s most advanced router yet, and the most capable…
Gadgets
The DJI Osmo Pocket 3 is a major upgrade to the best little vlogging camera you can buy
6:00 am PDT • October 25, 2023
DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3 has arrived, with a much-improved one-inch sensor, along with all the magic of the company’s physical gimbal stabilization. This new generation comes a full three years…
Meta’s Quest 3 has now been available for over a week, and the reviews have largely praised the updated consumer mixed reality headset. In my own first impressions, I shared…
Gadgets
Singularity’s ONI earbuds deliver outstanding audio thanks to MEMS speaker tech
9:51 am PDT • October 13, 2023
I have long flirted with the idea that I’m an audiophile, though I don’t typically spend thousands of dollars on either headphones or speakers, and I only sporadically indulge in…
Gadgets
Google’s Pixel 8 Pro camera is the new mobile photography champ
10:00 am PDT • October 11, 2023
Let’s not kid ourselves: The most exciting thing about the Google Pixel 8 Pro (and 8, for that matter) is the camera, and because of Google’s commanding position when it…
Gadgets
Google’s Pixel 8 delivers solid performance and design upgrades, plus a focus on the future
10:00 am PDT • October 11, 2023
Google’s Pixel 8 smartphone is shipping tomorrow, and while the update this year was leaked far in advance of even the official announcement, knowing what a phone looks like on…
I got to spend some time with the new Google Pixel 8 Pro ahead of its launch, and the new premium flagship is impressive, though very similar to last year’s…
