Twitter's financials are still looking pretty dire — as owner Elon Musk himself admitted in a January email to staff reviewed by the WSJ..

Cutting Losses -- Banks that loaned multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk an appreciable $13B for his ill-advised $44B acquisition of Twitter in late 2022 are getting ready to offload billions of debt they accrued as a result, the Wall Street Journal reports. The hope is to minimize the hurt as they sell off the debt, a massive scar haunting the mercurial CEO's disastrous social media platform shopping spree.

After a chaotic couple of years, and Musk seemingly doing his best to wipe out what was left of the platform's largely ad-dependant revenue with increasingly erratic behavior, X-formerly-Twitter's finances have yet to recover. The company is still drowning in accumulated debt while loaners are struggling with massive payments.  In short, the financials are still looking pretty dire — as Musk himself admitted in a January email to staff reviewed by the WSJ.  "Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even," he admitted.  Scraping By -- Musk's own actions, including racist tirades, tantrums, and personal insults, sent advertisers — the platform's top source of revenue — running for the hills.  X has maintained that its financials are improving, the WSJ reports, with brands coming back to advertise on the platform.  But as the increasingly hate-filled microblogging site continues to embrace what it claims to be "free speech," several key competitors, including Meta's Threads and Twitter alternative Bluesky, have emerged as serious contenders.

Both platforms have seen a dramatic influx of new users fleeing Twitter, indicating widespread disillusionment with Musk's disdain for content moderation and embrace of the extreme far right.  Now that Musk has catapulted himself onto the political world stage by throwing himself at Trump's feet, banks are seemingly seeing the moment as an opportunity to sell their debt without incurring huge losses. In short, Musk's acquisition of Twitter remains a major blemish on his resume.  At the same time, the platform has turned out to be a powerful tool for pumping out a firehose of hate speech, state propaganda, and disinformation. And who knows how much that's worth to Musk or Trump?  "Over the last few months, we’ve witnessed the power of X in shaping national conversations and outcomes," Musk wrote in the email.

Meta Platforms’ former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, was sanctioned by a judge on Tuesday for deleting emails related to litigation over Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, despite being told to preserve the messages. The judge, Vice Chancellor Travis Laster, of Delaware Chancery Court, said evidence showed Sandberg used a personal account under a pseudonym and erased messages that were likely relevant to the shareholder lawsuit.

The sanction will make it harder for Sandberg to tell her side of the story and avoid liability at the eight-day, non-jury trial scheduled for April. The judge also ordered her to pay the expenses related to the sanctions motion incurred by the shareholders, which include California’s huge teachers’ retirement system known as CalSTRS.

“Because Sandberg selectively deleted items from her Gmail account, it is likely that the most sensitive and probative exchanges are gone,” Laster wrote in his opinion published on Tuesday.  Meta and an attorney for Sandberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sandberg had argued she was forthcoming about the personal account and rarely used it for business and when she did, others were copied on the messages so the information was preserved.  Laster imposed a higher standard of “clear and convincing evidence,” rather than “preponderance” of evidence, for Sandberg’s affirmative defenses, which are her arguments and evidence for why she should not be held liable.  The case was brought in 2018, when it emerged that Facebook allowed data from millions of users to be accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump’s successful campaign for U.S. president in 2016.  Shareholders sued the company’s directors and officers for allegedly harming investors by continually violating a 2012 consent order with the Federal Trade Commission to protect users’ data.  Shareholders also allege the company’s board bargained to pay a larger fine of $5 billion to the FTC in 2019 so that founder Mark Zuckerberg would not have personal accountability. Zuckerberg is expected to be deposed for a second time before the start of the trial, according to court records.  In 2023, Laster refused to dismiss the lawsuit, which he said was a “case involving alleged wrongdoing on a truly colossal scale.”  Shareholders also asked Laster to sanction Jeffrey Zients, who was former President Joe Biden’s chief of staff and who also used and deleted personal emails when he was on Meta’s board. The judge said that Zients’ messages were less pertinent because he joined the Meta board in 2018, after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and was not a company officer.

I am wrapping up my dissertation for a Ph.D in Behavioral Econmics for review by my academic advisor and manuscript for the companion book on the Strategic Inflection Point of 2022 that I saw Robert's recent video on "Memento Mori" ("Remember That You Will Die"). In 2018, Robert had a near fatal stroke that enabled him to confront death head on, listening to his story and his embracement of the "Way of Death" that I came to deeper understanding of my own life. You see I've had multiple near death experiences over the last 18 years of my life that forced me to also embrace the "Way of Death", not in some grim way but as a reminder that we will all die at some point for some reason. I was recently reminded of this by a quote from the film 2005 "Kingdom of Heaven", where the primary character lives by a Latin quote hanging in his blacksmith shop translated "What man is a man who does not make the world better.".In the end of it all we all are measured by what we do with our lives, not the color of skin, not our gender, not our religion, not our social status, or how much money we made or anything else. It is only what we do that goes into the history books, our legacy of what we do that matters and is what our lives are measured against. A worthy reflection for all of us to do

The Army’s mixed reality goggle is headed to soldiers in a 3-step process in which developers expect 2 early versions released next year will help with redesigns for a 3rd version to roll out across the Army.  The Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS, is a ~$22 billion program that the Army is developing to bring night vision, thermal vision, tactical edge computing and the situational awareness of a fighter pilot down to the lowest-level infantry soldier. The device will likely be the most advanced single technology ever fielded exclusively to the close-combat, squad-level soldier in military history. The Army will deliver 5,000 IVAS 1.0 versions and another 5,000 IVAS 1.1 versions this coming year, said Brig. Gen. Christopher Schneider, the Program Executive Office-Soldier commanding general. Previous budget reports indicate the Army will purchase 40,000 devices or more.  Schneider spoke with Army Times about the IVAS program recently, noting the new rollout plan will field the two existing versions and begin developing the IVAS 1.2 version in parallel with those first fieldlings. IVAS 1.2, which will have a new low-light sensor and hardware redesign, is scheduled to field in the fiscal year 2025. “We don’t want to rush IVAS to the field until it’s ready,” Schneider said.

Spanish police said Monday they had seized 3 underwater drones capable of transporting large quantities of drugs from Morocco to Spain and broken up a gang suspected of manufacturing them.

Officers seized 3 so-called "drone submarines" which were under construction and arrested 8 people in Spain.  "The three -- two of which were being built and one which was practically completed -- were to be delivered to French drug traffickers for transporting large quantities of cocaine," it said.  Police released video of the seized drones saying each one could carry up to 440 pounds of product.

Police said it was the first time they had seized such devices, which are officially known as unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).

"These devices could allow drug traffickers to transport large quantities of narcotics remotely across the Strait of Gibraltar," the statement said. The gang also manufactured aerial drones, with police seizing several large UAVs with 12 motors each and a range of 30 kilometers, more than enough to cross the 15-kilometer strait between Spain and Morocco. The gang also built false bottoms into vehicles to transport drugs. One of the drug-laden devices was "intercepted when it was on its way to Denmark aboard a tow truck with the intention of avoiding possible police checks,".  Their customers included criminal gangs in Denmark, France, Italy and Spain.  Spain's physical proximity to Morocco, a major hashish producer, and its close ties with former colonies in Latin America, a major cocaine-producing region, have made it a key entry point for drugs bound for Europe.

The semiconductor boom of the past two years appears to be ending.

Memory-chip maker Micron Technology Inc. gave a downbeat forecast for its next fiscal quarter Thursday, predicting a massive revenue shortfall ranging from $1.5 billion to $2.3 billion, as COVID-19 restrictions in China and slower demand for consumer products hurt the sale of memory chips. “There are consumer-demand and inventory-related headwinds impacting the industry and consequently our fiscal-Q4 outlook,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told analysts Thursday.  Earlier in the day, the maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and NAND chips reported third-quarter revenue of $8.64 billion, on target with analysts’ projections, but the outlook and comments about the rest of the tech industry that uses the company’s chips were the crux of most questions on the company’s post-earnings conference call.  “PC unit sales [are] now expected to decline by nearly 10% Y/Y from the very strong unit sales in calendar 2021,” Mehrotra told analysts.  Mehrotra said demand for smartphones is also falling, and Micron projected smartphone-unit volume to decline by mid-single-digits Y/Y in calendar 2022, well below industry expectations earlier in the year of mid-single-digit percentage growth. Micron said that, in reaction, it will be cutting some of its CapEx spending on wafer fab equipment, the equipment that semiconductor companies use to make wafers in fabrication facilities, for fiscal 2023. “We now expect our fiscal 2023 wafer fab equipment capex to decline year-over-year,” Mehrotra said. Indeed, the downturn may have already begun. The question now is, will it really turn around next year, and be a short-lived one?

Walmart is now providing "Express delivery", where customers can have items delivered to their doorsteps in as little as 2 hours, to InHome.  Walmart has been busy, in the last year announcing they’ll be expanding their "DroneUp" delivery network to 34 sites by EOY 2022, seeking reach 4 million U.S. households across 6 states – Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Targeting delivery of +1 million packages by drone in a year. Between the hours of 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m., customers will be able to order from 10s of 1000s of eligible items, such as Tylenol, diapers and hot dog buns, for delivery by air in as little as 30 minutes. For a delivery fee of $3.99, customers can order items totaling up to 10 lbs, if it fits safely it flies.   Stores will house a DroneUp delivery hub inclusive of a team of certified pilots, operating within FAA guidelines, whose job it is to safely manage flight operations for deliveries. Once a customer places an order, the item is fulfilled from the store, packaged, loaded into the drone and delivered right to their yard using a cable that gently lowers the package..  There are a lot of cool things I see Walmart is doing that is in their press release, check it out for your self.

U.S. regulators on Thursday issued final rules eliminating the need for automated vehicle manufacturers to equip fully autonomous vehicles with manual driving controls to meet crash standards.  Automakers and tech companies have faced significant hurdles to deploying automated driving system (ADS) vehicles without human controls because of safety standards written decades ago that assume people are in control.  Last month, General Motors and its self-driving technology unit Cruise petitioned the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for permission to build and deploy a self-driving vehicle without human controls like steering wheels or brake pedals.  The rules revise regulations that assume vehicles "will always have a driver's seat, a steering wheel and accompanying steering column, or just one front outboard passenger seating position."  "For vehicles designed to be solely operated by an ADS, manually operated driving controls are logically unnecessary,". "As the driver changes from a person to a machine in ADS-equipped vehicles, the need to keep the humans safe remains the same and must be integrated from the beginning," said NHTSA Deputy Administrator Steven Cliff.  NHTSA's rule says children should not occupy what is traditionally known as the "driver's" position, given that the driver's seating position has not been designed to protect children in a crash, but if a child is in that seat, the car will not immediately be required to cease motion. NHTSA said existing regulations do not currently bar deploying automated vehicles as long as they have manual driving controls, and as it continues to consider changing other safety standards, manufacturers may still need to petition NHTSA for an exemption to sell their ADS-equipped vehicles. 

Transporation startup Boom is one step closer to bringing back supersonic passenger flight, with the company announcing plans to build a manufacturing facility at Piedmont Triad International Airport in North Carolina. "The Overture Superfactory" will employ approximately 1,750 workers by 2030 and produce the company’s upcoming Overture supersonic jet, hoping to start flying passengers in 2029. Construction on the facility to start in 2022, with production in 2024, with jets rolling off the line in 2025 and flying in 2026.  The 400,000 square foot facility will eventually produce aircraft for carriers like Japan Airlines and United Airlines. UA announced it would purchase 15 Overture jets once the plane met its safety and operating requirements, including an option for UA to buy an additional 35 aircraft, for a total of 50 jets.  Boom claims Overture will revolutionize commercial aviation, envisioning a Mach 1.7 jet flying from San Francisco to Toyko in approximately 6 hours, compared to a current flight that takes ~11 hours.  Bloom also claims Overture will be “net-zero carbon” aircraft thanks to its ability to fly on 100% sustainable aviation fuels. 

The US government will place 8 Chinese companies including drone manufacturer DJI on an investment blocklist for alleged involvement in surveillance of Uyghur Muslims, the Financial Times has reported. The firms will reportedly be put on the US Treasury department’s “Chinese military-industrial complex companies” list on Tuesday, meaning US citizens will be barred from making any investments.

DJI is already on the Department of Commerce’s Entity list, meaning American companies can’t sell it components unless they have a license. At the time, the government said it was among companies that “enabled wide-scale human rights abuses within China through abusive genetic collection and analysis or high-technology surveillance.” However, unlike products from Huawei and others, DJI drones are have not been banned for sale in the US. In 2020, DJI commanded a massive 77% of the consumer drone market. Over the last 2 months, it has released a pair of key products, the large-sensor Mavic 3 drone and full-frame Ronin 4D cinema camera with a built-in gimbal and LiDAR focus system. A year ago, DJI said it had “done nothing to justify being placed on the Entity list,” and that “customers in America can continue to buy and use DJI products normally.”

Tesla saw sales of its EVs drop 13% in the EU in 2024 and is facing growing pressure as rivals launch a wave of cheaper EVs. Tesla shares are down 4.7% in January after a 62% gain in 2024. The annual return came after the shares fell more than 56% in Q1 '24 because of worries Tesla's sales were falling.  The consensus estimate for Q4 '24 earnings is 77 cents a share, up 8.4% from a year ago. Revenue of $27.1B would be up 7.8%.  A challenge for the company is its inability to come up with a moderately priced vehicle for the U.S. market. Tesla's difficulties in Europe come as Elon Musk continues to shake up European politics. The billionaire caused outrage among many in Germany with his endorsement of AfD, a right-wing political party. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz branded Musk's support of the "extreme right" as "completely unacceptable." Several German companies have announced they will stop buying Tesla vehicles over Musk's comments in recent months. On Wednesday, activists projected an image of a controversial gesture made by the Tesla boss at Donald Trump's inaugural parade onto the side of the company's Berlin gigafactory.  Musk has also become entangled in UK politics, feuding with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and reportedly considering a donation to right-wing party Reform. The controversy surrounding Musk has seen one of Tesla's rivals step up efforts to court disgruntled owners. 

As Elon Musk wades into European politics, Tesla's sales across the continent are plummeting. The automaker saw sales of its EVs drop 13% in the European Union in 2024, according to data released by industry body ACEA this week and is facing growing pressure in its third-largest market as rivals launch a wave of cheaper electric vehicles.  Experts told Business Insider that an increasingly stale product lineup had hit Tesla's European business. Tesla saw big drops in sales in major markets like Germany, France, and Italy.

In Germany, the hub of Europe's auto industry and the home of Tesla's Berlin gigafactory, sales of Tesla vehicles fell by 41% in 2024, outstripping the 27% sales decline in the general battery EV market. The company's woes come as wider EV sales dropped across Europe in 2024, driven by the end of key subsidies in several markets.  "The big picture is a shrinking EV market across Europe. But Tesla is shrinking faster than that, and in specific markets, it is outpacing that decline," Dylan Khoo, an analyst at Argus, told BI.

While Tesla's sales in markets such as Belgium, Netherlands, and Sweden rose last year, the overall picture in Europe is less than rosy for the automaker — especially with many of its rivals rolling out their own mass-market electric vehicles. Swedish brand Volvo, which is owned by Chinese conglomerate Geely, saw its sales rise nearly 30% in the EU last year, driven by the popularity of its 36,000 euro ($40,000) EX30 electric crossover.  Rivals like Renault and BMW also saw their sales grow in Europe and the UK last year, with French firm Renault launching cheaper models including the baguette-holding R5.

Tesla has not launched a new vehicle in Europe since the Model Y in 2021. Its most recent EV, the Cybertruck, is not available in the UK or Europe. "It's looking a little bit samey," said Philip Nothard, Insight and Strategy Director at Cox Automotive, adding that Tesla was facing a more crowded EV market in Europe and coming under pressure from domestic rivals and insurgent Chinese carmakers, who have ambitious growth plans for Europe.  

The CEO of EV brand Polestar said on Wednesday he had told the company's sales staff to target Tesla owners put off by Musk's push into politics and echoed Scholz in calling the billionaire's support of AfD "totally unacceptable."

"We get a lot of people writing that they don't like all this," Michael Lohscheller said in an interview with Bloomberg.

"It's important to listen closely to what they say. And I can tell you, a lot of people have very, very negative sentiment," he added.

Matthias Schmidt, a Germany-based automotive analyst, told BI he expected Musk's political involvements to eventually have an impact on Tesla's European sales, and said rivals like Polestar would likely reap the benefit of disgruntled Tesla owners ditching their vehicles.

"I expect Tesla's rivals are rubbing their hands together because this is the exact point where they need a big EV uptake for their own products," said Schmidt.

"The more Elon Musk continues to shoot himself in the foot, if you like, the more Germans and European manufacturers can only benefit. For them, it's like Christmas and all their birthdays coming all at once," he added.

At the same time, CEO Elon Musk hates his company being called a car company.

He believes Tesla is an artificial intelligence company. One reason: every Tesla vehicle communicates where and how it is being driven, Tesla collects all that data to improve vehicles and driving experience and improve the software that drives them. There is hope the company will introduce a sport utility vehicle this year. And Musk is promising to bring a Robo Taxi to market perhaps this year. One question that may get asked in the earnings call is how Musk can do two full-time jobs at once: running Tesla and working with the Trump Administration to cut federal spending.

TLSBlue encourages leadership to create their own path, constantly refining and adapting to fit their operational realities while still adhering to the guiding principles of systemic focus and improvement. TLSBlue integrates the best of TOC, Lean, and Six Sigma, with many other tools, for creating and sustaining a Blue Ocean.  It was not until 1968 that the Japanese approach to company-wide quality control, and Kaoru Ishikawa’s synthesis of the philosophy, which contributed to Japan’s ascendancy as a quality leader, began to be of interest to the Western world.  TLSBlue attempts to go one step further 

A few years ago, I thought I was about to die. And while (spoiler alert) I didn't, my severe health anxiety and ability to always assume the worst has persisted. However, the increasing proliferation of health-tracking smart devices and new ways that AI tries to make sense of our body's data has led me to make a decision. For my peace of mind, AI needs to stay far away from my health. And having just watched Samsung's Unpacked event, I'm more convinced of this than ever. I'll explain.  Sometime around 2016, I had severe migraines that persisted for a couple of weeks. My anxiety steeply increased during this period due to the attendant worry, and when I eventually called the UK's NHS helpline and explained my various symptoms, they told me I needed to go to the nearest hospital and be seen within 2 hours. "Walk there with someone," I distinctly remember them telling me, "It'll be quicker than getting an ambulance to you."  This call confirmed my worst fears -- that death was imminent.  As it turned out, my fears of an early demise were unfounded. The cause was severe muscle strain from having hung multiple heavy cameras around my neck for an entire day while photographing a wedding. But the helpline agent was simply working on the limited data I'd provided, and as a result, they'd -- probably quite rightly -- taken a "better safe than sorry" approach and urged me to seek immediate medical attention. I've spent most of my adult life struggling with health anxiety, and episodes such as this have taught me a lot about my ability to jump to the absolute worst conclusions despite there being no real evidence to support them. A ringing in my ears? Must be a brain tumor. A twinge in my stomach? Well, better get my affairs in order.  I've learned to live with this over the years, and while I still have my ups and downs, I know better about what triggers things. For one, I learned never to Google my symptoms. No matter what my symptoms were, cancer was always one of the possibilities a search would throw up. Medical sites -- including the NHS's website -- provided no comfort and usually only resulted in brain-shattering panic attacks.  Sadly, I've found I have a similar response with many health-tracking tools. I liked my Apple Watch at first, and its ability to read my heart rate during workouts was helpful. Then I found I was checking it increasingly more often throughout the day. Then the doubt crept in: "Why is my heart rate high when I'm just sitting down? Is that normal? I'll try again in 5 minutes." When, inevitably, it wasn't different (or it was worse), panic would naturally ensue.

cnet-voices-apple-watch-heart-rate-zone I've used Apple Watches multiple times, but I find heart rate tracking more stressful than helpful. - (Vanessa Hand Orellana/CNET)  Whether tracking heart rate, blood oxygen levels, or even sleep scores, I'd obsess over what a "normal" range should be, and any time my data fell outside of that range, I'd immediately assume it meant I was about to keel over right there and then. The more data these devices provided, the more things I felt I had to worry about. I've learned to keep my worries at bay and have continued to use smartwatches, without them being much of a problem for my mental health (I have to actively not use any heart-related functions like ECGs), but AI-based health tools scare me.  During its Unpacked keynote, Samsung talked about how its new Galaxy AI tools -- and Google's Gemini AI -- will supposedly help us in our daily lives. Samsung Health's algorithms will track your heart rate as it fluctuates throughout the day, notifying you of changes. It will offer personalized insights from your diet and exercise to help with cardiovascular health and you can even ask the AI agent questions related to your health.  To many, it may sound like a great holistic view of your health, but not to me. To me it sounds like more data being collected and waved in front of me, forcing me to acknowledge it and creating an endless feedback loop of obsession, worry, and, inevitably, panic. But it's the AI questions that are the biggest red flag for me. AI tools by their nature have to make "best guess" answers based usually on information publicly available online. Asking AI a question is really just a quick way of running a Google search, and as I've found, Googling health queries does not end well for me
Samsung showed off various ways AI will be used within its health app during the Unpacked keynote.  Much like the NHS phone operator who inadvertently caused me to panic about dying, an AI-based health assistant will be able to provide answers based only on the limited information it has about me. Asking a question about my heart health could bring up a variety of information, just as looking on a health website would about why I have a headache. But much like how a headache can technically be a symptom of cancer, it's also much more likely to be a muscular twinge. Or I haven't drank enough water. Or do I need to look away from my screen for a bit? Or I shouldn't have stayed up until 2 a.m. playing Yakuza: Infinite Wealth. Or a hundred other reasons, all of which are far more likely than the one I've already decided is the culprit.  But will an AI give me the context I need to not worry and obsess? Or will it just provide me with all the potential as a way of trying to give a full understanding but instead feed that "what if" worry? And, like how Google's AI Overviews told people to eat glue on pizza, will an AI health tool simply scour the internet and provide me with a hash of an answer, with inaccurate inferences that could tip my anxiety into full panic attack territory?

Or perhaps, much like the kind doctor at the hospital that day who smiled gently at the sobbing man sitting opposite who'd already drafted a goodbye note to his family on his phone in the waiting room, an AI tool might be able to see that data and simply say, "You're fine, Andy, stop worrying and go to sleep."  Maybe one day that'll be the case. Maybe health tracking tools and AI insights will be able to offer me a much-needed dose of logic and reassurance to counter my anxiety, rather than being the cause of it. But until then, it's not a risk I'm willing to take.

Apple reportedly has around 3000 people working on its AR/VR headset expected to release in 2023, far sooner than we can expect to see Project Titan see the light of day.  "The Information" put out a report that states Meta’s Reality Labs division has “more than five times as many” people working on Quest, AR glasses, and associated software. That apparently includes roughly 1100 working on Quest, 1900 on content, 2000 on AR, 1000 on machine learning, 1000 developing custom chips, and 2400 in the research team. Last year The Information, Bloomberg, and supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo released reports claiming Apple is preparing to release a premium headset for VR and AR with a high-resolution color pass-through. Kuo claimed this headset will weigh noticeably less than current VR headsets and feature high-resolution OLED microdisplays, while The Information claims it will be powered by the M2 chip seen in the latest MacBooks. In August an Apple-linked company filed to trademark ‘Reality One’, ‘Reality Pro’, and ‘Reality Processor’, suggesting the headset and its processor will be branded Apple Reality. In June Bloomberg reported Apple is working on realityOS (rOS) versions of its core apps as well as the ability to view a Mac’s display, and AR/VR developer tools. References to realityOS were found in App Store upload logs and Apple code earlier this year, and an Apple-linked shell company trademarked RealityOS in May.  In October The Information reported the headset will feature leg tracking and iris scanning for logins and payments. And earlier this year it released an in-depth report on the project’s troubled history. The headset apparently has 14 cameras in total when including those used for passthrough, positional tracking, eye tracking, face tracking, hand tracking, and body tracking – which reportedly caused “headaches” for hardware and algorithm engineers. One reported feature of the headset is a screen on the front to let others in the room see your upper face and eyes. But adding this screen apparently made the development of its camera passthrough technology more difficult. Plans can change for hardware development sometimes even quite late into a product’s planning, with Quest Pro for example ditching a depth sensor just months before release. That report also claimed Apple “almost never” mentions games in internal presentations, and isn’t developing a tracked controller, with the input methods instead being hand tracking and a “clothespin-like finger clip” which showed up in Apple patent filings. The Information previously reported Apple is considering pricing the product as high as $3000, but says Apple was working to reduce the cost of materials to make it more affordable. If the reports so far are to be believed, though, Apple’s product will have higher resolution, a more powerful processor, and a slimmer design than Quest Pro. Ming-Chi Kuo predicts Apple will host a media event in January, deliver development kits 2-4 weeks later, and launch pre-orders in the second quarter of 2023 for a release before WWDC 2023. WWDC is Apple’s yearly software conference, almost always held in June.

Apple and Meta have been reported asking Samsung Display to produce a MicroOLED display for their upcoming AR/VR headsets. Samsung so far has avoided making this screen technology at scale due to expected low profitability. The information shared by The Elec shows that not only are Apple and Meta willing to pay for a MicroOLED panel on their headsets but Samsung Display’s parent company, Samsung Electronics, also wants to use this technology. As explained by the publication, the MicroOLED panel uses organic materials that are deposited on a silicon substrate instead of a glass one. This technology is meant for AR/VR devices   Up to now, Samsung Display had a few research staff working on MicroOLED and didn’t pay much attention to it, sources said. This is because AR and VR headset market is currently very small while the display panel used are much smaller than those in smartphones. Apple is expected to launch its headset late next year with MicroOLED technology. As of now, LG Display is planning to place an order for equipment needed to manufacture MicroOLED panels for Apple.

Rumors so far believe Apple will use the M2 chip for its upcoming headset that will mix AR and VR capabilities. For the future, the company is also readying AR Glasses as well as a second generation for its Mixed Reality headset. Early this morning, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said this 2nd gen will feature two models, one higher-end and another more affordable. Here’s what 9to5Mac‘s Filipe Espósito reported: According to Kuo, the 2nd gen of Apple’s AR/VR headset is expected to come in two different models. The 1st will be an upgrade to the 1st-gen headset with better hardware and the other will be a more affordable model.  Due to its complexity and high-end hardware, analysts believe that Apple’s new headset will be priced too high. It’s no surprise that Apple will eventually bring the new AR/VR experience to more people with a less expensive model, as the company has been doing the same with entry-level models of the iPhone and iPad.

American Robotics announced its plans to acquire Israeli Airobotics. The new deal should prove a good fit, as both companies play similar roles within the broader industrial drone space. While there’s bound to be a fair bit of redundancy, Ondas notes that such a merging would give the combined companies a better global foothold in a rapidly expanding category.  American Robotics’ primary play is Scout, a fully autonomous drone system operating on remote sites without direct human oversight. Airobotics offers an all-in-one autonomous drone solution. The company’s Optimus drone launches out of an automated docking space that serves as a base and transmits data to the quadcopter. Applications include emergency response, mapping and surveying. “American Robotics and Airobotics have matured different elements of the DIB ecosystem, and this business combination allows for an accelerated offering set that furthers our leadership position in a broader set of market opportunities,” American Robotics CEO Reese Mozer tells TechCrunch. “Longer term, the Scout System and the Optimus System will be different models existing within the same product family, with each specializing in a different set of use cases. See the attached infographic highlighting the primary differences between the two current platforms.”

Samsung is launching its gaming hub for its 2022 smart TVs and monitors today. The hub brings together the game streaming apps into a single location, with access to Nvidia’s GeForce Now, Google Stadia, Utomik, Twitch, and Microsoft’s new Xbox TV app. Amazon Luna is said to be available soon, integrating into the Samsung Gaming Hub UI.  HDMI-connected video game consoles are featured inside the hub, alongside passthrough controller inputs so you can use a single controller instead of having to pair multiple ones. That means popular Bluetooth headsets and controllers will work across multiple apps, services, and devices through the Samsung Gaming Hub.  The biggest new addition to the gaming hub is Microsoft’s Xbox TV app. While Stadia, GeForce Now, and Twitch are available across a variety of TVs, the Xbox app is currently exclusive to the Samsung Gaming Hub and provides access to Xbox Cloud Gaming. Fortnite is available to stream free of charge, but you’ll need an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to play more than 100 games. 

Something that we have noted would be coming this year is a new Atom series. Specifically the Intel Atom C5000 series. Two weeks ago, Intel announced the 1st 6 models in the Intel Atom C5000 series lineup, although there is not too much information out there on the new chips.  - Here is what we were able to put together in terms of the new Atom SKUs:  These SKUs are on the lower core count end of the spectrum ranging from 4-8 cores and still dual-channel DDR4 memory (up to 256GB supported.) The official specs say that all of the new parts have QAT onboard which is going to be a bigger feature further into 2022 - 2023. Most are still looking at the Intel Atom C3000 devices for edge networking. At some point, Intel will be transitioning to new generations. The C-lineup tends to be the one that is often found in servers.  One of the biggest challenges with covering the new Atom launches is that Intel has little by way of a formal press release process for them (@Iintel IoTG, please fix this). In 2017 we at the start of availability for the original Intel Atom C3000 series SKUs. We only knew about it because OEMs were telling us that Intel was not planning a launch so we decided to hold our own launch. Hopefully, we will get more from Intel and be able to update this soon. Also, stay tuned for more on Snow Ridge which also was refreshed today.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing has developed a new artificially intelligent (AI) combat drone. The MQ-28A Ghost Bat drone — so named for the Australian mammal known to travel in packs, detecting and hunting prey — is reportedly able to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tasks autonomously via onboard sensors. The Australian government's  Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) have given their drone the name 'MQ-28A Ghost Bat' as a military designation and a name for an Australian-made military fighter aircraft  Choosing the name Ghost Bat, the ghost bat is a mammal native to Australia known to work together in a pack to detect and hunt, reflecting the unique characteristics of aircraft Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance sensors and capabilities, and is a fitting name for this pioneering capability. The Ghost Bat drone will fly alongside manned fighter jets, jamming radar, firing on targets and conducting surveillance. Boeing has already completed a series of successful test fights on the Ghost Bat drone. 

Boom Supersonic's ‘Overture Superfactory’ at the Piedmont Triad International Airport will open new doors for not only the region, but North Carolina students as well, according to education and economic development leaders. “This is just another indication that it is our time in the Triad,” said Michael Fox, president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership. “This alone is a huge deal but in combination with the Toyota announcement, it really is a message to the world that North Carolina – in particular, central North Carolina and the Triad region – is the hub of transportation technology in the future.” Sarin said the December announcement of Toyota building its EV battery manufacturing site in Randolph County coupled with Boom Supersonic’s announcement confirms the Triad is positioning itself, and its people, for strong future success. “These are game-changers,” he said of the companies. “I think this is the beginning of what happened in Silicon Valley.” Thomas Stith, the president of the North Carolina Community College System, said he too is thrilled to hear another major company will be coming to the region. Stith said community colleges are critical to providing accessible education and educating a strong talent pool for companies to hire from.  “It is going to be the North Carolina community college system that leads this economic growth that we see in North Carolina now,” Stith said. “It is going to be vitally important to properly invest in the community college system, so we have the resources to train and educate the workforce.”   At North Carolina A&T State University, Dr. Sanjiv Sarin is a professor of engineering and special assistant to the chancellor for strategic partnerships said  “At A&T, we’re seeing what we can do to help propagate growth and how we can take advantage of the opportunities for our students, as well as research and development opportunities for our faculty members,” Sarin said. “It’s going to be a win-win situation. It’s huge.”

LG Display has come up with more uses for transparent screens with its innovative new concepts that will be on display at CES 2022: the OLED Shelf, Shopping Managing Showcase, Show Window, and Smart Window. LG Display simply creates concepts that other companies can adopt and introduce to the market.  Its OLED Shelf, visible at the top of this story, consists of two 55-inch transparent OLED displays mounted on top of one another, with a shelf at the very top. LG Display says it’s ideal for the living room, where it can display art, a TV show, or one on each of the two screens simultaneously. Always on Display Mode ensures that the screen can stay on all the time. If there was a piece of art on display, that image could stay put just like a painting, all while blending into the wall behind it. While the OLED Shelf is built for the home, LG Display says its Shopping Managing Showcase is meant for “luxurious” department stores. A transparent OLED display is attached to a sleek wooden stand, and when placed in front of physical products, it looks like it could create a futuristic shopping experience. It adds an overlay to the items behind it, which means storeowners could add graphics that highlight certain parts of their products, or even use the display to provide funky visual effects. We saw a video where flowy graphics drew our eye to one of the perfume bottles in the display above, giving it a lustrous halo effect.