Last Night In Soho is director Edgar Wright’s least Edgar Wright film yet. While most of the director’s previous works—including Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Baby Driver—have a tone that’s light, breezy, and fun, Soho is dark, disturbing, and dense. It’s not a film for someone looking to switch…
The former New York governor resigned in August instead of facing potential impeachment.
The package would mark the biggest U.S. green investment ever, but falls short of what is needed to avert disaster.
The Oculus name may be no more, but there is at least one piece of good news in Facebook’s decision to rebrand itself as Meta. You won’t need a Facebook account to use its Quest headsets. That tidbit of information was nestled in a post from soon-to-be Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth detailing what the rebranding means for the company’s various products.
“We’re working on new ways to log into Quest that won’t require a Facebook account, landing sometime next year,” Bosworth said. “This is one of our highest priority areas of work internally.”
Meta announced in August 2020 it would eventually require all Oculus owners to log into their devices with a Facebook account. At the time, the company said people it would start prompting people to merge their Oculus and Facebook accounts starting in October 2020. Under that plan, Oculus owners would have had until January 1st, 2023 to continue using their headsets without a Facebook account. After that point, Meta said the devices would continue working, but warned some games and apps would not. Unsurprisingly, the Oculus community immediately hated the decision. “What the fuck,” said one of the more tame comments an Oculus owner posted in the comments section of the blog post detailing the policy change.
You won’t have to buy a Lucid Air if you want a car with more immersive Dolby Atmos. Mercedes will equip its cars with Atmos audio on all models that use both its latest MBUX interface (introduced with the latest S-Class) and an optional Burmester 3D or 4D sound system. Whether or not you’ll driving, you’ll hear compatible music in a vertically enhanced sound field — it might not sound like a “live concert” as Mercedes claims, but it should be a step up from the usual stereo playback.
The 4D system includes 31 speakers, six of which create the 3D effect from above. Another four “near-ear” speakers sit in the front seats, and all four seats have two sound transducers (aka exciters) each. Throw in 1750W of total power (including an 18.5-liter subwoofer) and you’ll likely be happy regardless of the audio processing.
Just don’t plan on buying an Atmos-equipped car right away. The format will first be available in the Mercedes-Maybach in summer 2022, and the S-Class soon after. Other models will follow, but you might not want to count on buying an A-Class with Atmos any time soon.
Apple has made a lot of substantial tweaks to its product line up the last two years or so, and it appears to be making the right moves here. The company just reported its results for the quarter ending on September 30th, and Apple made 29 percent more revenue than a year ago — that’s $83.4 billion, for those keeping track.
As usual, the iPhone led the way. iPhone sales made up almost 47 percent of Apple’s total revenue, and iPhone revenue of $38.9 billion was up 47 percent year over year. But it’s worth remembering that last year, the iPhone 12 series was delayed and didn’t go on sale until October (or November, in the case of the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max). This year, all four iPhone 13 models went on sale simultaneously, in mid-September. While that’s only a few weeks of the quarter, it likely helped fuel that massive growth.
The iPad, too, had a strong quarter. While revenue of $8.25 billion makes it the smallest of Apple’s five main product categories (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Services, and “Wearables, Home, and Accessories”) the iPad category grew 21 percent year over year. The Mac, on the other hand, was flat — revenue of $9.2 billion was only up two percent — but that was just enough for Apple to say it was a new all-time high for the Mac.
Apple’s Services business has been growing steadily for years, so it’s not surprising that this quarter’s revenue of $18.3 billion was an all-time high, as well. But for the Mac, it’s interesting to see it hit that high-water mark without new MacBook Pro models on the market to help move the needle. Now that the new MacBook Pro has been released, it’ll be worth seeing how it affects Mac revenue overall next quarter.
The wearables, home, and accessories group also grew in strong but not spectacular fashion (up 12 percent). But just like with the Mac, next quarter could be huge for that segment — the new Apple Watch Series 7 and third-generation AirPods just went on sale and it’s easy to imagine those products making a big impact.
As usual, Apple is holding a call with investors at 5PM ET, and we’ll be listening in to see if CEO Tim Cook has anything of note to share this quarter.
While Amazon had a huge revenue surge over the past year thanks to lockdown and the resulting rise of online shopping, the company’s recent earnings report shows that it might be slowing. Net sales increased 15 percent to $110.8 billion in the third quarter, which is a step down from the previous quarter’s 27 percent growth rate.
At the same time, Amazon also warns that global supply chain issues, labor shortages and increased shipping costs could incur “several billion dollars of additional costs” in the next quarter. Amazon shares dropped 3.8 percent in extended trading as a result.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that the company wanted to minimize the impact of these issues on the customers and selling partners this holiday season. “It’ll be expensive for us in the short term, but it’s the right prioritization for our customers and partners,” he said in a press release. This also marks Jassy’s first quarter as Amazon’s CEO since Jeff Bezos stepped down earlier this year.
Of course, Amazon is still making a lot of money; it’s the fourth consecutive quarter it’s earned over $100 billion. Even if online sales have dipped, Amazon Web Services continues to be a huge money maker for the company, with a 39 percent revenue increase to $16.1 billion.
Developing…
In gen:LOCK’s upcoming sophomore season, the dystopian mech series is making the jump from Rooster Teeth to HBO Max as it continues the story of Julian Chase (Michael B. Jordan) and his fellow Holon pilots, the elite squad recruited into the gen:LOCK program.
Evidence of aliens might actually be an easy thing for scientists to detect—it’s proving that the evidence is legit that promises to be a greater challenge. A newly proposed framework developed by NASA scientists could help.
“Will and I have NEVER had an issue in the bedroom.”
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