VR/AR

Facebook Pokes Oculus

Facebook is retooling its mixed reality division. Yesterday, FB exec Andrew Bosworth said the company will merge its VR, AR, and Portal work within the newly named Facebook Reality Lab (FRL). While it seems small, the revamp offers a peek into the company’s vision for mixed reality. 

FRL’s crown jewel

Once upon a time, FRL was known as Oculus Research. FB paid $2 billion to acquire VR headset maker Oculus in 2014. Facebook is chipping away at the standalone Oculus brand: 

• As of yesterday, FB has rebranded the annual Oculus Connect event to Facebook Connect. This year, the free-to-attend mixed reality-palooza will be held on Sept. 16. 
• Last week, Oculus said it will require a Facebook login to use VR headsets. Existing users can merge their Oculus and FB accounts. If they decline to do that, support for their Oculus accounts will end in two years. 

This integration antagonized many privacy-conscious VR users. While Oculus headsets don't display ads (for now), FB did start using Oculus data for ad targeting and recommendations last year. Oculus cofounder Palmer Luckey, who’s no longer with the company, once promised to never require a Facebook account for Oculus use.

The longer game

On the hardware side, the company already has Oculus VR headsets and the Portal product line. 

But there’s a lot more cooking in FRL. FB says it wants to build the computing platform of the future, which could involve AR smart glasses, a bespoke operating system for FB hardware, and neural interface technology. FRL’s research projects span more than just VR—that’s why FB said it was time for the Oculus rebrand. 

• Just like Instagram by Facebook and WhatsApp by Facebook, Oculus’ destiny is deeper integrations with the core app. 

Outside view: “Facebook desperately wants its own operating system,” Big Technology author Alex Kantrowitz tells the Brew. “‘There are things that you can only do when you build the platform, and not just the apps within it,’ Mark Zuckerberg told me last year. That's why Facebook is betting on VR, where it owns the leading operating system in Oculus.”

AV

Reverse Merger Mania

Remember last week, when I wrote about all the EV manufacturers going public through special purpose acquisition companies? Niche, right? 

Mobility reverse mergers get even nicher. On Monday, lidar startup Luminar said it will go public by merging with blank-check company Gores Metropoulos, with a post-deal valuation of $3.4 billion. 

• Luminar has some momentum. In May, Volvo said it would integrate Luminar sensors into cars with automated driving features, starting in 2022. 
• It also has competition: Velodyne, another lidar startup, said in June that it would go public via SPAC at a valuation of $1.8 billion.

Something’s in the air (it’s lasers)

Short for Light Detection and Ranging, lidar radars emit laser beams to measure distances and detect surroundings. Most self-driving companies have integrated the technology into their stacks. But not all of them: Elon Musk has famously dismissed lidar as “a fool’s errand.” 

The roadmap: Going public will give both lidar companies the liquidity to scale production and bring down per-unit costs—an imperative for more affordable autonomous cars. Even before fully driverless tech is perfected, lidar could become a mainstay in production-ready cars with advanced driver assistance features. 

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Sure You’re Secure? How Sure?

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How? They’ve created a new Cloud Vulnerability Scanner called Proton that can take a secure look at your Google Drive data and identify your company’s potentially vulnerable files.

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AI

Where Are the Robots Working?

AI investment is hard to track, but one thing is certain—the money is flowing. Global AI spend could reach $50.1 billion this year and $110+ billion by 2024, according to a new IDC forecast. While I have qualms with precisely defining AI spend (what counts?), the IDC forecast seems directionally correct.  

The retail and banking industries will be the largest customers for AI services, IDC predicts. In 2020, the most common use cases by market share will be: 

• Automated customer service agents (11.3%) 
• Sales process recommendation and automation (7.1%) 
• Automated threat detection/cybersecurity (6.6%) 
• Information technology automation (6.3%) 
• Fraud analysis and investigation (6.1%)
• “Other” uses (62.6%, showing the wide range of commercial AI tasks) 

Time to brag: We released an AI guide yesterday, covering the technology’s applications in retail and financial services and each of these use cases. 

Check out the guide here.

BITS & BYTES

Stat: Fitbit unveiled the Sense smartwatch, which has an electrocardiogram app (pending FDA approval) and stress detection features. The $329 Sense costs $70 less than the Apple Watch Series 5. 

Quote: “Epic Games has not yet demonstrated irreparable harm. The current predicament appears of its own making.”—Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Apple can keep Fortnite out of the App Store, but it can’t yank Epic’s developer tools and cut off access to Unreal Engine, she ruled Monday. 

Read: VC Bill Gurley, an advocate of direct listings, gives his take on SPACs.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Unity, which licenses a popular 3D game-making engine, filed to go public. So did Ant Financial, JFrog, Asana, Snowflake, and Sumo Logic.
• Amazon is launching Room Decorator, a new AR shopping tool. 
• MelodyVR, a virtual reality concert company, bought Napster for $70 million. 
• iRobot created a new intelligence platform for its robot vacuums.
• Foxconn and Pegatron, two Apple suppliers, are considering building electronics assembly plants in Mexico, Reuters reports.

TRIVIA

We just dropped the AI guide, so you already know what trivia is about this week. Today’s quiz specifically covers the guide’s first section about conducting AI sniff tests.

Take the quiz here. 

TECH THINGAMABOBS

For Blinding Lights: Spotify debuted “Alone With Me,” a personalized experience that lets you interact with a digitized avatar of The Weeknd. It’s eerie, but neat—and you need to be a premium Spotify user to try it. 

For a CBDC deep dive: The Block Research produced a report breaking down the global state of affairs for central bank digital currencies. 

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• Epic and Apple file new motions in court
• Apple led smartwatch market in H1 2020
• Microsoft releases new Flight Simulator