Category Archives: Virtual reality

Apple, Episodes, Facebook, News Roundup, Oculus, Snapchat, Twitter, Virtual reality

Week 115 News Roundup – Oculus, Apple/Spielberg, Movies Anywhere, Snapchat Context Cards, Twitter

This week’s episode kicks off with a discussion of Netflix’s price increases, and the context and reason for those. Next, we do a deep dive on Google’s event this week and all that it announced, from new Pixel phones to new members of the Home family and a few other products also unveiled. Lastly, we talk about the other event that happened on Wednesday this week, the launch of the first voice-enabled speaker from Sonos.

As always, you’ll find links to these stories and other things we discussed underneath the SoundCloud player embedded below.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode (Tech Narratives links unless otherwise stated):

  • Oculus:
    • Jan’s Take on Tech Narratives ($): https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/11/★-oculus-announces-199-standalone-headset-other-hardware-and-software-news/
    • Oculus: https://www.oculus.com/blog/pioneering-the-frontier-of-vr-introducing-oculus-go-plus-santa-cruz-updates/
  • Apple/Spielberg:
    • Jan’s Take on Tech Narratives ($): https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/10/apple-signs-deal-for-reboot-of-spielbergs-1980s-series-amazing-stories/
    • Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-signs-content-deal-with-steven-spielberg-1507656455
  • Movies Anywhere:
    • Jan’s Take on Tech Narratives ($):
      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/12/disney-warner-sony-21st-cf-universal-join-movies-anywhere-digital-locker-service/
    • Variety: http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/movies-anywhere-launches-with-joint-studio-backing-1202587915/
  • Snapchat Context Cards:
    • Jan’s Take on Tech Narratives ($): https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/10/★-snapchat-adds-context-cards-for-ride-sharing-restaurant-booking-other-services/
    • [contact-form][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /][contact-field label=”Message” type=”textarea” /][/contact-form]

      Snap: https://www.snap.com/en-US/news/post/introducing-context-cards/

    • Jan’s Techpinions piece: https://techpinions.com/google-and-the-disintermediation-of-search/51316
  • Twitter Abuse:
    • Jan’s Takes on Tech Narratives ($):

      Twitter Demonstrates its Inconsistency in Policing Abuse Again


      https://www.technarratives.com/2017/10/13/prominent-women-launch-twitter-boycott-on-friday-over-abuse-issues/

    • TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/12/twitter-breaks-silence-on-mcgowan-suspension/
    • USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/10/12/rose-mcgowans-harvey-weinstein-tweets-got-her-suspended-fromsome-women-and-men-pledge-boycott-twitte/760130001/

As ever, we welcome your feedback via Twitter (@jandawson / @aaronmiller), the website (podcast.beyonddevic.es), or email (jan@jackdawresearch.com).

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. You can reach the individual hosts on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast. And we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice.

Apple, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Augmented reality, Episodes, iMac, iOS, iOS 11, iPad, iPad Pro, iPhone, Mac, Machine learning, macOS, QotW, Virtual reality, WWDC, WWDC 2017

Week 98 QotW – WWDC 2017

This is our annual deep-dive episode on announcements from Apple’s WWDC developer conference. We handle the news from today’s keynote in more or less chronological order:

  • Introduction, tvOS, watchOS
  • macOS and new Mac hardware
  • iOS and iPad
  • HomePod.

We discuss each of the announcements and share our thoughts and what we think the implications and prospects are for the products announced.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. You can reach the individual hosts on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast. And we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice.

Episodes, Events, QotW, Samsung, Smartphones, Virtual reality

Week 88 QotW – Samsung Galaxy S8 Event

This is the second week of our new split format, and this is the Question of the Week episode. This week’s News Roundup should follow on Friday.

This week’s question is “What do you make of the Samsung announcements this week?” Samsung held an event on Wednesday in New York City at which it announced its latest smartphones, the Galaxy S8 and S8+, as well as several other accessories, including updated Gear 360 and Gear VR devices, and a new mesh WiFi router-plus-IoT-hub called Connect Home. Jan, who was at the event, talks through some obvious questions about the new devices and the other announcements from today’s event.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

This week’s links are all to Tech Narratives pieces Jan wrote about the Samsung announcements:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Amazon, Android Wear, Apple, Apple TV, Episodes, Ethics, Politics, Trump, Virtual reality

Episode 81 – Business and Politics, News Roundup

We have a slightly different format this week – Jan lost his voice and so we took out the third segment we usually have and spent a little more time on the Question of the Week, where Aaron was going to be doing most of the talking.

Our News Roundup covers three news items as usual. First up: Oculus’s decision to close 200 of its Best Buy demo areas for VR, which some have taken as a sign that VR is fizzling. Second, we talk about Apple’s recent hiring of a former Amazon Fire TV executive, and what it might mean about Apple’s ability to sign content deals. And thirdly, we discuss Android Wear 2.0 and the new LG smartwatches which launched this week, and what they suggest about the state of the smartwatch market and wearables more broadly.

Our Question of the Week is “What role should businesses play in political and social change?” This topic has been in the news recently with many tech companies weighing in on the Trump administration’s recent executive orders on immigration, but it also has a long history. Aaron talks us through some of the history, the pros and cons of corporate intervention in politics, and the evidence about whether such intervention is actually effective or not. This isn’t a political discussion per se, but we do touch on some current and past political issues.

Our Weekly Pick is a TV show recommended by Jan.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Daydream, Elections, Episodes, Google, Google Home, Pixel, Politics, Trump, Virtual reality

Episode 70 – Tech and the Election, Google Hardware Review

In this week’s episode, we cover two topics: technology and the US presidential election, and a review of Google’s three new hardware products: Home, Pixel, and Daydream View.

Our first topic, which takes up a little over the first half of the episode, is this week’s US presidential election. We do share our personal thoughts on the outcome briefly, but most of this segment is devoted to the role technology and particularly social media played in the election, and then the likely outcome of the election for tech policy. We specifically discuss trade, M&A activity and the media, net neutrality, and repatriation of overseas profits.

Our second topics is our Question of the Week, in which Jan shares his first impressions of Google’s Home, Pixel and Daydream View hardware, which he’s been using for a while now. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each piece of hardware, as well as Jan’s overall views on Google’s first hardware efforts.

We wrap up with our Weekly Pick, which this week is a camping stove recommended by Aaron.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Apple, Apple News, Episodes, Events, Health, iPad, iPad Pro, iPhone, iPhone SE, Virtual reality, Windows 10, Windows Phone

Episode 38 – Apple Event Preview, Apple News Opens Up

Our News Roundup this week covers:

  • The announcement by navigation company HERE that it will discontinue its apps for Windows 8 and Windows 10
  • Sony’s big PlayStation VR announcement
  • A Recode article about a healthcare startup that’s working on an electrocardiogram that will work with the Apple Watch (and is led by Vic Gundotra, who formerly ran Google+).

We decided to forgo our usual Question of the Week this week and instead make a preview of Apple’s event next week our main topic for discussion. We discussed Jan’s Techpinions post last week about the iPhone SE and how that might be priced and positioned, and also talked about the prospects for a revamped iPad Air. Our final topic for the week was the announcement about Apple News being opened to all comers. We realized we haven’t really discussed Apple News much on the podcast so far, so we had somewhat of a broader discussion about its prospects too. Next week, Jan will be at the Apple event in person, and we hope to do a quick episode shortly after the event ends focused on the day’s announcements.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.