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🏠 Vision Pros and UFOs

🏠 Vision Pros and UFOs

A headset and an alien walk into a bar

Stephen Flanders
June 07, 2023

Gm. What would aliens being real mean for the stock market?

🏠 TECH

Hello, Vision Pro

Apple’s WWDC conference was on Monday, and as anticipated, Apple dropped banger after banger:

The 15-inch MacBook Air.
iOS 17.
FaceTime for Apple TV.
watchOS 10.

And, of course, the main event: the Apple Vision Pro Headset.

A Computer On Your Face

As the first Apple product you “look through, not at”, Apple had to bring the heat for the Vision Pro. And bring the heat they did, as the headset:

Is controller-free. Thanks to VisionOS, all you need is a pair of eyes, hands, and a voice.
Runs on an M2 chip and a specially-made R1 chip to prevent motion sickness.
Contains five sensors, 12 cameras, 4K displays for each eye, a computer, and custom prescription lenses.

The result is a futuristic experience that really does feel like a “spatial computer”.

Not Perfect Yet

Although the Vision Pro is dope, it’s not without flaws:

The ski goggles design isn’t exactly aesthetic.
At $3,499, it’s pretty damn expensive.
Its external battery only lasts for up to two hours.

But, in the grand scheme of things, these are all minor issues. We all made fun of the way AirPods looked, and now everybody wears them. The original iPhone was also very expensive, and we all know how that turned out. Battery life will definitely be improved in the future.

Overall, although the advice to never buy the 1st Gen of an Apple product might be sage here, the Vision Pro is without a doubt the coolest thing Apple’s produced so far during Tim Cook’s decade-plus reign.

The Big Picture: AR/VR headsets have been flops up to now. If the Vision Pro also fails (note: the first impressions are coming in positive), this will likely be the nail into the headset coffin for the foreseeable future.

🏠 SPACE

Whistleblower: Government Has UFOs

Despite all philosophical logic, countless blurry videos, and AI intergalactic search parties, we still have no evidence that aliens exist.

But, according to one former intelligence officer turned whistleblower, not only does the government have evidence, but they’ve actually retrieved and are still in possession of UFOs.

That whistleblower is David Charles Grusch, a veteran of multiple 3-letter agencies, including the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. According to him, the government has been recovering objects “of exotic origin” for decades now, including vehicles.

Now, before you write this guy off as a quack, consider that:

In 2022, he provided Congress with hundreds of pages of classified and sensitive information about the material recovery program.
Numerous sources have vouched for his credibility.
He remains well-supported within intelligence circles.
The journalist who broke the story, Leslie Kean, has a history of breaking UFO stories, including the 2017 reveal of the Pentagon UFO program that the government confirmed existed in 2020.

So this is all pretty compelling stuff, but it can’t be true, right? Public figures can’t even go to the bathroom without people finding out. There’s no way the government would be able to keep freaking UFOs secret.

Right?

Why should I care? Dude, it’s aliens.

🏃‍♀️ QUICKIES

What else is going on?

Crypto exchange Binance was “operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro”. Predictably, the SEC is not amused.
Money in Venmo and other payment apps might not be safe long term.
Robot chefs are getting pretty dang good.
A Reddit blackout is planned over the ridiculously high API prices.

Stat: 59%: The drop in Twitter’s ad revenue from April 1st to the first week of May. Perhaps this is why Linda Yaccarino reported as CEO a few weeks early.

Rabbit hole: GPT Best Practices (OpenAI)

😂 WACKY AI WEDNESDAY

These are some next-level QR codes.

Stable Diffusion

🤥 3 LIES & A HEADLINE

News is so weird these days. Three of these headlines are fake stories from The Onion while one is actually true. Can you spot the truth amongst the fakes?

A. Denver Nuggets Mascot Takes Home $625,000 A Year

B. Airbnb Bill Includes Survival Fee

C. Experts Warn AI Could One Day Be Smart Enough To Eat Soup

D. Elizabeth Holmes Immediately Defrauds Biggest Inmate To Gain Other Prisoners’ Respect