NOTES: Thumbs-Up on "Spatial Computing" as Entertainment, Thumbs-Down on Neofascists Distributing Taylor Swift AI-Porn, & Thumbs-Down on the Bloomberg Editorial Board for Word-Salad
Noting: John Gruber’s review of Apple visionPro, the latest Elon Musk-caused Twitter meltdown, & the Bloomberg Editorial Board claiming that the Federal Reserve faces a “dilemma”, when actually it has a bunch of reasonably good-looking options….
“Spatial Computing”: Back in 2007—only 17 years ago—Steve Jobs introduced the Apple iPhone as three devices: “a widescreen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and a breakthrough Internet communications device…” <https://www.perplexity.ai/search/iphone-introduction-transcript-y8CCgecCTASB5I99IFpQDw?s=c>. John Gruber today sees the Apple visionPro as worth it right now as an entertainment device—anyone thinking of spending more than $2,000 on an individual home-entertainment system should get an Apple visionPro RIGHT NOW—as pointing to the likely future of spatial, or what used to be called ambient, computing, and as demonstrating that even with near-infinite money headset technology is only compelling for the crazed. But I am sensing the same “early adopters here are living in the future” vibe one gets rarely—with the Osborne and Apple II PCs, with the Macintosh, with the iPhone, with the Tesla Model S, and… I cannot really think of other hardware examples in my lifetime:
John Gruber: The Vision Pro: ‘For the last six days, I’ve been simultaneously testing three entirely new products from Apple. The first is a VR/AR headset with eye-tracking controls. The second is a revolutionary spatial computing productivity platform. The third is a breakthrough personal entertainment device…. These are not three separate devices. They’re one: Apple Vision Pro. But if you’ll pardon the shameless homage to Steve Jobs’s famous iPhone introduction, I think these three perspectives are the best way to consider it…. It’s too heavy and too big for everyone, and too expensive for the mass market. But, like that original iPhone and the original Macintosh before it, this first Vision Pro is no joke…. The conceptual design of VisionOS lays the foundation for an entirely new direction of interaction design. Just like how the basic concepts of the original Mac interface were exactly right, and remain true to this day. Just like how the original iPhone defined the way every phone in the world now works…. Vision Pro is simply a phenomenal way to watch movies, and 3D immersive experiences are astonishing. There are 3D immersive experiences in Vision Pro that are more compelling than Disney World attractions that people wait in line for hours to see…. I can recommend buying Vision Pro solely for use as a personal theater. I paid $5,000 for my 77-inch LG OLED TV a few years ago. Vision Pro offers a far more compelling experience…. Spatial computing in VisionOS is the real deal. It’s a legit productivity computing platform right now, and it’s only going to get better. It sounds like hype, but I truly believe this is a landmark breakthrough like the 1984 Macintosh and the 2007 iPhone… <daringfireball.net>
Neofascism: I confess that I had not thought until this weekend that even Elon Musk could manage to drive Twitter into bankruptcy in less than three years. But now I think that is more likely than not: turning the whole platform into the Nazi bar in such a short time is one hell of an accomplishment!:
Drew Hartwell ‘X has now for two days blocked all searches for one of the world’s biggest superstars, during a very newsy weekend, because it couldn’t stop AI-generated sex images of her. If only X hadn’t fired 80% of its workers and most of its “trust and safety” team… <bsky.app/profile/drewharwell.com/post/3…>
Journamalism: Word-salad from the Bloomberg Editorial Board. What “Federal Reserve dilemma” are they talking about? What could they be possibly talking about? A “dilemma” is when you face two (or more) options with significant drawbacks. But what might those drawbacks be?
The question “will there be a soft landing?” was “can the Fed get core-PCE inflation back to 2% per year with expectations aligned to that target of its without a deep recession?” The answer to that question turns out to have been: yes. The soft landing has been achieved. It is time to declare victory with respect to that question. With the macroeconomy in balance—in neutral—policy should be rapidly moving toward neutral as well, and should continue to do so until some new shock hits.
Yes, there is a future. And the future will raise new challenges for monetary policy. But to pretend right now that the macroeconomy is not in balance is to simply be stupid. Yet the Bloomberg Editorial Board appears desperate to pretend that there is some important dimension along which the macroeconomy is out of balance. But all they can offer is word-salad:
Bloomberg Editorial Board: Federal Reserve’s Dilemma Is a Nice Problem to Have: ‘A hoped-for soft landing is increasingly plausible, but this won’t make the Fed’s job any easier…. The central bank’s policymakers need to weigh risks and uncertainties that could still upend expectations…. Progress made so far on inflation. The Fed’s preferred… price index… rose 2.9% in December from a year earlier…. For the second half of 2023, core PCE prices went up by just 1.9% at an annual rate, bringing that metric back to the Fed’s 2% target. Even so, it’s too soon to declare victory…. If [the Fed] anticipates too eagerly, and demand does not subside as expected, an overstimulated economy might, even now, overturn the central bank’s apparent victory over inflation… <https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-01-30/federal-reserve-s-dilemma-on-interest-rates-and-the-economy?srnd=opinion>