The Morning After: Tim Cook tells a reporter to buy their mom an iPhone
Plus: Sony gets testy with Microsoft, and NVIDIA teases the RTX-40 series.
I think beneath Tim Cook’s deeply reserved, professional aura lies someone who loves a bit of sass. Naturally, as the CEO of Apple, Cook needs to present a professional image at all times, but he did let his sense of humor out at the 2022 Code Conference. During a Q&A, a journalist asked about the iPhone’s lack of compatibility with RCS, which meant they couldn’t share video clips with their Android-using mom. Cook said it wasn’t a priority for the company, then joked that the person should “buy your mom an iPhone.”
– Daniel Cooper
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Meta dissolves team responsible for discovering 'potential harms to society' in its own products
Yikes.
A group inside Meta that analyzed potential harms to society caused by Facebook’s products has been shut down. The team consisted of engineers, ethicists and civil rights experts who advised the company’s broader team on potential risks. Meta didn’t explain why the group has closed but said it remained committed to the team’s goals. Of course, given Facebook’s reputation for building products without much consideration of the consequences, this seems like an unwise step. Maybe there should be a team of in-house experts to point out this sort of thing ahead of… ohhhh.
Sony's Jim Ryan says Microsoft's Call of Duty promise was 'inadequate on many levels'
Microsoft promised a deal for three years, Sony wasn’t happy.
As part of the $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has had to make several commitments to ward off antitrust regulators and angry gamers. One of the biggest was to not pull major franchises, like Call of Duty, away from the PlayStation to force people to buy Xboxes. Despite public promises made by Xbox head Phil Spencer, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan isn’t happy. Ryan revealed Microsoft has only promised to keep Call of Duty on the rival platform for a further three years, after which things get a little more uncertain.
NVIDIA to reveal its next-gen GeForce RTX GPUs on September 20th
It’s expected to be the debut for the RTX-40 series.
NVIDIA’s GPU technology conference happens later this month, and the big news is CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote. The company says that at 11 AM ET on September 20th, we’re going to see “the latest breakthroughs in gaming, creating and graphics technology.”
That’s set many tongues wagging. Are we going to see the next generation of Ampere Next-based GPUs in the form of the RTX-40 series? Given the majority of RTX-30 cards are only now entering the market after the crypto bubble burst, it’ll be interesting to see how many of these actually go on sale in the near future.
NASA picks Axiom Space to build the first Artemis moonwalk spacesuits
There will be a new generation of spacesuits for walking on the moon.
NASA has picked Axiom Space to supply the space suits worn when humanity returns to the moon. These new suits will work for a wider range of crew members and offer increased flexibility and more specialized tools for exploration. The lack of appropriate gear was one of the reasons a planned all-woman spacewalk was canceled back in 2019. With a contract in place to provide the suits necessary to walk on the moon, the planned return to our nearest neighbor feels a lot more real. Now NASA just has to get the wagon that’ll take everyone there up and running.
‘The Wrath of Khan’ is getting an official Star Trek podcast prequel
‘Star Trek: Khan – Ceti Alpha V’ will be written and directed by Nicholas Meyer.
A prestige streaming series covering the life of Trek arch-villain Khan Noonien Singh while in exile on Ceti Alpha V has been rescued from development hell and will be turned into a podcast. Star Trek: Khan – Ceti Alpha V will fill in the gap from the end of classic series episode ‘Space Seed’ until the beginning of The Wrath of Khan. More importantly, however, the series will be written and directed by Trek superstar Nicholas Meyer. I’ll be honest, I never expected to get more Trek written by Meyer in my lifetime, and I’m here for it.
