Far Out
A 'Hackquisition' That Wasn't • New James Bond? • Microsoft Branding At It Again • NVIDIA at CES • WBD v. Paramount Round 8 • New Lucasfilm Jedi • Dude, XPS is Back • Building AI Robots Is Hard
I was there Gandalf, I was there 3,000 years ago at the dawn of social media. After a drawn out reluctance to use Facebook, once "Web 2.0" hit and I found myself working in tech, I eventually gave in and then fell deep down the rabbit hole of Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, and every other 'r' — Dopplr? And then on to FriendFeed, Foursquare, Instagram, Plurk — oh, you don’t remember Plurk, it’s still around! Yobongo. Color. Path. Peach. Even Google+. They. Just. Kept. Coming. And I kept signing up.
These days, I don’t use social media nearly to the extent that I once did. Part of it is the changing of the networks that remain, part of it is myself changing. I’ve now largely shifted from poster to lurker, still addicted to real-time information, even if it’s increasingly buried under garbage. And I use it to try to put my own words out into the world, despite the current networks no longer preferencing such things.
Anyway, that’s sort of how I view Substack as well these days — and seemingly sort of how they view themselves, with the constant morphing from simple newsletter sending into, all sorts of other things. I’m not interested in most of those things, but I am interested in the network, so that’s how I plan to use it in 2026. Not instead of my actual site and writing, but in addition to it. Like social media.
With that in mind, I’m dusting off my original Spyglass newsletter name, From Afar, and setting it up as a subdomain here. A way to publish links and notes — sort of like asides, back in the OG blogging days — at least until social media shifts again.
I Wrote…
💸 Microsoft’s Would-Have-Been $30B “Hackquisition” of OpenAI
Looking back on a mega deal that never happened, but kicked off the “hackquistion” boom...
🍸 Back to Basics Bond
Is Callum Turner already 007?
🎨 Microsoft 365 XP Copilot 3.11 for Workgroups Office 2024 app
An exciting new low for Microsoft branding...
I Note…
🍪 NVIDIA at CES
There was seemingly a tension bubbling underneath this keynote that was unusual for Jensen Huang’s addresses. Is it because there’s some actual competition entering the space — not just AMD, but Google as well? All the "AI Bubble" talk to end 2025? The short sellers? Huang had almost a defensive tone about the upcoming (but previously announced) 'Vera Rubin' chips, touting not just their efficiency (the main vector of attack against NVIDIA right now) but also the fact that they’re in "full production" on time (unlike the last generation 'Grace Blackwell' chips). Huang is also pushing harder on the narrative that NVIDIA is about more than just GPUs, that they sell full "AI Systems". Given all the custom chips now in development by NVIDIA partners (from Google on down), one has to wonder if NVIDIA won’t one day allow you to 'BYOX' — 'Bring Your Own XPU' for use in their systems. [Wired]
🐲 Warner Bros Discovery’s 8th Rejection of Paramount
That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a fact. And it must be both awkward and infuriating for Paramount, because they clearly believe they’re jumping through every hoop WBD is putting in front of them, only to find one more hoop… The latest is WBD’s stated concerns about the amount of leverage the far smaller Paramount Skydance is relying upon. Paramount has said that Larry Ellison agreeing to fully backstop the deal makes this a non-issue. And round and round we go… Three options left for Paramount: 1) take it to WBD shareholders later this month 2) up the offer 3) walk away. The only real question is if 2 will come before 1, or if Paramount is truly confident that their offer will look superior to those shareholders already. Yes, Versant’s stock has been falling post-spin-out, but that’s more complicated than simply investor sentiment in such assets (involving funds needing to sell as it’s no longer tied to a Fortune 500 entity). I’m still surprised no one is talking about the potential upside in Netflix’s stock as well, though maybe they’re saving that for the inevitable legal battle. Mainly I appreciate that the header on the WBD letter features Daemon Targaryen looming over the boldly worded rejection. That’s one way to send a message. [CNN]
🍿 Dave Filoni Handed Disney’s Lucasfilm Lightsaber
A few weeks later than Matt Belloni originally reported almost a year ago, but pretty spot on: Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down as the head of the studio "in the next week or two," he confirms (they may be waiting on a big exit profile for her). Certainly it seemed like something that needed to happen before Bob Iger himself hands over the reins of Disney itself at some point this year (most likely to Experiences head Josh D’Amaro). No surprise that it’s Filoni, or that he’ll get a more traditional executive, Lynwen Brennan, to partner on the business/management side of rhe house. The next two Star Wars are already locked and loaded — first up, the Filoni-written (alongside director Jon Favreau) and produced The Mandalorian and Grogu in May. But where he goes from there — are the Simon Kinberg movies still on? Where’s Rey? — will be fun to watch. Can we please get some Darth Plagueis resolution? [Puck 🔒]
💻 Dude, Dell is Getting the XPS Brand Back
Exactly one year ago at CES, Dell unveiled their ridiculously bland 'Dell', 'Dell Pro', and 'Dell Pro Max' to replace their ridiculously old 'XPS' computer branding. Now, perhaps taking a page from HBO, they’re reversing course. To be fair, the company owned how ridiculous this backtrack was, literally walking on stage hat-in-hand (with an 'XPS' shirt, no less). To be less fair, the new branding was so convoluted that they didn’t have much of a choice (though it’s apparently sticking around for business customers, who obviously care less about branding). In a way, I’m reminded of the lesson Apple learned with the MacBook Air — if the brand is beloved, don’t mess with it, no matter how out-of-date it may be. My bad? [Verge]
🦾 Building AI Robots is Hard
As it turns out. But this not only matters for Tesla, if you take Elon Musk at his word — and yes, there are reasons you should not do that — it’s the future of the entire company. At least his money is somewhat where his mouth is here — his new $1T comp package has some clearly ambitious Optimus targets. And the highest level goal of turning Tesla into an $8.5T company in the next decade will likely require this business actually working (on top of robotaxis). Everyone knows about the hands issues with these machines, but the bigger issue — at least for factory work — may be in the legs: wheels are far more stable. Also, purpose-built (read: non-humanoid robots) are clearly better suited, at least for now, to such work. Humanoid robots are sort of a "hack" to get them to work in our human-centric world, which makes sense, but are those building them just too enamored with getting the form factor to work for sci-fi bragging rights? Regardless, impossible to read about this project and not think xAI will be a part of Tesla in a couple years, max. [WSJ 🔒]
I Quote…
"I’m sure there’s a lot of people at Meta, including perhaps Alex, who would like me to not tell the world that LLMs basically are a dead end when it comes to superintelligence. But I’m not gonna change my mind because some dude thinks I’m wrong. I’m not wrong. My integrity as a scientist cannot allow me to do this."
— Yann LeCun giving zero fucks about speaking his mind about Meta and their new AI approach, over a boozy lunch with the FT. A lot of fun quotes in this one. I suspect this dynamic will be fun to watch play out over 2026 and beyond…
Asides…
In other humanoid robot news, Google is officially teaming up with their old subsidiary, Boston Dynamic, for Gemini to power their next-gen factory robots. Have I mentioned that I bet that Tesla will merge with xAI? [Wired]
A lot of self-driving/EV car news out of CES:
I sort of like Uber and Lucid leaning into the sensor “halo” on top of their vehicles — will help riders find their’s via light displays. [Verge]
I forgot that Sony was building a car (with Honda) — it’s apparently like a “Sony Entertainment System on wheels”. It’s also very expensive at $90k. Ah, what could have been for Apple… [Verge]
Much closer to production is NVIDIA’s self-driving system, that they’re selling to other car manufacturers, to the point that there are test-drives. And they’re good! Impressive how quickly they seemingly were able to catch up to Tesla’s vision-based method of self-driving. [Verge]
Nike, which previously said "NFW" to its NFT business RTFKT, has a new message: GTFO. [The Oregonian]
The mystery of where Apple designer Abidur Chowdhury, last seen in their keynote video unveiling the iPhone Air, has landed: the new AI lab from Brett Adcock: Hark. Clearly they’re interested in hardware, with a bunch of talent from Apple and Meta joining… [Information 🔒]
HP has crammed an entire computer into a keyboard. Sort of surprised more (beyond Raspberry Pi) haven’t tried this for on-the-go computing. Imagine if Apple did this and it worked with an iPad — instant iPad running macOS! [Verge]
The teaser leaked weeks ago, but it’s worth watching the X-Men-in-Avengers: Doomsday unveil to see Cyclops unleashed in full resolution. [THR]
I Spy…
Is this the foldable screen panel that Apple will be using for the "iPhone Fold"? It sure looks like it could be — as does the fact that Samsung removed the display from their own CES booth with the most "nothing to see here" explanation possible… As you can see in the old vs. new shot below there’s “no visible crease” in the one on the right. Promising!
Great post this New Year! Happy New Year and looking forward to more.