Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has often said that anything that takes attention away from Netflix is his real competition, including Fortnite. Well, Reed my man, last night literally millions of people stared at a nearly black screen for hours and hours on end instead of binging one more episode of The Politician (which is good, by the way). So, yes, consider this real competition.
By the time you read this, Epic may have already revealed the next chapter in Fortnite. Or not! Either way, just think about this flex. There were likely more people staring at that black hole than the majority of cable channels last night. Just fully shutting down one of the most popular games in the world after a season that caused some discontent isn't just a sign of confidence, it's a sign of dominance.
Google is holding its hardware event tomorrow, Tuesday, in New York. I’m here in the city to liveblog it and I hope you’ll follow along. There will be jokes.
- Dieter
+ Fortnite has been down for hours as millions of players stare at a black hole
At one point the official Fortnite Twitter account even deleted all of its tweets, and Epic’s public Trello board, which was used to track in-game issues, similarly went dark. Meanwhile, PlayStation had to issue a statement confirming that the game and all of those V-bucks you spent weren’t gone for good.
+ What to expect from Google’s Pixel 4 hardware event
Google’s big event is tomorrow. Jay Peters runs down everything we’re expecting. I have to admit that I will be sad to retire the ongoing “Today in Pixel 4 leaks” series in this newsletter. It was the gift that kept on giving.
+ Google’s Pixelbook Go laptop leaks in extensive photos
Truly great scoop by 9to5Google. “Hey Google, show me yet another example of a comprehensive and somewhat embarrassing leak.”
+ Is the world ready for virtual graffiti?
Adi Robertson looks at the first major AR graffiti app, built using Google’s Cloud Anchor service that allows virtual objects to have some permanence:
Now imagine a darker world. Members of hate groups gleefully swap pictures of racist tags on civil rights monuments. [...] The developers of Mark AR, an app that’s described as “the world’s first augmented reality social platform,” are trying to create the good version of this system. They’re still figuring out how to avoid the bad one.
+ You don’t have to climb a ladder to change your Nest smoke detector’s Wi-Fi anymore
The Nest smoke detector has been one of the bestworst (technical term) products in the last decade. Best idea, worst post-launch issues. There was so much promise here, but it was executed badly. It’s the embarrassing uncle of the Nest lineup: everybody wants to pretend it doesn’t exist, but they have to keep inviting it to holidays because it’s family.
Let’s hope Nest’s next products fare better.
+ Microsoft has put dedicated Office and emoji keys on its new keyboards
I think the Office button is dumb but the emoji button is lowkey genius.
+ Asus ZenBook Pro Duo review: two-screen dream
Chaim Gartenberg is not a member of the Keyboard In The Front club, but he is on team Try Weird Things With Screens. I had hoped this first effort would be better.
But the ZenBook Pro Duo did sell me on the idea of a second display on a laptop, even if it doesn’t quite manage the execution just yet. It’s a first-generation product of a radical new way to use a computer — so of course Asus doesn’t have all of the pieces solved just yet
+ You can now speak to Alexa in Spanish
I’m glad to see Amazon do this. Intelligent Assistants aren’t inclusive enough. The future is (hopefully) multi-lingual households, and it’s past time smart speakers got better at it.
+ Nomad’s Base Station Pro wireless charger looks to succeed where AirPower failed
It’s very easy to say “Ha Ha they did what Apple couldn’t with AirPower.” And yes, I will gladly chuckle along with you. But then again, maxing out at 5W isn’t especially impressive. I don’t know for a fact that AirPower was more ambitious than what is happening with this thing, but I suspect it was. And that, honestly, was the heart of the problem: Apple assumed it could do it.
+ Why so many companies bailed on Facebook’s Libra project at once
Russell Brandom helps explain the remarkable thing that happened Friday night: a ton of companies bailed on Facebook Libra. It was a kind of Friday night news dump, but the company that got dumped on for once was Facebook. (Disclosure, my wife works for Oculus, a division of Facebook.)
This group of companies had particular reason to get cold feet. With the exception of eBay, they’re all payment processors, which means they have specific regulatory requirements dealing with fraud, money laundering and sanctions enforcement. Governments were starting to realize that Libra might make it hard to meet those requirements — and payment processors in particular would end up on the hook.
+ Why macOS Catalina is breaking so many apps, and what to do about it
Nick Statt on the app compatibility problems in macOS Catalina. It’s more than you think:
Over at The Tape Drive, Apple blogger Steve Moser has compiled a list of 235 apps and counting that aren’t supported in Catalina. That includes some versions of Transmit, 1Password, QuickBooks, VMWare Fusion, and Parallels.
