Home robots are moving way beyond Roombas. 1X unveiled its NEO helper bot this week, a terrifying $20,000 machine that can perform basic tasks after you’ve trained it, and more complex tasks via teleoperation. In this episode, Devindra and Engadget’s Igor Bonafacic try to figure out why 1X made the Neo look like a murderbot, as well as the future they see for home robots. Also, we discuss last week’s AWS outage and our over-reliance on a single cloud provider, as well as Apple’s rumored push for OLED devices in 2026.
Devindra also what’s with John Gearty, a former Apple Vision Pro engineer, about the state of Apple’s headset and the world of XR.
NVIDIA is the first company in history to hit a $5T market cap – 50:55
OpenAI finishes reorganization that paves path for future IPO – 55:21
U.S. Customs and Border Protection announces plan to photograph non-citizens entering the country for facial recognition – 1:08:45
Around Engadget: Billy Steele’s Echo Studio 2025 review – 1:17:25
Working on – 1:19:39
Pop culture picks – 1:22:07
Credits
Host: Devindra Hardawar Guest: John Gearty Producer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/engadget-podcast-would-you-trust-a-terrifying-home-robot-113000179.html?src=rss
Discover the latest Calibre 8.13 release, featuring enhanced virtual library improvements for a seamless reading experience. Upgrade your digital library today!
Microsoft’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending on September 30 revealed that revenue from the Xbox hardware fell 30 percent year over year.
Worse, in a way, this revenue decline doesn’t reflect any dip in sales caused by the console’s $20 to $70 price hike, since that took effect on October 3 — after this earnings report. (Oh, and Microsoft raised the price for its Game Pass Ultimate subscription from $20 to $30 in October.)
Fortunately, revenue from Xbox content and services, specifically, remained relatively unchanged from the same period last year. That’s the Game Pass component of Microsoft’s gaming business.
When Microsoft started cutting down its global workforce earlier this year, Xbox was hit hard, with the company canceling games, like a modern reimagining of Perfect Dark, and even shutting the Xbox studio working on it.
More broadly, Microsoft’s revenue is up, with CEO Satya Nadella posting a few highlights about the company’s earnings call on X, which mostly focused on AI. He said the company will increase its AI capacity by 80 percent this year.
Just in time for your Halloween nightmares, here comes Neo. From California-based AI and robotics company 1X, it’s designed to deal with everyday chores and tasks.
But not out of the box. At launch, it’ll be able to open doors, fetch items and turn lights on and off. More complicated tasks will require a human teleoperator to control the robot remotely, training the Neo to repeat the task. Horror movie premise? Tick.
1X CEO Bernt Børnich explained that the AI neural network inside the Neo has to learn from more real-world experiences. To do so, buyers will have to agree to a human operator seeing their houses through the robot’s camera, judging their cleanliness levels and interior decor decisions. (Probably.)
Three and a half years since season four of Stranger Things premiered, we get a true trailer for the fifth and final season. As Lawrence Bonk notes, it appears that the conclusion of the series will be an action-packed affair, heavy on emotion and light on the type of ’80s humor the show became known for. Poor Will, he’s getting some of the worst of it, again.
The highest-rated devices we reviewed this year in a variety of categories.
Halloween is almost over, so it’s time to assess the entire year, buy holiday presents and generally pretend there aren’t two whole months before the end of 2025. So we have compiled a list of the best gear we reviewed this year based on the highest review scores in each category. From Pixel to iPad and Switch 2 to Sony WH-1000XM6, our reviews team has spent thousands of hours testing new products this year to discover the best of the best. These are those! I ended up buying five of them — is that enough to keep my job?
If you’re a former Mint user (RIP), Monarch Money is a great alternative. Monarch has a steeper learning curve than some other budget trackers, but it offers a great deal of customization and granularity, which outweighs the complexity. If you use the code MONARCHVIP at checkout, you can get an annual plan for 50 percent off. Some caveats, though: The discount is only for new users, and you can’t combine it with other offers. The code only works when you sign up through the web.
Welcome to Edition 8.17 of the Rocket Report! Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of the first crewed launch to the International Space Station, on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur. Since this time humans have lived in space continuously, even through spacecraft accidents and wars on Earth. This is a remarkable milestone that all of humanity can celebrate.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Skyroot nearing first launch with big ambitions. Three years after India opened up its space sector to private companies, Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace is targeting its first full-scale commercial satellite launch mission in January 2026, Mint reports. After this debut flight, Skyroot is targeting a launch every three months next year, and one every month from 2027. Each satellite launch mission is expected to generate the company nearly $5 million, according to Skyroot chief executive Pawan Chandana.
Thief’s first ground-up VR game finally has a release date, bringing its immersive stealth-action to all major VR headsets on December 4th.
Developed by Maze Theory and published by Vertigo Games, Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow arms you with a bow, a black jack, and some requisite sticky fingers, as you sneak past (or wallop) hulking guards on your way to treasures within.
In the stealthy boots of ‘Magpie’, a cunning thief orphaned by Baron Northcrest and shaped by the streets, you steal and evade the City’s forces as you discover the mystery behind an ancient artifact with a powerful legacy.
We went hands-on with Thief VR: Legacy of Shadowlast month, and it appears to be everything promised on the tin. From our hour-long gameplay session, it focuses on multi-step, nestled objectives, all of them peppered with stealth interactions along the way.
What’s more, everything is built from the ground-up with VR immersion in mind, from scaling buildings and sneaking around hulking armored guards, to the sort of smartly designed object interaction you’d expect from a VR-native.
You can find Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow on the Horizon Store for Quest 2 and above, the PlayStation Store for PSVR 2, and Steam for PC VR headsets. It’s currently available for pre-order for $27, a 10% discount off the $30 launch price.
The Toronto Blue Jays have taken the lead in the 2025 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Fall Classic returns to Toronto’s home turf for Game 6 tonight — Friday, Oct. 31 — at 8PM ET/5PM PT. The World Series odds still favor the Dodgers ahead of tonight’s game, meaning we may very well make it to a Game 7. Every 2025 MLB World Series game will air on Fox and Fox Deportes.
Of course, Fox is a “free” over-the-air channel, so any affordable digital antenna will pull in the game if you live close enough to a local affiliate. But if that’s not an option, here’s a full rundown of how to watch the Dodgers vs. Blue Jays World Series, even without cable.
How to watch the L.A. Dodgers vs. Toronto Blue Jays, Game 6
You can stream Fox on any live TV streaming service that airs Fox local stations, including DirecTV, Fubo and Hulu + Live TV. MLB World Series games will also be available on Fox’s new streaming platform, Fox One.
More ways to watch the 2025 World Series
How to watch the MLB World Series from Canada:
When is the Dodgers vs. Blue Jays game time?
Game 6 of the Dodgers vs. Blue Jays World Series is tonight, Oct. 31 at 8PM ET/5PM PT.
What channel is playing the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Toronto Blue Jays?
Game 6 of the World Series between the Dodgers and Blue Jays is scheduled for Oct. 31, 2025.
Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Toronto Blue Jays World Series schedule
All times Eastern.
Game 6: Friday, Oct. 31, 8PM ET
Game 7*: Saturday, Nov. 1, 8PM ET
*if necessary
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/dodgers-vs-blue-jays-game-6-tonight-how-to-watch-the-2025-mlb-world-series-without-cable-102530438.html?src=rss
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: It is known in the scientific community that if you have a self-sustained oscillation, such as an arteriole, and you add an external stimulus at a similar but not identical frequency, you can lock the two, meaning you can shift the frequency of the oscillator to that of the external stimulus. In fact, it has been shown that if you connect two clocks, they will eventually synchronize their ticking. Distinguished Professor of Physics and Neurobiology David Kleinfeld found that if he applied an external stimulus to a neuron, the entire vasculature would lock at the same frequency. However, if he stimulated two sets of neurons at two different frequencies, something unexpected happened: some arterioles would lock at one frequency and others would lock at another frequency, forming a staircase effect.
Searching for an explanation, Kleinfeld enlisted the help of his colleague, Professor of Physics Massimo Vergassola, who specializes in understanding the physics of living systems, and then recruited Ecole Normale Superieure graduate student Marie Sellier-Prono and Senior Researcher at the Institute for Complex Systems Massimo Cencini. Together, the researchers found they could use a classical model of coupled oscillators with an intestinal twist. The gut oscillates naturally due to peristalsis — the contracting and relaxing of muscles in the digestive tract — and provided a simplified model over the complex network of blood vessels in the brain. The intestine is unidirectional, meaning frequencies shift in one direction in a gradient from higher to lower. This is what enables food to move in one direction from the beginning of the small intestine to the end of the large intestine.
“Coupled oscillators talk to each other and each section of the intestine is an oscillator that talks to the other sections near it,” stated Vergassola. “Normally, coupled oscillators are studied in a homogeneous setting, meaning all the oscillators are at more or less similar frequencies. In our case, the oscillators were more varied, just as in the intestine and the brain.” In studying the coupled oscillators in the gut, past researchers observed that there is indeed a staircase effect where similar frequencies lock onto those around it, allowing for the rhythmic movement of food through the digestive tract. But the height of the rises or breaks, the length of the stair runs or frequencies, and the conditions under which the staircase phenomenon occurred — essential features of biological systems — was something which had not been determined until now. The findings have been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Originally released on PSVR 2 and PC VR earlier this year, Arken Age (2025) is now available on Quest 3, bringing some of the most immersive and engaging single-player action we’ve experienced in 2025.
Back in August, developer VitruviusVR announced the single-player, combat-focused adventure was coming to Quest 3 and Quest 3S sometime in November. But it got a release date bump, which means it’s actually now available on the standalone platform.
Arken Age is one of those highly-polished games that understands VR design from the get-go, seemingly drawing inspiration from some of the best, offering up shades of Stormland (2019) and Lone Echo (2017) to boot.
While we haven’t popped into the Quest port yet, early user reviews are however promising. Many reviewers laud it for its immersive combat, well-realized visuals, and mature VR mechanics—everything we knew it had in the first place, but reassuring to hear from first-time players on Quest.
The game currently sits at a [4.9/5] user score at this early date, which only accounts for 68 user reviews at the time of this writing.
House of Golf makes a golf wager: You don’t need to leave the house for mini golf; you’ve already got all the obstacles and fun you need at home.
It’s ambitious in its vision. Reality is a few strokes short.
Sink a putt in your kitchen sink
I’m enamored by the prospect of setting up a bespoke mini golf course that traverses the nuanced wrinkles of my home.
I knew immediately I’d want a hole where I have to bounce the ball around all four walls of my kitchen like an extremely sophisticated billiards shot. Then a hole where I navigate around the dining room table, and then a hole with a ramp to land the ball in my dog’s daybed. After a few hours I had something workable. I even improved upon my vision for the dining room table course by mapping a series of construction cranes:
Yet, actually producing the course is finicky.
I can readily come up with imaginative ideas; it’s difficult to make them click, the way Lego pieces all perfectly and reliably connect. House of Golf doesn’t allow you to magnetically snap pieces together or to a grid. Too often, ball collisions produce unpredictable outcomes.
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I wound up forfeiting my desired billiards-style hole in the kitchen: in order to leverage my apartment’s entire floor plan, I’d need to disable Meta’s roomscale boundary (it’s a “roomscale” boundary, not an “apartmentscale” one after all). But with the boundary turned off, House of Golf can’t recognize and play against the headset’s visualization and memory of my IRL obstacles. I gave up my kitchen so that I wouldn’t need to manually place House of Golf obstacles along every wall of my living & dining rooms.
Successful course design requires careful playtesting, which is fun but regularly just as tedious. I quickly envisioned how I’d want my ramp-into-the-daybed to work. However, the time it takes to get the launch angle & distance just right, and to lay down all the necessary barriers and scaffolding to dummy-proof missed shots, easily dwarfs the time needed to set up the core concept.
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The more fundamental challenge is: While it’s fun to design a course myself, and very satisfying to make the connecting pieces work, I’m jaded by the time I’m ready to play the course I’ve just rigorously tested. I already know all its tricks.
Will House of Golf support a second player with shared object permanence? I’ve waxed on about this previously in coverage of Track Craft and Table Troopers: One of the delights of VR is sharing a fantastic world superimposed on the real one with a friend. It’d be immensely fun to invite a friend over to putt across my home as everyday objects become ridiculous obstacles.
And yet, that same fundamental design challenge looms large: I’ll have the upper hand on any course I’ve designed and already rigorously tested myself.
VR Mode: Full of traps & hazards
Walkabout Mini Golf is the gold standard for VR mini golf. The obvious question: can House of Golf compete? The short answer: not on curated courses.
In VR Mode, House of Golf offers a series of themed 6-hole courses you unlock by scoring par or better on the prior course.
And as expected, each hole is wacky and leverages features & physics impossible in the real world…
Yet, after even a few holes, the shortcomings loom large. Walkabout has a magic button where pulling the trigger on your controller teleports you right to where you need to be to hit your next shot. House of Golf has the same button but it takes a few seconds to load, and the accuracy is far inferior. Very often I have to rely on the aim & click teleportation system that’s common across many VR games – functional, but far short of delightful.
I’m less confident in the ball physics than I’d really like. There’s some relief in the form of a mulligan/do-over button. Still, it can sometimes be trivially (and frustratingly) easy to land a shot out of bounds, tanking your progress towards the tournament trophy you need to unlock House of Golf’s full suite of curated courses and custom balls.
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Courses don’t ooze the gestalt and delight of the magical new worlds you might visit in a VR game. You’re regularly just dropped in a facsimile living room or garage.
For VR Mode, the creative quality bar has to be higher before I can get enthusiastic about getting my par lower.
Should you tee off?
If you love Rube Goldberg machines or house-spanning Hot Wheels courses, or you’re amassing a library of different MR looks for your house, House of Golf is worth your time. If you’re a Walkabout zealot who’s collected every course, treat this like an extension of your library from an indie developer. Just don’t expect it to replace Walkabout – at least not yet.
House of Golf VR is out now on the Meta Quest platform.
Colnago has returned to track cycling after an absence of seven years with the new T1Rs, which it describes as its “most aerodynamic bike ever”.
The T1Rs will debut this weekend at the UCI’s London 3 Day racing event taking place at Lee Valley Velodrome. Eagle-eyed attendees will be able to see how the new bike references Colnago’s TT1 time trial bike and Y1Rs aero bike, which it claimed to be faster than any other bike on the market, when it launched in December last year.
However, Colnago says the engineering solutions behind its first track bike since the K.one have been “developed and pushed to the extreme”, in terms of aerodynamics and stiffness, without the constraints imposed by road cycling (such as brakes and gears).
Optimised for high, high speeds
The bike is said to deliver peak performance over 60kph. Colnago
Colango says the T1Rs delivers peak performance at speeds of over 60kph and has a lower drag coefficient at higher speeds compared to ‘traditional’ designs.
The means airflow around the bike is “cleaner and more stable, allowing the bike to maintain its velocity with exceptional efficiency”.
At the front of the bike, the dual-crown fork, adapted from the TT1, is said to minimise drag without compromising stiffness or control. Colnago adds that the fully-integrated stem ensures “seamless airflow from the handlebar to the frame.”
The rear triangle of T1Rs is adapted from the Y1Rs and has bulged chainstays designed to smooth airflow transitions and reduce turbulence around the drivetrain. The aero-shaped dropouts are ‘ultra-narrow’ to further optimise the passage of air.
The bike also fits narrow hubs (65mm at the front and 100mm at the rear) to reduce the frontal area.
Colnago says these features create a “unified aerodynamic system” that’s “engineered not only to reduce resistance, but to deliver stability, precision, and pure speed where it matters most”.
While bikes such as Team GB’s Hope HB.T and the Look P24 have remarkably wide forks and seatstays, Colnago opted to keep the profile of the T1Rs narrow.
It says it evaluated a wide design but decided to stay narrow to enable air to pass around the bike, adding that wide or narrow designs work, but that bikes that are in the ‘middle’ are not as effective.
Elsewhere, the bike has clearance for 28mm tyres and can fit chainrings with as many as 72 teeth.
Frame stiffness
Sections of the bike have internal ribs to ensure stiffness. Colnago
As well as optimising the T1Rs for high speed, Colnago has designed its latest bike to withstand the power of track cyclists.
By connecting the stem and cockpit to the fork blades, the dual-crown fork layout is said to increase torsional stiffness at the front of the bike.
The bike’s rear triangle is compact for “exceptional lateral stiffness”. This also opens up further benefits: the stiffness allows for a narrower Q-factor to keep the rider’s feet closer together for improved pedalling efficiency and a more aerodynamic profile.
Meanwhile, the deep chainstays, dropouts and seatstays are said to be designed to cope with the high torque track cyclists produce when starting races and accelerating.
Stiffness is also aided by a “track-specific carbon layup” with high-strength and high-modulus fibres.
Colnago uses PP mandrels during the carbon layup process to add internal rib structures in the seatpost, bottom bracket area and fork crown. These internal structures are said to “ensure optimal stiffness despite the use of aerodynamic tube profiles”.
The oversized T47 bottom bracket, combined with the reinforced seat tube, is said to reduce torsional stiffness during sprints, in and out of the saddle.
Cockpit options for different track disciplines
The bike can be fitted with either the SR-Track stem or the TT-Track cockpit. Colnago
Colnago has designed the bike with a set of cockpit variations for different track disciplines.
The SR-Track stem for sprint and endurance events, such as the keirin, is compatible with a standard 31.8mm handlebar, while the T-shaped structure and its dual-bolt clamping system are designed for maximum torsional stiffness.
Because this is track racing, the SR-Track stem is only available in some pretty aggressive sizes. There are three lengths – 125mm, 150mm and 175mm – with a negative rise of -6.5˚, and the maximum stack height is only 20mm.
For time trial and pursuit events, the T1Rs can be fitted with the TT-Track cockpit. This consists of a monocoque carbon stem and base bar unit that’s 38cm wide with a -17mm stack at the hoods. The column base has a reach of 93mm and a stack of 25mm, relative to the frame.
The TT-Track can be fitted with modular aero extensions for multiple hand positions and optimised ergonomics.
Geometry for different disciplines, too
In a size large, the bike is just under the maximum length allowed by UCI regulations. Colnago
The T1Rs is available in three sizes – small, medium and large – with geometry to match the specific demands of different track races.
Colnago says the reach and stack ratio is developed to match the needs of pursuit riders, while the low-stack cockpit enables a tucked position.
For endurance and sprint races, the T1Rs has an extended reach, with the bike almost hitting the UCI length limit in a size large.
“For this reason, the steering angle and fork rake of the T1Rs have been carefully tuned to provide high stability and precise control, even during sharp and rapid directional changes,” Colnago explains.
How much does the T1Rs cost?
The UCI recently announced it will cap the price of track bikes for the 2028 LA Olympic Games, in a bid to stop the spiralling costs of these hyper-specialised machines.
While the UCI hasn’t released any specific figures yet, we can be pretty certain Colnago’s T1Rs track bike will fall below the price cap, with a frame kit costing €6,500.
The T1Rs frame kit includes the frame, fork, seatpost, saddle clamp and small parts, with the cockpit components available separately. The SR-Track stem costs €250, while the TT-Track basebar costs €320 and the adjustable extension kit costs €270.
Colnago says this is intentional. It wants people to buy its track bike and ride it.
It also hopes the T1Rs will be raced at the LA Olympics, even if professional riders customise the ‘platform’ with their own cockpits and saddles. However, Colnago will need to find a national team for this hope to become a reality.
schwit1 shares a report from Behind the Black: SpaceX is going to land this spaceship manned on the Moon, whether or not NASA’s SLS and Orion are ready. And even if those expensive, cumbersome, and poorly designed boondoggles are ready for those first two Artemis landings, SpaceX is likely to quickly outmatch them with numerous other private missions to the Moon, outside of NASA. It has the funds to do it, and it knows it has the customers willing to buy the flights. The news comes from a detailed update SpaceX released today on the Starship lunar lander. Here’s the section where SpaceX “made it clear that it sees Starship and Superheavy as its own space effort, irrelevant of NASA”: “To return Americans to the Moon, SpaceX aligned Starship development along two paths: development of the core Starship system and supporting infrastructure, including production facilities, test facilities, and launch sites — which SpaceX is self-funding representing over 90% of system costs — and development of the HLS-specific Starship configuration, which leverages and modifies the core vehicle capability to support NASA’s requirements for landing crew on and returning them from the Moon. SpaceX is working under a fixed-price contract with NASA, ensuring that the company is only paid after the successful completion of progress milestones, and American taxpayers are not on the hook for increased SpaceX costs. SpaceX provides significant insight to NASA at every stage of the development process along both paths, including access to flight data from missions not funded under the HLS contract.
Both pathways are necessary and made possible by SpaceX’s substantial self-investments to enable the high-rate production, launch, and test of Starship for missions to the Moon and other purposes. Starship will bring the United States back to the Moon before any other nation and it will enable sustainable lunar operations by being fully and rapidly reusable, cost-effective, and capable of high frequency lunar missions with more than 100 tons of cargo capacity.”
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Someone recently managed to get on a Microsoft Teams call with representatives from phone hacking company Cellebrite, and then leaked a screenshot of the company’s capabilities against many Google Pixel phones, according to a forum post about the leak and 404 Media’s review of the material. The leak follows others obtained and verified by 404 Media over the last 18 months. Those leaks impacted both Cellebrite and its competitor Grayshift, now owned by Magnet Forensics. Both companies constantly hunt for techniques to unlock phones law enforcement have physical access to.
“You can Teams meeting with them. They tell everything. Still cannot extract esim on Pixel. Ask anything,” a user called rogueFed wrote on the GrapheneOS forum on Wednesday, speaking about what they learned about Cellebrite capabilities. GrapheneOS is a security- and privacy-focused Android-based operating system. rogueFed then posted two screenshots of the Microsoft Teams call. The first was a Cellebrite Support Matrix, which lays out whether the company’s tech can, or can’t, unlock certain phones and under what conditions. The second screenshot was of a Cellebrite employee. According to another of rogueFed’s posts, the meeting took place in October. The meeting appears to have been a sales call. The employee is a “pre sales expert,” according to a profile available online.
The Support Matrix is focused on modern Google Pixel devices, including the Pixel 9 series. The screenshot does not include details on the Pixel 10, which is Google’s latest device. It discusses Cellebrite’s capabilities regarding ‘before first unlock’, or BFU, when a piece of phone unlocking tech tries to open a device before someone has typed in the phone’s passcode for the first time since being turned on. It also shows Cellebrite’s capabilities against after first unlock, or AFU, devices. The Support Matrix also shows Cellebrite’s capabilities against Pixel devices running GrapheneOS, with some differences between phones running that operating system and stock Android. Cellebrite does support, for example, Pixel 9 devices BFU. Meanwhile the screenshot indicates Cellebrite cannot unlock Pixel 9 devices running GrapheneOS BFU. In their forum post, rogueFed wrote that the “meeting focused specific on GrapheneOS bypass capability.” They added “very fresh info more coming.”
LILYGO’s T-Echo Plus is a compact, battery-powered smart tag designed for wireless telemetry, motion tracking, and geolocation. It combines LoRa communication, GNSS positioning, Bluetooth Mesh, and a 6-axis IMU in an enclosure with both vibration and visual feedback, aiming to support mobile, field-deployed, or remote monitoring applications. The device uses the nRF52840 SoC from Nordic […]
Meta Reality Labs has been restructured, Business Insider reports, moving Horizon OS out of “Metaverse” and into its own top-level group.
Previously, the top-level groups within Meta’s Reality Labs division were “Metaverse” and “Wearables”.
Quest headsets, their Horizon OS platform, and first party software like Horizon Worlds were all under the Metaverse group. while Wearables handles the Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses, research and development of true AR glasses, and the Meta Neural Band.
Business Insider’s report suggests that Horizon OS has now been moved out of Metaverse into its own top-level group,
Vishal Shah, who led the Metaverse group, has moved to a new role at Meta Superintelligence Labs, the company’s AI division.
The Horizon OS group will continue to be led by Ryan Cairns, who succeeded Mark Rabkin earlier this year.
The report also includes three internal Meta memos, including one from CTO Andrew Bosworth to Reality Labs.
“The priority of the metaverse work remains unchanged, and it continues to be a companywide priority,” Bosworth said in his memo. “We’ve proved our thesis to the industry, and we continue to see competitors enter this space to try and catch up to us, so we need to continue to press our hard-earned advantage.”
I hope you’ve had time to read Vishal’s update about him taking on a new role in MSL leading product and cross-company integrations on the Products and Applied Research Team. I’m pleased that he will oversee the integration of personal superintelligence with FoA and RL’s portfolio. I’m confident that his deep expertise and experience with RL will accelerate our work.
It is thanks to Vishal’s leadership for the last four years that we find ourselves well-equipped 1 deliver on our vision and strategy. We already have the right leadership and team in place.
Gabriel Aul will step in to lead the Metaverse PG. Metaverse will continue to focus on creating high-quality experiences for both VR and mobile. Jason Rubin, Samantha Ryan, and Thamara Sekhar will move to report to Gabe. We will also welcome a new leader, Saxs Person, to lead the Horizon Experiences team under Gabe.
Ryan Cairns will continue to lead Horizon OS which will become an org-level PG, and he’ll report directly to me. The Horizon OS charter and reporting structure remain unchanged. They will continue to focus on building quality hardware and software for the metaverse, especially ahead of our big launches and exciting VR roadmap. Metaverse and Horizon OS will continue to work closely together to ensure an integrated product experience across our devices and platforms. Gabe’s and Ryan’s posts will have more on this, and you can ask me more questions during Tuesdays with Boz tomorrow.
The priority of the metaverse work remains unchanged and it continues to be a companywide priority. We’ve proved our thesis to the industry and we continue to see competitors enter this space to try and catch up to us, so we need to continue to press our hard-earned advantage.
VR is evolving beyond its roots in gaming to become a broader platform for entertainment, productivity, and connection as we deepen our Al and general compute capabilities. Mobile is starting to attract young social gamers at a greater scale and our Al creation tools are accelerating world-building to create the flywheel. We have the right team and strategy in place and now we need to focus on execution.
Interestingly, the separation of Horizon OS from “Metaverse” is somewhat mirrored in v83 PTC, which moves worlds out of your App Library into their own separate tab.
The move could reflect Meta’s intention to fully compete with Google’s Android XR, which just launched in Samsung Galaxy XR and is set to arrive on more headsets next year.
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Today’s cutting-edge theory — quantum gravity — suggests that even space and time aren’t fundamental. They emerge from something deeper: pure information. This information exists in what physicists call a Platonic realm — a mathematical foundation more real than the physical universe we experience. It’s from this realm that space and time themselves emerge. “The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them. It has long been hoped, however, that a truly fundamental theory of everything could eventually describe all physical phenomena through computations grounded in these laws. Yet we have demonstrated that this is not possible. A complete and consistent description of reality requires something deeper — a form of understanding known as non-algorithmic understanding.” “We have demonstrated that it is impossible to describe all aspects of physical reality using a computational theory of quantum gravity,” says Dr. Faizal. “Therefore, no physically complete and consistent theory of everything can be derived from computation alone. Rather, it requires a non-algorithmic understanding, which is more fundamental than the computational laws of quantum gravity and therefore more fundamental than spacetime itself.”
“Drawing on mathematical theorems related to incompleteness and indefinability, we demonstrate that a fully consistent and complete description of reality cannot be achieved through computation alone,” explains Dr. Mir Faizal, Adjunct Professor with UBC Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. “It requires non-algorithmic understanding, which by definition is beyond algorithmic computation and therefore cannot be simulated. Hence, this universe cannot be a simulation.”
The findings have been published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics.
