best day ever @VictoriasSecret

$ASTS - Berenberg's Note From This Morning... Berenberg gets it! "With regard to the impact of this on AST SpaceMobile (ASTS), our early take is that it will make the company's technology and carrier-aligned approach more strategically relevant." "A central argument of our initiation was that SpaceX was positioning to compete with carriers by becoming one itself, leaving ASTS as the natural satellite partner for operators, and this week's announcements are consistent with that view. ASTS is the only D2D operator whose technology enables broadband service to existing devices and whose model is to partner with carriers, and the carriers' joint venture, which was formalised last week, offers them a vehicle to back that approach. We think that the decision by SpaceX to build its own network raises ASTS's strategic value." H/T: @Elkathrina

American operators hold ~1,000 MHz of low and mid band spectrum, tunable on the @AST_SpaceMobile network. With our current satellites in orbit and in build, our United States partners will access critical low-band and mid-band spectrum that no one can match! When combined with the mobile network operators' extensive spectrum assets, and in combination with AST SpaceMobile controlled 45 MHz of L-band spectrum, users will see peak data rates of nearly 200 Mbps from the largest-ever satellites in low Earth orbit. Together we are making the strongest, most resilient, AI ready networks in the planet. 🇺🇸 🌎📶📱🤠

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I'm having a Meta hangover. Realizing that I was wrong to be excited at all about its new "VR Glasses." I predict another sales disaster is coming. And it isn't just because of all the people who keep telling me "I'm not wearing glasses." I'm on a podcast with @SadlyItsBradley, @ASychov, and @Shodah10 talking about this and that made me realize that I am just wrong about being excited about Meta. Which will be up this weekend. Bradley has long been in the VR/AR space and Artur and Shodah run a VR headset and metaverse company. So quite a bit of expertise. They all are far more critical than I was with my first impressions. And they aren't alone. I've been talking to quite a few nerds in San Francisco and they just show no excitement about these devices. And it honestly doesn't get close to the software experience, and content, of the Apple Vision Pro on a number of different levels. The crappy avatars in Meta, when compared with Apple's, which are full AI/gaussian splats, is one signal that Meta just isn't aiming at the right thing. I said "the Holodeck is here" but on a more critical look, no, they aren't even close. To get us to the Holodeck we need far more impressive AI than Meta Muse has to offer us today. World Models, like what you are seeing @theworldlabs or @odysseyml or others like @pixverse showing off. Now if they called them "the ultimate Meta Muse ecosystem/glasses" then I might feel differently. At least then we wouldn't be having fights about the field of view. Because they called them "VR Glasses" instead of "Muse Glasses" VR fans rightfully called out the narrow field of view, which means immersion isn't nearly as interesting as on a bigger VR headset. Calling them VR glasses is a huge mistake. It means we all are comparing it to the Quest 3. But the Quest 3 doesn't have a cord to a puck and has real immersion, which these really don't. But is is @alexandr_wang's post about its new holdable, or maybe wearable, AI device that tells me that vision at Meta is off: xitter.cf/alexandr_wang/status/2… I will leave it to you to do the critical thinking to understand why that's such a bad way to introduce a new surveillance technology into people's lives. Which is what this is. Compare to how Google talks about use cases and utility. Yeah, Google isn't as sexy as having Raybans' brand, but at least Google has a vision for how it will help bring super powers to us and doesn't make us feel dirty about the direction it is going. In its glasses it showed someone getting help fixing a bicycle. Utility and use cases that give us super human powers will be a lot better way to get people into this new world. Meta did a good job with its auto glasses, that can help people who are hard of hearing hear better. It should have had a bunch more use cases to show off why we need all these things. It just all misses that there is a new consumer that is unsatisfied. Ones that use AI all day long to run their lives and businesses. I could go on for hours (we did on the show which should be up by Sunday night), but I'll stop here. I'm sorry for getting overly excited, which is what I do. I try to be optimistic about new things, and it's clear that this company doesn't have good vision for where we are going over the next decade. Which leaves a HUGE opening for not just the Chinese (ByteDance and Pico are working on devices that are far more AI-centric and far more open than these) but both startups (several are arriving over the next few months) and companies like OpenAI who will focus on what AI can do for you, rather than showing off a cute mascot shaking its ass at us. And I'm a lot more excited about the AI that an American Company @getVITURE is bringing by the end of the year. I should listen more to the feedback from you all who say you don't want these devices. And I should have paid more attention to the fact that the software in these just isn't good enough to take us into an AI world, which is why they didn't let attendees at its own developer conference this week really get a good try of them. I know that sometime in the next decade you'll probably change your mind, but not yet. And the devices that really bring AI's promise of bringing us super powers aren't here yet, and this week didn't change that, so I can't recommend you buy these yet unless you are a developer or an extreme early adopter. Even then. If I had listened, I wouldn't have a Meta hangover today.

We are cooking the most AI first platform for AR glasses on SPECS with a thoughtful integration of AI at the OS level that balances access without relying on pretending AI agents are humans and letting them drive interfaces that are meant for humans. More on that soon.

The @specs team working with CLAD and @ChatGPT Astra this week.

Meet SPECS Intelligence. It knows what’s important to you: your people, priorities, and what you’re working toward, so it can anticipate your needs before you have to ask. Get Early Access on Mac + iPhone. No glasses required. specs.com/intelligence

I tested the Meta Display and was pretty underwhelmed. The glasses are light and don’t look too bad. The display is tiny and the wristband / finger gesture UI is just terrible. I love my Quest and Meta Ray Bans but this is a non-starter.

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