AutoX takes a questionable lead. Waymo, Baidu (Apollo) and Zoox have fallen way down in the ratings leading me to question whether the analysis of the California DMV data as a measure of autonomous driving has finally passed the end of its useful life. California state law requires that all companies that test in the state report their performance to...
Delay is increasingly the best option. The discussion over which exchange Arm is going to re-list on is increasingly irrelevant as the far more pressing issue is how SoftBank is going to achieve $50bn anywhere under these market conditions. Throughout the entire attempt by Nvidia to acquire Arm, I was of the opinion that the simplest solution for Arm’s ownership...
Elon Musk finally makes a credible prediction. Elon Musk’s prediction that self-driving is “really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero”, is one that I find credible, the problem being, of course, that Tesla shares are already worth a lot of money. Elon Musk made this prediction in an interview with the Tesla...
Turing is not the issue. Meta Platforms has revealed a series of prototypes that it intends to develop into products that will make its Metaverse irresistible to users but I continue to think that hardware and technology are not the real problems that will determine whether the Metaverse takes off. In an uncharacteristically candid media event, Meta showed off a...
Despite the parallels, Klarna is not a re-run of WeWork. At a high level, Klarna looks like a re-run of WeWork although it is a much better company meaning that the only real issue I have is a stratospheric SoftBank-pumped valuation that is now causing great distress. Klarna is now enduring the hangover as it needs more money, but the...
Nothing phone needs to not live up to its name. Another brave soul has decided to have a crack at the highly concentrated and brutally competitive smartphone market which, unless it has something pretty special up its sleeve, is going to end in another expensive disaster (like Essential). Last time around it was Andy Rubin’s start-up called Essential Products (see...
Crypto heads for a deep freeze. The rhetoric around the safe haven and inflation hedging properties of crypto has gone eerily quiet as it transpires that cryptocurrencies are nothing more than speculative assets whose value is impossible to determine. The news gets worse and worse as Bitcoin is now around $21,000 and many of the crypto-related companies are cutting staff...
EV SPACs break down and Geely gets it right. EVs: One down, many more to go EV SPAC Electric Last Mile Solutions (ELMC) has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy indicating that there is no chance of a recovery in what is likely to be the first of many. Chapter 7 is different from Chapter 11 which is a process by...
I don’t think LaMDA is anywhere close to being sentient. Another disagreement between Google and one of its researchers has sparked a big debate on whether AI has become sentient, but all of the evidence that I can see points to the contrary and that AI remains as dumb as ever. This time, the researcher in question is Blake Lemoine...
Richard is founder, owner of research company, Radio Free Mobile. He has 16 years of experience working in sell side equity research. During his 11 year tenure at Nomura Securities, he focused on the equity coverage of the Global Technology sector.
Apple & The Metaverse – Not yet
2023 is too early. Despite feverish speculation, Apple failed to launch a Metaverse device at WWDC 2022 and now speculation has shifted to early 2023 which I continue to think is still much too early. Ming-Chi Kuo, one of the leading lights on Apple device speculation, is now expecting Apple to release an AR device in January 2023 and while...