Apple Allegedly Working on AR Content for Apple TV+; Facebook Moves Further from Oculus Brand With its AR/VR Division; Palintir Prospectus- Never Profits So Far; Bird Deaths Drop 70% After Painting Wind Generator Blades

Apple is said to be developing augmented reality content for Apple TV+. Cnet.com reports that the move has a couple of goals: stoking interest in AR tech, and attracting more subscribers to the streaming service. Apparently, the AR feature would display elements of a TV show in the room where the viewer is watching it — like a lunar rover traversing the coffee table during For All Mankind, Apple’s alternate-history series about the space race of the 1960s. Apple has been moving to roll out a bundled service with one price, putting Apple TV+, Apple Music and the Apple Arcade game platform together in the bundle. The bundle deal could premiere in October. Apple is known to be working on AR glasses, which may be out in 2022, and possibly some AR goggles next year.

Facebook ha taken more steps to distance from the Oculus brand. According to techcrunch.com, they are changing the name of the VR division to ‘Facebook Reality Labs,’ which will cover their AR/
VR products under the Oculus, Spark, and Portal brands. In addition, Oculus Connect, the virtual reality developer conference, is renamed Facebook Connect, and it will be held entirely virtually on September 16th.

According to a prospectus filed with the government in preparation for taking the company public, data mining firm Palantir hasn’t made a profit since it was founded back in 2003. Theverge.com says the company intends to bow with a direct listing rather than selling shares in an IPO. Slack did this last year, and Spotify did it in 2018. According to the S-1 filing, Palantir lost $580 million in 2019, and is $175 million in the red for the 1st half of 2020. The filing further shows the company had 125 customers in the first half of this year, “including some of the largest and most significant institutions in the world,” the filing states, and its software “is used by customers across 36 industries and in more than 150 countries.” They plan to trade on the NY Stock exchange under the symbol PLTR.

No, there’s never been ‘windmill cancer,’ despite the rant of one ill-informed president…but there have been worrisome bird kills over the years. Now, arstechnica.com reports that a little touch of black paint on a single blade of wind turbines drops bird deaths by 70%. This comes from a study from Norway that started in 2013. They apparently found that there is some variation in bird deaths depending on the season…less of them in spring and autumn. The deaths seemed stable in winter, but did increase during summer months. The scientists are looking to do more long term studies in other areas, but this result is encouraging.