All about spatial video, my upcoming EP, and the search for mid-range PCs
Plus, the history of zip ties, music with Tesla Coils, the new aloneness trend, and the rise of AI boyfriends
I’m David Gewirtz. Welcome to this week’s Advanced Geekery newsletter. It’s been an exciting week. Let’s dive in.
My articles
Let’s kick it off with a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.
How to capture spatial video with the iPhone 15 Pro (there's a trick): Struggling with your iPhone 15 Pro's camera settings? Learn the secret to activating spatial video and transform your recordings instantly.
Get the latest Quest 3 updates early: Here's how to enable Meta's Public Test Feed: Ever wondered how to install Meta's Quest 3 OS releases before anyone else? Are you feeling brave? Here's the secret to accessing the Public Test Feed.
How to watch Apple spatial videos on the Meta Quest 3? It's complicated: iPhone 15 Pro users can transfer spatial videos to Meta's much lower-cost headset. Here's everything you need to make it happen.
My next EP, coming March 12
My next EP, Choices Are Voices, will launch on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and all the other streaming services on March 12.
I had previously announced that the album would drop on February 15, but during my preparation I learned something cool. It turns out that if you upload your music to Spotify and give them a week or two before releasing it to the public, Spotify may include the release in some high profile playlists.
When I launched House of the Head, the Upcoming tab in the Spotify for Artists interface was empty. But once I uploaded the new album with a far-enough future release date, the interface for pitching opened up:
Obviously, I have no idea if they’ll select one of the songs from Choices Are Voices, but it’s certainly worth a try. So that’s the inside story of why I delayed release.
Stay tuned. You’ll be able to listen to Choices Are Voices in just a few weeks. In the meantime, give House of the Head another listen.
Must-watch YouTube
Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.
Zip ties. If you do anything at all in tech, you know how helpful and yet ubiquitous the humble zip tie is amongst all our cables. But do you know its origin story? Watch and learn.
Marques Brownlee takes a look at Sora, the new OpenAI technology for producing generative AI videos. It’s not available for you and me to play with, but the quality is so good it’s game changing. And scary.
Can Tesla Coils make music? This guy plays (with the help of some other instruments) AC/DC’s Thunderstruck (kind of appropriate) on Tesla Coils. It’s a shocking presentation that’ll raise the hairs on the back of your neck.
Interesting reads
Here’s some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth reading.
ZDNET’s Jason Perlow is back with a really interesting look at the availability of mid-range PCs. Read Can anything beat Mac Mini? In search of the elusive mid-range PC desktop in 2024.
Are you less social than you were a few years ago? Apparently, you’re not alone, except when you’re alone. It’s all discussed in Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out.
On a similar vein, Digital Journal discusses, 'Better than a real man': young Chinese women turn to Al boyfriends. Yeah, but an AI won't put up shelves or bring you a cuppa coffee when you ask for one.
Reader projects
I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.
If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.
More clicky
I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:
House of the Head: home for my published music
ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects
Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!
Leave some comments
Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.
That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.
Have a great week!