Introduction

Bradley Lynch of the SadleyItsBradley YouTube channel hosted my presentation about CES 2023. The video was recorded about a week after CES, but it took a few weeks to edit and upload everything. There are over 2 hours of Brad and me talking about things we saw at CES 2023.

Brad was doing his usual YouTube content: fully editing the video, improving the visual content, and breaking the video down into small chunks. But it took Brad weeks to get 3 “sub videos” (part 1, part 2, and part 3) posted while continuing to release his own content. Realizing that it would take a very long time at this rate, Brad released part 4 with the rest of the recording session with only light editing as a single 1-hour and 44-minute video with chapters.

For those that follow news about AR and VR, Brad got involved in a controversy with his leaks of information about the Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 3. The controversy occurred between the recording and the release of the videos, so I felt I should comment on the issue.

Videos let me cover many more companies

This blog has become highly recognized in the AR/MR community, and I have many more companies wanting me to write about their technology than I have the time. I also want to do in-depth articles, including major through-the-optics studies on “interesting” AR/MR devices.

I have been experimenting with ways to get more content out quicker. I can spend from 3 days to up to 2 months (such as the rest of the Meta Quest Pro series yet to be published) working on a single article about a technology or product. With CES and the AR/VR/MR conference only 3 weeks apart and meeting with about 20 companies at each conference.

In the past, I only had time to write about a few companies that I thought had the most interesting technology. For the CES 2023 video, It took about 3 days to organize the photos and then about 2.5 hours to discuss about 20 companies and their products, or about 5 to 7 minutes per topic (not including all the time spent by Brad doing the video editing).

I liked working with Brad; we hope to do videos together in the future; he is fun to talk to and adds a different perspective with his deep background in VR. But in retrospect, less than half of what we discussed fits with his primary VR audience.

Working on summary articles for CES and the SPIE AR/VR/MR conference

Over 2 hours of Brad and I discussing over 20 companies and various other subjects and opinions about the AR, VR, and MR technology and industry is a lot for people to go through. Additionally, the CES video was shot in one sitting non-stop. Unfortunately, my dog friends decided they wanted to see me in my closed office door closed and barked much more than I realized as I was focused on the presentation (I should have stopped the recording and quieted them down).

I’m working on a “quick take” summary guide with pictures from the video and some comments and corrections/updates. I expect to break the guide into several parts based on broad topics. It might take a few days before this guide gets published as there is so much material.

Assuming the CES quick take guide goes well, I plan to follow up with my quick takes on the AR/VR/MR conference. I’m also looking at recording a discussion at the AR/VR/MR conference that will likely be published on the KGOnTech YouTube channel.

Links to the Various Sections of the Video

Below is a list of topics with links for the four videos.

SadlyItsBradley’s Meta Leaks Controversy

Between the time of recording the CES 2023 video with Brad and the videos being released, there was some controversy involving Brad and Meta that I felt should be addressed because of my work with Brad.

Brad Lynch made national news when the Verge reported that Meta had caught Brad’s source for the Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 3 information and diagrams. Perhaps ironically, the source for the Verge article was a leaked memo by Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth (who goes by Boz). According to The Verge, “In his post to Meta employees, Bosworth confirmed that the unnamed leaker was paid a small sum for sharing the materials with Lynch.“

From what was written in The Verge article and Brad’s subsequent Twitter statement, it seems clear that Brad didn’t know that in journalism is considered unethical “checkbook journalism” to pay a source. It is one of those gray areas where, as I understand it (and not legal advice), it is not illegal unless the reporter is soliciting the leak. At the same time, if I knew Brad was going to pay a source, I would have advised him not to do it.

It is nice to know that news media that will out and out lie, distort, hide key information, and report as true information from highly biased named and unnamed sources still has one slim ethical pillar: leaks are our life’s blood but don’t get caught paying for one. It is no wonder public trust in the news media is so low.

The above said, and to be clear, I never have and would never pay a source or encourage anyone to leak confidential content. I also don’t think it was fair or right for a person under NDA to leak sensitive information except in cases of illegal or dangerous activity by the company.

KGOnTech (My) Stance on Confidentiality

Unless under contract with a significant sum of money, I won’t sign an NDA, as it means taking on a legal and, thus, financial risk. At the same time, when I meet privately with companies, I treat information and material as confidential, even if it is not marked as such, unless they want me to release it. I’m constantly asking companies, “what of this can I write about.”

My principle is that I never want to be responsible for hurting someone that shared information with me. And as stated above, I would never encourage, no less pay someone to break a confidence. If someone shares information with me to publish, I always try to know if they want their name to be public as I don’t want to either get them in trouble or take credit for their effort.

Closing

That’s it for this article. I’ve got to finish my quick take summaries on CES and the AR/VR/MR conference.