CONFERENCE

An Empty Congress

Mobile World Congress Barcelona, which takes place every winter, is like Cannes for smartphone geeks. Last year, nearly 110,000 people from 198 countries attended the agenda-setting event for mobile operators, manufacturers, tech vendors, and content studios. 

This year, the show is scheduled to take place from Feb. 24–27 and features the tagline, "Limitless intelligent connectivity." But MWC20 is facing one big snag: coronavirus. 

What's the latest news?

Not good. The show banned attendees from China's Hubei province and will require anyone who's been to China to prove they have been outside the country for 14 days before the event (meaning they'd need to leave China today to make it to MWC).

Chinese companies are central players in the global phone game. Huawei is the world's second largest smartphone manufacturer and largest networking infrastructure provider. But the coronavirus outbreak has virtually ground China's economy to a halt and forced many tech companies to direct their massive workforces to WFH. 

Misery loves companies

As of this morning, Sony and Amazon are out. LG and Ericsson announced last week that they would pull out, citing the coronavirus outbreak. Even though it was one of MWC20's biggest sponsors, Nvidia will not send any employees to the show. Samsung is reportedly scaling back its attendance. And Huawei, ZTE, TCL, Oppo, Vivo, Qualcomm, and Motorola are taking cautionary measures because of the outbreak.

Should the show go on…

...what will the talking points be? Certainly 5G, which you've already heard plenty about from T-Mobile CEO John Legere's sponsored tweets. And U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, nervous about the relationship between Beijing and Huawei, has floated the idea of acquiring a controlling stake in Ericsson or Nokia. 

Big picture: Cutting-edge industry shows are globalized affairs. The people, parts, and tech standards that develop 5G or AI come from all over the place, including China. 

+ While we're here: "A very large number of participants based in China" couldn't come to the AAAI-20 conference currently taking place in NYC.

VENTURE CAPITAL

Vision Fund, Not So Fun

On Friday, the WSJ reported that SoftBank may end up raising less than half of the $108 billion it had planned for Vision Fund 2.

Most investors without "SoftBank" on their business cards have decided to pass on the venture fund. Saudi and Emirati backers have reportedly said any VF2 investment must come from the first Vision Fund's profits. Other purported VF2 backers "aren't likely to invest," sources told the WSJ.

Why they're hesitating: SoftBank's investing prowess has been tested by its massive but floundering bet on coworking company WeWork. And a string of SoftBank-backed companies, including Indian hotel chain Oyo, have recently laid off chunks of their workforces.  

• Some of VF1's emerging tech portfolio companies are performing better. Just last week, U.S. safety officials cleared Nuro, which received $940 million from SoftBank, to deploy up to 5,000 driverless vehicles on public roads.

Big picture: We're seeing the limits of SoftBank's freewheeling late-stage investing model and the "$1 billion investment constitutes a moat" strategy. 

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Skip to the front.

DESIGN

Ubiquity in 3D

Ubiquity6 wants people to add AR layers onto their 3D world. CEO Anjney Midha tells me it's taken "two and a half years, $40 million, and 75 people" to build Display.land, a 3D modeling app. 

The tech: Display.land blends 3D models, AR, and computer vision. Rendering takes place in the cloud, removing the heavy lifting off the smartphone. Powerful phone cameras and mobile graphics processors tie it all together.

On Display.land, users can capture 3D spaces and view a feed of other user-generated content. And two weeks ago, Ubiquity6 launched Display.land Studio, a cloud-based game engine to create cross-platform, multiplayer mixed reality "experiences." Midha says "if you grew up using Photoshop," you'd be comfortable with the tool. 

Bottom line: "What will kill us is not making a great experience," Midha says. Add not making money to that list. The company plans to monetize its platform by implementing a rev share with creators. 

BITS & BYTES

Stat: 30% of U.S. adults say they've used a dating site or app, per the Pew Research Center.

Quote: "About 750 million people now have a game console in their pocket that is more powerful than every generation of PC that we had 10 years ago"—from my convo with Midha. 

Read: "Mozilla lost the browser wars. It still thinks it can save the internet," via Protocol. 

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Bitcoin passed $10,000.
• Apple orders for 45 million AirPods could be at risk due to the coronavirus outbreak.
• The five biggest U.S. stocks—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Facebook—account for almost 18% of the S&P 500 by market value, the AP reported Thursday.
• Facebook's and Messenger's official Twitter and Instagram accounts were hacked over the weekend. 

WHAT'S BREWING THIS WEEK

Tuesday: Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event; earnings (Lyft); Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in SF; House and Senate committee hearings on cybersecurity; Safer Internet Day; Ferrari launches new Formula 1 car; House committee hearing on AVs; The Smart City Event begins in Fort Lauderdale

Wednesday: Earnings (Cisco, Shopify); DeveloperWeek in SF; SoftBank Q3 earnings briefing; hearing begins for Google's appeal of a $2.6 billion EU antitrust fine; House Financial Services task force meeting on reducing AI bias; D.I.C.E. video game awards ceremony in Las Vegas

Thursday: World Radio Day; earnings (Nvidia, Alibaba, Airbus, Cloudflare)

Friday: Valentine's Day

THE TECHLARATION

AI Dungeon 2 is a text-based adventure that creates an infinite storyline using GPT-2, OpenAI's text generator. It's honestly more funny than creepy, but it still feels weird playing a game against an AI conversationalist. 

Don't try the game if you have the Monday Scaries. See you Wednesday—Ryan.