All posts tagged: Swan

WWDC Will Be Tim Cook’s Swan Song. I Expect Something Siri-ous

WWDC Will Be Tim Cook’s Swan Song. I Expect Something Siri-ous

Published by skeptic

“I love Apple, and I consider it the privilege of a lifetime to have worked here for almost 14 years, and I’m very excited about this new role.” That’s how Tim Cook opened the iPhone 4S event in October 2011, his first product launch as Apple’s CEO. Fifteen years later, we’re on the precipice of another landmark Apple event for the chief of one of the world’s most iconic and valuable companies. This Worldwide Developers Conference will be Cook’s last before he hands over the reins to incoming CEO John Ternus in September, likely just ahead of that month’s iPhone event.  There’s not really a leadership change playbook at the company, as Cook took over from Steve Jobs as his struggle with pancreatic cancer took a turn for the worse. That makes this moment uncharted territory. WWDC, Apple’s annual software developer conference, has hosted many exciting product launches across the years, from the first iOS to Apple Silicon to Apple Intelligence. It’s a moment of hellos, rather than goodbyes — but this one will be …

Princess Isabella is a style ‘pioneer’ on 19th birthday in Black Swan tutu – and it’s H&M

Princess Isabella is a style ‘pioneer’ on 19th birthday in Black Swan tutu – and it’s H&M

Published by Daniella Wilson

It’s a day for celebration in the Danish royal household as King Frederik and Queen Mary‘s eldest daughter, Princess Isabella, turns 19. To mark the occasion, Isabella featured in a set of new portrait photos with her skirt stealing the show. As identified by Royal Fashion Police on Instagram, the young royal sported the black tulle tutu-style midi skirt from Giambattista Valli Paris’s 2019 collaboration with H&M. The dramatic piece featured metallic detailing, layered ruffle detailing, and felt straight from Black Swan with its balletic silhouette. It was styled with black suede slingback heels by Tony Bianco, as well as a cream jumper and the ‘Life’ bracelet by Ole Lynggaard. Adding to the youthful quality of the look, Isabella wore her brunette hair down and styled in loose curls. Princess Isabella steps into her own It was a look that caught the eye of fashion stylist Sian Clarke of Styled by Sian. Recommended videoYou may also likeWATCH: Who are the Danish royal family? “Princess Isabella has such a contemporary twist on royal style, and I …

Bytedance’s Upcoming Project Swan VR Headset Wants to Be the Computer Meta’s Isn’t Yet

Bytedance’s Upcoming Project Swan VR Headset Wants to Be the Computer Meta’s Isn’t Yet

Published by skeptic

In the last few months, Meta has seemingly taken its foot off the gas when it comes to developing next-generation VR hardware and experiences. The Beijing-based Chinese competitor, ByteDance, the creator of TikTok, is going the other way — and it appears focused on expanding its work beyond just gaming. The Pico Project Swan, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, is a lot of head hardware. Coming “later this year,” according to ByteDance, it doesn’t sound cheap. An onboard micro OLED display will have 40 pixels per degree of resolution density, which should be in line with what the Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR offer. The headset will have similar capabilities to create mixed-reality overlays of graphics in real-world settings using passthrough cameras. The headset is also powered by its own dual-chip custom processors that ByteDance claims are twice as powerful as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip that’s on Meta’s Quest 3 and 3S headsets, and in a stepped-up version on Samsung Galaxy XR. While that may still lag behind Apple’s M5 chip on the Vision …

Pico’s Project Swan XR Headset Wants to Go Where the Apple Vision Pro Failed

Pico’s Project Swan XR Headset Wants to Go Where the Apple Vision Pro Failed

Published by skeptic

ByteDance, the Chinese company best known for creating TikTok, got into the virtual reality game when it bought the startup Pico in 2021. Now, Pico is taking its mixed reality (XR) efforts even more seriously by building out software that lets people use multiple applications in 3D digital workspaces. Many of its features sound very much like what you can find in the Apple Vision Pro, two years after that device launched. At Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona, Pico announced its newest XR operating system, Pico OS 6. The OS will not work on the company’s existing Pico 4 from 2022, but is aimed to deploy on Pico’s unreleased headset, nicknamed Project Swan. At MWC, Pico only offered a light spritz of information about its upcoming headset. But details about what features it plans to put in its OS offer a good look at what Pico hopes to achieve with its flagship device, which it says will arrive this year. One of the big focuses of the new operating system version is what Pico …

Pico’s Project Swan XR Headset Wants to Go Where the Apple Vision Pro Failed

Pico’s Project Swan XR Headset Wants to Go Where the Apple Vision Pro Failed

Published by skeptic

ByteDance, the Chinese company best known for creating TikTok, got into the virtual reality game when it bought the startup Pico in 2021. Now, Pico is taking its mixed reality (XR) efforts even more seriously by building out software that lets people use multiple applications in 3D digital workspaces. Many of its features sound very much like what you can find in the Apple Vision Pro, two years after that device launched. At Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona, Pico announced its newest XR operating system, Pico OS 6. The OS will not work on the company’s existing Pico 4 from 2022, but is aimed to deploy on Pico’s unreleased headset, nicknamed Project Swan. At MWC, Pico only offered a light spritz of information about its upcoming headset. But details about what features it plans to put in its OS offer a good look at what Pico hopes to achieve with its flagship device, which it says will arrive this year. One of the big focuses of the new operating system version is what Pico …

‘Black Swan’ Was a Workplace Movie

‘Black Swan’ Was a Workplace Movie

Published by Daniella Wilson

Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 film, Black Swan, fit into a lot of boxes. It was a psychological thriller, a body-horror flick, a character study, a coming-of-age saga. It was a cautionary tale about ballet culture, helicopter parenting, and perfectionism. Rewatching it roughly 15 years after its release, though, I’ve come to see it as something else: a workplace drama, about an ambitious woman navigating a hypercompetitive environment, contorting herself to please the mercurial boss who holds her fate in his hands. The ballet world is, of course, unique—a field that requires uncommon athletic and artistic mastery, as well as more commitment and sacrifice than most 9-to-5 jobs. The path to success for a dancer doesn’t necessarily look the same as that of a corporate employee. Yet Black Swan’s central character, Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman, struggles in ways that feel broadly relatable. Like many young strivers, Nina has wound up with her identity entirely entangled in her job. When she lands her dream role in Swan Lake, playing both the innocent White Swan loved by …