MGM announced Tuesday that it completed a $2 billion-plus buyout of its partner in the multi-tower CityCenter complex, giving the casino giant full ownership of the Aria & Vdara resorts, & that it closed its sale-leaseback of those properties with Blackstone.

The New York financial conglomerate purchased the hotels’ real estate for nearly $3.9 billion. As announced in July, MGM is leasing the properties back for an initial annual rent of $215 million.

MGM has sold multiple mega resorts on the Strip over the past few years to Blackstone & leased them back as part of its “asset-light” strategy of shedding ownership of its real estate.

Its newest hotel landlord, Blackstone, just announced Monday that it’s selling the neighboring Cosmopolitan for $5.65 billion. As part of that deal, MGM is acquiring the Cosmopolitan’s operations side for more than $1.6 billion, while a trio of groups, including Blackstone, will own the real estate & collect rent from the new operator.

CityCenter, once pitched as a 'self-contained city-within-a-city,' was an $8.5 billion project & has a cluster of gleaming skyscrapers.

It features the Aria hotel-casino; Vdara, a non-gaming hotel; the Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas, a luxury high-rise with hotel & condo units; luxury mall Shops at Crystals; a 2-acre parcel next to the mall where the dismantled Harmon hotel once stood, & which is now slated for a retail project; & Veer Towers, two 37-story condo buildings that, by design, lean at 5-degree angles.

A day after it unveiled plans to operate The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, MGM Resorts International said it closed a sale-leaseback of two other towering hotels on the Strip — with the Cosmo’s seller, no less.

MGM Completes Sale-Leaseback of Aria, Vdara with Blackstone

In Las Vegas, skill combined with luck is the best way to come out ahead. That’s how private equity firm Blackstone › $BX › hit the jackpot with a $5.7 billion deal to sell the Cosmopolitan casino. It caught a break when it bought the business seven years ago & is applying its know-how with some slick shuffling.

A day after it unveiled plans to operate The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, MGM Resorts International said it closed a sale-leaseback of two other towering hotels on the Strip — Aria, Vdara with the Cosmo’s seller, Blackstone, no less. 

Blackstone scooped up the Cosmopolitan after a rocky run in Sin City. Deutsche Bank › DBKGn.DE › which never intended to own a casino, took it over in mid-2008 when the developer defaulted. Las Vegas was in a deep rut after the financial crisis & took ages to recover, according to figures from the city’s Convention & Visitors Authority Research Center. When Blackstone arrived, Cosmopolitan had yet to generate a profit.

Las Vegas was heading in the right direction, however. Clubs & restaurants, including the Cosmopolitan’s Marquee & Eggslut, became attractions beyond the blackjack tables. Visitor numbers blew through pre-crisis levels the year of Blackstone’s acquisition. In the 12 months leading up to Covid-19 lockdowns, the company booked $316 million of EBITDAR, earnings that back out rent & other items, & if the second quarter is any indication, the upcoming year will be even better.

If Blackstone invested a quarter of the original purchase price, or about $400 million, in 2014, the implied return would be an impressive 10 times its money. Even though only half as many people visited Las Vegas in 2020 as in 2019, public market valuations have soared. That suggests Blackstone got a lucky with the timing.

After years of speculations that The Blackstone Group had been looking to offload The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, the New York private equity firm announced 27-Sep-21 that it has entered into an agreement to sell the Strip casino resort for $5.65 billion.

Las Vegas-based casino & hospitality giant MGM Resorts International would pay $1.63 billion for The Cosmopolitan’s operations.

Additionally, a partnership that includes the Cherng Family Trust, headed by the family of Panda Express founder Andrew Cherng, real estate investment firm Stonepeak Partners, & Blackstone-controlled Real Estate Income Trust Inc. will pay more than $4 billion the resort’s real estate assets.

The first round of rumors that the buyout firm was looking to sell The Cosmopolitan emerged in 2018. It was reported at the time that Florida-based Hard Rock International was in due diligence to buy the property. However, both Hard Rock & Blackstone denied those rumors promptly & the latter noted that selling the complex was not under consideration at the time.

Blackstone said recently that The Cosmopolitan’s performance over the past several months has been stronger than ever & that it even exceeded pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter of 2021.

The New York private equity company confirmed the sale of its Strip resort a few weeks after Bloomberg reported that it was looking to snatch at least $5 billion for The Cosmopolitan & named Apollo Global Management & MGM Resorts International as potential buyers. The property’s sale is expected to close in the first half of 2022, subject to regulatory approval.

It should be noted that MGM is currently in the process of divesting its Aria Resort & Casino & Vdara Hotel & Spa resorts namely to Blackstone. 

In other news › Blackstone › $BX › hired two Wall Street veterans as partners & promoted another executive to work in its Blackstone Credit unit as fresh demand from institutional & retail investors made it the private equity firm's fastest-growing segment. 

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund filed a registration statement for IPO on October 1, 2021. Blackstone Secured Lending Fund is expected to list its common shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol › BXSL.

MGM Acquires The Cosmopolitan casino for $5.7 Billion from private equity firm Blackstone

Blackstone Hit the Jackpot in a $5.7 Billion Deal to Sell The Cosmopolitan

Both the real & a virtual Mark Zuckerberg recently appeared on CBS recently to promote Facebook’s first public version of their metaverse. This is Facebook Workplace Horizons, a substitute for video conferencing. 

Facebook imagines this will be a much broader thing than just meetings, think free-to-use courses online that teach everything from language to technology, an open-source project that needs a contributors, a community charity that needs a volunteer fundraiser, a co-worker who needs coaching on a new presentation, a story that needs to be told & Facebook, the service we now know, will be entirely subsumed by the metaverse. The seriousness of its ambitions is reflected in its headcount. Nearly 10,000 people are working in its group developing augmented & virtual reality devices, or nearly one-fifth of Facebook’s total global workforce.

Facebook imagines that your social network & interests on Facebook will be at the center of the metaverse experience. This is essentially what Facebook imagines the metaverse to be, a mixture of your real world setting & the virtual Facebook world with your friends and interests. Facebook has been clearly thinking about this since 2013 & 2014 when they bought Oculus. 

Facebook realizes that there are a lot of scary dystopian elements to this, and in combination with all that lost trust, this can derail the whole thing. They have recently allocated $50 million to research ways in which to alleviate these issues. Facebook is working with experts in government, industry & academia to think through issues and opportunities in the metaverse.

Here are a few key areas where we’ll work with others to anticipate the risks and get it right:

Economic opportunity: how we can give people more choice, encourage competition and maintain a thriving digital economy

Privacy: how we can minimize the amount of data that’s used, build technology to enable privacy-protective data uses & give people transparency and control over their data

Safety and integrity: how we can keep people safe online & give them tools to take action or get help if they see something they’re not comfortable with

Equity & inclusion: how we can make sure these technologies are designed inclusively and in a way that’s accessible

—Andrew Bosworth, VP, Facebook Reality Labs and Nick Clegg, VP, Global Affairs, September 27, 2021

Ray-Ban Stories are the first product to come out of a multi-year partnership between Facebook & EssilorLuxottica. Unlike on the hardware side, where their primary competition is the world’s largest company, in the metaverse, Facebook primarily faces competition from much smaller gaming companies like Roblox › $RBLX & Epic. 

Labor & value & hard technology. Facebook imagines this will be a much broader thing than just meetings.

Facebook › $FB › partnered with European eyewear conglomerate Essilor Luxottica, Ray-Ban's parent company, to launch smart glasses in early 2019. Ray-Ban Stories, the smart glasses developed by Facebook & Ray-Ban, was launched on September 9, which marks a new chapter for Facebook as an eyewear developer that caters to the booming smart glasses market. These glasses allow the consumer to capture photos, record videos from a first-person perspective, listen to music, & take phone calls just like a normal smartphone.

Ray-Ban Stories come with a dual integrated 5 MP camera that allows the user to capture photos & easily record videos as experienced by the naked eye for up to 30 seconds, through a click of a button on the right-hand side of the glasses, or using Facebook assistant voice commands. Streamlined open ear micro speakers are built-in with a three-microphone audio array that delivers voice and sound transmission for calls and videos. Beamforming technology & background noise suppression algorithm provide an enhanced calling experience similar to what a user would expect from dedicated headphones. These features & an optimized Snapdragon processor, a capacitive touchpad, & a battery are fitted into the smallest possible frame one could imagine, which only weighs just five grams more than the original Ray-Ban Wayfarer design.

The glasses have a specially designed portable charging case to charge on the go. The technology of Ray-Ban Stories allows the user to pair up captured memories & stories with Facebook View app to import, edit and share them seamlessly on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and also on Twitter, TikTok, and Snapchat while facilitating to save content on the camera roll as well. Facebook View is a standalone app available on iOS and Android that lets the user import photos & videos from glasses and create unique content while having the freedom to control over what and when to share.

Ray-Ban Stories is just the first product of the multi-year partnership between Facebook & EssilorLuxottica. I expect the partnership between these 2 companies to result in more innovative VR products hitting the market in the next few years, but that is not the main reason why I believe investors should take Facebook's Virtual & Augmented Reality targets seriously. There are many reasons for that.

Facebook is taking Virtual Reality technology seriously, which itself is a good enough reason for investors to take things seriously as well. According to data collected by The Information, nearly 10,000 Facebook employees (or one-fifth of the total workforce), are engaged in developing augmented & virtual reality devices & software, which highlights that Facebook is very serious about pursuing the growth opportunities available with the increasing popularity of the VR technology. 

When I recently spoke with a few industry experts regarding the AI technology used by Upstart › $UPST › I made sure to inquire from them how Facebook could possibly integrate the VR & AR technologies to improve the user experience. These experts broadly discussed this topic and claimed that they would not be surprised if Facebook leverages this technology to become a mainstream VR & AR company that caters to the technological needs of multi-billion-dollar industries such as healthcare and education. One thing these experts agreed on is that these technologies will make connecting with people virtually feel much more realistic in the future, and I thought to myself, Facebook is going to be a big winner of  VR ‹› AR technology.

Facebook imagines this will be a much broader thing than just meetings, think free-to-use courses online that teach everything from language to technology, an open-source project needs a contributors, a community charity that needs a volunteer fundraiser, a co-worker who needs coaching on a new presentation, a story that needs to be told. Facebook, the service we now know, will be entirely subsumed by the metaverse. The seriousness of its ambitions is reflected in its headcount.

You can think of the metaverse as a massively multiplayer game, except it includes all social activities: meetings, conferences, education, live events, and of course gaming. As such it subsumes gaming, webcasts, video meetings, distance learning, & just about any activity where two or more people are together virtually.

Early signals of a monumental shift towards AR & VR

Facebook acquires Downpour Interactive, the developers of Onward. Facebook’s Oculus division has snatched up yet another popular virtual reality game developer. Recently, the company announced it has acquired Downpour Interactive, the studio behind the hit multiplayer military simulator Onward.

“We’ve seen great success with Onward on the Oculus platform for several years — first on Rift and more recently on Quest,” Mike Verdu, Facebook’s VP of AR / VR content, said in a blog post. “Becoming part of the Oculus Studios family will give Downpour Interactive the opportunity to cultivate both the Onward community with the full support of Oculus Studios resources, and, in the future, pursue other projects.”

Everyone from Downpour Interactive will move over to the Oculus Studios team “in some capacity,” Verdu said. He also confirmed that Onward will still be supported on all of the platforms where it’s currently available: the Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, and Steam.

Dante Buckley, founder and CEO of Downpour Interactive, said in an FAQ on the studio’s website that Onward’s feature roadmap “remains unchanged” and that the studio plans to “accelerate the speed of our development” because of the acquisition. Downpour Interactive will also continue to retain “full control of all development,” he said.

The acquisition is Facebook’s latest to beef up Oculus Studios. The company bought Beat Saber developer Beat Games in November 2019, Asgard’s Wrath maker Sanzaru Games in February 2020, and Lone Echo creator Ready at Dawn in June 2020.

The launch of Ray-Ban Stories did not attract a lot of attention from investors, but with a good understanding of Facebook's VR strategy, it is very easy to see why this product launch marks a significant milestone for the company - Facebook wants the mass market (not just gamers) to embrace VR and AR products. With an effective strategy in place to pursue the growth opportunities available in this unique sector, I believe Facebook is poised to become the leader of the AR industry. Facebook stock price could hit $500 in the near future, and I am not making any adjustments to my valuation model at this time although I feel I will be obliged to make some positive adjustments in the coming months.

Facebook & EssilorLuxottica › The Future of AR & VR

Blackstone › $BX › hired two Wall Street veterans as partners & promoted another executive to work in its Blackstone Credit unit as fresh demand from institutional & retail investors made it the private equity firm's fastest-growing segment. 

Carlos Whitaker, a Credit Suisse executive, & Chris Sullivan, an executive at Barclays, will join Blackstone as senior managing directors while Kate Rubenstein, who works in Blackstone portfolio operations, will move to Blackstone Credit as a managing director.

Whitaker will become president of the Blackstone Private Credit Fund › BCRED › & the Blackstone Secured Lending Fund › BXSL › both part of the firm's global direct lending platform. At Credit Suisse he had been head of New York & co-head of EMEA Advisory Sales.

Blackstone Credit, run by Dwight Scott, oversees $163 billion in assets, & launched BCRED earlier this year to tap in to growing demand from retail investors for strategies including direct lending to securities backed by corporate loans. The portfolio had swelled to $14 billion by the end of July. The firm is taking in an average $4 billion in new cash a month for BCRED & its sister real estate portfolio for retail investors, BREIT. 

Sullivan will join as head of sponsor coverage at Blackstone Credit after having been global head of financial sponsors at Barclays. Rubenstein will return to work at Blackstone Credit & be chief operating officer for BCRED & BXSL.

Blackstone Inc., together with its subsidiaries, is one of the world's leading investment firms with approximately $684 billion in assets, including its credit, real-estate & hedge fund businesses under management as of June 30, 2021.

A day after it unveiled plans to operate The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, MGM Resorts International said it closed a sale-leaseback of two other towering hotels on the Strip — Aria, Vdara with the Cosmo’s seller, Blackstone, no less.

Blackstone oversees some $684 billion in assets including its credit, real-estate & hedge fund businesses.

Blackstone Hires Executives For Global Direct Lending Platform

Ray-Ban Stories are the first product to come out of a multi-year partnership between Facebook & EssilorLuxottica. Facebook › $FB › is working on a long-term project — an augmented reality metaverse. The seriousness of its ambitions is reflected in its headcount. Nearly 10,000 people are working in its group developing augmented & virtual reality devices, or nearly one-fifth of Facebook’s total global workforce. Facebook took the first step on this road in 2014 with the acquisition of VR headset maker Oculus, & they are three generations into commercial versions of that. The latest is the Oculus Quest 2, the first mass market VR headset that did not have to be tethered to another device like a PC or gaming console.

VR remains a niche product for gaming, & besides the price, there are other barriers to adoption even in gaming. But that is not Facebook’s endgame. Their endgame is something that Apple › $AAPL › is also working on — a pair of AR glasses, as light & fashionable as Ray-Ban Wayfarers › OTCPK › $ESLOF › that will replace the touchscreen smartphone as people’s main device by the end of the decade.

Facebook is coming at this project from three directions

The Oculus headset, which is big and bulky, & is about as powerful as a top end Android smartphone. The new Facebook/Ray-Ban Stories glasses. These are much more light & fashionable, but have few features, & are a smartphone accessory. On the software side, Facebook has begun previewing their version of the metaverse, first for CBS This Morning in August. The end goal is a device that brings that all together, dispensing with the compromises of the two current devices, creating a new experience, and the first entirely new user interface since the graphical user interface was invented in the 1970s.

VR, or virtual reality, is a system that feeds the user an entirely computer-generated environment via a headset and usually a glove or other handset for control. Everything the user sees and hears is computer-generated. The best current example is Facebook's Oculus Quest 2 headset.

AR, or augmented reality, mixes computer-generated elements with the real world. This can be a heads-up display, or computer-generated objects that are situated in a real world environment and move with it. The example that many will be familiar with is Pokemon Go.

You will also hear of “mixed reality” or, tortuously, “augmented virtuality,” but they are offshoots of these two main categories.

These “smart glasses” are a pricey smartphone accessory, but it is best to think of them as a transitional device. They have camera, speakers and microphone, along with a touch interface on one of the arms for limited control. More control comes via Facebook Assistant voice control, which will be a key part of the eventual interface. Facebook’s aim here is too get people used to the idea of wearing a computer on their faces, & learn about use-cases.

The glasses are primarily Ray-Ban branded. I think this is a recognition of two hurdles here for Facebook.

For a device worn on the face, fashion is crucial, & Ray-Ban is the fashion brand. Facebook has lost a lot of trust regrading privacy, & that is one of the key hurdles to adoption. On the user end of privacy, Facebook is taking a relatively hands-off stance. You need a Facebook account to use them, but it collects a fraction of the data that the Facebook app does, & the data it does collect by default is entirely related to operation of the device. Users can choose to send more data, but again it is not the usual Facebook highly invasive stuff; it is more general data about how customers are using the device. This is a transitional device that is more about Facebook learning about how users want to use a face computer.

Trickier than user privacy is the privacy of everyone around the user. The Facebook page on Stories privacy highlights the challenge:

Are there going to be some ugly headlines coming out of this? Yes there will. Relying on users for 100% compliance is a losing bet. But Facebook has seen years of ugly headlines, including a week of relentlessly promoted “Facebook Files” articles in the Wall Street Journal just recently. They have very thick skins at this point, and they have a very big fish to fry here — the future of computing.

Facebook imagines this will be a much broader thing than just meetings, think free-to-use courses online that teach everything from language to technology, an open-source project needs a contributors, a community charity that needs a volunteer fundraiser, a co-worker who needs coaching on a new presentation, a story that needs to be told. Facebook, the service we now know, will be entirely subsumed by the metaverse.

Facebook and Apple are the two primary companies working on this in my mind. There are others playing in this space for sure, but those two companies have the clearest idea of what the end product looks like, something we will not see in stores for years.

The device is a pair of AR glasses that many believe will eventually replace the touchscreen smartphone as people’s main device.

Each computing platform becomes more ubiquitously accessible and natural for us to interact with. While I expect phones to still be our primary devices through most of this decade, at some point in the 2020s, we will get breakthrough augmented reality glasses that will redefine our relationship with technology...

Even though some of the early devices seem clunky, I think these will be the most human & social technology platforms anyone has built yet.—Mark Zuckerberg, January 9, 2020

The big idea here is that we spend all this time looking at two-dimensional screens as a representation of reality, which dissociates us from the world around us. AR combines the real world with computer-generated elements & brings the virtual world of our phones & the real world together.

This is not just a new device, but a new human interface, the first invented since the graphical user interface was invented in the late 1970s. Multitouch replaced the mouse with a finger, but the 2D representation of a desktop has remained. A key part of the new interface will be using voice control to replace the mouse or finger.

In augmented reality, you're going to really need a pair of glasses that look like normal looking glasses in order for that to hit a mainstream acceptance. & that, I think, is going to be one of the hardest technical challenges of the decade. It's basically fitting a supercomputer in the frame of glasses.—Mark Zuckerberg, April 28, 2021

On the hardware side, Facebook is now coming at it from two directions. The Oculus Quest 2 is a standalone device built around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform, as most Android smartphones are. It has limited AR features, more geared towards letting developers play around with it. It’s successor, which we should see within a few months, will have more AR features, now for end users.

The Quest 2 weighs about a pound, & any vigorous use will make your face sweat because of the light seal. They look awkward, & cannot be used for long periods. It is primarily a niche product for gaming.

The other direction is the Ray-Ban Stories glasses, with far less hardware & features. They look very much like a regular pair of classic Wayfarers, except with camera hardware where the hinge rivets usually go. The strategy here is twofold. In the first place, Facebook loves data, & as I alluded to, the important data they are getting off these devices is not personal — it is usage data. They want to learn how people use these devices so they can tailor future development around that. The Quest has an installed base of about two million. This is a relatively small user base, but a very large test group.

Secondly, they want to meet in the middle, dispensing with the problems with both devices. The product they envision will look like Ray-Ban Stories, and also be a far more featured version of the Quest — less a niche VR device and more geared towards being an all day device that displaces the touchscreen smartphone sometime towards the end of the decade.

This is more or less where Facebook & Apple split in their approach. Facebook’s ambitions here are even broader than Apple’s because they are also building a metaverse. Apple is looking to transition the iPhone experience to a new device & interface. This will involve a lot of metaverse-like features, such as the soon-to-be-released SharePlay shared-experience interface. But they are not working on a full-blown virtual world like Facebook and others.

Facebook ‹› $FB ‹› is working on a long-term project — an augmented reality metaverse. The seriousness of its ambitions is reflected in its headcount. Early signals of a monumental shift towards AR & VR. Ray-Ban Stories are the first product to come out of a multi-year partnership between Facebook & EssilorLuxottica. Xiaomi has now joined them. 

Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi Smart Glasses are an engineer’s look into an advanced future. Global technology leader, Xiaomi recently announced Xiaomi Smart Glasses – a brand new smart wearable device capable of combining imaging system and sensors into a subtle, ordinary glasses design through MicroLED optical waveguide technology. Weighing a mere 51g, Xiaomi Smart Glasses is able to display messages and notifications, make calls, navigate, capture photos, and translate text right before your eyes.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Xiaomi Smart Glasses use advanced microLED optical waveguide technology to create a future viewpoint. 

To match the form of ordinary glasses, subtle challenges on imaging and internal component arrangements must be overcome. Xiaomi Smart Glasses adopts MicroLED imaging technology to lower the design space needed in structural design, as well as the overall weight of the device.

In order to fit the imaging system seamlessly into the frame, MicroLED undoubtedly is the most optimal choice. Like OLEDs, MicroLEDs pixels are individually lit – its emissive property allows for brighter displays and deeper blacks. But MicroLEDs have a higher pixel density and longer lifespan while having a simpler structure. This allows for a more compact display, as well as easier screen integration.

Xiaomi Smart Glasses has a display chip measuring just 2.4mm x 2.02mm. Under a microscope, the display is roughly the size of a grain of rice, with individual pixels sized at 4μm—enabling the display to be fitted perfectly within the frame of the glasses. To allow sufficient light to pass through complicated optical structures before reaching the eye even in harsh direct sunlight, we opted for an ultra-efficient monochrome display solution, which is capable of reaching a peak brightness of 2 million nits.

By adopting optical waveguide technology which refracts lights at 180°, the MicroLED display accurately transmits light beams to the human eye through the microscopic grating structure of the optical waveguide lens.

The grating structure etched onto the inner surface of the lens allows light to be refracted in a unique way, directing it safely into the human eye. The refraction process involves bouncing light beams countless times, allowing the human eye to see a complete image, and greatly increasing usability while wearing. All this is done inside a single lens, instead of using complicated multiples lens systems, mirrors, or half mirrors as some other products do. Optical waveguide technology significantly reduces device size and weight, and therefore allows smart glasses to approach the form factor of traditional glasses.

Not a “Secondary Smartphone Display” but an Independent Smart Wearable

Xiaomi Smart Glasses integrates a total of 497 components including miniature sensors and communication modules, so it is not just a “second screen” for your smartphone, but instead functions as a new smart terminal with independent operating capability. In addition to basic notification, call display, etc., it can also independently complete functions such as navigation, taking photos, teleprompter, and real-time text and photo translations. Considering usage, key interaction logic has also been implemented to minimize interruptions at inconvenient times, and display important information timely when critical.

We need to build an interaction logic which “does not disturb ordinary use, but displays key information in a timely manner”. After many in-depth discussions, several key scenarios including “key notification”, “phone call”, “navigation”, and “photo translation” were finally confirmed, with XiaoAi AI Assistant as the primary interaction method. In this way, Xiaomi Smart Glasses can “display the most important information at the moment it is needed”.

With “Notifications” as an example, it is obviously inappropriate to display all push notifications from your smartphone in front of your eyes. Therefore, Xiaomi Smart Glasses selects and pushes the most important messages, such as smart home alarms, urgent information from office apps, and messages from important contacts, etc., to avoid excessively disturbing users.

“Phone call” is the most natural use scenario for smart glasses, and you will be able to see the other party’s number when they call you. Using the built-in dual beamforming microphone and speaker, both parties can hear each other clearly.

“Navigation” is very useful in driving and cycling scenarios. Xiaomi Smart Glasses can present roads and maps in front of you in real time so that you can keep your eyes on the road safely and conveniently.

The 5MP camera on the front of the glasses can also take photos and translate text in photos, which is highly convenient when traveling. By utilizing the built-in microphone and proprietary translating algorithm, Xiaomi Smart Glasses is capable of transcribing audio into text with translations in real time. The indicator light next to the camera will illuminate when the camera is in-use to indicate that photos are being taken.

To achieve this high-level of functionality, the glasses need to be equipped with a quad-core ARM processor, battery, touch pad, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth modules, Android operating system, and more. Even with all these features, the device weighs only 51g. All this makes it possible for Xiaomi Smart Glasses to resemble traditional glasses form factor, but surpass other existing smart glasses in function.

Xiaomi Corporation was founded in April 2010 and listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on July 9, 2018 (1810.HK). Xiaomi is a consumer electronics and smart manufacturing company with smartphones and smart hardware connected by an IoT platform at its core.

Embracing our vision of “Make friends with users and be the coolest company in the users’ hearts”, Xiaomi continuously pursues innovations, high-quality user experience and operational efficiency. The company relentlessly builds amazing products with honest prices to let everyone in the world enjoy a better life through innovative technology.

Xiaomi is one of the world’s leading smartphone companies. The company’s market share in terms of smartphone shipments ranked No. 2 globally in the second quarter of 2021. The company has also established the world’s leading consumer AIoT (AI+IoT) platform, with 374.5 million smart devices connected to its platform as of June 30, 2021, excluding smartphones and laptops. Xiaomi products are present in more than 100 countries and regions around the world. In August 2021, the company made the Fortune Global 500 list for the third time, ranking 338th, up 84 places compared to 2020.

Xiaomi is a constituent of the Hang Seng Index, Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, Hang Seng TECH Index and Hang Seng China 50 Index.

Global technology leader, Xiaomi recently announced Xiaomi Smart Glasses

Integrating Intelligent Functions into Eyewear

Ray-Ban Stories are the first product to come out of a multi-year partnership between Facebook & EssilorLuxottica. Xiaomi has now joined them. Its smart glasses won’t be just a second screen for your phone. Facebook & Xiaomi are putting emphasis on lightness despite its features. At 51 grams, it’s a bit heavier than the Ray-Ban Stories.  

The device won’t only be capable of taking photos, but also of displaying messages and notifications, making calls, providing navigation and translating text right in real time in front of your eyes. The glasses also has an indicator light that shows when the 5-megapixel camera is in use.

The product is not a peripheral, but an incredibly dense piece of tech that integrates a total of 497 components including miniature sensors and communication modules. It is not just a second screen for your smartphone, but instead functions as a new smart terminal with independent operating capability of many things, such as selecting the most important notifications to show you, including smart home alarms and messages from important contacts. 

The device’s navigation capability can display maps and directions in front of your eyes. It can also show you the number of whoever’s currently calling your phone, and you can take the call using the smart glasses’ built in mic and speakers.

Xiaomi’s Smart Glasses are powered by a quad-core ARM processor and run on Android. They also use MicroLED imaging technology, which is known for having a higher brightness and longer lifespan than OLED. The company says the technology has a simpler structure that enabled it to create a compact display with individual pixels sized at 4μm. 

The grating structure etched onto the inner surface of the lens allows light to be refracted in a unique way, directing it safely into the human eye. The refraction process involves bouncing light beams countless times, allowing the human eye to see a complete image, and greatly increasing usability while wearing. All this is done inside a single lens, instead of using complicated multiples lens systems, mirrors, or half mirrors as some other products do.

That mic will be able to pick up speech, which Xiaomi’s proprietary translating algorithm can translate in real time. The glasses’ translation feature also works’ on written text and text on photos captures through its camera. Unfortunately, the company has yet to announce a price or a launch date for the glasses, but we’ll keep you updated when it does.

The Xiaomi Smart Glasses can push notifications to an AR overlay in front of the user. It is obviously inappropriate to display all push notifications from your smartphone in front of your eyes and have restricted such interruptions to the most important messages like alarms, urgent information from office apps, and messages from important contacts. The glasses can also display contact information for an incoming call, and their inbuilt speakers and microphone will allow them to be used as a headset. 

But wait! there’s more, so much more, Navigation overlays for the Xiaomi Smart Glasses will be very useful in driving and cycling scenarios. The glasses can overlay directions, street names, and other map elements onto the world in order to help navigate more safely than looking away from the road at a map. The glasses have a 5MP camera (like the Ray-Ban Stories), which can take photos as well as translate text in photos. 

Xiaomi Smart Glasses can be controlled & used completely independently, surpassing other existing smart glasses in function.

Recently, Ray-Ban Stories introduced its smart glasses in collaboration with Facebook. Xiaomi has now joined them. Early signals of Facebook's monumental shift towards AR & VR, labor & value & hard technology. Unlike on the hardware side, where their primary competition is the world’s largest company, in the metaverse, Facebook primarily faces competition from much smaller gaming companies like Roblox › $RBLX & Epic.

The Chinese technology giant's smart glasses are called Xiaomi Smart Glasses, & although they have a smart system with a number of sensors, at first glance they look like ordinary glasses. Weighing just 51g, users can view messages & notifications, make phone calls, use navigation, take photos or translate text literally right in front of their eyes & in real time.

All this is possible thanks to the advanced technology of the MicroLED optical waveguide. As with OLED panels, MicroLED pixels are illuminated individually, ensuring higher sharpness & richer blacks. Compared to OLED, however, this technology has a higher pixel density, longer life & at the same time a simpler structure, thanks to which the display is more compact & easier to integrate even into small electronic devices.

Xiaomi Smart Glasses have a display chip measuring only 2.4 mm by 2.02 mm. The display is therefore about the size of a grain of rice & the individual pixels have a size of 4 μm . The visibility of the image even in direct sunlight guarantees a maximum brightness of 2 million rivets.

Thanks to the MicroLED technology, the light is refracted at an angle of 180 ° so the display can transmit light rays to the human eye with absolute accuracy. This process involves countless reflections of light rays, thanks to which the observer sees the complete image. All this takes place inside a single lens instead of the complex systems of multiple lenses, mirrors & the like used in most similar products.

It should also be emphasized that Xiaomi Smart Glasses are not a secondary display of a smartphone, but a smart device that can be controlled & used completely independently. The novelty hides a total of 497 components, including miniature sensors & communication modules. 

Xiaomi also admits that the big challenge was not to overwhelm the user's glasses, but to display only "the most important information exactly when it is needed." It is therefore unnecessary for the user to see all notifications from the phone in front of the eyes. That's why the glasses select & send only the most important messages (eg messages from important contacts, urgent information from office applications or even information from home alarms). They primarily use XiaoAi AI Assistant.

Of course, there is also telephoning (with the owners of glasses before answering the call will see the number & contact of who is calling), navigation using the map (which will be priceless especially when cycling or driving), photography (using the front 5Mpx camera), perform text presentation in real time (thanks to the camera's capture of the surroundings) & can also transcribe audio into text , including real-time translation.

So it's a whole host of advanced features, so it's no wonder that Xiaomi glasses need to have a quad-core ARM processor, a powerful battery, a touch panel, Wi-Fi / Bluetooth modules, an Android operating system & more. However, information on price & availability is still missing. However, given what the glasses offer, we can say with almost certainty that they will not be cheap equipment.

Facebook in recent years has laid out an aggressive strategy of building its own consumer hardware to lessen its dependence on Apple & Google, makers of the two dominant mobile operating systems. Unlike on the hardware side, where their primary competition is the world’s largest company, in the metaverse, Facebook primarily faces competition from much smaller gaming companies like Roblox & Epic.

Meanwhile, one of Facebook’s other large employee groups, engineering, recently promoted David Mortenson as its new leader. He replaces Jay Parikh, who left last month after spending over a decade building the social network’s data centers & technology infrastructure. In another previously unreported move, Facebook last summer hired a former YouTube & Spotify executive, Shiva Rajaraman, to lead its budding commerce efforts—a key growth area for the company as it seeks to become more of a shopping destination. These changes, along with updates to the leadership of Facebook’s apps & the formation of its new payments group.

The seriousness of its ambitions is reflected in its headcount. Nearly 10,000 people are working in its group developing augmented & virtual reality devices, or nearly one-fifth of Facebook’s total global workforce.

The People With Power at Facebook ‹› Hardware & Commerce Ambitions Expand

15-Sep-21 › $TEAM ⤳ 240 17-Sep-21 c ↑ 904% 👽

Atlassian › TEAM ‹› ☎️  240 17-Sep-21c ↑ 965% 👽✨ 

16-Sep › 394.40 ‹› 17-Sep ‹› ↑ 403.91 +9.38 ↑ 2.4%  

📈 support › 400.07 ‹› 📉 resistance › 404.15

📈 $ 65.9m / 49 trades ‹› 📉 $ 846.3k / 3 trades 

📈 🐍 x 49 𝑥¯ 2.15m v.s. ‹› 📉 🪡🐁 x 3 𝑥¯ 282k = ↑🐍

Atlassian › TEAM › produces software that helps teams work together more efficiently & effectively › offering a broad set of › easy to deploy & use tools ⤳ Jira › Confluence › Bitbucket › Trello.

83% of Fortune 500 companies use Atlassian software products › utilized by more than 212K customers at both large & small organizations › for open teamwork models & autonomous project planning & management › that provides an environment for enterprises to experiment & optimize employee experience › for frictionless work environments › business partners › in a connected vendor ecosystem › for easy interaction back & forth & quick response to market signals › & connect with customers › to deepen relationships via those processes.

As teamwork becomes increasingly digital › investing in a connected enterprise is the clear path forward for 10 million monthly active users who use Atlassian cloud collaboration management tools & help desk solutions › to support a variety of collaboration styles & provide standardization to innovate & cut costs. 

Atlassian operates in 4 segments ⤳ 1 › subscriptions › term licenses & cloud agreements ⤳ 2 › maintenance › annual maintenance contracts that provide support & periodic updates & are generally attached to perpetual license sales ⤳ 3 › perpetual license › upfront sale for indefinite usage of the software ⤳ 4 › other › training › strategic consulting & revenue from the Atlassian Marketplace app store.

What sets Atlassian apart is its first mover advantage in its core market. Given the time sensitive nature & delivery windows of most software projects › most of Atlassian's customers simply don’t have the appetite for risking project execution nor the time to adopt a new platform. This has resulted in creating a moat ›  as there are indirect costs associated with the learning curve & switching altogether to another platform. 

Atlassian delivers the tools & platforms that developers need to build applications › with every company in every sector becoming a software-driven company › there will be almost infinite demand for new applications. As developers raced to build new applications to help their companies cope with the pandemic › they gravitated toward the tools that enabled them to work the fastest & most efficiently. Every company from the smallest mom & pop shop to the largest multinational realized with utmost clarity that they would live or die by software.

“We are a multi-product company. We differ from many companies that get product/market fit & grow to $500 million in revenue before their second product. We introduced a second product › Confluence › before we reached that scale. We found that customers perceived that software documentation is poor — we developed a product for document collaboration that’s like a Google Doc on steroids. We have multi-product in our DNA. We now have 14 different products.” ⤳ Cameron Deatsch - Chief Revenue Officer.

Atlassian applies the now-popular agile systems development mindset to all its operations. 

“As far as process › we use an agile approach. This differs › from the traditional waterfall approach › in which system requirements are developed over two years & handed off to the systems development people to build. With agile › we start with customer goals & iteratively build versus the goals. Every two weeks we ship something & learn from it. We can apply this approach to marketing › closing the books › & so on. We have daily stand-ups & two week sprints."

Atlassian products meet a unique market need for business customers › modernizing collaboration through human-centered technology ⤳ including office productivity tools › video conferencing platforms › file synchronization › sharing solutions › content management apps & more ⤳ empowering companies to design experiences that unlock less fragmented workflows & bring people together in seamless › interconnected & digital experiences.

They are able to land customers at a low cost with little human intervention. In the latest quarter › Atlassian brought in 17k new customers who never talked to people at Atlassian or its partners › equating to a robust 9.5% sequential QoQ growth › driven by 5.7k  Trello accounts › as a result of new product features & TEAM’s recent sales funnel optimization initiatives.

The addressable market size in total is an estimated $125 billion › in terms of potential users › including 800 million knowledge workers at the highest level › drilling down to 100 million technical team members & 23 million software developers. Atlassian noted during the recent industry conference › the company continues to out its online ecosystem › with a marketplace for over 4k apps that utilize its product technology ⤳ recently launched Forge › which provides runtime for these apps.

Atlassian invents new products through processes propelled by its employees. › it builds on its strengths ⤳ a focus on teams› of which there are many different kinds in different industries › come up with new products by looking at customer use cases & trends outside the norm. Service management is the fastest growing product.

Atlassian continues its strong track record of growth › Q3’21 revenue growing 38% YoY › driven by subscription revenue growth of 43% YoY. Subscription now comprises 62% of TEAM’s total revenue & its recurring nature helps to smooth out the revenue stream › resulting in higher predictability.

Atlassian has grown impressively over the past few years because it adopts a low-cost web-based marketing & lean transactional operating model › going without a traditional enterprise salesforce & marketing team. Atlassian has a large opportunity ahead › demonstrating strong profitability relative to peers › with a gross profit margin of 84% › far higher than the 49% sector average › a strong balance sheet & plenty of cash to fund future growth initiatives › its FCF margin is 43% › comparing favorably to 12.6% sector median. 

Given the subscription-heavy nature of the business › Atlassian's revenue stream has resulted in sequential quarterly revenue growth over at least the past 3 years & this includes pandemic quarters. Atlassian stopped new sales of server license › increased pricing & created pull-forward effects that incentivize users to renew early › leading to strong revenue & billings growth. Atlassian has demonstrated impressive revenue growth since its IPO in 2015 › growing by 513% over this timeframe to $1.96 billion for the trailing 12 months. Atlassian maintains a fortress balance sheet to fund growth initiatives › with $1.56 billion in cash & short-term investments › no long-term debt › and just $206M in capital leases.

15-Sep-21 › TEAM has outperformed the market in the last year with a price return of ↑ 133.7% while the SPY ETF gained ↑ 34%. TEAM has also outperformed the stock market ETF in the last 3 month & 2 week periods returning ↑ 57.3% & ↑ 7.5% › respectively › SPY returned ↑ 5.6% & ↓ 0.8%. Last quarter › Atlassian reported $560 million in Revenue & $.24 earnings per share › this beat revenue expectation by $35 million & exceeded earnings estimates by $.06.

Potential for competition from legacy software provider Microsoft › MSFT › in the space in which TEAM operates. Atlassian will directly compete against ServiceNow › NOW › as it encroaches on the service desk space. Atlassian’s formal planning processes are adjusted so it can adapt to new threats or opportunities. That’s what happened last year when a competitor’s IPO gave it extra capital to spend on marketing to Atlassian’s customers. Atlassian reprioritized go-to-market resources to keep customer acquisition up in light of that competitor’s spending. One product leader got less. They have OKRs & they adjust.

The reason usually for companies like $TEAM to morph overnight is that they operate in a fast-changing environment & one should not be expected to predict what the stock is going to be worth in 6 months › because 6 months suddenly feels like 6 minutes › that may be true.

Also what's true is that once a $TEAM is established › or committed to a line of attack › it must remain in a state of pure possibility. A Bloomberg terminal recently pointed out what must be one of the purest examples of pure possibility › a management software company called Atlassian. Atlassian is smaller than its software cousins. It has a market capitalization of 97.4 billion. Still it stock price has soared-up more than two-fold to 394.5 since last year.

What distinguishes Atlassian is the spirit in which it doesn't have to do anything. The mere fact that Atlassian is a public company › with the share price that goes up everyday › apparently makes it desirable to an investor that wants to avoid the hassle & the wait involved in cycles of steady growth. Atlassian offers itself as a kind of supernatural bandwagon › albeit one that resembles a spacecraft & without wheels.

This is the beauty of Atlassian. by doing nothing › it has avoided ruling out the possibility of not doing something else. It's list of possible ventures includes › but not limited to › high tech › supernatural resources & communications › r&d › icenses › maintenance › consulting & all software related industries › leaves itself open to so many opportunities & of course there aren't any risks here. it has extremely unlimited assets & sources of revenue. 

But the most telling passage of the possibility-disclosure section in Atlassian's confessional is the one that describes, incredibly, the dangers competitors face. You might think that Atlassian does nothing, & which is something looking to be ironically stated › would have the field to itself › but no › as the beautiful company website explains › 

G’day, we’re Atlassian. We make tools like Jira & Trello that are used by thousands of teams worldwide. & we’re serious about creating amazing products, practices, & open work for all teams.

This article was written by Dogefather's protégé › who ascertains as a result of research › to provide thorough › readable › analysis. His trading strategy is Long only › value › growth › with a medium to long-term horizon. He is generally wary of tech stocks › as this sector is ripe for disruption. However › due to Atlassian's steady predictability & rapidly growing revenues › he aggressively solicits a posture of Atlassian long game › as one can make room in a portfolio for tech companies that are the disruptors that carry a moat. 

a boy brings his pet viper to work which intrigues some of his team but frightens others. 

A certain sense of futility arose within $TEAM shorts when a date was determined in which the moon came down & bounced upon us all. 

C'est arrivé près de chez vous is a satirical Belgian black comedy pseudo-documentary. In this film, a film crew follows a serial killer, recording his crimes and their own grotesque commentary for the documentary they are making. Beginning as impartial observers, they find themselves drawn into increasingly chaotic violence.

Benoît is a charming and charismatic young man, in a healthy relationship with his mother, who plays the piano and has long discussions about everything that comes to mind, be it architecture, philosophy, pigeons or classical music. He is also a serial killer who burgles for a living. A film crew of three joins Benoît on his sadistic adventures, recording them as a non-interfering documentary. Benoît introduces them to his parents and friends while explaining in detail the intricacies of his craft.

Benoît then visits an area with high-rise buildings, explaining that it is more economical to attack old people than young couples as the former have more cash and are easier to kill. In the next scene, he shouts loudly at an old woman, causing her to have a heart attack. As she lies dying, he casually remarks that this method has saved him a bullet. Benoît goes on with his stories and murders, picking on anyone who gets in his way: women, children, immigrants, and postmen - his favorite pastime. He even kills an acquaintance while celebrating his own birthday when everyone is eating dessert.

The members of the film crew, who at first perceive Benoît aloof and wary, gradually become involved, at first as mere spectators, but over time becoming more and more involved in the murders. During the filming one cameraman dies, followed by another. Their deaths are referred to in the director's cut as an industrial risk.

After an unsuccessful attempt to murder the postman Benoît is arrested, but he soon escapes from prison. He finds his girlfriend Valérie murdered in a particularly brutal way and then it turns out that his mother has also been murdered. Benoît decides to leave town and goes to check on his hiding place in a dilapidated house. The last thing the camera captures is Benoît being shot dead by an unseen vigilante and then the director being shot, the cameraman trying to escape and finally, the cameraman himself as the camera falls out of his hands.

The film was shot on black and white film and was produced with an extremely small budget by four students under the direction of director Rémy Belvaux. The idea for the film came from a discussion about how to make a documentary with no money. Much of the funding for the film came from the Belgian province of Namur and from the families and friends of the filmmakers, many of whom appear in the film, although some were unaware of the controversial nature of its content. According to an essay written by André Bonzel (second director), the family of Benoît Poelvoorde (third director) knew nothing about the film's plot. Benoît's mother thought they were making an ordinary documentary and had no idea that the footage would be used in a film in which Benoît is a serial killer.

The film follows a crew of filmmakers following a serial killer, recording his horrific crimes for a documentary they are producing.

French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo died on Monday 6 September at his home in Paris aged 88. Jean-Paul Belmondo was born on April 9, 1933, in the family of a sculptor and an artist. He was a sportsman and had always been keen on football, cycling, and boxing. The latter Belmondo was engaged professionally. However, he chose an acting career instead of a sports one. Belmondo became one of the brightest faces of the French New Wave in cinema. In 1960, Belmondo played in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, which is considered one of the milestones of the movement. Belmondo continued to work with Godard and other great French classics: François Truffaut, Claude Sautet, Louis Malle. Belmondo played in auteur films as well as adventure, comedy, and action. The actor performed stunts on his own. Many know Belmondo from The Professional, The Man from Rio, Ace of Aces, Is Paris Burning.

Le Professionnel tells a story of a French secret agent Josselin Beaumont, who is sent to the fictional African country of Malagawi on government orders to assassinate President N'Jala, who is undesirable to the French authorities. Suddenly, the political situation changes, and to prevent a last-minute assassination attempt the French secret service extradites Beaumont to the authorities of the African republic. After torture and interrogation under drugs influence, he is sentenced to a long period of imprisonment in a reform camp. Beaumont and another prisoner escape from the camp. They are confronted by a detachment of soldiers who arrive in the village and Beaumont's comrade is killed. Beaumont returns to Paris, where he warns his former leaders by cipher telegram that he intends to honestly fulfill his mission. In this way, he defies the French secret services, who have betrayed him.

Meanwhile, President N'Jala arrives in France on an official visit. The French authorities are expecting to build a nuclear power plant in his country and raise the security services to protect the dictator. Beaumont successfully lies to the agents, avenges the interrogation and beating of his wife, uncovers the treachery of his friend and colleague Captain Valeras, and in a fair duel kills the commissaire Rosen, who has relentlessly pursued him.

Beaumont infiltrates the Château de Maintenon near Paris, where the security chiefs have accommodated N'Jala. He manages to set N'Jala up to be shot by the assistant inspector Fargeы. Beaumont's revenge succeeds: with the help of the press he has completely discredited the French secret services. Beaumont walks towards the N'Jala's helicopter while colonel Martin - Beaumont's former superior - begs the minister to stop Beaumont. The minister gives the order and Farges fires a round from a machine gun into Beaumont's back and kills him with two single shots.

Based on the novel Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal by Patrick Alexander, the film appeals to real events, namely the friendship between the French government of Giscard d'Éstaing and the Central African dictator Bokassa and the development of uranium deposits in the Republique Centrafricaine on favorable terms for France. The film mentions the construction of a nuclear power plant and the Opération Barracuda, which was canceled at the last minute in the film, changing the course of events. The corresponding dates also coincide, Beaumont disappears in 1979 and reappears two years later in France in 1981. N'Jala's military rank also matches, in the film he is a colonel, as is Bokassa in reality; Bokassa lived in a chateau near Paris after the overthrow, as is shown in the film. The Malagawi flag is fictional, but its colors match the flag of the Republique Centrafricaine - green, yellow, red, and blue.

Jean-Paul Belmondo's battered face, laconic style and roguish smile captured the imagination of French 1960s youth.

Linklater's Slacker (1991) is an intellectual fresco in the spirit of Ulysses by James Joyce. It is an anti-history without a central figure and thus broken up into numerous micro-plots which are sometimes almost impossible to link with each other. The pre-determined time and place of action create this formally avant-garde foundation.

The viewer is forced to relive a summer day of 1989 among the unemployed residents of Austin, Texas. Different faces, characters, fates will flash before the camera slowly drifting along the dusty streets, but none of them will linger on for more than a couple of minutes. Here a random passer-by has the chance to take over the baton from the previous character who had previously just recounted yet another conspiracy theory, an elaborate patchwork of media clutter from television, the press and consumer goods books.

Tramps, Marxist communists, punk musicians, motorists, city madmen, feminist artists, students - the transition from one group of characters to the next occurs smoothly, without splicing, thus forming a single compositional canvas, the interpretation of which is not as important. A condition of collision of these or other frames and images, as in the classic montage films of the Soviet avant-garde. Linklater's aim is different - to provoke the viewer's analytical engagement with completely incoherent shots, thereby relieving himself of the ideological responsibility that implies a clear selection of material from the totality of objects and phenomena that condition the appearance of the particular image on the screen.

This postmodernist detachment of the author from his work is amusingly played out in the very first scene of the film, when the director appears as one of the characters. He literally retells the overall artistic conception of his film to a silent driver after getting into a taxi. Despite this, Linklater and his characters live in the strictly defined historical and cultural context of the United States of the second half of the twentieth century.

Linklater himself takes no position in this ideological struggle, although he does flirt with the ideas of the socially engaged student left. His tactic is to forge his own individual creative path, walking a razor's edge between documenting the era and the style of the postmodern project. His sympathies are entirely on the side of the creative minority. The slackers with their cameras subjugate reality by capturing it on video and manipulating it, bringing the moving image to its impressionist nature - pure color. The cultural freedom they reclaimed in the 1960s seems to Linklater more important than any other economic or political claim. For him, art is a true celebration of life.

Slacker is a 1990 American independent comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by Richard Linklater, who also appears in the film. Slacker was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize - Dramatic at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991.

Vittorio Storaro believes that every film is a resolution of the conflict between light and shadows. Light reveals the truth, while shadows hide it. At the beginning of The Last Emperor, they hide Puyi (the emperor) in the Secret City, shielding him from knowledge of the outside world. At this point, the camera shows the emperor always in shadow, even during brightly lit scenes outside, the servants hold umbrellas over him. The sunlight touches Puyi's face until he himself begins to realize that there is also an outside world hidden from him. Storaro uses colors as a language. There is no doubt that each color is a particular energy wave that can represent or symbolize a particular part of life, he explains. The meanings of colors are universal, even though they are different in every culture. Even if audiences don't understand the meanings of different colors, they still feel it.

Storaro bases his use of colors on the reasoning of the Greek philosophers, who believed that four basic elements create harmony in our lives: water (green), fire (red), earth (ochre), and air (blue). He believes that when our energy is balanced, these colors combine into a form of pure energy, which is white. In preparation for each film, Storaro writes an ideology that defines his use of colors to convey additional information and create emotional undertones. In The Last Emperor, there is an unforgettable moment in the palace courtyard when the sun looks like a big red ball over the horizon. Then it descends lower and the red colors that filled the screen blur. For a while, until the moon rises, the scene remains painted in neutral tones, and then the color is saturated with a deep blue. It's a metaphor for the decline of the Great Chinese Empire.

Kenneth Zunder believes that an entire generation of cinematographers has been inspired by Storaro's work in The Conformist, and now their work is influencing a new generation of cameramen. Zunder thinks that in The Conformist, Storaro was the first modern cameraman to start shooting scenes with actors in the shadows. Zander says, that Storaro's influence is pervasive. Years later, when Zunder was shooting a film early in my career, the producers told him he could shoot actors in the shadows, and let them step out of the frame. They said, Let the picture tell the story along with the script and the actors. They all won because of the work done by Storaro.

Since the beginning of his career, Storaro has always been searching for the perfect way to control artificial light. He took a big step in this direction in 1981, on the set of F. F. Coppola's One From the Heart, a pretentious project in which he was the first to try to adapt a theatrical lighting installation for cinema filming. Storaro developed this technique in 1986 when he filmed Peter the Great in the Soviet Union. Using alternating current, rather than the more common DC current used in the film industry, Storaro managed to create a comparatively smaller control panel that was operated by a single person. This allowed Storaro to orchestrate colors, saturation, and light direction with greater precision in relation to actors and cameras to create implicit or, conversely, overt changes in time or mood.

Vittorio Storaro is an Italian cinematographer widely recognized for his work on numerous classic films including The Conformist, Apocalypse Now, and The Last Emperor. In the course of over fifty years, he has collaborated with directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci, and Francis Ford Coppola.

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