Bald head. Big muscles. Once a renowned businessman, now making a series of questionable decisions in order to obtain more political power. Weird side hobbies, some involving rockets. Perfect recipe for a Bond villain! Also a decent description of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. So maybe it’s appropriate that Amazon has struck a deal to give the company full creative control over the future of 007 and the world he inhabits.
On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about the future of Bond. (James Bond.) John Gruber, the author of Daring Fireball and a preeminent Bond expert, joins the show to talk about Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, its struggles with the Broccoli family over what to do with the Bond franchise, and why so many fans of the series are worried about what might happen when a company like Amazon takes over a beloved name. Will Bond turn out like Marvel, or Star Wars? Or something else entirely? We’ll see – but history suggests we shouldn’t be too optimistic.
Before that, though, there’s some big gadget news to talk about. Framework, a computer maker with a sharp focus on repairability and upgradeability, launched a new laptop and a new desktop last week. Framework CEO Nirav Patel joins David and The Verge’s Sean Hollister to talk about the new devices, Framework’s approach to new categories, and what it takes to actually build products — and a company — that lasts long enough to fulfill its promises. Framework has delivered on modular gadgets like few others ever have, but there’s still a lot of work to do.
After all that, we take a question from the Vergecast Hotline (email [email protected], or call 866-VERGE11!) about a killer app for smart glasses: a more ergonomic computer monitor. There are lots of options out there for this, but only one that really makes sense.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started:
