Qux
I've read two articles so far about Qux (at Gizmodo and the Daily Beast) and I love how stupid it is. I don't expect the device to ever actually ship, but on paper it sounds like a Roku for gullible people.
Up until now, I only knew the word "qux" as a placeholder word like "foo," "bar," and "baz"--sort of the Zeppo Marx of the metasyntactic variables. This device, however, is called Qux either because it sounds like "cucks" (as in "cuckservative") or because it stands for "Quantum User Experience." It is supposed to be a portal to an uncensored internet free from the influence of "Big Tech," so I'm pretty sure it's along the same lines as the MyPillow guy's social network.
If you're like me, you saw the word "quantum" and hope this thing is supposed to be based on some magical pseudoscience. Early signs are promising--co-creator Gavin Wince runs a site about "existics" which has been likened to good ol' Time Cube. I'm not sure what "three-dimensional time" has to do with keeping Big Tech from deplatforming your favorite right-wing crackpots, but I'm sure this guy's got it covered.
Qux can't seem to decide if it's supposed to improve the existing internet or replace it altogether. In explaining the problem Qux is meant to solve, a promotional video says "We have become dependent on a corrupted unsecure network, the so-called World Wide Web. This is not the intergalactic computer network we were promised." I don't remember anyone ever promising me an intergalactic computer network, honestly. But the implication is that Qux can deliver on that specifically vague, vaguely specific goal. If it works, I'm gonna send a quantum email to the planet Ligma.
