Spielberg’s debut, Musk takes questions, and news from elsewhere

Good morning, South by Southwesterners!

It’s another lovely day in Bat City, with plenty more keynotes, premieres, and brands trying to activate you on the docket. Mercifully, the mini-heatwave broke overnight, and today it’s expected to be around 67°F (20°C), with partially cloudy skies.

After two days in Austin, it’s become clear to us that the only things that matter are good sneakers, patience, and connectivity. You’ll be standing in long lines for every event whether you’re a VIP or not, nothing is close to anything else, and wifi is never assured. But free drinks and goodies might soften the blow. Happy swag hunting!

What to watch for today

Spending power. Melinda Gates is giving an exceedingly Quartzy talk (to be livestreamed) about how new technologies, business models, and social movements are changing the way we work. She has been championing efforts that help money flow into the hands of marginalized groups, with a recent focus on women.

A world premiere. SXSW officially announced that Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, which has been all over the Austin this week, will debut at the festival tonight. The screening was rumored to be this year’s secret SXSW surprise. The nefarious Sixers from the film have been spotted on Rainey St., at the Ready Player One activation on E. 4th St., and elsewhere in town throughout the weekend.

Time’s Up! Female leaders in film and tech have been at the forefront of this year’s festival. Today, Time’s Up and the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which offers legal and PR support to people who have experienced sexual assault or harassment in the workplace, will discuss the movement and the cultural climate at the convention center.

The Terminator. Actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been working to end gerrymandering—while also preparing to shoot Terminator 6—will talk US politics with Politico’s Edward-Isaac Dovere at the Hilton Austin.

Party with Quartz. We just launched Quartz for Messenger at SXSW, and now it’s time to celebrate! We’re hosting a party for a couple hundred of our closest friends at Stubb’s BBQ on Red River St. at 6pm, and we can’t wait to hang out with you all.

🎉 Austin after dark 🎉 If you didn’t manage to get on the guest list for our party, there are a bunch of other ones worth checking out tonight. IFC’s horror brand, Midnight, is hosting a creepy party at the Charles Johnson House at 8pm; IEEE is running a “Tech for Humanity” party at The Driskill at 7pm; and Mashable is throwing its annual blowout Mashbash party at 9pm at its house at 610 E. 6th St.

Chart interlude

The festival is known for small and mid-sized independent titles, but a few major movies, like Furious 7 and now Ready Player One, make their way through SXSW, too.

What everyone is talking about

The heat. Although it’s usually pretty temperate in Austin at this time of year, the sun was out in force yesterday. Combined with the long lines and a seeming disdain many houses in Austin have for air conditioning, delegates were left sweating and complaining while waiting for free tacos, VR demos, or complimentary drinks. Vice had to cart away its baby goats from the Viceland Party Lot on Red River St., because they were getting overheated. Hopefully every VR headset was wiped down overnight.

More highlights from yesterday

Violent delights. HBO has made it clear at SXSW that it’s going all in on Westworld, given its immersive real-world recreation of the set, numerous panels and interviews featuring the cast and creators, and aggressive sponsorships throughout the festival. It gave festival attendees two sneak peeks of season two, due out on April 22, including a glimpse of Samurai World, or “Shogun World.”

Space race. Elon Musk crashed HBO’s stage to show a highlight reel of the recent SpaceX launch that sent the billionaire’s personal cherry-red Tesla into space. (The video was made by Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy.) You can watch the footage, set to David Bowie’s “Starman,” here and here. SXSW also announced late yesterday that Musk will host a panel today, answering questions from the audience. Tickets are available at 8:30am from Exhibit Hall 5 in the convention center, and the talk will begin at noon.

Captain Obama. Journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates compared former US president Barack Obama to the comic book character Captain America in his keynote discussion, generating a lot of commentary online.“He’s somebody who believes in the ideal of America, really, really believes in it,” Coates said. The writer is currently working a Captain America series.

Our favorite frat houses

Panasonic. Located at Parkside on E. 6th St., Panasonic’s house is absolute madness. The Japanese electronics brand’s Catapult skunkworks division showed off its latest projects, and some of them are truly out there. Among others, there was: OniRobot, a robot that makes rice balls; Aromation, a computer that emits a scent based on your mood; Sylphid, a smart teeth-whitening system; and Pecoral, a smart toothbrush for pets.

Bose. The audio company has a pretty easy-to-miss house at the end of Rainey St., but inside it’s showing off a new prototype product that was one of the most interesting things we’ve seen at SXSW. It’s a pair of augmented-reality smart glasses that overlay sound instead of visual information. In the demo, Mike was able to walk down the street, look at a building, and the glasses would tell him more about what he was seeing. The glasses, which look completely normal, are still in development—Bose is working with partners like Strava to turn it into useful consumer product. It also launched a $50 million fund to build out an app platform for the glasses.

Peru. If you’re looking to get away from the bustle of SXSW, the country of Peru’s house on Rainey St. is a calm, colorful oasis. Enjoy some pisco (the country’s national drink), while pan-flute music plays in the background, and staff swing by with local delicacies. Mike spent far longer staying out of the sun at Peru’s house yesterday than he expected to.

Quartz eats

Ashley and Mike visited the Las Trancas taco truck in East Austin. A local friend told us that even the lesser-known taco spots in Austin are probably better than tacos you can get in most other states. Turns out, they were right. Mike had barbacoa, pastor, and asada tacos, with salsa verde and cilantro. They were delicious:

Ashley, who is nine tacos deep into her time at Austin, found the cheese and bean and vegetarian tacos as delightful as any others she’s had here.

Seen and heard

Elon Musk was spotted last night at the Snoop Dogg DJ set hosted by Sound Ventures at the Van Zandt Hotel. Also in the crowd were Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, Twitter and Medium founder Evan Williams, and actor Ashton Kutcher. Musk was surrounded by security, and when Williams went up to speak to him, bodyguards frisked him. It’s a strange thing to witness a billionaire get frisked so he can speak to another billionaire, while Snoop spins Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson in the background.

A small plane flew around Austin Saturday morning with a banner that said: “Hey Amazon HQ2 No gay? No way,” seemingly in reference to a gay-rights campaign compelling Amazon not to bring its second headquarters to a state with discriminatory laws on their books.

Standing at the end of Rainey street, an unexpected wifi network login page popped up on our phones, which was just the text of an Eater article about racist comments allegedly made by one of the nearby bars in response to online reviews.