Weekly Roundup #18: Facebook Messenger, Spartan, Sami Inkinen and the final Bugatti Veyron

Welcome to Weekly Roundup, our podcast discussing the tech trends, innovation and news from the last few days.

This week, Stuart Thomas, Jacques Coetzee, and Andy Walker tackle topics as diverse as Facebook Messenger’s transition to a platform, the latest updates to Microsoft’s Project Spartan, an entrepreneur who’s also an extreme athlete, and the final Bugatti Veyron.

As a company, Facebook is 11 years old now. If it had remained the social network it was back then, it might still be around but it probably wouldn’t have nearly the same levels of success it now does. Its latest effort to evolve sees it retooling its messaging app as a platform. Will it work? The team’s not all that certain.

While Facebook’s change to Messenger may have been brave, it might not be as brave a rowing from the Continental US to Hawaii. That’s just one of the things that entrepreneur Sami Inkinen has done. Add in a good few Iron Man championships and selling off a company for US$2.5-billion and you have someone you can learn from.

Inkinen’s dogged determination might well serve as a metaphor for Internet Explorer which, it turns out, is still going to be around in Windows 10. Interestingly, it will exist at the same time as the browser Microsoft’s code-named Project Spartan. Why? It’s not exactly clear but Andy Walker does it best to unpack it.

One thing that is very certain is the legendary status of the Bugatti Veyron. After watching a video of the Bugatti team putting together the last one ever built — dubbed La Finale — the team pays tribute to one of the finest pieces of motoring design ever put together.