Archive

Let me start by apologising for sending a second email to you today—one per week is quite enough, I’m sure.

The reason for this email is to let you know that today’s edition of The Tech Landscape was sent from a new email provider (I’m using the old provider to send this one), so if you haven’t seen it yet it’s entirely possible that it’s gone into a different folder than usual. I’ll be sending all future issues from the new provider, so keep an eye out every Monday in case of possible weirdness. You may want to add the email address to your contacts list to make sure it arrives safely.

Many thanks, and sorry again for troubling you a second time.

Facebook messaging, Facebook Gaming, and Twitter iterating: this is issue 206 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

The (self-imposed) remit of this newsletter is to cover a broad range of stories so that you can get a sense of everything that’s going on in consumer digital tech. I try to add some context and insight if I can, but really it’s about the what happened first, and the second. But if you’re also in the market for a more pointy look at the top stories, you might want to subscribe to the new newsletter from my brilliant friend Rosie Copland-Mann.

Google Fuchsia, Spark gets smarter, and hiding Likes: this is issue 205 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

The newsletter’s a bit shorter than in recent weeks, as there was a bit of a news lull following the Google IO and Snap Partner Summits. As such, I don’t have a lot to write about. Instead I’ll do a little PR for myself by letting you know that I’m quoted in the latest Digiday Content Commerce report—so if you want to read me talking about social e-commerce along with lots of other actually interesting things you should .

A Google IO and Snap Partner Summit special: this is issue 204 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Let me start by saying hello to all the new subscribers! There was a big batch of signups this week and I’m not sure why—although obviously I’m delighted. So, hello and welcome, readers old and new, to a bumper edition of the newsletter with highlights from Google IO and the Snap Partner Summit. I like watching these big keynote presentations because you get to see how companies want themselves to be seen; and, of course, because there are lots of new product announcements, which are the bread and butter of this newsletter.

On a short, boring, admin-y note I’m considering moving this newsletter to a different provider next week—I want to try Revue now that it’s more integrated with Twitter. Hopefully they’ll be no ill effects from the move, but keep an eye on your Junk folders just in case.

The end of the Real World, new Shows, and Apple trying ads again: this is issue 203 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

“Next week I’ll write my newsletter earlier than Sunday night so I don’t have to rush the intro”—me, every week.

I follow a lot of self-described futurists on Twitter. (As an aside before my main point: not all futurists make predictions, and beware the ones that do; they’re rarely held to the accuracy of their predictions. “The future is a great place to hide”, as Bob Hoffman put it.)

Twitter’s Tip Jar, Clubhouse on Android, and TikTok extends itself: this is issue 202 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

This week I want to take a little dump on a tweet I read. I’m not going to link to it (I’m not that person), but it basically said something like: “I’m afraid to Google something because I don’t want the algorithm to think I like it, and I’m afraid to click a link because I don’t want the algorithm to show me more like it… what a cage.”

When I was at school, a new kid joined—let’s call him Paul. We became friends, and a few months later he invited a group of us to his birthday party. Of course, we didn’t know him well, so we asked him what he liked, and he said he liked a series of books—let’s say Mr Men (I’m sure we were too old for them, but I genuinely can’t remember the series). So on the day of his birthday we all bought him Mr Men books. He wasn’t very happy. Over the years we’ve all got to know him better, and learn more about his tastes, and can buy things we know he likes, or has a reasonable chance of liking. He doesn’t get 10 of the same books for his birthday anymore.

Apple under fire, Playstation’s Discord, and more social audio: this is issue 201 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

I just want to say a big thank you to everybody who tips me the price of a coffee or two for writing this email. I genuinely, honestly, and wholeheartedly appreciate it.

Facebook goes audio, Twitter and Snapchat go Android, and Search goes kawaii: this is issue 200 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

200 issues! Yes, 200—despite what it says in the footer!

Microsoft helps doctors, Spotify’s Thing for cars, and VR subscriptions: this is issue 199 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

I read this week that Google has opened a number of job vacancies for people to work on augmented reality hardware. It owns a number of AR headset properties and patents, from its work on Glass (far too far ahead of its time), and its acquisitions of Lytro (lightfield cameras) and North (smart glasses). But while it’s obviously putting more effort into dedicated AR hardware, its approach to smartphone AR is still baffling me.

TikTok music effects, Hey Spotify!, and Find My things: this is issue 198 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about digital technology and culture. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a sprinkle of insight and opinion where appropriate.

This week I had to put together a presentation to explain the metaverse to a client. The problem is, the metaverse is an emerging concept and nobody really knows what it’s going to be—it would be like someone in 1998 trying to predict what today’s web would look like. When most people today talk about ‘the metaverse’ what they’re actually talking about is social+ gaming and/or virtual concerts—both of which will be a facet of the metaverse, but not the whole of it.

If you want to understand the metaverse concept, the best place to start is Matthew Ball’s essay .

Audio social, virtual assistants, and Instagram clones TikTok again: this is issue 197 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Hello! It’s the Easter bank holiday in the UK this weekend so you’re getting this email a day later. That means a few extra stories from today (Monday) which you wouldn’t usually see until next week; consider it an Easter treat.

No long intro this week, I’ve written some extra stuff about audio social instead.

YouTube visual search, Slack messes up messaging, and me, me, me: this is issue 196 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Let’s start with some things about ME!

I went to Kaskade’s virtual concert in Fortnite Party Royale this weekend. If you haven’t been to one, I made this short so you can get a feel for it. What I found notable watching this back is that the difference between being at a physical concert and “being” at a virtual concert is much larger than the difference when being there.

Google watches you sleep, Telegram is the new Clubhouse, and Play Store cuts its commission: this is issue 195 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

This week Gucci launched a pair of digital-only shoes. The Virtual 25 cost £11.99 and you can wear them in your social photos, in VR Chat, and Roblox. This might sound weird to you, but to a generation raised on AR and gaming skins, this isn’t an unusual new behaviour at all.

Facebook pays creators, Instagram Lite gets bigger, and Google Maps as social media: this is issue 194 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

I’m writing this paragraph still on a buzz (that is, slightly drunk) from watching Arsenal beat Tottenham 2-1 in the football earlier today. I know objectively that it’s bit odd to derive pleasure from the outcome of something that’s outside of your control, but a lot of culture just comes down to the value we arbitrarily put on things.

This week a digital work by the artist Beeple sold for around £50m—or, rather, Ethereum cryptocurrency valued at around £50m at the time, but could be worth anything by now given the inherent volatility of cryptocurrencies. My general hunch on this is that it’s got little to do with the art market, really, it’s just a way for cryptocurrency speculators to pump the economy to make their investments more valuable. I wrote a bit more about here.

Facebook Shops UK, Instagram Live Rooms, and Alexa Conversations: this is issue 193 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

A couple of people have commented on the increased number of stories on gaming in the newsletter this past year or so. To clarify, it’s not all gaming that I post about here, but a very specific area: social+ gaming. Social+ is defined, broadly, as platforms which have a social graph that isn’t the main reason for using it. The social graph is critical to Facebook and Twitter, for example; the feed exists because of the connections you’ve added, and if you don’t follow anyone, there’s little use for them. Whereas in Fortnite and Twitter, for a further example, you go there to play, to create, to learn, or otherwise be entertained, and the social graph improves your experience but isn’t necessary for it.

Twitter’s ambitions, Snapchat’s advantage, and Spotify’s ads: this is issue 192 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Pinch! Punch! It’s the first of the month!

This week two stories were published on what went wrong at Stadia, Google’s effort to break into gaming: , and .

Blockchain commerce, Twitter voice DMs, and YouTube’s roadmap: this is issue 191 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Obviously the thing that everyone’s been talking about this week is Australia’s proposed media code, which is on the verge of becoming law, and requires large web platforms (basically Facebook and Google) to pay publishers to link to their content.

, while .

Gaming, short video, and social commerce: this is issue 190 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

A lot of the perceived harms of ‘big tech’ are focused on Facebook & Google, but there are two which get kind of a free ride because of how essential many of us find them: Amazon, and Apple. But doesn’t everyone love Apple? Well yes, they make probably (almost certainly) the best hardware in the industry; but the prevalence of the iPhone and Apple’s control of the App Store are stifling the next generation of creators and the internet. Don’t take my word for it; put aside an hour and read Matthew Ball’s long, in-depth, and insightful explanation.

Instagram’s future, Stadia changes, and Messenger in VR: this is issue 189 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

The Marketing Society asked me, in my capacity as Innovation Lead at a large marketing agency, to write about some trends to watch in the year ahead. Rather than write a typical trends piece, I wrote about three different areas that will drive online culture in 2021, with a shared human truth at their core: we may be apart, but we want to be apart together.

Facebook News, Twitter Birdwatch, and a buying spree: this is issue 188 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

No blisteringly insightful opinions in this week’s introduction as it’s already midnight and I need to get this into your inbox soon. Hope you’re well!

Acquisitions

Digital eyeshadow, Search redesigned, and Taboola spreads: this is issue 187 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Facebook’s WhatsApp communication SNAFU (see last week’s edition) lead to reportedly millions of users leaving WhatsApp to join rivals Signal and Telegram.

CES, Fitbit, and custom Alexa: this is issue 186 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Hello! Welcome to another week of it all.

Last week saw the annual CES trade show move online for the first time, like everything else. CES is rarely directly influential on what I write about here, as it’s largely showing off products that fall into three categories: the prosaic stuff that we’re going to use but are just new forms of existing appliances (TVs, laptops, WiFi routers, fridges, etc); the wild concepts that are talking points but unlikely to emerge in the forms that are shown—“fantasies with a purpose”, as Dieter Bohn called them; and the in-betweens, the almost-there devices, like , which can be used now but won’t by most people until someone like Apple really thinks through the intention beyond the tech.

Pages with no Likes, audio social, and Amazon maps: this is issue 185 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Happy New Year to all readers who use the Gregorian calendar! This is the first newsletter of 2021—I took a few weeks off, which one person complained about, but he’s a person who’s bought me a few coffees so as my patron I accept his complaint.

Video social, video calling, and video try-ons: this is issue 184 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

“This might be the last newsletter of the year, depending on what gets announced this week”, I wrote in the last edition. Then there was a of news stories, leading to what I believe is the longest newsletter I’ve written—and in a week where fewer of you are going to read it. Eh.

Facebook’s social ecommerce, Twitter’s watch parties, and opportunities for AR creators: this is issue 183 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Another flood of stories this week, but everything was somewhat overshadowed by the news that the US Federal Trade Commission is suing Facebook for illegally maintaining a monopoly, and is threatening to undo its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Plenty has been written about this already, so I’ll just add two notes of my own:

XR glasses, Google Maps super-app, and Alexa as a chat bot: this is issue 182 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

I’ve been playing around with Twitter’s Fleets this week. I kind of like them because they let me be a bit more silly and experimental than the feed, which has more of an air of permanence about it. I seem to be in the minority, though; I know the feature hasn’t rolled out to everyone yet, but uptake seems to be very slow.

Anyway, a full week of news this week. Lots of little feature announcements, including a focus on Google Maps and a Stats of the Week bonanza. Enjoy!

Snapchat goes TikTok, Stories on Spotify, and wearables for health: this is issue 181 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Everything was going as normal this week and then suddenly on Wednesday all the news stopped. I couldn’t work it out at first, then I realised it’s Thanksgiving in the US which means half the population was stopping work to drive/fly off to see their families then go to shopping malls to buy stuff (all in contravention of pandemic regulations/common sense). Which is to say: short newsletter this week.

Everything

Twitter’s Fleets, Apple’s App Store, and Instagram’s updates: this is issue 180 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Quite a long email because there was SO MUCH NEWS this week. Lots of social media and messaging updates, just in time for winter and endless rounds of lockdown to keep us in our homes.

Top Stories

Instagram’s new focus, smarter Alexa, and Apple chips: this is issue 178 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

No intro this week. Hope you’re well!

Top Stories

Virtual entertainment, digital makeup, and disappearing messages: this is issue 178 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

A slow news week. Well, you know, slow for digital tech news. The US elections sucked up all the media air, so no company wanted to announce anything much.

I wrote a short thing: . It’s largely about how entertainment brands are moving into gaming, which is a thing I briefly touched on last week and one of the most interesting things to happen (in digital tech) this year. Nature abhors a vacuum, where nature in this case is represented by entertainment brands: faced with a reduction in physical spaces (e.g. cinemas, live events) this year, entertainment has moved fairly easily into digital spaces.

Social ecommerce, cloud gaming, and MILEs: this is issue 177 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Two of the most interesting things happening in digital right now are the merging of gaming, entertainment, and fashion, and the merging of ecommerce and social media. Over time, I expect those two things to start merging more strongly with each other: gaming spaces as virtual social spaces, with passive and active entertainment, and multiple ways to express identity. All of which is preamble for this week’s top stories:

Top Stories

Google and WhatsApp go shopping, and gaming and entertainment get closer: this is issue 176 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

No top stories this week, as most of the announcements were about moving things into position for the future—a bit like the last episode of each season of Game of Thrones.

Ecommerce

Apple iPhones, Google search, and Amazon AR: this is issue 175 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

My former colleague (and awful joke pundit) Gordon Midwood founded Anything.World, a platform for creating endless 3D worlds, in realtime, using your voice if you wish, with AI behaviours applied. It’s just launched in Beta, so if creating limitless 3D worlds sounds like something you’d be interested in, check it out at Anything.World—it’s free for personal use.

Planet-scale XR, IGTV Shopping, and Assistant + apps: this is issue 174 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

This newsletter started off as a way to keep my colleagues at a digital agency aware of what’s going on in the technology market: product announcements, trends and signals, that kind of thing. For the people who were too busy to follow everything that gets announced, but want to stay informed. I continue to write with that audience in mind. If you work in digital marketing or advertising, especially in agencies which have broad capabilities, you’re solidly in my imagined audience. And if this also describes your colleagues, I’d love it if you invited them to subscribe too.

Google Hardware, Facebook’s Great Convergence, and Pinterest Shopping: this is issue 173 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

An awful lot of news from Google this week, as it held its Autumn hardware event and took the opportunity to simultaneously announce a bunch of other features too. There’s usually a lot of news from Google as they do so much, and so much in the open, but this week there’s notably more.

Top Stories

Amazon hardware updates, Google Web Stories, and XR Object Anchors: this is issue 172 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

The long-delayed NHS contact tracing app launched in England and Wales this week. It uses Apple and Google’s contact tracing system to detect when users have come into contact with someone who has been infected, and also has a QR scanner for checking in to shops and restaurants.

Apple One, Quest 2, YouTube Shorts, and the TikTok ban: this is issue 171 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

The UK’s test and trace app finally launches this week, so the NHS is running a campaign promoting QR codes. They’re officially back.

Android 11, Fortnite concerts, and Facebook back on Campus: this is issue 169 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

No intro this week. Sorry.

Top Stories

Planet-Scale AR, Alexa for Residential, and TikTok Stitch: this is issue 169 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

No Top Stories this week—it wasn’t really that sort of week. Instead, here’s everything, loosely ordered by interestingness and/or relevance (in my judgement, as always).

Facebook Shops, Reality Labs, Amazon Halo, the App Store revolt, TikTok, and a focus on XR: this is issue 168 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

I went on a four-day walking holiday through the South of England this week, and learned a few things, notably that Britain’s centuries-old system of public footpaths and rights of way is one of its great achievements. But more pertinently for this newsletter: first, that Google Maps might be peerless for routing in urban areas, but its utility breaks down pretty rapidly when you want to go off-road; and second, judging by how many I saw in rural pubs, the QR Code is definitely back.

This is issue 167 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

The Epic vs Apple fight has rumbled on into a second week, with Apple threatening to cut Epic’s access to all iOS support for its Unreal Engine, which powers a lot of games. Epic has filed a new suit against Apple because of this, and Microsoft has written in support of the suit because it threatens some of its games on the platform. I genuinely don’t know what the outcome of all this will be, but my hope is that Apple’s strong-arming of the flat 30% fee (except for special cases, like Amazon Prime Video) won’t last.

This is issue 166 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

A very eventful week—lots of stories, with one very big one: Epic Games suing Apple and Google for monopolistic practices on the App Store and Play Store, respectively. It started with Epic releasing a new server-side update for Fortnite on mobile, which offered users a permanent 20% discount (also available to everyone on PC and console) if they paid directly to Epic rather than using Apple Pay or Google Pay. Apple and Google kicked Fortnite from their stores, and Epic announced lawsuits (along with an in-game satire of Apple’s famous 1984 ad). The Verge has the best coverage of the whole thing:

❗️ Important note re: unsubscribing: I had a bit of a problem with last week’s newsletter which resulted in me sending it from my personal account. As a result, the unsubscribe link in the footer didn’t work. If you tried to unsubscribe and you’re reading this message now, please accept my heartfelt apologies, and unsubscribe again. The last thing I want is to spam your inbox.

This is issue 164 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

164 of the 220 squares on a Scrabble board are blank. The highest possible word score in the game is 1,782 points, for Oxyphenbutazone.

This is issue 163 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

In the days before broadband Chinese users had to dial 163 to connect to the internet. To capitalise on the familiarity with this number, the Chinese technology giant NetEase chose the official web domain .

This is issue 162 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Each team in Major League Baseball play 162 games in a regular season. Some weeks it’s a lot harder than others to find interesting number facts; this week was a hard one.

This is issue 161 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Marcus Aurelius, who became emperor of Rome in 161 CE, famously followed the philosophy of the Stoics. Amongst his many personal notes he once wrote “you are not compelled to form any opinion at all about this matter before you, nor to disturb your peace of mind at all”, which is useful advice for the productive use of Twitter.

This is issue 160 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

Between 1966 and 1991 the UK’s Post Office ran a service called Dial-A-Disc where you could call the number 160 to hear chart hits. In its peak year, 1981, it received 200 million calls.

This is issue 159 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

The 159 London bus route was the last to use the famous Routemaster buses. People are quite nostalgic about the Routemaster, and it was a lot of fun to jump on and off wherever you wanted; but they were fundamentally non-inclusive, terrible if you had any kind of physical impairment.

This is issue 158 of The Tech Landscape, a weekly collection of news about consumer digital technology. Stories are selected by me, Peter Gasston, with a little insight and opinion where appropriate.

The Roman emperor Constantine decreed a weekly day of worship and rest dedicated to Sol Invictus, the god of the sun—i.e. Sunday. The earliest known reference to Sol Invictus dates from 158 CE.