"This week in the ➡️ #Metaverse" #47
January 12, 2024
Dear person reading:
Happy New Year! After this pause, we are back to our little corner of the internet. I have been reflecting on how to go on, amidst the very dark times we are going through, and the “The Star Thrower”, by Loren Eiseley, kept coming into my mind. So, with our best intentions of doing something (even if small) that could help things get better, here we are.
Onwards then, with your weekly roundup of the relevant trends, regulatory developments and policy insights, about the metaverse, AI, crypto, neurotech, and gaming.
👁️🗨️What's going on:
👀 => Apple Vision Pro is available in the US on February 2.
More on => twitter.com
The XR Guild launches the XR Guild EVA Nominations
The Ethical Values Awards (EVAs) by XR Guild is on the lookout for the trailblazers in XR, who are making a real difference through ethical innovation, and those who champion ethics and drive positive change in the XR realm.
📅 Nomination Deadline: January 19th
🎙️ Award Ceremony: January 31st - A special podcast event!
👉 Nominate an ethical leader in XR today at XRguild.org/nominate.
👀 ‘Ready Player One’ to Be Turned Into Massive Metaverse Experience in Partnership With Warner Bros. Discovery
Futureverse, an AI and metaverse technology and content company, announced the formation of Readyverse Studios, a studio co-founded with Ernest Cline, the novelist and creator of “Ready Player One,” and Dan Farah, producer of the 2018 Warner Bros. film adaptation of the novel.
In its first major rights deal, Readyverse Studios partnered with Warner Bros. Discovery to exclusively bring the Ready Player One franchise to the metaverse across web3. In addition, Readyverse Studios maintains exclusive web3 rights to all future intellectual property created by Cline.
“Readyverse Studios is laying the groundwork to bring the promise of the open metaverse depicted in Cline’s ‘Ready Player One’ novel and the blockbuster film adaptation into a tangible reality: a multi-world, multi-IP, interoperable open metaverse experience for mass consumers,” .
More on => variety.cm
As HoloLens vanishes from view, XREAL steps up and takes 51% of the augmented reality market
XREAL (formerly NREAL) creates AR glasses that look almost as regular glasses. Complete with prescription options, the XREAL glasses function essentially as an external monitor, able to extend or duplicate a Windows PC or Android phone display. As part of CES 2024 news drops, XREAL announced that it has taken more than half of the AR market to date, and is growing rapidly.
More on => techradar.com
Also, the Xreal Air 2 Ultra wants to give the Apple Vision Pro a run for its money.
Sony's mixed reality headset for 'spatial content creation' arrives later this year
Sony's CES 2024 presentation didn't have much news for the first 25 minutes, but then the company revealed a new XR head-mounted display and controllers with... no name so far, aimed at "spatial content creation."
The headset is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2, which was announced just as CES began. This means it's a self-contained device that doesn't require a computer to run. That chip is driving dual 4K OLED microdisplays, and provides "user and space tracking" for mixed reality experiences.
BMW turns inward for CES, announcing new gaming, streaming, AR, and AI features
The company’s operating system will feature “perfectly aligned” augmented reality and “strong, reliable” AI to enable better communication between the car and the driver.
More on =>theverge.com
Stop Asking If the Universe Is a Computer Simulation
We will never know if we live in a computer simulation; here is a more interesting question: Can we model the universe as a computer simulation?”
More on => scientificamerican.com
🤖I Am Not A Robot: AI news
In the race for AI supremacy, China and the US are travelling on entirely different tracks
Many seemed to agree that it was the political sensitivities and the Chinese online environment – which is closely monitored and subjected to censorship – making development of ChatGPT-like platforms more challenging in China. For instance, asking Baidu’s Ernie chatbot simple questions about Chinese leadership can lead to an immediate shutdown in the conversation.
More on => theguardian.com
‘Impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material, OpenAI says
In a submission to the House of Lords communications and digital select committee, OpenAI said it could not train large language models such as its GPT-4 model – the technology behind ChatGPT – without access to copyrighted work.
More on => theguardian.com
but wait, there is more! OpenAI claims New York Times' prompting strategy violates its terms of service
According to the complaint, the New York Times prompted GPT models with the beginnings of its original articles, causing the model to complete the text as closely as possible.
More on => the-decoder.com
🚩=> Rite Aid faces 5-year facial recognition ban
The FTC alleged in a complaint that the pharmacy retail chain failed to implement reasonable procedures in hundreds of stores and prevent harm to consumers with what the agency called Rite Aid's "reckless" use of facial recognition technology that it said "disproportionately impacted people of color."
More on =>axios.com
🤦The WTF award of the week goes to…
ERROR 404> Crypto hedge fund CEO NOT FOUND
For years, rumors spread on social media that Steven Reece Lewis, the chief executive officer of a now-shuttered cryptocurrency hedge fund called HyperVerse, was a "fake person" who "doesn't exist." After its investigation, The Guardian has confirmed that no organization cited on his resume "can find any record of him."
The Guardian uncovered no LinkedIn account for Reece Lewis "or any Internet presence other than HyperVerse promotional material." It appeared, too, that Reece Lewis' Twitter account was created just a month before the 2021 video launched.
Celebrities and influencers, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, endorsed Reece Lewis as a strong leader for the HyperVerse.
More on => arstechnica.com
YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim
Public Domain Day (Jan 1) this year got the much awaited jailbreak of the original Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie.
On Jan 4 voice actor and YouTuber Brock Baker uploaded a new video, titled "Steamboat Willie (Brock's Dub)," to his YouTube channel with more than 1 million subscribers.
The video was promptly demonetized, and got a dispute claim from Disney.
While probably it was flagged automatedly by YouTube’s ContentID, it is more than a Freudian oopsie slip from Disney and YouTube not updating the copyright algorithmic detection tool.
UPDATE Jan. 5, 2024: On Friday, Disney retracted the copyright claim on YouTuber Brock Baker's "Steamboat Willie" video.
UPDATE Jan 6, 2024: aaaaand one day later…. the video got a claim, now about the audio, by UMG.
Credit: Brock Baker More on => mashable.com
😬Meme corner:
💸CryptoLand:
SEC account hack renews spotlight on X's security concerns
The hackers posted false news about a widely anticipated announcement the SEC was expected to make about bitcoin, leading the cryptocurrency's price to spike and alarming observers. The false post on SECGov said the securities regulator had approved exchange-traded funds to hold bitcoin. The SEC deleted the post about 30 minutes after it appeared.
The social media platform also said in a post that the SEC did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time the account was compromised.
More on => reuters.com
🧠Neurotech:
Japan scientists create world's 1st mental images with AI tech
The technology, dubbed "brain decoding," enables the visualization of perceptual contents based on brain activity and could be applied to the medical and welfare fields.
Previous studies had shown that images seen by human participants could be reconstructed from brain activity measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, although they were limited to specific domains such as alphabetical letters.
Based on previous methods, the team developed a technology that quantifies brain activity and allows generative AI to draw images in combination with predictive techniques to recreate complex objects.
More on => kyodonews.com
✍️Ending nugget:
“Tech exceptionalism” is the sin of thinking that the normal rules don’t apply to technology. The idea that you can take an unjust system like racist policing practices and fix it with technology? Exceptionalism. The idea that tech itself can’t be racist because computers are just doing math, and can’t be racist? Utter exceptionalism.
Cory Doctorow, The Internet Con: How to seize the means of computation
That’s all for now! To continue the conversation, find me at https://linktr.ee/abogamer. And if you want to support my work (and feed my cats :)🐱 please consider sharing and subscribing to this newsletter!!