On this and other issues, it will come down to what lawmakers decide is fair, said Abbott.
"Do we want to make it easier for businesses to do business, or ... for creatives to get compensation?" he said.
With recordings of work calls and video conversations having become commonplace during the pandemic, these decisions will have repercussions outside the entertainment industry in spheres such as workplace rights, said Pavis.
"Performers are a little bit the lab rats for what we think is acceptable and unacceptable, legal and illegal," she said.
"They are at the frontier of the debate around what use of our data and our faces for work will be seen as appropriate."
On Wednesday, Vuzix, a global manufacturer of enterprise augmented reality (AR) smart glasses, revealed it had signed numerous agreements with extended reality (XR) components firm Atomistic SAS.
The deal will secure Vuzix with “next-generation” micro light-emitting diode (microLED) lens display technologies for its upcoming immersive devices. Atomistic designed its lenses as the world’s first microLED product supporting fully integrated colour displays for AR devices.
The strategic agreement provides Vuzix with an exclusive license to use microLED lenses for its smart glasses, and Atomistic SAS will assist Vuzix in designing custom backplates for its AR products.
... Just shy of 10,000 Fuzzles will exist as ERC-721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Holders will be able to see them in their Ethereum and NFT marketplace wallets, but will only be able to interact with their Fuzzles through the Fuzzles app, which is still in development. (I played with a test Fuzzle.) ...
The blockchain gaming company Gala Games partnered with Endless AI to create the Fuzzles, which are first being sold in “Pods” on the Gala Games store or OpenSea. The Pods can then be traded in for Fuzzles NFTs at a later date. ...
My Fuzzle told me she lives in Canada. And she’s an atheist. When it comes to personal finance, Fuzzle believes that Bitcoin and Ethereum have the potential to unseat the traditional banking system. ...
My test Fuzzle was a strange combination of innocent and cynical, scientific and conspiratorial. While she wasn’t exactly quick to respond and often talked to me in circles, the fact that someone can carry on a normal-enough conversation with a computer program is notable. ...
...The key technologies needed for the metaverse—augmented and virtual reality, headmounted displays, 3D simulations and virtual environments built by artificial intelligence—are already found in the defense world. ... And there’s a good chance that the underlying tech could take off, even if it stutters in the civilian realm. ...
A mix of augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and video game graphics, for instance, have enabled fighter pilots to practice dogfighting against virtual opponents, including Chinese and Russian warplanes, while pulling several Gs. Red 6, the company that’s developing the technology, says this delivers a far more realistic test of a pilot’s abilities than a conventional flight simulator. “We can fly against whatever threat we want,” says Daniel Robinson, founder and CEO of Red 6. “And that threat could be controlled either by an individual remotely or by artificial intelligence.” ...
“The promise is integrating these technologies,” says Caitlin Dohrman, general manager of the defense division of Improbable, a company that develops virtual world technologies, has created sprawling virtual battlefields featuring over 10,000 individually controlled characters for the UK’s military wargames, and also works with the US Department of Defense (DOD). ...
In 2017, Luckey cofounded the defense company Anduril. He says that despite all the recent metaverse hype, there is big defense potential, partly because military training is so important and costly. But he says the technology does not have to be hyper-realistic to be useful, and he wants Anduril to focus on only using the technology where necessary. ...
“When you are out there shooting and being shot at, the last thing you want to worry about is another piece of equipment,” he says. And technology does not need to be as expansive as a metaverse to be useful. ...
Cryptocurrency for borderless payments and security
The plastic surgery industry is a booming business, with billions of dollars exchanging hands every year. However, the industry faces a few major problems. One issue is the need for privacy and keeping procedures confidential. Another obstacle is cross-border transactions. It can be difficult to conduct surgeries in different countries because of different laws, taxes and regulations. Cryptocurrency solves both.
... One of the most important benefits of AI in diagnostics is that it can help provide accurate diagnoses for patients with rare diseases and treatment decisions, all while removing the human bias. Some of the medical vision applications are estimated to save at least 80% of the time it takes for physicians to reach the final diagnosis. ...
Veritone, Inc. (NASDAQ: VERI), creator of aiWARE, a hyper-expansive enterprise AI platform, today unveiled Navigate, a new application custom designed for Veritone One—its full-service performance-based audio and influencer advertising agency. Built on aiWARE, Navigate automates analysis and empowers transparency to the impact of influencer and media placement that for most advertisers is still beyond their grasp.
Veritone One’s decision-making empowers the world's most recognizable brands by aggregating planning filters for demographics, media and ad unit type, show size, genre, pricing and performance in split-second analysis. By improving processes for automating, validating, verifying and scaling content-based live reads and influencer ads, Navigate helps drive increased client ROI through better planning, execution, evaluation and media optimization. Veritone’s aiWARE equips media planners with the data they need to make more impactful, cost-effective decisions for their clients. ...
The first-ever NFTCannes Summit will take place at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This annual event is designed to connect leading minds from the media and entertainment industry to innovators, creators and investors in web3.
Officially kicking off on May 23 at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, ...
The program will focus on topics spanning the future of current NFT applications in entertainment (including collectibles, financing and distribution), fan and community-building opportunities, as well as live events and experiences. The hosts of the first-ever summit are Mark Kimsey, co-founder and co-CEO of EMP; Sam Englebardt, co-founder of Galaxy Interactive and Galaxy Digital; and Jaeson Ma, co-founder of OP3N Studios. ...
Average music NFT pricing remains expensive, but has fallen over time. Between February and December 2021, the average price per music NFT fell by 46%, from $18.8K to $10.2K per unit. The median fell by 27% over the same time frame, from $1,000 to $825 per unit.
The most popular genre by share of revenue was Electronic (65%) followed by Hip-Hop (19%).
Music NFT marketplace competition has increased significantly. Early in the year, Nifty Gateway dominated with over 60% share of primary music NFT revenue. By the end of the year, though, the leader (OpenSea) had only 28% share of primary revenue, facing competition from many new music NFT platforms like Sound, Pianity, and Nina.
The use of non-Ethereum blockchain protocols also diversified significantly. In H1 2021, Ethereum had dominated with over 90% market share by drops, but only claimed about 50% of drops in H2, as alternatives including proof-of-stake chains like Tezos and L2 chains like Polygon, garnered more adoption. ...
Grimes and Steve Aoki both drove a lot of attention to NFTs in early 2021 thanks to their celebrity status and the high bids they garnered for their sales: Grimes earned over $6M last February across ten drops, and Steve Aoki raised nearly $5M on 13 drops (all on Nifty Gateway). Steve Aoki in particular has continued to be active and outspoken about the benefits of Web3 and NFTs for artists, and has also expanded his Web3 footprint with his Aok1verse project, launched in 2022. ...
On-chain, i.e. built into an NFT’s smart contract, such as NFT revenue splits or on-chain music storage, or
Off-chain, i.e. delivered and experienced outside of blockchain-specific environments, such as in-person events, physical merch, and general community-building
It’s important to note that the audio (and accompanying visual) portions of music NFTs are often not stored directly on-chain, but instead are linked from the metadata of an NFT’s smart contract and live on third-party sites such as IPFS or Arweave. ...
Perhaps due to more direct control over – and flexible approaches to – their IP, independent artists have led the charge in carrying out early experiments with royalty-based utility. ...
Opulous has tried to avoid potential securities risks by working with the SEC to develop Security Non-Fungible Tokens (S-NFTs), which they tout as meeting federal regulatory requirements. ...
A new crop of startups like Unlock, Temple, Highlight, and Medallion have recently emerged with the explicit focus on helping artists launch NFT-gated online communities, across multiple platforms including Discord, WordPress and Discourse, in addition to whitelabeled sites. Here again we see the trend of individual artists spearheading experiments, followed by dedicated companies emerging to scale those experiments into long-term software services. ...
“VIP,” “festival,” “tickets,” “show,” “meet & greet,” “guestlist,” and “backstage” were among the “live experience” terms found in NFT offerings across all genres. ...
Professional services firm Accenture has partnered with Telstra and Google to develop an augmented reality wayfinding experience for footy fans attending Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium.
Users of the mobile app will be able to access information such as seating directions via digital graphics superimposed on the real world environment, with Telstra and the Australian Football League (AFL) aiming to launch ahead of next season. ...
In addition to navigation, with personal seating directions given upon scanning one’s ticket barcode, the app will also include pre-match augmented reality (AR) shows and multi-user AR games, along with enhanced player analytics and performance stats among other exclusive content. However, Krogh Andersen also points to the potential future use cases in settings such as hospitals, shopping centres and airports to improve customer experience. ...
With the new v40 software update, Meta is testing optional E2EE for Messenger's one-on-one messages and calls in VR
"Keeping your information secure is one of our top priorities, not just in VR but across Meta apps and technologies. When people trust that their conversations are truly private, they feel safe to express themselves and build stronger online connections.," Meta said in a statement late on Monday.
