VR is getting ABSOLUTELY INSANE – Quest 2 STEALS CHRISTMAS
ThrillSeeker has produced a 14 min news update on VR.
He discusses the Apple Effect - as in Quest 2 app downloads being #1 from the Apple store this week drives attention to Quest and tells Apple about potential demand.
More importantly, he discusses the Quest Effect - where Quest sale surge at Xmas drives news stories about Quest, causing Quest to dominate VR searches, which in turn causes developers to develop for the Quest, and developing a feedback loop.
See the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zur_9zkXP2c
Voice AI Predictions for 2022 from 25 Industry Leaders
VIRTUAL BEINGS, METAVERSE, AND GPT-3
CHITHRA DURGAM, DDS AND FOUNDER, BLUE CHECK SKILL
2022 will see an increased use of voice with chatbots in the Metaverse, avatars using synthetic voices, synthetic voices increasingly reading audiobooks, and more interactive Alexa/Google Home technology platforms adding more discoverability to voice content. As optimistic as I am, there are still questions in regards to the Metaverse involving the long-term rights to the use of another’s voice, maintaining customer service as companies utilize more technology, and authenticating avatars to prevent fraud. With certainty, companies will be leveraging Conversation AI technology in spaces it hasn’t before to offer more continuity to their branding.
EDWARD SAATCHI, CO-FOUNDER, FABLE
The battle for the soul of the metaverse will commence – Web3 and Free and Open Source Software like Sandbox and Blender vs the centralized companies of Meta, Epic, Roblox, Adobe.
See the full story here: https://voicebot.ai/2022/01/01/voice-ai-predictions-for-2022-from-25-industry-leaders/

These are the 6 hottest crypto tokens you can use to buy real estate in the metaverse
1. Ether
Symbol: ETH
YTD Returns: 401%
Market Cap: $448 billion
2. Axie Infinity
Symbol: AXS
YTD Returns: 18,016%
Market Cap: $6.5 billion
3. Sandbox
Symbol: SAND
YTD Returns: 16,853%
Market Cap: $5.6 billion
4. Decentraland
Symbol: MANA
YTD Returns: 4,219%
Market Cap: $4.4 billion
5. Gala
Symbol: GALA
YTD Returns: 28,477%
Market Cap: $3.5 billion
6. Enjin Coin
Symbol: ENJ
YTD Returns: 1,971%
Market Cap: $2.5 billion
See the full story here: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/metaverse-crypto-popular-tokens-digital-land-real-estate-investing-tips-2021-12

AIMMO bags $12M Series A to advance data labeling technology
A Korean startup called AIMMO, which uses software and humans to label and categorize image, video, sound, text and sensor fusion data, built an AI data annotation platform, enabling the data labeling faster for enterprises.
AIMMO announced today it has raised $12 million in a Series A round to advance its data labeling technology and spur global expansions. ...
In an email interview, Doyle Chung, Head of Global Sales at AIMMO, said, “With AI deployments for intelligence monitoring, smart cities, autonomous driving, smart factories, and robotics where AI data is inevitably needed. , Accelerating the transformation of non-contact technology that pandemic is accelerating. ” “In all directions and industries, our focus is [mainly] Smart city and autonomous driving. ” ...
See the full story here: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/aimmo-bags-12m-series-advance-001551729.html
PR
CES booth 9155, Tech East, LVCC, North Hall (in Smart Cities area)
ThirdEye Announces Razor MR Glasses, Expands into Consumer Metaverse with New Lightweight Solution
Going beyond the enterprise metaverse, the Razor MR Glasses will be ThirdEye’s first foray into the consumer market, offering 100+ apps, hands-free features and a wide field of vision
With the Razor MR Glasses’ lightweight, all day wearable form factor, consumers can experience a total immersive metaverse solution. The applications available on the consumer MR glasses range from gaming and entertainment to telehealth and remote assistance. ... Users can also watch movies or their favorite TV shows with spatial audio.
See the full story here; https://martechseries.com/predictive-ai/augmented-reality/thirdeye-announces-razor-mr-glasses-expands-into-consumer-metaverse-with-new-lightweight-solution/
The biggest tech trends to watch for in 2022
Tech companies want you to trust them more
People now trust companies more than traditional institutions like government and religious organizations, according to Forrester analyst Enza Iannopollo, but companies still tend to overestimate how much customers trust them.
And customers have good reason to be skeptical. In 2021, security breaches, data privacy problems and AI whistleblowers dominated technology news.
In 2022, companies will try to regain lost trust with a variety of tactics, like creating high-ranking roles in charge of “digital trust,” offering cash rewards to people who identify bias in AI systems and adopting technologies that partially anonymize personal data, Forrester research predicts.
See the full story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/03/personal-tech-trends-2022-metaverse-chip-shortage/

Brains on a chip: Why startups are combining cells and silicon
... An ambitious startup from Australia is now throwing a novel ingredient into the mix: human brain cells.
Cortical Labs, a Melbourne-based company backed by one of the country's largest venture capital investors, Blackbird Ventures, recently published a paper describing their new chip. When connected to a computer, the cells on the chip -- dubbed DishBrain -- learned to play the classic arcade game Pong. Even better, the neurons improved their performance after receiving feedback on their play. ...
Such devices could also help scientists better understand the mysteries of the brain and develop drugs to treat neurological diseases. ...
"It occurred to us that biology might have the solution to unlock the holy grail of the AI research landscape, which is artificial general intelligence," Chong said. ...
To create DishBrain, the team at Cortical Labs first converted stem cells -- those that can be transformed into any type of cell -- into brain cells. They then transferred up to a million neurons onto a fingertip-sized microelectrode array made up of more than 26,000 sensors.
When hooked up to an external computer, the sensors transmitted electrical signals to the neurons to simulate Pong's game environment. "The neurons believe that they are a paddle and they live in a world where there's a ball that bounces around in this space," Chong said. "We then trained it in order to stop at the right spot in order to keep the ball bouncing and the game running." ...
See the full story here: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-Spotlight/Brains-on-a-chip-Why-startups-are-combining-cells-and-silicon

10 of the weirdest experiments of 2021
Inventing an otherworldly time crystal
In July, researchers working with Google revealed that they had created a time crystal inside the heart of the tech giant's quantum computer, Sycamore. The crystal was a completely new phase of matter that the researchers claimed was able to evade the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates that entropy, or the disorder of a system, must always increase. Unlike other systems, which see their entropy increase over time, the time crystal's entropy did not increase no matter how many times it was pulsed with a laser. The truly remarkable thing about the weird quantum crystals is that they are the first objects to break a fundamental symmetry of the universe, called discrete time-translation symmetry. Scientists are hoping to use the otherworldly crystals to test the boundaries of quantum mechanics — the strange rules that govern the world of the very small.
See the full story here: https://www.livescience.com/10-weirdest-experiments-of-2021

How AI, VR, AR, 5G, and blockchain may converge to power the metaverse
Even at the current stage of development, Boeing has committed to designing its next-generation aircraftwithin the metaverse, using digital twins and Microsoft HoloLens headsets.
Kirby Winfield, Founding General Partner of VC firm Ascend, sees the metaverse as “the latest evolution of [an] ongoing shift to an increasingly digital life.” When it arrives in full, that shift will achieve the immersive sci-fi visions of many.
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2021/12/26/how-ai-vr-ar-5g-and-blockchain-may-converge-to-power-the-metaverse/

Littlstar Is Now RAD With NFTs For Entertainment Industry
“The momentum in the NFT space is palpable, and we have a deep conviction that every piece of digital content in the world will eventually be an NFT,” said Tony Mugavero, CEO of Rad. “This, paired with our experience in VR and AR, translates into Rad building the first streaming metaverse. We’re the only streaming platform in the world built for the NFT community, leveraging NFTs for subscriptions, access to video, and live events on mainstream devices. We are taking Hollywood and the creator economy into web 3.0.”
... In 2018, the company built and launched an entire web 3 content marketplace and native token using Ethereum to power Rad, called ARA. The content types supported include video, live streams, 360-degree video, and volumetric video, and the supported devices include mobile, smart TVs, and Sony PlayStation.
...When we started to play around with blockchain in 2017-2018, we saw the power of smart contracts and immediately thought they would solve a significant number of problems. We could make smart contracts mirror what was happening in the paper contracts to a large degree, and it would mean that everything was more open and accounting was immediate and global.
In combination with smart contracts, we started looking at ways that we could use peer-to-peer content delivery to offset our streaming bills because we're moving around gigantic pieces of VR content. This is how the ARA platform powering Rad was born. Smart contracts plus content delivery, identity, and rewards. ...
There is one big difference between the hype of blockchain versus VR though. With VR, you have different behaviors and habits that need to change, you have to put on a headset, you have to create all new content, and people get sick if they're wearing a headset for too long. But with blockchain and NFTs, it's really less about the underlying content type and less about the device, and more about the commerce model and the means of distribution. That means Rad can scale our business much faster. It doesn't matter about the content type, and it doesn't really matter about the hardware. We can mint a video as an NFT and put it on a TV, or we can mint a piece of VR content and deliver it to an XR device. ...
See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2021/12/29/littlstar-is-now-rad-with-nfts-for-entertainment-industry/?sh=7184cb9a73d6
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