Valtiollinen Business Finland on myöntänyt kahden vuoden jatkorahoituksen Metaverse Finlandille (MEFI), joka johtaa teollisuuden teknologiayhteisö Dimecc. Rahoituksella tuetaan uusimpien XR-teknologioiden kehittämistä ja käyttöönottoa sekä Suomen asemaa globaalissa kisassa. Ekosysteemissä pilotoidaan jo seuraavan sukupolven digitaalisia kaksosia teollisuusympäristöissä.

Metaverse Finland perustettiin vuonna 2024 kansallisen metaversumistrategian toimeenpanemiseen. Se keskittyi neljään eri sovellusalueeseen kuten terveys, teollisuus, turvallisuus ja immersiiviset sisällöt. Sovellukset ovat läpimurron kynnyksellä ja tekoäly tulee vauhdittamaan kehitystä.

Uudella rahoituskaudella MEFI pyrkii tukemaan edelleen suomalaisten XR-yritysten kasvua ja kehitystä, laajentamaan kansallista verkostoa sekä vauhdittamaan XR-yritysten ja veturiyritysten keskistä yhteistyötä.

Business Finladin pääjohtaja Lassi Noposen mukaan Suomessa on laskennallisesti 6,2 miljardin euron edestä vuosittaista lunastamatonta kasvua. ’’Syväteknologiaosaamisemme nykyistä laajempi hyödyntäminen kaupallisissa sovelluksissa on kriittistä Suomen kansallisen kilpailuedun kannalta’’, sano pääjohtaja Noponen.

In an affront to creeps everywhere, Meta has started remotely bricking the smart glasses of wearers who try to secretly record other people.

Earlier this month, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company said it would crack down on customers who modified the spectacles to disable or cover up their lights that indicate when they’re recording, amid incredible public backlash against how the glasses are being used to film people without their consent — girls and women especially — and harass them.

Now, it looks like more than a few weirdos have gotten the ax. On Tuesday, Meta said it’s bricked the photo and video-taking capabilities on thousands of its smart glasses users, as part of a software update that was reported by Semafor.

This isn’t the first time they tried to do this…

Earlier this year, Meta began adding facial recognition code into an app for its smart glasses which could identity strangers.

A Swedish newspaper revealed that sensitive footage from these glasses was being used to train Meta AI.

Meta backtracked, removing the tech from their glasses.

But now…they’re once again planning to embed this intrusive tech into their creepy eyewear.

Whilst the EU is reining in facial recognition, Britain’s wild-west approach means that this Orwellian software could be a gift to stalkers, sex offenders and domestic abusers.

Read the full story: https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/patent-filing-suggests-metas-facial-recognition-glasses-are-coming/

The public blowback to Meta’s contentious smart glasses continues to grow.

The popular camera-equipped accessories, which have earned the pejorative nickname of “pervert glasses,” are systematically being abused by men to harass women in public .

It’s become such a contentious issue that a German nonprofit filed a criminal complaint over privacy concerns. Just this week, England and Wales banned the glasses from courts.

In a particularly egregious example of the kind of harassment the glasses are enabling, a user who goes by Mark filmed himself accosting British comedian Diane Morgan, widely known as the fictional documentarian Philomena Cunk, during a TV shoot on Hollywood’s iconic Walk of Fame.

“Excuse me, can I get your phone number,” Mark asks a taken-aback Morgan in a video titled “rizzing on cunk,” which was originally uploaded to TikTok in May and which has since accumulated over one million views. His Instagram account appears to have been taken down.