Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, many of those in the technology community have imagined a future state of, if not quasi-successor to, the Internet – called the “Metaverse”. Metverse is a vision of the future networking that sounds fantastical. The Metaverse is a collective virtual shared space[1] including the sum of all virtual worlds and the Internet. The idea is to create a space similar to the internet, but one that users (via digital avatars) can walk around inside of and where they can interact with one another in real time. Keeping it simple, the metaverse is a potentially vast three-dimensional online world where people can meet up and interact virtually.
The metaverse was originally conceived as the setting for dystopian science fiction novels, where virtual universes provide an escape from crumbling societies. Now, the idea has transformed into a moonshot goal for Silicon Valley, and become a favorite talking point among startups, venture capitalists and tech giants. Imagine a world where you could sit on the same couch as a friend who lives thousands of miles away, or conjure up a virtual version of your workplace while at the beach.
Tech titans like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg are betting on as the next great leap in the evolution of the internet. Although the full vision for the Metaverse remains hard to define, seemingly fantastical, and decades away, the pieces have started to feel very real. Metaverse has become the newest macro-goal for many of the world’s tech giants. Big companies joining the discussion now may simply want to reassure investors that they won’t miss out on what could be the next big thing, or that their investments in VR, which has yet to gain broad commercial appeal, will eventually pay off.
‘Metaverse’: the next internet revolution? article tells that metaverse is the stuff of science-fiction: the term was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash”, in which people don virtual reality headsets to interact inside a game-like digital world.
Facebook Wants Us to Live in the Metaverse. According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “What is the metaverse? It’s a virtual environment where you can be present with people in digital spaces. You can kind of think of this as an embodied internet that you’re inside of rather than just looking at.” Metaverse vision was the driver behind Facebook’s purchase of Oculus VR and its newly announced Horizon virtual world/meeting space, among many, many other projects, such as AR glasses and brain-to-machine communications. In a high-tech plan to Facebookify the world advertisements will likely be a key source of revenue in the metaverse, just as they are for the company today.
Term Metaverse was created by sci-fi author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 dystopian novel “Snow Crash” to describe a virtual space where people interact with one another through user-controlled avatars. That “Snow Crash” novel coined the terms “Metaverse” and “Avatar”.
Venture capitalist Matthew Ball has also written extensively on what he believes are the main attributes of a metaverse: a full-functioning economy, real-time persistence (no pausing), and interoperability of digital “belongings” such as clothing across multiple platforms. Experts working in the space tend to agree on a few key aspects of the metaverse, including the idea that users will experience a sense of “embodiment” or “presence.”. Read more at The Metaverse: What It Is, Where to Find it, Who Will Build It, and Fortnite and Big Tech has its eyes set on the metaverse. Here’s what that means
Proponents of the metaverse say there could eventually be huge business potential — a whole new platform on which to sell digital goods and services. If metaverse could be properly realized and catches on some future year, it is believed that metaverse would revolutionize not just the infrastructure layer of the digital world, but also much of the physical one, as well as all the services and platforms atop them, how they work, and what they sell. It is believed that verifiable, immutable ownership of digital goods and currency will be an essential component of the metaverse.
Did you hear? Facebook Inc. is going to become a metaverse company. At least that’s the story its management wants everyone to believe after a flurry of interviews and announcements over the past couple of weeks. Zuckerberg is turning trillion-dollar Facebook into a ‘metaverse’ company, he tells investors article tells that after release of Facebook’s earnings CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a moment to zoom out and wax on the company’s future goals, specifically calling out his ambitions to turn Facebook into “a metaverse company.”
Some pieces of the metaverse already exist. Services like Fortnite, an online game in which users can compete, socialize and build virtual worlds with millions of other players, can give users an early sense of how it will work. And some people have already spent thousands of dollars on virtual homes, staking out their piece of metaverse real estate.
Who will be big if metaverse catches on. Bloomberg article Who Will Win the Metaverse? Not Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook article claims the social networking giant and its CEO have vast ambitions to dominate the next big thing in computing, but other tech giants are in a better position to turn the hype into reality. Facebook’s actual track record on VR tells a story that has not been very promising. The two critical components needed for companies to take advantage of the opportunities that may arise from any potential metaverse are advanced semiconductors and software tools. Facebook is not strong on either front.
There are many other companies with Metaverse visions. For example Oculus’s technology has been surpassed by smaller competitors such as Valve Index, which offers better fidelity. Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella said last week that his company is working on building the “enterprise metaverse.” Epic Games announced a $1 billion funding round in April to support its metaverse ambitions. Companies like graphics chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) and gaming platform Roblox (RBLX) are also playing Metaverse game.
Despite the current hype cycle, the idea is still amorphous, and a fully functioning metaverse is probably years and billions of dollars away — if it happens at all. Another question is are we emotionally evolved enough for it? There is a host of concerns about how the metaverse could be used or exploited. “Are we safe to start interacting at a more person-to-person level, or are the a**holes still going to ruin it for everybody?” “If you can now replace somebody’s entire reality with an alternate reality, you can make them believe almost anything,”
Keep in mind that the metaverse is a relatively old idea that seems to gain momentum every few years, only to fade from the conversation in lieu of more immediate opportunities. Though “Fortnite” and “Roblox” are often described as precursors to the Metaverse, the most significant precursor to the Metaverse is the internet itself.
618 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Y’all really made Mark Zuckerberg defend himself to investors because of your memes
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/mark-zuckerberg-metaverse-memes/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
On today’s quarterly earnings call, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was on the defensive when it comes to the company’s investment in the metaverse. Once again, the company lost more than $3 billion dollars to its Reality Labs division this quarter, and Meta’s net income took a big hit.
Since rebranding from Facebook to Meta, Zuckerberg’s company has gotten a lot of flack for its complete nosedive into the metaverse.
But perhaps one of the most brutal moments came in August, when the CEO posted a selfie in front of a metaverse Eiffel Tower to celebrate the expansion of VR social platform Horizon Worlds into France and Spain.
His selfie looked so bad that it became a meme, which he had to address by posting another mock-up of what avatars will look like in the future.
Clearly, Mark took the criticism to heart, as he brought it up again on today’s earnings call when an investor asked if Meta’s progress so far has lived up to his expectations.
“I know sometimes when we ship products, there’s a meme where people say, ‘You’re spending all this money and you produce this thing,’” Zuckerberg said. “I think that’s not really the right way to think about it.”
He continued, “I think there’s a number of different products and platforms that we’re building, where we think we’re doing leading work that will become… launching consumer products and then eventually mature products at different cadences, different periods of time over the next five to 10 years.”
“Obviously it has a long way to go before it’s going to be what we aspire for it to be,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta will release a new consumer-grade VR headset next year
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/meta-will-release-a-new-consumer-grade-vr-headset-next-year/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
A follow-up to the Quest 2, Meta is launching another consumer-grade virtual reality headset next year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Simulating Temperature In VR Apps With Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/24/simulating-temperature-in-vr-apps-with-trigeminal-nerve-stimulation/
Virtual reality systems are getting better and better all the time, but they remain largely ocular and auditory devices, with perhaps a little haptic feedback added in for good measure. That still leaves 40% of the five canonical senses out of the mix, unless of course this trigeminal nerve-stimulating VR accessory catches on
https://github.com/humancomputerintegration/trigeminal-based-temperature-illusions
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta’s Reality Labs division, which is leading its metaverse push, reported cumulative losses of $9.4 billion in 2022.
Meta Shares Plummet 20% In Pre-Market After Q3 Revenue Decline
https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/10/27/meta-shares-plummet-20-in-pre-market-after-q3-revenue-decline/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie&sh=6a316222f1a6
Shares of Facebook’s parent firm Meta were down nearly 20% in pre-market trading, continuing a slide Thursday after the company’s third quarter earnings released a day earlier fell short of expectations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta is in trouble
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/27/meta-stock-yikes/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
A day after weighing in with its third-quarter earnings report, Meta is flailing. The company formerly known as Facebook was in trouble Thursday after uninspiring numbers and an apparent lack of faith in Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse vision sent its shares plunging by 25%.
At the time of writing, Meta was trading around $98, down from $130 on Wednesday
Tomi Engdahl says:
Metaversumi tulee epäonnistumaan
https://etn.fi/index.php/opinion/14178-metaversumi-tulee-epaeonnistumaan
Metaversumi on uusi termi, joka löytyy nykyään monista esityksistä. Ja miksi ei? Facebookista tullut Meta on polttanut noin 20 miljardia dollaria Mark Zuckerbergin suuren idean toteutukseen. Nokian teknologiajohtaja Nishant Batra ennusti, että virtuaaliympäristö korvaa älypuhelimemme vuoteen 2030 mennessä. Valitettavasti suuret toiveet eivät toteudu. Metaversumi tulee epäonnistumaan.
Mutta miksi? Jos kaataa tarpeeksi rahaa johonkin, se lähtee lentoon, eikö niin? Näin ei aina ole. Metaversumi-konsepti tarvitsee loistavaa laitteistoa, erinomaisia ohjelmistoja ja sisältöä, jota markkinoilla tarvitaan ja halutaan. Meta ei oikeastaan hallitse mitään näistä.
Tai onhan Oculus Quest loistava laite, mutta Metan on myytävä sitä miljoonia, jopa kymmeniä miljoonia. Metaversumin beetakäyttäjät valittavat kokemuksesta ja sanovat, että se on kuin pelaisi Fall Guysia.
Entäpä se softa? Facebook ei ole mikään briljantti ohjelmistoyritys. Se on onnistunut erittäin menestyksekkäästi kehittämään algoritmeja käyttäjätietojen manipulointiin, mutta sovellusten käyttöliittymä on aina ollut kömpelö.
Metaversumi ei kuitenkaan epäonnistu näiden Metan puutteiden takia. Se epäonnistuu, koska konseptia ei ole ratkaisemassa mitään todellista ongelmaa. Pandemia sai meidät kaikki työskentelemään kotona ja viettämään aikaa loputtomissa videokokouksissa, mutta se ei ole meille luonnollista. Kun asiat palautuvat normaaliksi, haluamme tavata kasvokkain ja olla vuorovaikutuksessa. Avatarilla kokouksiin osallistumista ei vain tulla hyväksymään.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forget the metaverse: Meta should make a new Twitter
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/31/forget-the-metaverse-meta-should-make-a-new-twitter/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sbS5mYWNlYm9vay5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEP5FjVDlErsz-5LqUHB1ZWWp6-H9uG4zJcPJ9oHMzrjnUVrBbz8P-fv28yu61n0QfL9Ihi9P-DQqc1yT2lOifTo0NlnjzixiDqf4XXCrQpSklDVnn0fJTzpehKx11SEMBfkC9k-H26V4uh0kDxrQjujxhd3fkcsIG5wrBizW2Nt
While Mark Zuckerberg burns billions at the alter of the metaverse, a much more practical opportunity directly in his company’s lane could provide much more achievable short-term success: Twitter’s having an identify crisis under new owner Elon Musk.
Despite showing signs that its social media business isn’t what it once was, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram networks are still undeniably massive with established revenue fundamentals. It’s clear from their recent earnings call that analysts would rather the company and Zuckerberg spend their time and focus on making the most of what it has already achieved in contemporary social media — which does seem smart even if that ends up being an exercise in managing a long decline into irrelevancy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Metaverse torture device
https://futurism.com/the-byte/vr-gadget-torture-device
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta Is The S&P 500’s Worst Performer Of 2022 As Losses Near 75%
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/11/03/meta-is-the-sp-500s-worst-performer-of-2022-as-losses-near-75/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie&sh=570ff7ab303d
Tomi Engdahl says:
Police Must Prepare For New Crimes In The Metaverse, Says Europol https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2022/11/03/police-must-prepare-for-new-crimes-in-the-metaverse-says-europol/
A new report from the Europol Innovation Lab, Policing in the Metaverse, encourages law enforcement agencies to start considering the ways in which existing types of crime could spread to virtual worlds, while entirely new crimes could start to appear. “I believe it is important for police to anticipate changes to the reality in which they have to provide safety and security, ” says Europol executive director Catherine De Bolle. Report (PDF):
https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/default/files/documents/Policing%20in%20the%20metaverse%20-%20what%20law%20enforcement%20needs%20to%20know.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.meta.com/gb/quest/quest-pro/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Zuckerberg has made VR the focal point of his metaverse ambitions. Herman Narula, the CEO of Improbable, believes that’s a mistake.
Despite what Zuckerberg thinks, the metaverse doesn’t need VR
https://thenextweb.com/news/metaverse-doesnt-need-vr-improbable-ceo-herman-narula-meta-zuckerberg?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1667652589
Improbable CEO Herman Narula says blockchain is more essential
Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse dream is giving investors nightmares. His $10 billion annual bet on an “embodied internet” preceded a plunge in Meta’s value, a first-ever quarterly revenue decline, and grim forecasts for growth. Horizon Worlds, his initial foray in the space, has only added to concerns. The social platform is regularly derided for slow uptake, persistent bugs, and risible avatars.
Despite the mounting criticisms, Zuckerberg remains bullish about making Facebook a “metaverse company.” But for Herman Narula, the CEO of UK unicorn Improbable, Meta’s vision overlooks a fundamental issue.
“The problem is VR,” Narula said last week at Stanford University. “The bet on the hardware is just so costly, so tangential to the main value proposition of the metaverse, and [it’s] so difficult to see how they claim that investment back.”
Narula has his own metaverse plans. His company has spent a decade building immersive virtual worlds, from wargaming simulations for the US Army to an interactive party for 1,450 K-pop fans. He’s also written a book, Virtual Society, which outlines a theoretical framework for the metaverse. In Narula’s mind, this comprises a network of digital experiences that people can traverse — without donning a headset. Instead, they can be entered with just a phone or PC.
Narula admits that VR offers impressive immersion. But he says the metaverse needs something more important: presence.
He describes immersion as “the feeling that the world is real.” Presence, in contrast, is “the feeling that the world thinks you are real.” To create this sensation, user actions must produce reactions and ripples throughout the virtual world.
Narula asserts that presence doesn’t need VR. As evidence, he points to the “proto-metaverses” Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite. Despite fairly rudimentary graphics, the games evoke a presence that’s put them among the most popular in the world.
According to Narula, Zuckerberg’s VR-based metaverse has several issues. One of them is cost: the new Quest Pro VR headset retails for a whopping $1,500. Technical improvements — including eye tracking and mixed reality capabilities — provide major upgrades, but the price tag puts them out of reach for most customers.
Zuckerberg has acknowledged this barrier.
He describes the new headset as a “prosumer” device, and plans to launch a consumer-grade version next year. Research suggests the public won’t be flocking out to buy one.
Meta has also taken tentative steps to integrate mainstream devices. The company plans to launch both web and mobile versions of Horizon Worlds, which would enable access without a VR headset. Yet this risks creating a two-tiered experience.
Revving virtual engines
Naturally, Narula has his own plans for producing presence. He pitches Improbable as a peerless platform for a crucial component of the metaverse: capacity. To back up this claim, Narula points to a metric called communications operations (ops) per second.
“IT’S THE HORSEPOWER OF THE METAVERSE.”
Interconnecting worlds
The dominance of VR isn’t Narula’s only issue with Meta. Like many critics, he’s concerned about the company — or, indeed, any single company — controlling the metaverse. To avoid this ghastly future, Narula wants to integrate another contentious technology: blockchain.
Backers of a blockchain-based metaverse point to two key benefits: decentralization and interoperability. The former derives from storing data on a distributed ledger, which isn’t controlled by any one company. Interoperability, meanwhile, is achieved by cryptographically securing data exchanges. Your avatar’s clothes, for example, could be safely ported between different virtual worlds.
Blockchain isn’t the only means to provide this portability. Alternatively, companies could agree on rules and systems for facilitating digital transfers across various platforms. Web3 advocates, however, warn this would tighten Big Tech’s stranglehold on our data.
The 34-year-old envisions blockchain enabling transfers between worlds. Companies would build metaverse businesses by sharing customers, while users would enjoy meaningful experiences across platforms. According to Narula, VR and AR are merely tangential to all these interactions
Tomi Engdahl says:
“If you die in the game, you die in real life.”
Oculus Founder Builds VR Headset That Kills User If They Die in Game
“If you die in the game, you die in real life.”
https://futurism.com/oculus-founder-vr-headset-kills
Oculus founder and defense contractor Palmer Luckey claims to have built a VR headset that, should its wearer’s avatar die in a game, blows up the user’s head with “explosive charge modules.” Ha ha. Cool…
“The idea of tying your real life to your virtual avatar has always fascinated me — you instantly raise the stakes to the maximum level and force people to fundamentally rethink how they interact with the virtual world and the players inside it,” Luckey wrote in a blog post about the grim prototype.
http://palmerluckey.com/if-you-die-in-the-game-you-die-in-real-life/
Tomi Engdahl says:
At this point, it is just a piece of office art, a thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in game design. It is also, as far as I know, the first non-fiction example of a VR device that can actually kill the user. It won’t be the last.
See you in the metaverse.
-Palmer
http://palmerluckey.com/if-you-die-in-the-game-you-die-in-real-life/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A new wave of creators are building a more inclusive world in the metaverse. Learn how brands can be allies.
https://fb.watch/gGYvP09wKG/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This sci-fi blockchain game could help create a metaverse that no one owns
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/10/1062981/dark-forest-blockchain-video-game-creates-metaverse/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_medium=tr_social
Dark Forest shows how advanced cryptography can be used in a game—and how blockchains might host decentralized digital worlds.
Start exploring in Dark Forest, and you quickly realize just how much you don’t know.
The universe is vast, and most of it is shrouded in darkness. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to venture into the unknown, avoid being destroyed by opposing players who may be lurking in the dark, and build an empire of the planets you discover and can make your own.
But while the video game seemingly looks and plays much like other online strategy games, under the hood it’s a very different story.
But while the video game seemingly looks and plays much like other online strategy games, under the hood it’s a very different story.
That’s because it doesn’t rely on the servers running popular online strategy games like Eve Online and World of Warcraft. Instead, Dark Forest runs completely on a blockchain, in a way that means no one is in control of how it plays out.
Its early success doesn’t just reflect a fun way of making games that work in an entirely different way. It also helps prove that blockchains can be used for far more interesting and complex applications than just moving digital money around, something some blockchain boosters have been saying since the technology first emerged.
The idea behind zero-knowledge proofs dates back to the 1980s, but some of the first practical applications have appeared recently in blockchain systems. The most prominent example is Zcash, a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency that uses a class of zero-knowledge proofs called zk-SNARKs—the same kind Dark Forest uses—to hide transaction data so that users can deal anonymously, almost as if they were using a digital form of cash.
Dark Forest is not only the most complicated blockhain game, says Bhardwaj: “I do not think there is an application on the blockchain that is more complex.” By designing it to run on a blockchain, the game’s creators also produced technical infrastructure that broadens the scope of how we might use blockchains to interact online, he argues.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7kbq/palmer-luckey-made-a-vr-headset-that-kills-the-user-if-they-die-in-the-game
Tomi Engdahl says:
THIS NEW VR GADGET LOOKS LIKE AN ACTUAL TORTURE DEVICE
https://futurism.com/the-byte/vr-gadget-torture-device
Tomi Engdahl says:
On Friday, the online art community DeviantArt announced DreamUp, an AI-powered text-to-image generator service powered by Stable Diffusion. Simultaneously, DeviantArt launched an initiative that ostensibly lets artists opt out of AI image training but also made everyone’s art opt in by default, which angered many members.
One of Gaming’s Most Hated Execs Is Jumping Into the Metaverse
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-11-10/unity-u-software-chases-metaverse-dream-to-lift-stock#xj4y7vzkg
After leaving EA a mess, Unity CEO John Riccitiello turned mobile games into a lucrative advertising wasteland. Now he’s betting his company’s future on commercializing virtual worlds.
John Riccitiello was on top of the metaverse. Last November the chief executive officer of Unity Software Inc. spilled the news to his staff during a Zoom town hall: The company was about to buy the technology division of WetaFX, the visual effects shop behind the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones movie and TV franchises. The $1.6 billion deal, Riccitiello believed, would give Unity the 3D development tools they needed to conquer all types of augmented and virtual realities, things like immersive digital worlds and hyper-realistic avatars. “We go from being a player in this space,” he told employees, “potentially to being the leading artist platform for literally everything.”
Developers love Unity for the easy-to-build-on game engine it licenses to third parties such as Niantic Inc., which used it to create the wildly popular app Pokémon Go, and smaller studios that have built hits from Cities: Skylines to Cuphead. But it makes much of its money the way many internet companies do these days: through targeted advertising. If you’ve ever found yourself watching a 10-second commercial on a free iPhone casino or brain-teaser app, it’s likely Unity served it. By acquiring the hottest visual effects tools, the company could branch deeper into the metaverse
Tomi Engdahl says:
Metaversumi tulee epäonnistumaan
https://etn.fi/index.php/opinion/14178-metaversumi-tulee-epaeonnistumaan
Metaversumi tulee epäonnistumaan.
Mutta miksi? Jos kaataa tarpeeksi rahaa johonkin, se lähtee lentoon, eikö niin? Näin ei aina ole. Metaversumi-konsepti tarvitsee loistavaa laitteistoa, erinomaisia ohjelmistoja ja sisältöä, jota markkinoilla tarvitaan ja halutaan. Meta ei oikeastaan hallitse mitään näistä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Supercomputing Superpowers: NVIDIA Brings Digital Twin Simulation to HPC Data Center Operators
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2022/11/14/omniverse-digital-twin-data-center/#cid=ov02_so-face_en-us
Beyond scientific and industrial workflows, NVIDIA Omniverse lets the designers, builders and operators of the world’s most complex facilities benefit from the power of virtual worlds.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NVIDIA Omniverse Opens Portals for Scientists to Explore Our Universe
3D Simulation and Collaboration Platform Now Supports NVIDIA A100 and H100 Systems; Ecosystem Expands Into HPC With Connections to NVIDIA Modulus, NeuralVDB, and IndeX and Kitware’s ParaView to Accelerate Million-X Scale Discovery
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-omniverse-scientific-computing#cid=hpc06_so-face_en-us
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2022/11/14/omniverse-digital-twin-data-center/#cid=ov02_so-face_en-us
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-omniverse-scientific-computing?ncid=so-face-261115&fbclid=IwAR1bMEhUGHzn_u5LOTnhGLuE7VW6gAa3Kl_WqxvZnqUvk_38yBvrGAedXzQ#cid=hpc06_so-face_en-us
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pranob Mehrotra / XDA Developers:
Qualcomm debuts the Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 for thin AR glasses, built on a 4nm process, claiming 2.5x better AI performance and using 50% less power than the XR2
More: The Verge and BGR India
Qualcomm debuts the Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 for thin, high-performance AR glasses
By
Pranob Mehrotra
Published 15 hours ago
https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-snapdragon-ar2-gen-1/
The chipset will make an appearance on upcoming AR glasses from Lenovo, Nreal, LG, Oppo, TCL, Xiaomi, and more!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple is building a rival to the metaverse
https://www.cultofmac.com/796947/apple-building-rival-metaverse/
Apple job listings offer a peek into the development of the company’s long-rumored AR headset. Cupertino seemingly wants to create augmented reality and 3D content for its mixed-reality device, which could arrive in early 2023.
More importantly, one posting indicates Apple could be working on a metaverse competitor.
Apple’s ‘metaverse’ could be different
Based on the job listings, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says Apple is looking for a software producer to create VR content. Further, it wants to build a video service for playing back 3D content in VR. Another posting points to Apple’s AR headset taking advantage of App Intents framework to work seamlessly with Siri, Shortcuts and Search.
Interestingly, one job posting talks about creating a 3D mixed-reality world.
Previously, Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak said “metaverse” is “a word I’ll never use.” So, while Facebook parent company Meta has taken an open approach to building its widely criticized metaverse, don’t expect Apple to embrace it.
In January 2022, a report claimed that Apple was not interested in building a complete virtual world for its AR headset. While the company might build a 3D mixed-reality world, its approach could be different from Meta’s.
Apple’s AR headset team gains new members
Apple’s rumored AR headset could debut in the first quarter of 2023. With the headset’s development possibly in full swing, the company has further bolstered the team running the project, according to Gurman.
The headset project is led by Mike Rockwell, Apple’s VP of AR/VR, and Dan Riccio, ex-hardware chief. The latter reports directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The two new additions indicate Apple could be working on adding health- and productivity-focused features to its headset.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You Can Explore Inside The Great Pyramid Of Giza Using 3D Tour
The tour begins by having you enter through a tunnel believed to have been created by robbers in 820 CE.
https://www.iflscience.com/you-can-explore-inside-the-great-pyramid-of-giza-using-3d-tour-66365
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D for everyone? Nvidia’s Magic3D can generate 3D models from text
New AI aims to democratize 3D content creation, no modeling skills required.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/11/nvidias-magic3d-creates-3d-models-from-written-descriptions-thanks-to-ai/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bringing Microsoft Office and Teams into the Metaverse doesn’t put clothes on the emperor.
Please Clap: Microsoft Teams Meetings, Coming Soon to a Metaverse Near You
https://www.extremetech.com/internet/340214-please-clap-microsoft-teams-meetings-coming-soon-to-a-metaverse-near-you?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
This past summer, Zuckerberg slam-dunked us all into the Uncanny Valley with his soulless new Meta avatars. For reasons beyond human understanding, Zuck and his cult of Snow Crash-worshipping yes men have been bent on turning Meta’s zombie SecondLife clone VR social network, Horizon Worlds, into a kind of augmented-reality filter superimposed over the real world, in just the way that Facebook seeped into every corner of our current social reality. Now, Microsoft and Meta have decided to bring a ton of Microsoft products into the Metaverse, including Windows, Office, Xbox, and Teams.
“People will be able to join a Teams meeting directly from Workrooms,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the announcement at MetaConnect. “We think that this cross-device, cross-screen experience will be the foundation of the virtual office of the future.” Just think: your job can be all Teams meetings, forever.
Product in Need of a Market
You can’t force virality. But Meta is trying to turn the real world into Pokemon Go, except with Teams meetings.
Meta has sunk billions of dollars into CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of his digital fiefdom, poised astride the future of the internet. At an all-hands meeting, Zuckerberg announced that the coming “battle for control over the metaverse” will be a philosophical war between Apple’s “walled garden” and Meta’s “open standards.” But when Meta relaxed its Facebook account requirement for its VR headsets, it just swapped out one method of data mining users’ lives for another.
This union with Microsoft is just another transparent power and data grab, and Microsoft is playing right into Meta’s hands. Mr. Zuckerberg, I am calling you out onto the rug. You’re just fine with the new Internet being a walled garden — as long as it’s your walled garden.
Office and Teams Won’t Legitimize Zuckerberg’s Metaverse
Teams meetings are already obnoxious. You know what’d make them better? Being forced to do your whole job in Teams, with your boss’s legless Mii avatar. Preferably while wearing a VR headset so you can’t see your coffee mug. Especially if you had to buy the VR headset from the company that handed your entire web presence over to Cambridge Analytica, so they could get paid while political consultants manipulated your vote. Not just your Facebook data. Every scrap of data they could find, on every site they could deploy their plugin to mine it. Meta is still throwing money around today, trying to make sure Zuckerberg never has to testify about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica in court. It’s as if they know they did something they could really get in trouble for.
Even Meta Employees Can’t Stand the Metaverse
Nobody likes Zuckerberg’s Metaverse. Even Meta’s own employees don’t use the product. Why? According to Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, the problem is that Meta just isn’t eating enough of its own dog food. “For many of us, we don’t spend that much time in Horizon and our dogfooding dashboards show this pretty clearly,” he wrote in a leaked internal memo from September. “Why is that? Why don’t we love the product we’ve built so much that we use it all the time? The simple truth is, if we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it?”
Consequently, he said, the company was making a plan to “hold managers accountable” for making sure their teams use Horizon at least once a week.
“Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds,” Shah continued in the memo. “You can’t do that without using it. Get in there. Organize times to do it with your colleagues or friends, in both internal builds but also the public build so you can interact with our community.”
In other words, drink the Meta Kool-Aid. Peer pressure your friends and colleagues to drink it, too. You’ll love it, if you just work hard enough to love it. Make yourself love it. Just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Miten metaversumiin pääsee, Marja Konttinen?
https://www.dna.fi/yrityksille/blogi/-/blogs/miten-metaversumiin-paasee-marja-konttinen?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=linkad&utm_content=ILTEJUJO-artikkeli-miten_metaversumiin_paasee_marja_konttinen&utm_campaign=H_ILTEJUJO_MESLAS_22-48-50_yy_podi
Onko metaversumi tulevaisuuden internet? Entä mitä tekemistä pelaamisella ja muotinäytöksillä on sen kanssa? DNA:n Yllättävän yksinkertaista -podcastin tämänkertainen jakso avaa meille metaversumin saloja 3D-virtuaalimaailma-alusta Decentralandin markkinointijohtaja Marja Konttisen johdolla. Tämä artikkeli on tiivistelmä podcastista.
Miltä näyttäisi, jos internet ei olisikaan sivu selaimellasi, vaan voisit nähdä sen ympärilläsi ja olla siellä virtuaalisesti läsnä? Juuri tätä metaversumi tarkoittaa käytännössä: virtuaalista universumia, joka koostuu jaetuista kolmiulotteisista tiloista ja lisätyn todellisuuden tuomista mahdollisuuksista, jotka yhdistyvät interaktiivisiksi digitaalisiksi maailmoiksi. Pitääkö nyt olla huolissaan, jos ei vielä ei aivan ymmärrä konseptia?
”Kuulin itse metaversumista noin puolitoista vuotta sitten, eli siitä ei ole kovin pitkä aika. Työskentelin silloin pelialalla erityisesti sosiaalisen pelaamisen parissa. Pelien ja sosiaalisuuden kautta metaversumia onkin ehkä helpompi ymmärtää: peleissä on eletty 3D-maailmoissa vuorovaikutuksessa muiden ihmisten kanssa jo pitkän aikaa”, Konttinen kertoo.
Hetkonen – tarkoittaako tämä siis sitä, että esimerkiksi videopelien ystävät ja Habbo Hotellin käyttäjät ovat olleet metaversumin edelläkävijöitä? Konttisen mukaan edellä mainitut ovat oivia tapoja ymmärtää konseptia. Ne ovat esimerkkejä protometaversumeista, eli metaversumin esiasteista.
”Metaversumissa on vähemmän lineaarisuutta kuin peleissä, ja se on pelejä anarkistisempi: kukaan ei ole kirjoittanut ennakkoon, mitä seuraavaksi tapahtuu. Metaversumissa käyttäjä voi vaikuttaa: kuka vain voi rakentaa ja kehittää uutta yhdessä muiden kanssa. Metaversumi siis rönsyilee ja rakentuu sen käyttäjien mukana”, Konttinen selittää.
Metaversumista on moneksi
Jos metaversumi pitäisi tahkoa konkretiaksi, sitä voi ajatella todellisuuden jatkeena virtuaalisessa muodossa. Mutta onko se sovellus, peli vai tila? Metaversumiin ei ole yksiselitteistä opasta, ja sen sielunelämään kytkeytyvät virtuaalitodellisuus, lisätty todellisuus, tekoäly ja pelaaminen. VR- tai AR-lasit silmillä toiseen todellisuuteen voi uppotua kokonaan – tai tuoda elementtejä metaversumin todellisuudesta fyysiseen maailmaan.
Konttisen mukaan metaversumi voi olla ihan mitä vain – toisin sanoen mitä vain sinne haluaa luoda.
”Esimerkiksi taidepuolella on uskallettu kokeilla: Kansallisgalleria loi Decentralandiin virtuaalisen kopion Pariisin vuoden 1900 maailmannäyttelyn Suomen paviljongista, jossa voi katsella taideteoksia. Dolce & Gabbana järjestivät puolestaan muotinäytöksen, jossa vaatteita esittelivät ihmisten sijaan kissat”, Konttinen kuvailee.
Esimerkiksi Decentralandiin voi kuka vain astella sisään tutkimaan metaversumia. Sen tavoitteena onkin luoda avoimen lähdekoodin järjestelmä, jossa käyttäjät voivat rakentaa mitä tahansa tähän hajautettuun virtuaalitilaan: oman kaupan, sosiaalisen median alustan tai mitä tahansa muuta. Siellä voi omistaa ja kehittää tontteja, ostaa taideteoksia sekä käydä kauppaa digitaalisen lompakon avulla.
”10 vuoden päästä meidän nykyinen käsityksemme metaversumista näyttäytyy kivikautisena.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/29/vr-sickness-a-new-old-problem/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is ramping up work on a mixed-reality headset to be introduced as early as next year and has renamed the headset’s OS from realityOS to xrOS — Apple Inc. is ramping up work on a mixed-reality headset, its first major new product category since the Apple Watch …
Apple Renames Mixed-Reality Software ‘xrOS’ in Sign Headset Is Approaching
The device will vault the company into first new product category since the Apple Watch in 2015.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-01/apple-mixed-reality-headset-rivaling-meta-set-to-run-xros-operating-system#xj4y7vzkg
Apple Inc. is ramping up work on a mixed-reality headset, its first major new product category since the Apple Watch, and has renamed the accompanying software in the latest sign of an approaching debut.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Epic makes RealityScan app, which lets users scan real-life objects to turn them into 3D models, available for free on iOS, after a limited beta launch in April
Epic’s free app that turns real-life items into 3D models is available now on iOS
https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/1/23488421/epic-games-realityscan-ios-app-scan-objects-3d-models
The RealityScan app launched in limited beta earlier this year, but now it’s available for everyone on iOS for free
Epic Games’ RealityScan app, which lets you scan real-life objects and turn them into 3D models for video games or other projects, is now officially available on iOS as a free download after an initial limited beta launch in April. The app could be a handy tool to recreate objects from the world around you without having to build them on your own from scratch.
To “scan” an object in the app, you take a bunch of photos of it from as many angles as you can. As you’re walking around the object and photographing it, RealityScan helpfully shows each picture you’ve taken in augmented reality, as well as a heat map of where the object needs more coverage. You’ll also be able to preview your scan right from the app to see how it looks before exporting it to Sketchfab, a platform for sharing 3D models. (Epic says everyone who uploads a scan from RealityScan to Sketchfab will get a free year of Sketchfab Pro.) From Sketchfab, you can bring the model to apps like Epic’s own Unreal Engine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VR Sickness: A New, Old Problem
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/29/vr-sickness-a-new-old-problem/
Have you ever experienced dizziness, vertigo, or nausea while in a virtual reality experience? That’s VR sickness, and it’s a form of motion sickness. It is not a completely solved problem, and it affects people differently, but it all comes from the same root cause, and there are better and worse ways of dealing with it.
If you’ve experienced a sudden onset of VR sickness, it was most likely triggered by flying, sliding, or some other kind of movement in VR that caused a strong and sudden feeling of vertigo or dizziness. Or perhaps it was not sudden, and was more like a vague unease that crept up, leaving you nauseated and unwell.
Just like car sickness or sea sickness, people are differently sensitive. But the reason it happens is not a mystery; it all comes down to how the human body interprets and reacts to a particular kind of sensory mismatch.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mozilla acquires Active Replica to build on its metaverse vision
https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/01/mozilla-acquires-active-replica-to-build-on-its-metaverse-vision/?tpcc=tcplusfacebook
An automated status updater for Slack isn’t the only thing Mozilla acquired this week. On Wednesday, the company announced that it snatched up Active Replica, a Vancouver-based startup developing a “web-based metaverse.”
With Active Replica, Ervin and Denis sought to built a platform for virtual events and meetings built on top of Mozilla’s Hubs project. Active Replica sold virtual event packages that included venue design, event planning, live entertainment and tech support.
“Mozilla has long advocated for a healthier internet and has been an inspiration to us in its dedication and contributions to the open web. By joining forces with the Mozilla Hubs team, we’re able to further expand on our mission and inspire a new generation of creators, connectors, and builders,” Ervin and Denis said in a statement. “Active Replica will continue to work with our existing customers, partners and community.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The EU hosted a 24-hour party in its $400,000 metaverse to appeal to young people, but pretty much no one showed up
https://www.businessinsider.com/eu-hosts-400000-metaverse-party-barely-anyone-shows-up-2022-12?r=US&IR=T
The EU spent €387,000 ($407,000) on a metaverse venue to promote a new strategy.
But the 24-hour launch party saw just a handful of attendees.
One journalist who attended said he was one of just six people at the event.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MAN ALARMED TO BECOME ONLY GUEST AT $400,000 METAVERSE PARTY
https://futurism.com/the-byte/eu-metaverse-party-sad
“AFTER INITIAL BEMUSED CHATS WITH THE ROUGHLY FIVE OTHER HUMANS WHO SHOWED UP, I AM ALONE.”
Any gathering that no one shows up to is sad enough. The European Union investing $400k into a 24-hour metaverse “beach party” full of “music and fun,” only to attract less than ten guests who all peaced out in less than an hour? That’s downright depressing.
The event, according to Insider, was thrown by the European Commission’s foreign aid department, which was hoping to drum up youth excitement for its newly-announced Global Gateway strategy.
The EU hosted a 24-hour party in its $400,000 metaverse to appeal to young people, but pretty much no one showed up
https://www.businessinsider.com/eu-hosts-400000-metaverse-party-barely-anyone-shows-up-2022-12?r=US&IR=T
Tomi Engdahl says:
Not so sure on those assertions about Meta.
https://www.thegamer.com/metaverse-meta-horizon-worlds-bugs/
https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-risks-meta-flop-metaverse-developers-say-2021-12-01/
Tomi Engdahl says:
EU järjesti virtuaalibileet 387 000 euron satsauksen jälkeen – nolostihan siinä kävi https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000009256882.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
What if we were honest about Meta?
https://youtu.be/yRla73o3_OM
Tomi Engdahl says:
Legendary programmer John Carmack leaves Meta: ‘This is the end of my decade in VR’
https://www.pcgamer.com/legendary-programmer-john-carmack-leaves-meta-this-is-the-end-of-my-decade-in-vr/
By Ted Litchfield published about 18 hours ago
The Doom co-creator had long championed VR as a crucial next step in computer technology
Tomi Engdahl says:
Once a VR true believer, a “wearied” John Carmack leaves Meta
Departing CTO rails against “inefficiency” and “self-sabotage” in the Meta ranks.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/12/john-carmack-leaves-meta-after-a-decade-fighting-to-make-vr-a-reality/
After nearly ten years, John Carmack’s time helping to guide VR hardware efforts at Meta (and at Facebook/Oculus before that) have come to a close. The id Software co-founder and Doom co-creator officially left Meta on Friday night, according to an internal company memo obtained by Insider and confirmed by the New York Times.
Carmack’s departure message serves as a scathing indictment of crippling inefficiency at Meta that he said he was “offended by” and which he compared to a GPU with a measly five percent utilization rate. “We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this,” he wrote. “I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy.”
More personally, Carmack complained that it has been a “struggle” for him to influence Meta’s overall direction and that he’s “wearied of the fight.” Despite his high-ranking “consulting CTO / executive advisor” title, Carmack complained that he is “evidently not persuasive enough” to change Meta’s VR efforts for the better.
If that kind of talk sounds familiar, it might be because Carmack voiced similar complaints in his October Meta Connect keynote. There he talked about his internal efforts to push for the development of a “super cheap, super lightweight” Meta VR headset that could come in at “$250 and 250 grams.” Instead, Meta has put its recent VR hardware efforts behind the heavily overdesigned and $1,500 Quest Pro. “We’re not building that [cheap, light] headset today, but I keep trying,” Carmack said with some exasperation during the keynote.
In his departure message, Carmack had some kind words for the strong-selling Meta Quest 2 headset, which he called a good, successful product that has “[made] the world a better place.”
In an August podcast interview, Carmack said that the nearly $1 billion Meta is losing every month on its VR efforts makes him “sick to [his] stomach… But that’s how they demonstrate commitment to this … Google goes and cancels all these projects, while Meta is really sticking with the funding of VR and AR even further out with it.”
A VR true believer
Carmack joined Oculus in 2013 as a true believer in the world-changing potential of virtual reality, after being wowed by a pre-Kickstarter demo of a prototype Oculus headset at E3 2012. He was bullish enough on the early tech to officially end a 22-year career at id Software just a few months after joining Oculus.
Carmack’s departure removes one of the last throughlines Meta had to the “old guard” of executives that helped lead early VR headset efforts at Oculus long before its absorption into Facebook/Meta. Co-founder Palmer Luckey was forced out of the company in 2017 amid political controversy, while co-founder and former CEO Brendan Iribe left in 2018 and co-founder and former VP of Product Nate Mitchell left in 2019. Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin, who joined Oculus as Head of Worldwide Studios in 2014, remains at Meta as the company’s VP of Metaverse Content.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“People are confused by what the metaverse even means.”
FACEBOOK INVESTOR WARNS ZUCKERBERG THAT METAVERSE INVESTMENTS ARE “TERRIFYING”
https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-investor-facebook-metaverse-mojo
In a scathing open letter, an investment banker and shareholder in Meta-now-known-as-Facebook warned that investors are losing faith in the company as it continues its expensive turn towards its metaverse.
“At the same time that Meta ramped up spend, you lost the confidence of investors,” Altimeter Capital Chair and CEO Brad Gerstner wrote in his open letter, which he published on Medium
Skepticism from both the press and Gerstner’s fellow stakeholders who believed “that the core business hit a wall last fall” was affirmed when, after the company changed its name to Meta and began spending billions on building out CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg’s obsession, the company experienced a record-setting stock loss at the beginning of this year.
Time to Get Fit — an Open Letter from Altimeter to Mark Zuckerberg (and the Meta Board of Directors)
https://medium.com/@alt.cap/time-to-get-fit-an-open-letter-from-altimeter-to-mark-zuckerberg-and-the-meta-board-of-392d94e80a18
So, its with some hesitation, but significant conviction, I am sharing an open letter strongly encouraging Meta to streamline and focus its path forward. Like many other companies in a zero rate world — Meta has drifted into the land of excess — too many people, too many ideas, too little urgency. This lack of focus and fitness is obscured when growth is easy but deadly when growth slows and technology changes.
At the same time that Meta ramped up spend, you lost the confidence of investors. The conventional wisdom — press and investor — is that the core business hit a wall last fall. As a result, the team hastily pivoted the company toward the metaverse — including a surprise re-naming of the company to Meta.
Worse, this skepticism seemed to be affirmed with a nearly-immediate and sizable miss in financial results and continued under-performance throughout 2022.
The facts are startling. In the last 18 months, Meta stock is down 55% (compared to an average of 19% for its big-tech peers). Your P/E ratio has fallen from 23x to 12x and now trades at less than half the average P/E of your peers. And notably, this decline in share price mirrors the lost confidence in the company, not just the bad mood of the market.
The silver lining is that unlike many companies, this popular narrative obscures the truth. Meta’s core business is one of the largest and most profitable in the world with over $45 B in operating profits last year alone. Moreover, Meta has industry leading capabilities in key future technologies like artificial intelligence and immersive 3d that will help drive new products and future growth. And Meta certainly has abundant financial resources to invest and / or return to shareholders.
But Meta needs to get its mojo back. Meta needs to re-build confidence with investors, employees and the tech community in order to attract, inspire, and retain the best people in the world. In short, Meta needs to get fit and focused.
To accomplish this goal, we recommend a three step plan that will double FCF to $40 B per year and focus the company’s teams and investments:
Reduce headcount expense by at least 20%;
Reduce annual capex by at least $5 B from $30B to $25B; and
Limit investment in metaverse / Reality Labs to no more than $5B per year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
Meta Executive Advisor and former Oculus CTO John Carmack leaves the company after more than eight years, saying Meta is operating at “half the effectiveness”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/technology/virtual-reality-pioneer-is-leaving-meta.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth says the company plans to devote ~20% of its overall costs and expenses to Reality Labs in 2023, up from 18% in Q3 2022
Facebook’s Meta Will Devote 20% of Costs to Metaverse Next Year
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-19/facebook-s-meta-to-keep-investing-in-reality-labs-next-year
Company says 20% of spending to go toward Reality Labs
Meta’s metaverse plans have raised questions from critics
Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. will continue to devote about 20% of its overall costs and expenses to Reality Labs in 2023, despite questions about the business division focused on augmented and virtual reality and the so-called metaverse.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tanya Basu / MIT Technology Review:
Horizon Worlds’ Notorious B.I.G. concert achieved remarkable realism with the help of VFX studio Hyperreal, but raises ethical questions about VR resurrection — An avatar of the singer, who died in 1997, performed with live rappers on Meta’s Horizon Worlds. — For a moment on Friday, Biggie Smalls was the only man on stage.
I just watched Biggie Smalls perform ‘live’ in the metaverse
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/16/1065393/biggie-smalls-metaverse/
An avatar of the singer, who died in 1997, performed with live rappers on Meta’s Horizon Worlds.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Futurism
SCAMMERS SCAM ON
/FUTURE SOCIETY
The Fyre Fest Guy Is Off House Arrest and of Course His New Scheme Involves the Metaverse and Crypto
“PYRT is a technology I’ve been working on for the past few years called the VID/R: the virtual immersive decentralized reality.”
https://futurism.com/fyre-fest-guy-metaverse-scheme
Tomi Engdahl says:
“This is the end of my decade in VR.”
JOHN CARMACK QUITS JOB BUILDING METAVERSE, BLASTS FACEBOOK
https://futurism.com/the-byte/john-carmack-quits-facebook
Facebook VR leader — and Doom creator — John Carmack has quit his advisory position at the company now known as Meta, and took to the social network to unsparingly explain his departure.
In a Facebook post, Carmack publicly shared his resignation email, which he said he decided to post after it had been partially leaked to the press.
“This is the end of my decade in VR,” the gaming pioneer’s note began. “I have mixed feelings.”
In the letter, Carmack charged the company with “operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy,” an apparent jab at the leadership of founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose bullheaded turn towards creating a metaverse has drawn criticism from many quarters, including Carmack in the past.
Carmack went on to say that in his 10 years at Facebook, he was not able to be as “persuasive” as he wished —
he admits to struggling with a sense of failure from within and without.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zuckerberg jatkaa rahan lapioimista metaversumiin
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/14404-zuckerberg-jatkaa-rahan-lapioimista-metaversumiin
Tänä vuonna Metaksi muuttunut Facebook kirjasi vuoden kolmen ensimmäisen kuukauden aikana 9,4 miljardin dollarin tappiot metaversumia kehittävän Reality Labsin osalta. Tämä tai välillä rankaksikin yltynyt kritiikki ei estä Mark Zuckerbergia jatkamasta panostuksia.
Reality Labsin teknologiajohtaja Andrew Bosworth kertoo uudessa blogissaan, miksi yhtiö edelleen uskoo metaversumiin. Bosworthin mukaan vaikeina aikoina on helppotehdä nopeita päätöksiä ja ajaa hankkeita alas, mutta monet kriitikot ovat hänen mukaansa missanneet tärkeitä faktoja. Kuten yhtiön ydinliiketoimintojen eli Facebookin, Instagramin, Messengerin ja Whatsappin käyttäjämäärän hyvän kehityksen.
Tammi-syyskuussa Meta investoi metaversumiin viidesosan kaikista panostuksistaan. Analyytikkojen arvioiden mukaan Meta investoi ensi vuonna uusiin tekniikoihin ja tuotteisiin 97,3 miljardia dollaria. Viidesosa tuosta summasta olisi 19,2 miljardia dollaria. Summat ovat järkyttäviä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Suomalaisyritys kehitti palvelun, jonka avulla voi katsoa teatteria kotisohvalta: HS:n toimittaja testasi ja häkeltyi
https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000009231860.html?share=7842643478b44ec3d136e2667c76fac1
Suomalainen startup-yritys rakentaa verkkopalvelua, jonka avulla katsojat voivat uppoutua kolmiulotteisina tallennettuihin maailmanluokan teatteriesityksiin vaikka kotona istuessaan.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The metaverse ushers in a new era of cyber threats
https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/98571-the-metaverse-ushers-in-a-new-era-of-cyber-threats
The reality of the metaverse, where builders aim to create a shared, immersive and interactive digital world that combines virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) with avatars, digital twins and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, is only a few years away. With all the chatter about the metaverse, many are beginning to get an idea of what it might look like, but few understand the infrastructure behind its technology.
It would be unwise to assume that the cybersecurity threat landscape of Web3 will be simply a continuation of today’s common Web2 threats. The next-level complexity of hardware and software technologies that will make up the metaverse introduces countless attack surfaces and cybersecurity challenges. Here are few unique security concerns that the metaverse presents and how security leaders will need to reorient their approach to stay ahead of the next generation cyberattacker.
he metaverse’s near-infinite attack surface
The metaverse ecosystem has a wide attack surface made up of software, hardware and communication channels. Web3 will be all about greater user interaction, and that will mean more user data will be collected. Data can be acquired through AR/VR devices, sensors, cameras and other devices that are connected to the internet. Data can be stored in the metaverse in many ways, such as on servers, in databases on edge, fog or cloud-computing platforms. This is an enormous amount of potentially vulnerable user data, and cybercriminals will follow the money.
Compromised devices pose new threats
While the metaverse is still vulnerable to the same threats of today’s Web2, the nature of its immersive and interactive technology adds identity and privacy threats. Rogue or compromised end-user devices present a significant risk of data breaches and malware invasions targeting the user’s monetary assets. In the Web3 world, the user’s identity goes well beyond a character’s avatar, including their private keys for cryptocurrencies, bank details, social relationships, and even images of their digital life history. Since NFTs could soon be used for various forms of identification, from insurance policy documentation and drivers’ licenses to event tickets, the loss or modification of any of these items can could constitute identity theft.
Identity theft on a whole new level
Interacting with an avatar in Web3 requires pervasive user profiling activities using multiple dimensions and high granularity for facial expressions, eye/hand movements, speech, biometric features and even brain wave patterns. Attackers can impersonate victims in the metaverse by exploiting the behavioral and biological data gathered by AR/VR devices to create a fake avatar for criminal use. Cybercriminals can inject erroneous data into the acquisition stream generated by wearable devices and use it to launch social engineering or other malicious applications.
Getting physical with cybersecurity strategies to secure the metaverse
There are practical measures that the security industry and individuals can and should take sooner than later to get ahead of securing the metaverse. Organizations should not only have software protection in place to secure their data, but also add robust defenses on hardware devices and communication channels to protect against identity theft and physical harm. Business and tech leaders entering the Web3 space in any manner should be relentless about education and awareness, since preventing human error can help reduce cybersecurity incidents.