[KC] DEBRIEF WEEK 43 FRIDAY 11/05
DIGITAL TITANS
_Twitch CEO’s perspective on the MetaVerse. The metaverse is the moment in time where our digital life is worth more to us than our physical life. This is not an overnight change. Or an invention by some steve jobs type. It's a gradual change that's been happening for 20 yrs.
_Microsoft Teams has 250 million users worldwide. And starting in 2022, they will be able to take meetings in virtual spaces, by donning virtual-reality and augmented-reality headsets. Instead of simply streaming live video, people will be able to appear as cartoon avatars of themselves, with facial expressions expressed in real-time, including smiles and frowns. And yes, they have permission—you have permission—to get as angry as your little cartoon heart desires. You can be pissed off,” promises Alex Kipman, technical fellow for AI and mixed reality, with a laugh after I pester him on this topic for a couple of minutes. And that single gesture encapsulates a lot about how Microsoft is looking at the future of work—and the future of just about everything online in the era of the metaverse.
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Microsoft has taken its first step towards bringing the metaverse to office life, in the latest sign that some of the biggest tech companies see the blending of the digital and physical worlds as one of the most important new trends in computing. The US software giant said that in the first half of next year, users of its Teams collaboration software would be able to appear as avatars — or animated cartoons — in video meetings. Remote workers will also be able to use their avatars to visit virtual workspaces, which would eventually include replicas of their employers’ offices.
_Facebook. A newly introduced partnership with BMW is also heading to take a look at the impression of driving whilst donning sensible glasses, a territory that’s already elevated considerable security considerations in the past: Facebook’s Ray-Ban Tales glasses usually are not suggested for use although driving, and neither was Google’s Google Glass headset. In accordance with Facebook, the partnership is also about discovering how AR eyeglasses could integrate with cars and trucks and how they’d be applied in a relocating automobile.
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Facebook’s parent company Meta has launched a new initiative designed to combat the spread of misinformation online, with a new fact-checking mentorship program, developed in partnership with the Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking, to help fact-checking organizations scale their efforts, and increase their impact. As explained by Meta: “Reducing the spread of misinformation is a challenge that no single organization can tackle alone. Strong partnerships with subject matter experts and sharing information on best practices play a big role in effectively addressing misinformation. That’s why, as part of this global mentorship program, the nonpartisan IFCN will select up to 6 experts from the fact-checking industry to serve as mentors for up to 30 organizations in Meta’s third-party fact-checking program.” Meta Launches New Fact-Checking Mentorship Program to Reduce the Impacts of Misinformation Online
_Instagram. With Instagram’s Live Shopping events, skip the crowds this year and watch for exclusive drops and offers only available in the app. Our star-studded lineup of emerging brands and celebrity guests will bring you expert product recs all season long. It’s all happening on the Instagram Shop tab – just tap on “Holiday Picks.” / Creators have always driven style and culture forward, so they’re curating the latest trends. Discover a weekly lineup of Guest Edit collections from superstars like Paloma Elsesser (@palomija)./ On Fridays in November, (November 5, 12, 19) lookout for the #BuyBlack Live Shopping series to discover brands from talented Black creators. Also, find curated collections of Black-owned businesses to support from the likes of Zerina Akers (@zerinaackers), award-winning stylist and founder of @blackownedeverything. / From December 5 – 15, we’re hosting a Holiday Pop-Up Shop LIVEseries. Picture the magic and charm of a holiday market but from the comfort of your couch! More details to come./ Throughout the holiday season, score exclusive fashion, beauty, and lifestyle merch with a special gift from Instagram: 20% off your first purchase and free shipping, when you complete an eligible purchase in the app.
_Spotify. Music streaming giant Spotify has reportedly surpassed tech giant Apple to become the top podcast provider in the US. During the company's Q3 2021 earnings call, Spotify said that according to Edison Research and its internal sources, it "recently became" the No. 1 podcast platform US listeners use the most, reports TechCrunch. Given the US is the largest global podcast market, the milestone is significant and speaks to the sizable investment Spotify has made in podcasts over the past few years, the report said. Spotify
_ Apple this month unveiled an array of new gadgets: more powerful MacBook laptop computers, AirPod wireless headphones with longer battery life, and HomePod Mini speakers in three more colors. But a different and unheralded Apple release is garnering so much interest that it has become the company’s most back-ordered new product: a $19, 6.3-by-6.3-inch cloth to wipe smudges and fingerprints off screens.
INNOVATION
_Ex Microsoft SVP, now CEO of Magic Leap. The company's first product was a spectacular flop, but it's back with new hardware and a new strategy. Here's why it just might work thanks to Peggy Johnson. KC member Lucas Nannini : “with Meta pushing on headset hard (Occulus and Rayban) and Microsoft losing a massive deal with the US army, this may be the perfect window (pun not intended)”.
_Get started with Medusa: the open-source alternative to Shopify #javascript #webdev #opensource #tutorial. Many popular e-commerce platforms come to developers’ minds first, and one of these is Shopify. Shopify established itself as one of the go-to platforms to create an e-commerce store for any business. However, it has a lot of disadvantages including the fact that it is not free and it has minimal customizability. This is where Medusa comes in. Medusa is an open-source headless commerce engine that is fast and customizable. As Medusa is split into 3 core components - the headless commerce part that exposes the REST APIs for your store, the frontend of your store, and the admin panel - you are free to use the platform as a whole, or use the parts that you need for your e-commerce store. In this tutorial series, you will learn how to create an e-commerce store with Medusa. This includes setting up your development environment, adding features and plugins to your backend, frontend, and admin panel each, and everything you might need to set up your e-commerce store with Medusa.
_Adobe is launching a system built into Photoshop that can, among other things, help prove that the person selling an NFT is the person who made it. It’s called Content Credentials, and NFT sellers will be able to link the Adobe ID with their crypto wallet, allowing compatible NFT marketplaces to show a sort of verified certificate proving the art’s source is authentic.
_Boston Dynamics have 2 main robots... the 4 legged ones and the human-looking one.. Today, the "dog" is reproducing the dance/video from the Rolling Stones, and this is pretty bluffing.
PEOPLE MEDIA, CULTURE
_The metaverse can be thought of as a virtual world that can be accessed by the internet. The opportunities for it are very open and it is not just limited to a virtual game. Real-world applications such as metaverse concerts, workspaces, and painting classes are just a few examples of uses for the blending of the real and virtual world known as the metaverse. Xanadu is one example of this, a guy who created his own alter ego in the metaverse and is now starting a YouTube channel about it.
_Mark Zuckerberg may have spent much of his appearance at Facebook's Connect conference yesterday talking up his vision of the "metaverse"—a fully immersive virtual world in which people will interact as avatars—but another speaker at the very same event was much less bullish: John Carmack, one of the key players in building the thing. Carmack is a legend in the gaming and virtual reality (VR) worlds, being co-founder of id Software, the firm that published the seminal Doom game. Eight years ago he became chief technology officer (CTO) at Oculus VR, the VR-headset outfit that Facebook—which was rebranded as Meta on Thursday to reflect its new focus—acquired soon after he joined. He's highly respected, to say the least, and he doesn't think much of Zuckerberg's plan."I want it to exist, but I have pretty good reasons to believe that setting out to build the metaverse is not the best way to wind up with the metaverse," Carmack, who has been talking up the metaverse concept since the 1990s, said. The problem, he explained, is that the concept is a "honeypot trap for architecture astronauts…a class of programmers or designers that want to only look at things from the very highest levels." Such people don't want to talk about "any of the nuts and bolts or details," he complained."But here we are, Mark Zuckerberg has decided that now is the time to build the metaverse, so enormous wheels are turning, resources are flowing, and the effort's going to be made," the tech guru said. "So the big challenge now is to try to take all of this energy and make sure it goes to something positive, and we're able to build something that has real near-term user value, because my worry is that we could spend years, and thousands of people, possibly, and wind up with things that didn't contribute all that much to the ways that people are using the devices and hardware today."
_New York City, Las Vegas and Phoenix have all recently committed to building virtual models of their downtown districts, hoping to develop new strategies to reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency. But executing on the nascent “digital twin” technologies won’t be simple, experts told StateScoop. Cityzenith, a Chicago-based data visualization company founded in 2009, is behind the rise of the virtual model technology, with “at least a dozen” The technology that CityZenith offers allows any sensor in a building that measures emissions, air quality, water and power consumption, noise, or other factors to transmit data back into a central repository for analysis. The aggregated data is then used to create a “digital twin” of the building, or buildings, enabling everybody from academics and policymakers to building owners to simulate tests on how to reduce emissions without spending money to do it. Research on the technology from the consulting firm Ernst and Young this year revealed that digital twins can reduce greenhouse gas emissions in buildings by 50%, while also improving efficiency.
_The advent of virtual possessions and direct-to-avatar product drops are pointing the way to the next era of retail in the metaverse. But what does this spell for brands who deal in physical products? Aglet is one app that offers some clues to how brands can bridge physical and digital consumption. At its most basic level, the app lets sneakerheads collect and wear virtual versions of rare or limited-edition sneakers. But the implications are much larger. “The current view is there are two different worlds: online and offline or digital and physical. No one has connected them in a really compelling way for consumers," the brand said in a press release. “Everything Aglet does is about exploring and creating experiences at the intersection of that convergence. Aglet believes people don’t live online or offline anymore; they live ‘on life.’”Below, Aglet founder and CEO Ryan Mullins speaks with us about why the biggest opportunity for physical goods is virtual goods, an emerging brands-as-a-service business model, and the future of virtual ownership.
BRANDS
_Nike filed trademark applications last week with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for Nike-branded virtual goods, including clothing and sneakers, with sources telling CNBC News that the move is the company’s first step toward rolling out virtual products in the metaverse space.
_The world’s largest restaurant chain has announced it’s teaming up with IBM to take its drive-thru lanes further into the future. The project will see McDonald’s on-the-go ordering system fitted with new AI-powered features, such as voice recognition. “In my mind, IBM is the ideal partner for McDonald’s given their expertise in building AI-powered customer care solutions and voice recognition,” said McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski, as per CNBC.
MMM….OF THE WEEK
_On November 3, the rapper joined Instagram to promote the Netflix movie he co-produced, The Harder They Fall. Notably, Young Hov was the first — and probably last — account that Beyoncé deigned to follow. After posting a singular photo (the movie poster) and an IG Story (a timer counting down to the film's premiere on Netflix), JAY-Z dipped. By the morning of November 4, his account was gone. A series of comments from Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, and Instagram welcoming the social media-shy star to the platform were immortalized on Twitter (please note that JAY-Z did not respond to any of them).
_Chinese netizens are cashing in on the nostalgia for international travel in a quirky and creative way: posing in front of China’s only Costco store as if they’re in sunny Los Angeles. On the Chinese social media and e-commerce app Xiaohongshu, known as “China’s answer to Instagram,” scores of young, lavishly dressed men and women have turned the American warehouse club into their muse. Dozens of posts captioned, “Pretending to be in Los Angeles,” often embellished by an American flag emoji, show people sitting cross-legged in shopping carts or lounging on the grass, framed by a crisp blue sky and the warehouse club’s bold, red logo.
_John Lee couldn’t believe his luck. The $1,000 investment he made in Squid, a new cryptocurrency project inspired by the dystopian Netflix drama “Squid Game,” had skyrocketed in price. But within five minutes Monday, his money disappeared.“I watched Squid fall in a matter of minutes,” Lee, 30, from Manila in the Philippines, told NBC News. “There was no way to withdraw my funds intact.”He was one of many investors who were caught in what has become one of the most high-profile cryptocurrency collapses of the year — and one that some industry experts are warning is indicative of a market that is ripe with scams.
OFF-TOPIC
_The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) biggest campaign stars a "Utahraptor", who takes to the podium to deliver an important message about climate change, as the world heads towards potential sixth mass extinction. Basing his argument on his own experience of mass extinction, the dinosaur (voiced by Jack Black) addresses the congregation: “Going extinct is a bad thing. Driving yourselves extinct? In 70 million years, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. At least we had an asteroid, what’s your excuse?”
_DAOs are a new way of organizing people. Traditionally, a company structure has been the most effective free-market approach to accruing talent in pursuit of a goal. That labor is usually persuaded and controlled through wages. DAOs seek similar ends — the creation of value — but rely on a decentralized framework in which workers, users, and other stakeholders have true ownership of the entity. Various types of DAOs have emerged to serve different use-cases. As interest in space has increased, DAOs have begun to diversify and experiment with the boundaries of what’s possible. There are DAOs for investing, DAOs for building new products, DAOs for socializing, and many iterations both between and beyond. Meaningful assets are being managed by these entities. Those skeptical of the crypto space in general and DAOs, in particular, may want to reconsider their stance. These are organizations with real sway and real capital. Tens of billions are being managed across top DAOs, with some, like Compound, boasting a treasury of almost $1 billion itself. We’re still early when it comes to DAO infrastructure. DAOs have many of the same needs as corporations but must often deal with greater complexities given their scale, fluidity, and technical stack. That necessitated the emergence of tooling for formation, communication, collaboration, payments, and more. DAOs have a handful of providers to select across these categories, but by and large, the choice is limited. We should expect many new entrants to the space in years to come. DAOs have clear vulnerabilities that have yet to be fully addressed. The first DAO was famously hacked, with a bad actor attempting to siphon off millions in Ethereum. While DAOs are safer today, they carry risks. Contributors often join pseudonymously, meaning reputation capital is not entirely on the line. Furthermore, without sufficient protections, some DAOs are still vulnerable to exploitation.