Kura Honored with CES Innovation Award, Pioneering First Person View Multimodal AI with AR12/27/2023 SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Kura, a pioneer and leader in generative multimodal AI and widest-FOV augmented reality technology, today announced that the company has been recognized as a CES 2024 Innovation Award honoree for its AR glasses. The award recognizes the product's custom AI framework and powerful developer tools that provides an unrivaled user experience.
The annual CES Innovation Award program recognizes outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products. This year's CES innovation Awards program received a record-setting number of more than 3,000 submissions and is one of the most respected and renowned awards for frontier electronic devices. This is Kura's second CES honor. "This is yet another significant milestone in Kura's journey, and this honor highlights our drive to integrate powerful artificial intelligence models with augmented reality to enhance our users' lives," said Kelly Peng, Founder of Kura. "Imagine a powerful AI virtual assistant that follows you wherever you go, recognizing real-world objects and actions, and interacting with you in a very natural way — that's what Kura will provide." (...) "The Kura glasses see what the user sees, hear what they hear, and can act as an extension of human working memory and senses. What makes Kura different is that humans get about 80% of learning and input from visuals, and all AI software and applications are competing for the user's mobile and computer screen times these days," said Chuck Alger, Kura General Manager and former member of the Microsoft Hololens and Microsoft Surface teams. "We're bringing AI from the era of phones without screens to today's modern age. Most AI wearables are simply like a speaker and microphone without a display, which is a good data collection device, but not effective at providing private input and instructions for complex tasks. Thanks to augmented reality, we can use an overlay to point out objects or places in the real world, dramatically enhancing the user experience." (...) "Kura's vivid, immersive, and clear images enable broad use cases for product design, training, production, and visualization," commented SAIC Ventures, the venture branch of SAIC Motors, one of the world's largest automotive manufacturers, who is also an strategic investor in Kura. "Enterprises in automotive and other manufacturing industries will benefit greatly from these new possibilities." (...) Source
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Lado Okhotnikov and Meta Force Announce the Launch of the Fair Price Program for Metaverse Tokens12/27/2023 CEO and founder of the Meta Force Metaverse Lado Okhotnikov talks about the current situation of Forcecoin during the multi-mining period and forecasts how a fair price will affect the value of the token after entering the open market.
“Meta Force is committed to providing ecosystem participants with transparent and fair exchange mechanisms, and is also interested in stimulating activity within the Metaworld,” Lado Okhotnikov says that the company is pleased to announce the launch of the Fair Price program for Metaverse tokens. “Currently, during the multimining period, the real price of Forcecoin correlates with its fair price. This is explained by the unique dynamics, where participants waiting for the opportunity to use their tokens have the opportunity to purchase coins at a lower price,” Lado Okhotnikov spoke about the mechanics that maintain positive dynamics while waiting for the cryptocurrency to enter the open market. Lado Okhotnikov: A fair price protects but does not limit “As a part of the Meta Force strategy, listing on various exchanges will be carried out in stages. This approach provides ecosystem participants with the opportunity to gradually master new opportunities, minimizing risks and ensuring the stability of Forcecoin,” concluded Lado Okhotnikov. Participants buying coins at a lower price during the waiting period will be in a good position after entering the market, when the fair price is expected to increase and continue to be equal to the actual value of the asset. (...) Source Meta's CTO seemed to suggest the company could demo a highly advanced true AR glasses prototype in 2024.
Meta has been working on AR glasses for at least eight years now, spending tens of billions of dollars on the project that Mark Zuckerberg hopes will one day deliver him an "iPhone moment". Last year The Verge's Alex Heath reported that Meta no longer plans to release its first AR glasses, codenamed Orion, as an actual product. Instead, Heath wrote, Meta will distribute them to select developers in 2024 and also use them as a demonstration of the future of AR. In an interview with Heath this week in his weekly newsletter, Meta's CTO Andrew Bosworth seemed to confirm Heath's past reporting. Bosworth directly confirmed to Heath that a small number of Meta employees will begin internally testing the glasses next year, and separately said "I think there’s a pretty good chance that people will get a chance to play with it in 2024." He also claimed, in some of the strongest terms we've ever seen, that the glasses are the most advanced consumer electronics device ever made: "It’s probably our most exciting prototype that we’ve had to date. (...) LCoS displays are essentially LCD microdisplays, though using reflection instead of transmission to form an image. LCoS isn't a new technology, it has been used in movie projectors since the 90s as well as in AR products like HoloLens 1 and Magic Leap 2. They are less power efficient and less bright than microLED has the potential to be, but much less expensive in the short term. While the silicon carbide waveguide in the Orion glasses can reportedly achieve a field of view around 70° diagonal, the glass waveguide in the actual product will only have a field of view of around 50° diagonal, like HoloLens 2 and Nreal. We harshly criticized the field of view of both HoloLens 2 and Nreal Light in our reviews of each product. For comparison, opaque headsets which use camera passthrough have fields of view well in excess of 100° degrees diagonal. Ma reported that the goal is to ship this AR glasses product around 2027. (...) Source During the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Digital Economy Development Conference on Dec. 26, Chinese venture capital (VC) firm GBA Capital announced a $10-billion pledge to establish a Web3 fund.
According to local news reports, the GBA Capital Web3 Fund will invest in startups focusing on virtual reality, the metaverse and nonfungible tokens and transform the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao economic area into the world’s “meta-asset capital.” Haolong Li, chairman of GBA Capital, said that this year’s conference would also “hold meta-asset global tours in Japan, Singapore, Dubai, Silicon Valley, Europe, and other places” to improve the visibility of meta-assets. GBA Capital was established by China Europe International Financial Group in Hong Kong. The firm holds strategic partnerships with financial institutions such as the Asia Pacific Investment Bank and China’s state-owned National Engineering Laboratory. “GBA Capital focuses on investment and incubation in the field of digital economy,” the company wrote. “We aim to integrate the industrial clusters, capital resources, and corporate resources and policy advantages to provide comprehensive support and services to enterprises.” (...) Source Japanese technology group Toppan has signed a deal to help develop digital twins of factories in Vietnam.
The deal between Toppan and FPT Group in Vietnam will see the creation and global rollout of new metaverse businesses and the development of global digital twin technology businesses for factories. There is a growing push for more digital factories in Vietnam to avoid supply chain and trade war issues between the US, EU and China. The collaboration will fuse the ToppanGroup’s rendering technologies for metaverse spaces and the XR field as well as its communication design know-how with the FPT Group’s system development capabilities and XR solutions to develop metaverse services that will be rolled out in Southeast Asia and global markets. Toppan has is working with the FPT Group on a concept model for a manufacturing digital twin metaverse, where a digital twin of a Toppan manufacturing site has been created. The model was exhibited earlier this year at FPT Techday 2023 in Hanoi, Vietnam, and the two companies will advance development of the service while conducting testing at the Toppan Group’s manufacturing sites and considering use cases. This could lead to a potential business for digital twin services supporting manufacturing says Toppan. (...) The companies will collaborate to drive development of new metaverse and digital twin solutions by providing each other with metaverse-related technology licenses. This includes Toppan’s MiraVerseCore, a metaverse solution featuring high-definition 3D simulation, and Metaclone Avatar, which enables people to generate their own avatar from a single photograph. Licenses from the FPT Group will include “akaVerse,” a solution package combining AR, VR, and MR.v Source VR market keeps shrinking even as Meta pours billions of dollars a quarter into metaverse12/22/2023 Meta is spending billions of dollars a quarter to fulfill CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of a futuristic virtual world that he calls the metaverse.
Despite the company’s commitment to making its founder’s dream come true, the virtual reality market is contracting. Sales of VR headsets and augmented reality glasses in the U.S. plummeted nearly 40% to $664 million in 2023, as of Nov. 25, according to data shared with CNBC by research firm Circana. That’s a much steeper drop than last year, when sales of AR and VR devices slid 2% to $1.1 billion. (...) Meta declined to provide a comment for this story but pointed to a blog post on Monday from Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, who runs Reality Labs. Bosworth called artificial intelligence and the metaverse Meta’s “two long-term bets on technologies of the future,” and said they’re beginning to “intersect in the form of products accessible to huge numbers of people.” “Making long-term bets on emerging technologies isn’t easy,” Bosworth wrote. “It’s not guaranteed to work, and it’s certainly not cheap. It’s also one of the most valuable things a technology company can do — and the only way to remain relevant over the long run.” (...) Meta debuted the Quest 3 VR in October, starting at $499, or $200 more than where the predecessor Quest 2′s base model was initially priced in 2020. Sales have at least been strong enough to help lift the VR market during the pivotal holiday period, even if the year overall has been week. Source Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., has recently unveiled plans for a new high-end virtual reality headset, internally referred to as Project Cambria. This device is not just another product but a cornerstone of Meta’s ambitious strategy to build the metaverse, a collective virtual shared space birthed by the blending of physical and digital realities.
Project Cambria: A Leap Towards a More Connected Future Project Cambria is expected to be a powerhouse of advanced technology, featuring high-resolution sensors and mixed reality capabilities. This enables users to interact with both virtual and physical environments in unprecedented ways. The device seeks to support remote workspaces and offers more immersive experiences, potentially revolutionizing how professionals collaborate and interact within virtual realms. Meta’s emphasis on the metaverse aligns with Zuckerberg’s vision of the future of social connection and interaction. In this envisioned future, physical distance is no longer a barrier to collaboration and socializing. This direction has sparked curiosity and speculation within the tech industry about the device’s specifications, potential applications, and its role in moulding the future of virtual collaboration and the metaverse ecosystem. Competitors on the Horizon However, Meta is not the only tech giant vying for a slice of the metaverse pie. Apple Inc. has ramped up production of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset with a planned launch in February. Customized components, new sales strategies, and a specific focus on corporate customers and schools mark Apple’s foray into the realm of mixed reality. Apple is already developing the next version of the device’s operating system, visionOS, set to arrive in 2024. This shows a clear commitment to this new product category, hinting at a brewing competition in the metaverse space. (...) Source Metaworks Platforms, Inc. Introduces ECHO: The AI-Powered Metaverse Chatbot for Investor Relations12/22/2023 ECHO Revolutionizes Investor Relations by Providing, for the First Time, 24/7/365 Access and User Engagement of Company Data Powered by AI
MetaWorks Platforms, Inc, an award-winning Web3 company that owns, operates and develops Web3 platforms, is thrilled to introduce the beta launch of ECHO, a cutting-edge AI-powered Metaverse investor relations chat bot. ECHO combines the power of ChatGPT with a customized closed-loop data set, offering investors unprecedented 24/7/365 access to comprehensive company information. ECHO provides a company’s investors with unparalleled access to anything and everything about the company, its products, its people, financials and so much more. ECHO is not just a chat bot; it’s a dynamic and customizable metaverse investor relations representation tailored to publicly traded or private companies. Leveraging advanced AI technology, ECHO serves as an intelligent, responsive, and always available resource to provide stakeholders with real-time information and insights. “At Metaworks Platforms, we believe in pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with these new technologies in Web3 like AI & the Metaverse. ECHO represents a fusion of cutting-edge technology and a clear use case of AI and the Metaverse to create unparalleled access and experiences for both investors and Companies.” said Scott Gallagher, President of MetaWorks Platforms, Inc. (...) Source Imagining AI's SuperVerse12/22/2023 Everywhere you look, and even feel, digital innovation and AI are at the forefront of our reality. The concept of the Metaverse has been widely touted as a central element on the path to this frontier. However, a closer examination reveals a fundamental flaw: the Metaverse is merely an illusion, a confined space built upon the already elusive reality of human perception.
That's a lot to unpack, but let's explore why the Metaverse falls short and how something I'm calling the SuperVerse, an AI-driven reality, may offer a transformative leap into realms unexperienced by humanity. For now, it's a thought experiment, but this future might arrive fast. The Metaverse: A Confined Illusion The Metaverse, often celebrated as a digital utopia, is, in reality, a limited construct. It’s akin to a box, a controlled environment that mimics and magnifies the constraints of our physical world. Far from being an expansive universe, it is bound by the same perceptual limitations that define our everyday reality. In its current form, the Metaverse doesn't offer an escape or an expansion; it offers a mirage, a digital re-creation of the world we already know. It often feels empty because, in spite of the visual acrobatics, it is. The SuperVerse: A Transcendent, Honest Reality Enter the SuperVerse, a hypothetical concept that represents not just an alternative reality but an entirely new dimension of existence. This higher-order reality doesn't mirror our current perception; it transcends it. Powered by advanced AI technologies, the SuperVerse leverages the immense capabilities of artificial intelligence to analyze, interpret, predict, and even construct complex patterns beyond human comprehension. In the SuperVerse, AI serves as the architect of a reality that humanity has never experienced. It's not constrained by the limits of human senses or biases. Instead, it constructs a reality based on a deeper understanding of the universe, one that combines the vast data and patterns of our world into a new form of existence. The SuperVerse isn’t just another digital landscape; it’s a realm where the previously invisible interconnections and underlying truths of our universe are revealed. This new reality doesn't just augment our current understanding; it completely redefines it. It’s a space where the abstract becomes tangible, and the unknown becomes known. A pivotal aspect of the transformation from the Metaverse to the SuperVerse is the emergence of multimodal Large Language Models (LLMs). These advanced AI systems represent a significant leap in how we interact with and understand digital realities. Unlike traditional models that rely solely on text-based inputs, multimodal LLMs can interpret, analyze, and generate information across various formats, including text, images, audio, and even sensory data. This capability enables a richer, more nuanced interaction with AI, facilitating a deeper integration of digital experiences into our understanding of the world. (...) A Cognitive Awaking? The Metaverse, while a step towards digital innovation, is ultimately a failure in offering a truly transformative experience. It’s a construct built within the confines of our existing perceptions, a limited echo of our physical world. The SuperVerse, on the other hand, represents a quantum leap into a new form of reality, if not an awakening to a reality that, while built by AI, is here but outside the domain of human sensory perception. It's time for humanity to step out of the illusionary box of the Metaverse and embrace the boundless possibilities that AI can offer, potentially in the form of the SuperVerse. This new reality is there, waiting to be experienced, far beyond our meager sensory perception. Source (...)For the metaverse industry, 2024 will be a real test to see if the growing pains can be shaken off and real value can start to be delivered from the technology. UKTN spoke to members of the metaverse industry to see what can be expected next year.
Consolidation with gaming to drive interest “The metaverse is poised for growth in 2024, fuelled by the convergence of gaming, VR/XR, and web3 technologies. Headsets like Apple’s Vision Pro and the success of Meta Quest 3 will further ignite demand for immersive metaverse experiences. Gaming companies will integrate metaversal elements into their offerings, creating new brand activation opportunities. “Consolidation in the gaming and web3 sectors will lead to a stronger, more innovative, and more resilient startup ecosystem, with companies pooling resources and expertise to develop groundbreaking metaverse applications.” – Herman Narula, founder and CEO, Improbable Throw out the ‘build it and they will come’ rhetoric. “There’s a misconception that building an experience big and flashy enough will attract and retain users. Wrong. Single-use metaverse experiences have repeatedly proven to have no shelf life or utility, rendering them superficial marketing stunts. Instead, focus should be on nurturing communities and empowering individuals to create and shape their virtual landscape. “The next big moment in the metaverse will be entirely created and driven by collaborative communities. We’re already seeing the power that communities bring to new virtual experiences, whether it’s art, music, or gaming. This creative innovation will continue to power the metaverse with exciting, unprecedented experiences – watch this space.” – Craig Beddis, CEO, Hadean Christmas wish lists in the metaverse “As metaverse platforms continue to develop their shopping features, it’s a natural progression that they will start experimenting with ecommerce. Next year we will begin to see brands like Amazon and Shopify making deals with metaverse platforms to operate on them – taking online shopping to a whole new level. “As more and more products become available to purchase in the metaverse, people will soon completely replace shopping in real life with shopping in the metaverse. “Instead of scanning toy catalogues for presents, children will be sending their Christmas wish lists to their parents via the metaverse. This change in ecommerce will soon be adopted by everyone as the demographic for the metaverse evolves to an older and more mature audience.” – Erik Londré, founder and CEO, Karta Source |