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France’s nat’l consultation on the metaverse
Alibaba’s own ChatGPT, top 2023 metaverse events, plus more top metaverse stories today
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Calling upon companies, groups, and citizens to answer a series of questions, the French government launches a public consultation on the metaverse. Interestingly, it shies away from dubbing it as such, calling it “virtual immersive universe” and alluding to a French strategy around the new realm.
What’s the consultation for?
To allow the public to express their expectations around the anticipated metaverse technology
To “offer an alternative to the virtual immersive universes currently offered by the international giants”
To “question its relevance,” pertaining to the metaverse
It can be recalled that during his 2022 election campaign, Pres. Emmanuel Macron cited the need to build a European metaverse. EU officials, too, are set to produce an EU strategy on virtual worlds this May.
Amid the continued dominance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and a “technological watershed moment” fueled by generative AI and cloud computing, Chinese tech giant Alibaba has entered the race, announcing the rollout of its own product called Tongyi Qianwen.
The details so far revealed:
The chatbot will be integrated across Alibaba's businesses in the "near future,” according to its cloud computing unit.
Able to work in English and Chinese, it will initially be added to Alibaba’s workplace messenger DingTalk.
It will perform tasks like turning conversations in meetings into written notes, writing emails, and drafting business proposals.
Alibaba hasn’t revealed an English name, but Tongyi Qianwen roughly translates as "seeking an answer by asking a thousand questions.”
In related AI news, Elon Musk reportedly buys thousands of graphic processing units (GPUs) to further his AI projects at Twitter. GPUs normally work on large-scale AI models due to the massive computation power required by the tech.
Virtually every industry today is dipping its toes into the metaverse, experimenting with how it can enhance everything from creative tasks to customer engagement to talent training. Complementary tech like XR, AI, and 5G only help increase the demand for virtual spaces.
Metaverse events offer a great starting point in the journey, and some of the headliners in 2023 include:
France’s Laval Virtual, one of the most impressive XR events in the world, on April 12-14
California’s Augmented World Expo (AWE) 2023, a world-leading conference on the mixed, augmented, and virtual reality spaces, on May 31-June 2
Germany’s XR Expo 2023, a premier XR gathering, on June 15-16
And many more that provide enlightening metaverse learning experiences across hardware, software, and other enabling tools
Quite a few retail giants have temporarily lost interest in the metaverse:
Walmart pulls the plug on its Roblox metaverse experience Universe of Play after 6 months, but they say things are going "as planned.”
Walt Disney has recently given its next-gen storytelling and consumer-experiences team the boot, despite the unit busily plotting the company's entry into the metaverse.
Meta’s metaverse division reports a $4.3B loss in Q4, while the social media behemoth redirects attention to generative AI plans.
There are brands of varying sizes and types, however, that have just started wading into the scene:
Bloomingdale's launches a multi-brand virtual store for its holiday campaign.
Babylist opens a virtual showroom in November for shoppers to add products to their registries.
Pacsun rolls out a metaverse strategy, starting with an NFT release called Pac Mall Rats last year.
For experts, with companies taking a step back, there might be more space for the metaverse to grow naturally with consumers.
🏃♂️ Quick Hits
🎮 Gaming
Gaming hardware giant Razer launches an incubator to fund web3 games. (Link)
Indie tactics card game Shardbound gets a web3 revival. (Link)
South Korean mobile gaming giant Netmarble is coming to The Sandbox. (Link)
Lookback: Shrapnel, an anticipated first-person shooter web3 game, wows at GDC. (Link)
Floki treats Valhalla NFT GameFi players to a happy Easter. (Link)
What’s the Zero2Hero hackathon track and how does it spotlight NFTs, GameFi, and the metaverse? (Link)
🕶 Fashion
Loewe offers this pixelated outfit for $4,350. (Link)
Wrangler teams up with artist Jeremy Booth in new web3 wearables. (Link)
Digital fashion platform SYKY debuts a luxe fashion incubator for digital designers. (Link)
From podcasts to digital magazines, TV series and the metaverse, there are multiple ways for fashion to avoid relying solely on social media. (Link)
A bag worth fighting for: The MetaBirkin NFT trademark dispute rages on. (Link)
🏀 Sports
As the competition for sports streaming rights heats up, here’s what the major players are up to. (Link)
PIXER Eternity claims to be the 1st sports-to-earn (S2E) project that can generate revenue from overall sports content from games to metaverse. (Link)
Sports and the metaverse: A revolutionary convergence for inclusion. (Link)
The rush you’ll feel inside the NSW Open Golf Championship in 3D, a world-first web3 golf metaverse. (Link)
In this free 4-lesson course, execs from Meta and top sports orgs examine the growing link between the metaverse and the sports industry. (Link)
🎥 Media & Entertainment
The metaverse goes punk: IMVU teams up with Pussy Riot creator to launch virtual utopia. (Link)
The top metaverse events worth attending in 2023. (Link)
Emergent Entertainment pairs up with Animoca to develop blockchain game Resurgence: What’s in store? (Link)
Conceptions of the metaverse may seem fanciful, but the metaverse promises to be the next revolution of the internet. (Link)
Saudi Arabia’s entertainment industry is propelling AV technology forward. (Link)
Entrepreneur Musa Ahmadov’s Dobermans is touted as more than just a run-of-the-mill NFT profile picture project. (Link)
🖼 Art
Why OpenSea's new NFT aggregator OpenSea Pro is getting a warm welcome from the NFT community. (Link)
The commodification of art has reached the digital world, making it possible to obtain works in digital versions. (Link)
Borrowing against NFTs has skyrocketed to a whopping $1B. (Link)
How Azerbaijani artist Zhuk’s serene artistry makes the ancient modern as she immerses in web3. (Link)
The $WOW token gets unveiled to back the Wolf of Wall Street NFT collection. (Link)
🤖 AI
Boston scientists are close to a major lung cancer screening breakthrough: AI-based Sybil can detect early signs, years prior to a CT scan. (Link)
AI is empowering historians to gain a deeper understanding of the past. (Link)
The Middle East and Africa are set to experience the fastest AI spending growth globally by 2026. (Link)
AI unlocks the secrets of the cosmos. (Link)
Web3-focused AI platform Mindverse gears up for its global beta launch. (Link)
💸 Funding & Partnerships
Alphabet's AI investment in AlphaSense, to incorporate large language models into its products, totals $100M. (Link)
AI startup Cryptogpt raises $10M to expand into Asian markets, resulting in a post-valuation of $250M. (Link)
Web3 firm Cool Cats collaborates with metaverse infrastructure and content provider Futureverse to stay dominant in the NFT space. (Link)
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All content on this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not aim to serve as or replace expert investment advice.
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