Vision Pro launched, what’s next?

Today we are covering…

🎧 Apple’s much-vaunted AR headset launch

💀 OpenAI CTO Twitter hack

✈️ Airline ANA’s on-chain marketplace and NFTs

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Vision Pro: Apple’s much-vaunted AR headset launch

Apple’s jump into augmented reality is all set, as the tech giant launched the $3,499 Vision Pro headset at the annual WWDC conference.

The finer details:

• Created to support both AR and VR apps, the Vision Pro boasts of IR cameras and LED illuminators on the inside as well as LiDAR and traditional camera sensors on the exterior, along with Apple’s 1st 3D camera.

• A Disney partnership teases new experiences for the headset, such as enhanced ways to watch Disney+ shows and AR demos for basketball games.

• In line with Apple's security goals, Vision Pro is getting a new Optic ID authentication system - whose data Apple says is fully encrypted and stored locally - that uses the human iris for unlocking and signing on to the device.

It wasn’t a straight path toward AR for the company, given reports of frequent changes in direction, skepticism inside Apple itself, manufacturing difficulties and compromises, years of delay, and, at a rumored $3,000 price tag, Apple’s own expectations of slow short-term sales.

Yet the promise and potential is enough to get AR and metaverse insiders excited:

• Enhanced engagement - AR can overlay virtual items in the real world, where for instance a branded game could require a user to visit a store to complete a specific quest via AR avatar. This leads to a potential purchase of the store’s goods.

• New social interactions - Social connections on digital channels can extend into the real world, as virtual avatars can be placed IRL for interactions across channels, including the metaverse, social media, and gaming.

• Fostering user-generated content - It can craft new immersive experiences that bring people closer to the metaverse, opening new doors for creators.

The Apple headset release is also anticipated to kickstart the arms race between Apple and Meta, vying for top attention (and sales) for headsets that will elevate the gaming and metaverse experience.

OpenAI CTO Twitter hack [Link]

In a short-lived yet significant scam, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's Twitter account gets hacked, 80,000+ viewers are targeted in a scam airdrop claim, and $100K+ figure in stolen funds.

Scammers created a fraudulent website resembling ChainGPT, an AI-powered crypto project. They used this site to trick users into connecting their wallets, compromising them through a wallet-draining kit.

The exact hacking methods are yet to be discovered, but speculation suggests SIM swapping may have been involved.

OpenAI, Murati, and ChainGPT have not made any public comments regarding the hack.

Airline ANA’s on-chain marketplace and NFTs [Link]

ANA, Japan's largest airline group and a member of the United Airlines co-founded Star Alliance, announces the launch of an NFT marketplace through its subsidiary ANA NEO.

Dubbed as ANA GranWhale, the platform aims to provide a space for the airline to release on-chain products, making it the first marketplace of its kind in the industry.

ANA GranWhale offers exclusive NFTs, including renowned aviation photographer Luke Ozawa's works, plus two 3D Boeing 787 aircraft NFTs featuring the inaugural livery and proposed design.

In ANA NEO President Mitsuo Tomita’s words:

“Through this initiative, we aim to unlock the potential of NFTs in the aviation industry, bringing together the digital and physical realms to create unique and memorable experiences that unite the world in wonder.”

Father of metaverse’s optimism amid waning hype [Link]

Neal Stephenson, whose 1992 dystopian sci-fi novel Snow Crash coined the word “metaverse,” expresses optimism over the immersive digital realm despite decreasing attention to it (and the increased hype and ambivalent views of generative AI).

The father of the metaverse’s thoughts in a talk at Augmented Reality Expo:

• He’s impressed with progress with VR, AR, and XR, particularly with game engine tools like Unity and Unreal Engine that are widely used for 3D graphics and gaming.

• While the metaverse of Stephenson’s imaginings was all about VR, he takes a broader definition today: a 3D virtual shared environment which also includes AR.

• "If we're going to have a metaverse that's being used all the time by millions or billions of people, then there have to be experiences in the metaverse that are worth having," says the co-founder of Lamina1, which seeks to set an open foundation and easy metaverse tooling for developers and other creators, including via blockchain and NFTs.

Quick Hits

🎮 Gaming

• Decentralized exchange PancakeSwap shifts into GameFi, announcing CAKE and NFT burning and reward offers. (Link)

• Roblox bans players from posting the single letter W in message chat - Here’s why. (Link)

• Rumors that the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI will incorporate crypto and NFTs have once again surfaced. (Link)

• The new game Attack on Titan VR: Unbreakable is coming to Meta 3 in Winter 2023. (Link)

• The Jot Art (JOT) AI metaverse is in the works, combining LLMs like GPT4 with NFTs and mixed reality for its series of games. (Link)

• European game studio Maniac Panda Games aims to onboard mainstream players to Web3 with its flagship MMO title. (Link)

🕶 Fashion

• For China’s Gen Z, luxury is an immersive digital-first experience, not a transaction - one reason many Western luxury brands are losing out in this market. (Link)

• ​​Tribute Brand x Chromie Squiggles for generative sweater collection ODDS. (Link)

• Students from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Manchester Fashion Institute develop and experience immersive VR apps. (Link)

• The Fabricant and Highsnobiety team up for a limited-ed collection for Not In Paris, happening IRL during Paris Fashion Week. (Link)

• AI-powered design tools facilitate digital sketches and 3D renderings, allowing designers to iterate and refine their ideas more quickly and efficiently. (Link)

🏀 Sports

• In the name of eco preservation: 3,000 animal-themed FC Barcelona NFTs at $30 each. (Link)

• Details remain sparse, but Nike x EA SPORTS looks to “build new immersive experiences and unlock brand-new levels of customization within the EA SPORTS ecosystem." (Link)

• As the FIFA 23 season winds down, EA SPORTS increases the price of FIFA Points, surprising many players. (Link)

• Internet League Baseball has had its last season as the goofy, fake fantasy baseball game calls it quits over high costs. (Link)

• Hockey franchise Oshawa Generals partners with Locker Token Sports for NFT memorabilia and web3. (Link)

🎥 Media & Entertainment

• Here comes the AI: Fans rejoice over “new” Beatles music. (Link)

• Ampilify.ai’s conversational AI lets people book movie tickets over DMs on social media. (Link)

• Reality Pro’s library of Apple Music VR concerts has been a decade in the making. (Link)

• The Bulimia Project uses AI to probe the "ideal" body types being promoted by social media. (Link)

• NCT’s Taeyong’s solo album SHALALA gets him exploring metaverses and dancing to yetis. (Link)

• Entertainment brand Roobet expands into the metaverse. (Link)

🖼 Art

• Trip.com's Trekki NFT project captures the allure of travel with its debut NFT offering. (Link)

• Rainbow Wallet introduces a new feature that allows users to refresh the metadata of their NFTs. (Link)

• These childhood friends made half a million pounds overnight by selling their drawings as NFTs. (Link)

• Reddit and Ubisoft release free Rabbid avatar NFTs. (Link)

• An AI-generated NFT collection to celebrate a world of 8B people. (Link)

• NFTs are changing the way you book airline tickets, hotels, and restaurants. (Link)

• Mixed reality invades Brain Garden, the 5th Zhijiang International Youth Art Festival in China. (Link)

🤖 AI

• Microsoft experiments with support for 3rd-party web browsers to access Bing Chat. (Link)

• Financial advisers lean into AI to work better and faster. (Link)

• Japanese firms develop AI systems for education. (Link)

• Turnitin updates its tool to detect AI-written essays. (Link)

• AI-powered software FoodProX estimates the level of processing in US food products. (Link)

• 6 ways that AI will likely change your life by 2030. (Link)

💸 Funding & Partnerships

• Red Beard Ventures closes $25M in funding from several notable investors. (Link)

• AI-powered Hyro raises $20M to advance responsible AI-enhanced communications for enterprises. (Link)

• NEAR Foundation forms a strategic partnership with MARBLEX to expand their web3 ecosystem. (Link)

• GameStop and Telos forge partnership for web3 gaming advancement. (Link)

• LBank Labs invests in Sparkle Ventures to drive web3 innovation globally. (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.

📈 If you are a startup building in the metaverse / web3 ecosystem and are raising capital, please reach out to Sfermion. Sfermion is an investment firm focused on accelerating the emergence of the metaverse 📈

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