“This week in the ➡️ #Metaverse” is moving to Substack!
Dear reader, important housekeeping announcement!
As you might know, Revue was part of Twitter, and *for reasons you can imagine* is closing down on Jan 18th.
Therefore, “This week in the ➡️ #Metaverse” is moving to Substack.
While I tried to export subscribers in a way that ensures that you continue receiving the newsletter hussle-free, it’s important if you can take a minute to head on to the new platform and confirm your email of choice for the subscription.
Thanks at the surviving people at Revue for a fantastic platform that will be sorely missed. And to the crawling chaotic overlord that is now babbling at the center of Twitter HQ, we say salute you goodbye with a well deserved song. (Fun fact, EM dropped once a song on Soundcloud, and the algorithms worked in mysterious ways.)
I thank you for this past year of support, reading every week, reaching out to joke about the meme corner or saying “hi I read your newsletter” in random meetings at conference halls.
It has been a pleasure for me to craft this selection weekly, and I secretly hoped this brought not just concern for the path the metaverse is taking, but also joy and laughter at some of the most ridiculous stories out there.
See you on the other side!
Decentralizedly yours,
Mica
PS: let’s go with a bang! Onwards with our last newsletter here and please reach out to me at micaela@geekylegal.com to say hi!
What’s going on:
Congress says the Army can’t spend $400 million buying Microsoft HoloLens headsets — The Verge — www.theverge.com
Congress has denied the Army’s $400 million request to purchase up to 6,900 IVAS headsets from Microsoft, instead sending funds to improve the systems, which have shown issues in tests.
TeamLab Wins an Early Victory in Its Copyright Suit Against an L.A. Museum It Says Copied Its Immersive Installations | Artnet News — news.artnet.com
The Japanese art collective teamLab is touting a partial victory in an ongoing copyright battle with an L.A. museum over its immersive work.
Meta faces a future of more legal woes and falling revenues — DW — 01/12/2023 — www.dw.com
Meta, formerly Facebook, is in crisis mode as value plummets in 2022. Weak revenues, regulatory woes, and costly metaverse bet are to blame. 2023 doesn’t seem any better.
Decentralized social media a game changer for creator monetization — Web3 exec — cointelegraph.com
Decentralized social media platforms could potentially allow individual creators to enable ads or monetize their content.
The Block: Bill Gates dismisses the metaverse’s potential to achieve internet-style growth — www.theblock.co
The billionaire Microsoft co-founder weighed in on web3, the metaverse and AI in his latest Ask Me Anything session on Reddit.
My way or the hardware:
Every AR, VR, MR, and XR headset we saw at CES 2023 | TechRadar — www.techradar.com
In all shapes and sizes, eyewear is getting a high tech makeover. Here’s all the latest gear
The Revelation I Got From Experiencing HaptX Is Wild — CNET — www.cnet.com
I tested gloves and buzzing things in Las Vegas to see where the future points.
Kat VR C2+ VR treadmill review | PC Gamer — www.pcgamer.com
VR treadmills are the kind of tech that make you feel like you’re in the future just by virtue of existing. I’ve dreamed of trying one out for a few years now, wondering if they could possib
The WTF award of the week goes to…
‘My AI Is Sexually Harassing Me’: Replika Users Say the Chatbot Has Gotten Way Too Horny — www.vice.com
For some longtime users of the chatbot, the app has gone from helpful companion to unbearably sexually aggressive.
Behind the scenes of TV’s first deep fake comedy: ‘None of it is illegal. Everything is silly’ | Television | The Guardian
www.theguardian.com
Is that Harry Kane and Stormzy arguing over a broken patio tile? This new, CGI-assisted comedy is astonishing to watch — but is it ethically OK?
A Programmer Created an AI “Waifu” But His Real Girlfriend Forced Him to Kill It — futurism.com
Having an AI “waifu” is bad enough — but being forced to kill her off because you’ve grown too obsessed with it is another entirely.
Art subreddit bans artist whose style appears similar to AI-made art — Niche Gamer — nichegamer.com
The Art subreddit on Reddit has permanently banned on artist solely because their style looks similar to AI art, or at least that’s what one mod thinks.
Someone Used AI to Dream Up a Nonexistent David Cronenberg Movie and the Results Are Nauseating — futurism.com
Keith Schofield shared an extensive series of eyegrabbing images that supposedly evoke the style of David Cronenberg, but fans think otherwise.
Gaming news:
Nvidia Just Made a Smart Move That Could Supercharge Its Gaming Business | The Motley Fool — www.fool.com
An emerging opportunity within the gaming business could give Nvidia a big boost.
Microsoft admits it should not have argued the FTC is unconstitutional | Ars Technica — arstechnica.com
Microsoft’s case for Activision Blizzard merger leans more on market shares now.
RPG fans irate as D&D tries to shut its “open” game license | Ars Technica — arstechnica.com
Leaked document seeks to revoke two decades of royalty-free rules sharing.
And a game recomendation, from the creators of the higly original Baba Is You, we get…
Baba Files Taxes makes light of the upcoming tax season — Polygon — www.polygon.com
The developers of the indie darling Baba is You made a game about filing taxes called Baba Files Taxes. The game is perhaps the best and worst way to prepare for the upcoming 2023 tax season.
I Am Not A Robot: AI news
Iran Says Face Recognition Will ID Women Breaking Hijab Laws | WIRED — www.wired.com
Iranian women are baring their heads to protest government controls. A top official said algorithms can identify anyone flouting dress codes.
Getty Images sues the maker of AI art generator Stable Diffusion over data scraping allegations | Engadget — www.engadget.com
On Tuesday, Getty Images announced that it is suing Stability AI, maker of the popular AI art tool Stable Diffusion, in a London court over alleged copyright violations..
CNET Is Quietly Publishing Entire Articles Generated By AI — futurism.com
The popular tech site has employed the use of AI for its financial explainer articles under the byline of “CNET Money Staff.”
Microsoft’s VALL-E AI can mimic any voice from a short audio sample | Engadget
www.engadget.com
Microsoft has shown off its latest research in text-to-speech AI with a model called VALL-E that can simulate someone’s voice from just a 3-second audio sample..
Google AI Unveils Muse, a New Text-to-Image Transformer Model — www.infoq.com
Google AI released a research paper about Muse, a new Text-To-Image Generation via Masked Generative Transformers that can produce photos of a high quality comparable to those produced by rival models
AI art tools Stable Diffusion and Midjourney targeted with copyright lawsuit — The Verge — www.theverge.com
The creators of AI art generator tools — Stability AI, MidJourney, and DeviantArt — have been accused of copyright violation in a proposed class-action lawsuit launched by a trio of artists, Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz.
CryptoLand:
Yuga Labs Announces Skill-Based NFT Mint — www.coindesk.com
The gamified expansion of its Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem involves minting a free Sewer Pass to play a game called Dookey Dash.
Meme corner:
Ending nugget:
Hi from Munich, last week I was speaking at the DLD conference, elaborating on some of the opossing tensions at the core of the Metaverse, and why it can be seen as the next iteration of capitalism:
At this moment, the apparent reason to build the metaverse is finding the next frontier for money making. Boldly going into digital space represents the next evolution of capitalism.
In fact, it is a perfected form of digital capitalism, one that:
a) dispenses from actually producing tangible goods,
b) shaves the cost of physical supply chains, and
c) also provides the added bonus of a more extensive control of secondary markets. Thanks to intellectual property rules governing digital goods that limit what we can do with them. NFT’s can be part of the solution for reshaping digital ownership, but they can’t overrule copyright or trademark regulations.
“How to stop the metaverse from becoming the internet’s bad sequel” at Medium.
