This week in the ➡️ #Metaverse — Issue #10

4 min readJul 20, 2022

A weekly roundup of what’s happening in the digital land(scape). Metaverse ethics, governance and interesting trends from crypto, gaming, AI and regulation.

What’s going on:

Rescale and Nvidia partner to automate industrial metaverse | VentureBeat — venturebeat.com
Rescale integrates Nvidia GPU Cloud into its library of containers, adding over 150 containerized AI and HPC apps optimized for Nvidia GPUs.

A company called Meta is suing Meta for naming itself Meta — The Verge — www.theverge.com

As meta as it gets…

Facebook changed its name to Meta in October 2021, and an augmented reality company by the same name isn’t happy about it.

A brain-computer startup beat Elon Musk’s Neuralink to implanting its first device in a US patient — www.businessinsider.com
The startup implanted a 1.5-inch device into the brain of an ALS patient at Mount Sinai West medical center in New York on July 6, Bloomberg reported.

The WTF award of the week goes to…

A Collector Spent $104,000 on an NFT of a Leonardo Painting That May Have Been Forged. So What’s the NFT Really Worth? | Artnet News — news.artnet.com
The NFT of La Bella Principessa consists of a 500 million-pixel hologram encased in crystal that sold for $103,739.

Gaming news:

Ubisoft Teaches Customers They Don’t Own All That DLC They ‘Bought’ | Techdirt

www.techdirt.com
While we were just discussing how everyone occasionally gets reminded that for many digital goods these days you simply don’t actually own what you’ve bought, all thanks to Sony disappearing a bunch of purchased movies and shows from its PlayStation platform, this conversation has been going on for a long, long time. Whereas the expectation…

Because we all need a little joy… — www.polygon.com
Stray is a game where you play as a stray cat in a dystopian world. You can hit Circle and meow anytime. This is how I earned the “A Little Chatty” trophy for meowing 100 times. I got the trophy within 20 minutes.

I Am Not A Robot: AI news

An experimental horror ARG is testing the boundaries of AI art — The Verge — www.theverge.com
Rob Sheridan, a longtime collaborator with NIN, is utilizing an AI art tool called Midjourney to create an experimental horror-themed alternate reality game.

NFTLand:

What The Bored Ape Yacht Club And Quontic’s Pool Party In The Metaverse Means For Your Company — www.forbes.com
Web3 startups are disrupting traditional banking — and bankers could learn a lot from Quontic and Cogni.

NFT marketplace OpenSea lays off 20% of its staff: ‘We have entered … crypto winter’ — TechCrunch — techcrunch.com

Despite a significant depression in crypto markets, plenty of top players have been hesitant to say that the good times are over for the time being, but as NFT marketplace OpenSea announces today that its laying off around 20% of the company’s employees, the top crypto startup’s CEO isn’t mincing words. ” …

For Science!!!

Robot that can perceive its body has self-awareness, claim researchers | New Scientist — www.newscientist.com
The team claims to have given a robot self-awareness of its location in physical space, but others are sceptical

Meme corner:

We need a laugh, so lets do a throwback to the Icelandverse!!! Hats off to you Iceland!!! — www.youtube.com

The Icelandverse is unlike any other open-world experience with “-verse” in name, because it’s real. Plus, you don’t need a funny-looking VR headset.