Apple Throws in Transparent AR, Layoffs Hit HoloLens, Metaverse Fashion Start Up Raises $6M

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland took place this week, and Metaverse and artificial intelligence were among the hot topics discussed by top industry executives, world government officials and think tanks like the World Economic Forum.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) plans to bring leaders together in the Metaverse Created by Microsoft and Accenture, the virtual village uses Microsoft Mesh and its AltSpaceVR to present a digital twin of Davos, where users can meet, work, interact with government officials and explore museums. The WEF is really serious about this. I hope we remember to check how it’s going next January.

The World Economic Forum also publishes a series of reports. In his vision for the Global Collaboration Village The WEF explains that its rationale is to “inspire action to achieve high impact… and expand our ability to connect regardless of where we are physically located around the world.” Because. I guess the internet can’t do that?

Another WEF report, The Metaverse will have the biggest impact on the industry states the wide application of digital twin technology in various industries. Eventually, the report says, this technology will reach consumers. So insightful. A must read. Brad Smith, vice president and president of Microsoft, said: “We believe the metaverse has the potential to fundamentally change the way we communicate and collaborate, transcending the limitations of the physical world to provide enhanced connections for everyone.” Really.

Neal Stephenson discussed his vision of the metaverse with MetaChief Product Officer Chris Cox. Stephenson’s new company, Lamina1, is building the underlying blockchain that would enable universal login and microtransactions, two things that should have been built into the Internet, according to co-founder Tim Brenners-Lee.

The future of technology is smart glasses, says Qualcomm president and CEO Cristiano Amon,. The “merging of physical and digital space” is the next phase of the Internet, he said, adding that smart glasses are something the chipmaker is “very passionate about.” Great praise for the overarching technology at a conference that focused more on climate, Ukraine and artificial intelligence, which has been characterized as more influential than smartphones.

Apple has reportedly shelved its plans to release AR glasses anytime soon Bloomberg first broke the story that everyone has been reporting this week. Due to “technical challenges,” Apple’s transparent augmented reality glasses are now officially on the back burner. The company will focus its resources on launching a fully enclosed mixed reality headset that sees the physical world through pass-through cameras. Although Apple has yet to confirm it, the MR headphones will be announced soon, along with a late 2023 launch date.

Microsoft has laid off 10,000 workers, many of them in the remnants of Alex Kipman’s HoloLens group, which was discontinued when he left the company. Many blamed the cuts on failures in the Army HoloLens IVAS project, which was first cut from $22 billion to $400 million. And maybe not even that. Congress seems to be losing patience with the project. Not the army. They want to give the AR headset another try.

House of Blueberry raises $6 million for digital fashion in Metaverse. The company has sold more than 20 million digital assets on platforms such as Roblox, The Sims and Second Life under its own brand. House of Blueberry has partnered with brands such as Natori and Boy Meets Girl to create their first virtual collections.

Roblox 2022 Review. In this blog post CEO Dave Baszucki says 70 player-created games have surpassed one billion plays on the Roblox platform, which has grown to 58.8 million daily users. The most popular titles included Livetopia, DOORS and Evade. Twenty experiences attracted more than one billion visits in 2022: Brookhaven, Blox Fruits, BedWars, Tower of Hell, Pet Simulator X!.

Bored Ape raises $450 million for its Metaverse Empire with Poop game Straight out of the school of too much effort, those mean monkeys want players to humble themselves for NFTs. The real thing for BAYC members who carelessly gave thousands of dollars to a game company that never made a game. More than anything, this shows you how hard it is to maintain creativity at the level of their Otherside trailer.

AR and VR hate prescription lenses, and it’s getting worse says CNET myopic editor and immersive media specialist Scott Stein. I have to agree with him, after damaging four pairs of expensive trifocals. They can get very scratchy, even with the corrective lens spacer on the Quest. The incredibly slim form factor of the Vive XR Elite will exacerbate this, says Stein.

Prisms, a new title coming to Quest next week, features gamified math learning. Currently used in 92 school districts in 23 states, Prisms has more than doubled the results of traditional methods of teaching the subject. In Prisms VR, users connect 3D experiences of pre-construction real-world situations to more abstract representations such as graphs, tables and equations or vocabulary, thereby deriving mathematical models from physical and visual experiences. Built for 8th-11th grade math students, tutors, and teachers, Prisms VR content and multiplayer practice modules are now available in the Meta Quest store for $24 as an annual subscription model.

7 Podcasts That Will Make You Smarter About AR A great list, and not just because it features a podcast related to this column. Complementing Kent Bye’s acclaimed Voices of VR podcast, The AR Show is a new “Industry XR Leaders” podcast from ArborXR co-founders Brad Scoggin and Will Stackable, featuring enterprise XR executives from companies using the technology such as Amazon, Walmart, Pfizer, UPS and Koch Industries.

This week in XR is also a podcast hosted by the author of this column, Ted Schilowitz, head of Future Technologies at Paramount Global, and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap. This week our guest is Dan Robinson, co-founder and CEO of Red6, which created an AR system for air combat and other flight training for the military. We can be found on Spotify, iTunes and YouTube.

What we read

A maddening, surreal VR work meeting experience (Nitish Pahwa/Slate)

Extremely Hardcore (Zoey Schifer, Casey Newton and Alex Heath/Platformer/The Verge)

Virtual Creep: 10 of the Worst Brand Tricks in the Metaverse (Thomas Germain/Gizmodo)

What is Metaversity and should you create one on your campus? (Andy Viano/Ed Tech Magazine)

2022 was a top year for VR, here’s what to expect in 2023. (Ben Lang/Road to VR)

This week in Schadenfreude

Meta faces a future of new legal problems and falling revenues (Arthur Sullivan/DW)