TOP10 NEWS OF THE WEEK / 10.12.2024
ROBLOX REFUTES HINDENBURG'S ACCUSATIONS | [METAPHYSICS]
?? Roblox has officially refuted accusations made by Hindenburg Research, which claimed that the kids-oriented Metaverse company was falsifying key user engagement metrics and inadequately protecting children from online predators and inappropriate content.?? Hindenburg, an investment research firm known for short-selling public companies, outlined numerous allegations in its extensive 15,000-word report, primarily focused on claims of manipulated user data and insufficient safety measures for children. This situation is particularly concerning for the Metaverse Fashion community, as it coincides with fluctuations in Roblox's market cap.
?? Over the past week, the company's market cap has varied between $9 billion and $8.5 billion. Following a positive earnings report that revealed a 20% increase in revenue, the stock rose about 10% early in the week. However, worries about competition and regulatory challenges led to a decline of approximately 5% by the end of the week.
?? As Roblox's financial report to investors approaches, Metaverse Fashion Magazine will closely monitor the developments in the Hindenburg-Roblox case and its impact on Roblox's financial performance and market standing.
FULL ROBLOX STATEMENT:https://lnkd.in/dvKcrdN4
META'S MOVIE GEN MAKES CONVINCING AI VIDEO CLIPS | [SINGULARITY]
?? Meta just announced its own media-focused?AI model, called Movie Gen, that can be used to generate realistic video and audioclips.The company shared multiple 10-second clips generated with?Movie Gen, including a Moo Deng-esque baby hippo swimming around, to demonstrate its capabilities. While the tool is not yet available for use, this Movie Gen announcement comes shortly after its Meta Connect event, which showcased new and?refreshed hardware?and the latest version of its?large language model, Llama 3.2.
?? Going beyond the generation of straightforward?text-to-video?clips, the Movie Gen model can make targeted edits to an existing clip, like adding an object into someone’s hands or changing the appearance of a surface. In one of the example videos from Meta, a woman wearing a VR headset was transformed to look like she was wearing steampunk binoculars.
?? Audio bites can be generated alongside the videos with Movie Gen. In the sample clips, an AI man stands near a waterfall with audible splashes and the hopeful sounds of a symphony; the engine of a sports car purrs and tires screech as it zips around the track, and a snake slides along the jungle floor, accompanied by suspenseful horns.
?? Meta shared some further details about Movie Gen in a research paper released Friday. Movie Gen Video consists of 30 billion parameters, while Movie Gen Audio consists of 13 billion parameters. (A model's parameter count roughly corresponds to how capable it is; by contrast, the largest variant of?Llama 3.1 has 405 billion parameters.) Movie Gen can produce high-definition videos up to 16 seconds long, and Meta claims that it outperforms competitive models in overall video quality.
?? Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated Meta AI’s Imagine Me feature, where users can upload a photo of themselves and role-play their face into multiple scenarios, by posting an AI image of himself?drowning in gold chains?on Threads. A video version of a similar feature is possible with the Movie Gen model—think of it as a kind of?ElfYourself?on steroids.
?? While larger tech companies are still holding off on fully releasing video models to the public, you are able to experiment with AI video tools right now from smaller, upcoming startups, like?Runway?and?Pika. Give Pikaffects a whirl if you’ve ever been curious what it would be like to see yourself?cartoonishly crushed?with a hydraulic press or suddenly melt in a puddle.
INSIDE ELON MUSK'S AI PARTY AT OPENAI OLD HEADQUARTERS | [SINGULAIRTY]
?? It had all the makings of a typical recruiting event for a tech startup in San Francisco. There was free food, drinks, and live music generated via code?being written in real time. But there were also mandatory metal detector screenings, ID checks, and security guards everywhere. It was held by Elon Musk at the original Mission District headquarters of OpenAI, which Musk cofounded before leaving after (reportedly)?failing to take it over. And Musk was there to convince people to join his latest startup, xAI.
?? The timing felt intentional. That same day, OpenAI was hosting its annual Dev Day across town, where CEO Sam Altman had spoken hours earlier to a packed auditorium of developers. The Silicon Valley rumor mill was buzzing about OpenAI closing in on the largest round of funding ever for a startup, surpassing the amount Musk himself had just raised for xAI four months earlier.
?? “We want to create digital superintelligence that is as benign as possible,” Musk said at the Tuesday gathering, according to a partial recording of his remarks shared with?The Verge. He then called on those in the crowd “to join xAI and help build the intelligence and build useful applications to derive from that intelligence.”
?? xAI began in March 2023 on the 10th office floor of X, Musk’s social media platform formerly known as Twitter. He assembled a team drawn from his other companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, as well as his 17-year-old son, his cousins, and the son of Jared Birchall, who runs his family office,?The?Verge?has learned. The mission: surpass OpenAI and deliver a competitive large language model in just three months.
? Under pressure from Musk, xAI’s first model was?launched in late 2023?via Grok, a chatbot for paid subscribers to X. It has since released three updates:?Grok-1.5,?Grok-2, and?Grok-2 Mini. But unlike competitors who had the luxury of time to develop their own systems, xAI’s lean team had to move fast and find a quick solution. One person familiar with the development of the first model described it as a patchwork product that relied on Microsoft’s Bing for search and Meta’s open-source Llama model for query rewriting.
???? One potential draw for working at xAI, compared to a larger competitor like OpenAI, might be the opportunity to move faster and take bolder risks. With a small team and shorter product timelines, xAI offers a chance to innovate quickly, unlike larger, more cautious companies like OpenAI and Google. It may attract those eager to see rapid AI proliferation or who align with Musk’s techno-libertarian leanings — people who reject Silicon Valley’s “wokeness” in favor of a “super hardcore” work environment that prioritizes ambition and agility over corporate safeguards.
TRAPPED IN THE SCROLL - HOW WEARABLE TECH MAY SAVE US | [FASHION SYSTEM]
?? A?Harvard Business Review?study recently?concluded?that we look at our phones on average 72 times per day.?Other reports?have that number much higher, topping 144 – that’s every 6.7 minutes during waking hours.For Gen-Z, that number?sits at?7.2 hours of video a day, with 1.5 hours spent daily on TikTok. We’re putting chips in humans’ heads, creating augmented reality (AR) powered ski goggles that have a dial to close off reality, and TikTok memes and trends like “hawk tuah” girl and “very demure” are our new culture.
?? We’re not creating, building or making anymore; we’re being dragged into a consumption black hole. Futurists are already talking about mind uploading, which evolves over time to the option to delete memories and distort reality. It’s all getting a bit much. Media consumption has devolved into half-a-second channel flicking much like the 80s and 90s. There’s an ever increasing trend of people walking around with their head buried in their phone, missing important real-world interactions. We need to change to a head-up society — it’s imperative for our survival.
?? Although advancements like AR are somewhat pulling us out of doom scrolling, they’re not the answer. In fact, adding Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest 2, or some other screen to our faces is only arguably making the problem worse, leading to Hyper Reality, where adverts and content are streamed constantly into your world. Since I am a significant privacy advocate and member of the EFF, the idea of millions of live cameras on the public’s faces, paired with AI technology feels dangerous, expecially with the AI capabilities of today.
?? We need to propel humanity forward at the same pace that humanity is propelling technology forward. That starts with lifting our heads up. While my belief in the potential of future technology is something that drives me, as a motorcyclist, adventurer, and horse rider, I continue to strive for that real connection to the world and others. This is where wearable AI technology comes into play, these devices can take away the distractions, endless notifications and reliance on screens.
?? Wearable tech is our dam against low-value content. It could propel us back into a world where we can take time to engage with emotionally resonant, thought-provoking creative that influences who we are, providing deeper meaning and enjoyment than if we don’t stop the flood of digital junk. As the technological movement heats up, it’s up to us – companies and consumers – to push our culture towards a tech-enabled future that allows humans more time to connect with each other and the environment around them.
A GLOSSARY FOR THE AI REVOLUTION | [SINGULARITY]
Seth Fiegerman and Nate Lanxon for Bloomberg
?? The arrival in late 2022 of?the ChatGPT chatbot, with its remarkably sophisticated —?if occasionally erroneous?— answers to a vast array of queries, was a milestone in artificial intelligence that took decades to reach. Scientists were experimenting with “computer vision” and giving machines the ability to “read” as far back as the 1960s, and chatbots began life when the Beatles were still making music.
?? Now tech companies are racing to develop ever more sophisticated AI products that can talk back to users, solve complex math problems, produce short films and perhaps one day outperform a human in a wide variety of tasks. Whether you’re worried about being?replaced by a machine, or just intrigued by the possibilities, here’s the terminology you need to navigate an AI-driven world.
?? AGI:AI companies are obsessed with the idea of artificial general intelligence, or AGI. But none of them can quite agree on how to define it. The term typically refers to hypothetical AI systems that are capable of completing a wide range of complex tasks with little human involvement. ChatGPT developer OpenAI goes a step beyond this and defines AGI as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.” But it’s not clear what counts as a “highly autonomous system,” or for that matter, “economically valuable work.” Some in the AI industry think we’ll reach AGI within the next decade; others believe it’s much further out, if it ever happens.
? artificial intelligence:The broad term gets tossed around so much that it loses some of its meaning. At a high level, however, artificial intelligence refers to technology that models human intelligence and can perform a range of tasks that might otherwise have required people to handle. Computer scientist John McCarthy coined the term AI in the 1950s, but it didn’t take off in earnest until this century, when technology giants such as Google, Facebook owner?Meta Platforms Inc.?and?Microsoft Corp.?combined vast computing power with deep pools of user data. While AI can show humanlike abilities in data processing or conversation, the machines don’t yet “understand” what they’re doing or saying. They’re still relying essentially on?algorithms.
?? Open Source:One of the key divides in the AI industry — and among those looking to regulate it — is whether to embrace open or closed models. While some use the term “open” loosely, it refers to the idea of open-source models, whose developers make their source code freely available for anyone to use or modify it. The definition comes from the nonprofit?Open Source Initiative, which notes that truly open-source software must comply with specific terms for distribution and access.
EPIC HAS A PLAN FOR THE REST OF THE DECADE | [METAPHYSICS]
Jay Peters for The Verge
?? Just over a year ago, Epic Games laid off around 16 percent of its employees. The problem, Epic said, was its own big ideas for the future and just how expensive they were to build. “For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote in an email to staff.
? On Tuesday, onstage at the Unreal Fest conference in Seattle, Sweeney declared that the company is now “financially sound.” The announcement kicked off a packed two-hour keynote with updates on Unreal Engine, the Unreal Editor for?Fortnite, the Epic Games Store, and more.
?? Sweeney says the company is well set up for the future, too, and that it has the ability to make the types of long-term bets he spent the conference describing. “We have a very, very long runway comparing our savings in the bank to our expenditure,” Sweeney says. “We have a very robust amount of funding relative to pretty much any company in the industry and are making forward investments really judiciously that we could throttle up or down as our fortunes change. We feel we’re in a perfect position to execute for the rest of this decade and achieve all of our plans at our size.”
?? Epic has ambitious plans. Right now, Epic offers both Unreal Engine, its high-end game development tools, and Unreal Editor for?Fortnite, which is designed to be simpler to use. What it’s building toward is a new version of Unreal Engine that can tie them together. “The real power will come when we bring these two worlds together so we have the entire power of our high-end game engine merged with the ease of use that we put together in [Unreal Editor for?Fortnite],” Sweeney says. “That’s going to take several years. And when that process is complete, that will be Unreal Engine 6.”
?? Unreal Engine 6 is meant to let developers “build an app once and then deploy it as a standalone game for any platform,” Sweeney says. Developers will be able to deploy the work that they do into?Fortnite?or other games that “choose to use this technology base,” which would allow for interoperable content. The upcoming?“persistent universe”?Epic is building with Disney is an example of the vision. “We announced that we’re working with Disney to build a Disney ecosystem that’s theirs, but it fully interoperates with the?Fortnite?ecosystem,” Sweeney says. “And what we’re talking about with Unreal Engine 6 is the technology base that’s going to make that possible for everybody.
DOES 3D PRINTING HAVE A PLACE IN LUXURY? | [FASHION SYSTEM]
Key Takeaways:?? Coperni, a brand now synonymous with runway tech spectacles, unveiled its latest breakthrough at its fairytale-inspired Spring 2025 Paris show last Tuesday: a 3D-printed handbag. The Ariel Swipe Bag, developed in collaboration with Boston-based manufacturing company Rapid Liquid Print, uses a recyclable silicone material crafted through a gravity-free 3D printing process within a water-based gel. A fine needle injects silicone into the gel to form Coperni’s iconic Swipe Bag silhouette. Once the printing is complete, the bag is ready for immediate use.
?? The Swipe Bag has become something of a canvas for Coperni’s innovation. For Fall 2024, co-founders Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant collaborated with Nasa to produce a version made from the agency’s silica aerogel – an ultra-light material known as the lightest solid on Earth, typically used to capture stardust. Weighing just 33 grams, the bag, designed to hold only the lightest of contents, resembles a floating cloud.Coperni isn’t alone in exploring the potential of 3D printing. Vienna-based brand Published By has gained attention for its sculptural “it” bags made using similar techniques.
?? Rather than chasing seasonal trends, Published By centers its strategy on developing core styles designed for longevity. It’s a goal achieved through an injection molding technique, which enables the same silhouettes to be reused time and time again. Chinese designer Kay Kwok, a participant in the Syky Collective digital fashion incubator, is also using 3D printing for his avant-garde creations, already endorsed by celebrities like Beyoncé and Bj?rk
?? Though 3D printing is often dismissed as a passing gimmick, the financial potential is real. In 2021, market research firm SmarTech Analysis?reported?the sector had generated $10.6 billion in revenue, excluding that from hardware maintenance and post-processing. The firm projects that additive manufacturing (the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model, or a digital 3D model) will grow to over $50 billion by 2030.
? However, the challenge for 3D printing lies in its limitations for mass production, making it ideal for small-batch manufacturing. This duality presents both an opportunity and a drawback for luxury brands; while it aligns with the industry’s focus on hyper-exclusive, limited-edition pieces, it restricts the ability to commercialize products on a larger scale – a direction luxury brands have increasingly pursued over the past decade. Brands like Coperni and Published By have built their reputation by taking a gamble on cutting-edge innovations like 3D printing.
WEB3 GAME ASSET OWNERSHIP IS WORTHLESS WITHOUT INTEROPERABILITY | [METAPHYSICS]
?? The entire premise of Web3 gaming — like everything in Web3 — hinges on the “ownership of digital things on the internet.”In reality, this promise hasn’t been fulfilled. Despite the buzzword soup in every pitch deck in the industry, few actually care about it. Fewer still are working to make it a reality.
?? It’s ironic given the lore on which Web3 was built. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s imagination was sparked by his disappointment with World of Warcraft — after Blizzard took away his warlock’s Siphon Life spell. Ownership of your gaming assets has been a core idea at the center of this industry from its earliest days.
?? And why not? Intuitively, for any gamer out there who spends time, money and emotional capital on their favorite digital characters and experiences, having ownership of those things and their value seems like a no-brainer. Yet, while other parts of Web3 have been making significant strides — Bitcoin as a store of value, stablecoins facilitating transactions, and real-world assets moving onchain — Web3 gaming lags behind.
?? Web3 technology fundamentally addresses digital property rights, solving the double-spend problem and ensuring that digital assets cannot be duplicated. This is what makes Web3 unique and valuable.In an increasingly digital world, ownership of online assets — be it data, identity, currency or gaming items — matters immensely. Half of the world’s population engages in video games, making ownership in this space crucial.
?? In Web3 gaming, ownership is the differentiating factor from traditional gaming. Trading game items, virtual currency, and earning from playing games have been mainstays of gaming for at least 25 years, as I recall, back when I was a part-time gold farmer. So, why is it that something so obviously interesting and player-centric as ownership has been met with revolt from the gaming world?
?? The answer is surprisingly simple: There is no ownership — at least not in any meaningful way. Ownership without interoperability is worthless. If players cannot use their digital assets across different platforms and games, they do not truly own them. Owning a non-fungible token (NFT) game item today is like owning a dog that lives in your neighbor’s garage. You can look at it, and if they let you in the garage, you can pet it… but you don’t really own it in a meaningful way.
ROBLOX INFLATED DATA AND DOESN'T PROTECT UNDERAGE GAMERS, SHORT SELLER ALLEGES - STOCK FALLS 4% | [METAPHYSICS]
Derek Saul for Forbes
?? Influential short seller Hindenburg Research?revealed?Tuesday it took a short position against kids-oriented video game platform Roblox, accusing the company of inflating key metrics of user engagement and of inadequately protecting children from disturbing content, causing Roblox’s share price to tumble, though the company slammed the short seller’s report as “misleading.”
?? Several disturbing games on Roblox were accessed by Hindenburg with a child-registered account, including the “Escape to Epstein Island” and the “Run From Diddy Simulator,” referring to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is in federal prison awaiting trial for a?litany?of alleged sex crimes.
?? Hindenburg, the investment research firm known for making short bets against public companies which profit if the company’s share price plummets, outlined a host of allegations against Roblox in its more than 15,000-word report, largely centered around allegations of manipulated user data and insufficient child safety safeguards.
?? Roblox, which is an amalgamation of millions of user-created games and is?arguably?as much a social media company as a gaming one due to its community nature, “massively inflates” user activity metrics such as time on the platform and daily active users, an issue for investors as user engagement and total user base is?considered?among the most important metrics for social media companies.
?? Hindenburg short positions?often?cause?stock drops on the day of their release, and the company has targeted firms such as Cash App parent Block, Hydrogen car firm Nikola and Indian mogul Gautam Adani’s Adani Group in prior reports. The California-based Roblox was cofounded in 2004 by its CEO?David Baszucki, who is worth $2.5 billion as of Forbes’ latest estimates, though Bascucki’s fortune fell about $150 million Tuesday. Roblox went public in 2021, and had a roughly $25 billion market value as of Tuesday, about a third of its peak valuation of more than $75 billion in late 2021 as its share price faded?alongside?other “pandemic darling” stocks.
CHINA'S CBDC PLATFORM REGISTERS 180M WALLETS, 7.3T YUAN IN TRANSACTIONS
?? China‘s ambitious push for a central bank digital currency is gaining momentum, with millions embracing the new solution and changing the way money moves. Changchun Mu, the director-general of the digital currency institute at the People’s Bank of China, wrote in a?column?for Chinese media giant SINA that as of July, China’s?CBDC?— also known as the digital renminbi or e-CNY — has registered 180 million personal wallets opened and a total transaction volume of?￥7.3 trillion yuan ($1.02 trillion) across pilot regions.
?? The PBoC has been proactive in developing the digital renminbi since 2014, engaging in extensive testing and piloting in cities like Shenzhen and Beijing. The e-CNY app, launched by the PBoC, has been instrumental in integrating digital currency into sectors like retail and public transport. Despite the rapid growth, adoption challenges remain. Sammy Lin, an account manager at a state-owned bank in Suzhou, earlier?told?local news media that many users, including herself, are hesitant to store funds in digital yuan wallets due to limited functionality and the lack of interest earnings.
?? China’s efforts are part of a broader global trend, with 134 countries exploring CBDCs as of September, according to?data?from the Atlantic Council. This marks a sharp rise from 35 in 2020. For instance, 65 countries, including India, Brazil, and Australia, are in advanced stages of CBDC development, pilot testing, or launch. All G20 nations are also investigating digital currencies, with 19 in advanced phases.
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1 个月Very interesting take.