đ¤Wiser! â BigTech's Declining Ad Market | Falling VR Headset Sales | AI Copyright Issues | Diesel Launch NFTs | AI in 2023
What's happening in BigTech, Web3, Metaverse and Technology that you need to know about.
Hello Wiser! readers, hereâs your mid-week âin case you missed itâ recap of the key stories from Wiser! #106 - with updates and some new stuff.
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Whats happening in BigTech
Meta and Alphabet have lost their dominance over the digital advertising market due to competition from Amazon, TikTok, Microsoft, and Apple.
Twitter went down for thousands of users. Elon Musk responded that he wasnât having any trouble loading the social network, but did note that âsignificant backend serverâ changes were made around the same time that should make the service âfeel faster.â
Musk told Tesla employees to not be âbothered by stock market crazinessâ. This comes after Tesla stock has fallen over 70% during 2022 due to a combination of Muskâs distraction with Twitter and growing competition in the EV space.
TikTok has made reading romance novels go viral â #BookTok is the top trending hashtag on TikTok this year, hitting 100 billion views.
Apple is reportedly seriously concerned over the performance of the iPhone 14 Plus.
Mastodon has rejected more than five investment offers from venture capital firms in recent months. The platform saw a surge in users from 300,000 to 2.5 million between October and November.
Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos is reportedly among the bidders for the Washington Commanders NFL team. The top bids for the team have exceeded $7 billion.
Whatâs happening in the Metaverse
Sales of VR headsets in the US declined 2% this year compared to last year.
Worldwide shipments of virtual and augmented reality devices dropped more than 12% this year to 9.6 million, CNBC reported, citing estimates from CCS Insight.
China has relaxed months long restrictions on foreign video games in the country.
HSBC, Fidelity Investments and Mercedes-Benz have filed trademark applications for Metaverse and NFT purposes. For 250 examples of consumer brands and use cases in NFTs and the Metaverse, read this.
NBA legend Scottie Pippenâs NFT drop sells out in record 77 seconds â theyâre sneakers available to wear in the Metaverse.
Whatâs happening in Web3
The battle for NFT status copyright is being fought out by Yuga Labs after the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club was hit with a counterclaim during a trademark dispute with artist Ryder Ripps and his business partner Jeremy Cahen. Ripps and Cahen asked the court to declare that BAYC images are not entitled to copyright protection as they were generated by algorithms without any human involvement. Yuga Labs asserts that Ripps and Cahen are selling copycat NFTs, but the defendants claim that NFTs are unique by design and cannot be copied.
Sam Bankman-Fried is scheduled to enter a plea in federal court in Manhattan next Tuesday. He faces charges alleging wire fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance violations and is accused of stealing customer and investor funds through FTX and Alameda Research.
Manchester United accused of plagiarising the work of NFT artist Des Lucrece, whilst FC Barcelona is facing regulatory trouble for running misleading NFT ads.
Six executives involved in the $1.5 billion (2 trillion won) South Korean crypto exchange fraud V Global have received prison sentences of up to eight years.
Forbes published a piece on crypto moguls who lost a collective $116 billion in 2022.
The Philippines continues to top the charts for NFT adoption.
Whatâs happening in Technology
Artists are making artificial intelligence systems draw images of Mickey Mouse to test whether AI art is subject to copyright.
Researchers develop blood test that can reliably detect Alzheimerâs disease.
Health company Movano has released its first smart ring, the Evie, designed for health, fitness and cycle tracking. The company says itâs âdesigned uniquely for womenâ and it can measure heart rate, blood-oxygen, skin temperature variability, steps, calories, sleep, period and ovulation tracking, and more.
Chinese tech giant, Baidu, is offering night time driverless taxis in Wuhan.
A startup called Make Sunsets has launched weather balloons in Mexico that release sulphur particles into the stratosphere to reflect more sunlight back into space that could theoretically ease global warming.
đ¤ What to expect from AI in 2023
In 2023, expect to see more AI-powered apps, such as selfie apps, and more controversy over the use of generative AI when it comes to copyright infringement and faking examinations.
The raft of new AI platforms, from ChatGPT3 to DALLE2, are also taking steps to limit the amount of harmful content their systems produce. This ranges from the sexualisation of women, to biassed output and blatantly false or misleading information spewed out of the AI.
However, itâs regulations that are most likely to curb the current rush of new tools coming online. The European Unionâs AI Act (2021) requires transparency, human intervention, agency, and an obligation on the tech firm that no harm will be caused.
To understand more about whatâs happening in this space, read this article partly written by AI or listen to episode #14 of Big Tech Little Tech on the subject of generative AI.
đŚ Spotlight on Consumer Brands in Emerging Tech â Diesel
In December 2022, fashion brand Diesel announced a collaboration with NFT project HAPE.io to release a its latest NFT collection called #DieselGenesisHAPE. Significantly, this initiative is led by BVX, the Web3 and Metaverse focused business unit of OTB Group, the parent company of Diesel.
đ¸ď¸ Brand Strategies For Web3 and the Metaverse
Drop 2 of the Brand Strategies Collection went live the week before Christmas. This unique collection of use-cases from consumer brands lists brands starting A to M. There are now over 110 brands and their use-cases in NFTs, blockchain, virtual reality and crypto listed in the collection, with the next drop at the end of January.
The latest brands added to the Collection include: Foot Locker, Kia, Kellogg's JP Morgan, Kraft Heinz, KPMG, L'Oreal, Lamborghini, Louis Vuitton, Lavazza, Lego, LGMacy's, Mars, Mattel, McDonald's, Mercedes-Benz.
To access this unique Collection, buy a lifetime access code here.
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đ Big Tech Little Tech Podcast
Check out the 2022 Year In Review for the Big Tech Little Tech podcast as Shaun and I look back on our first yearâs topics and themes.
For links to every major podcast platform, show notes and all the details about the last show, go to BTLTpod.com
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