Sounds just like the Internet

The race is on to cash in on the metaverse hype. Last week, Microsoft described its $68.7 billion takeover of gaming studio Activision Blizzard—a move that would have usually been interpreted as the Xbox maker simply expanding in the gaming sector—as a way to create the “building blocks for the metaverse.” Meta—which rebranded from Facebook to be named after the metaverse—is at work on the world’s most powerful supercomputer, in order to power the metaverse.

The new avatars include cochlear implants, hearing aids, and wheelchairs.

Second Life creator Philip Rosedale wants to prevent the Facebook-ization of virtual reality.

I have spent large portions of my life in virtual worlds. I’ve played video games since I was six; as a millennial, I’ve lived online since adolescence; and I’ve been reporting on games and gaming culture for 16 years. I have been to Iceland for an annual gathering of the players of EVE Online, an online spaceship game whose virtual politics, friendships and rivalries are as real as anything that exists outside its digital universe.

The mad dash for virtual land is likely just beginning. Real estate sales in metaverses like Decentraland and the Sandbox — where plots have sold for millions of dollars — are likely set to continue at a brisk pace before peaking in May, though interest will remain high even after, according to predictive analytics firm NWO.ai.

Samsung is significantly falling behind in the rush to bring augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) devices to market, partially due to the company's "obsession" with foldable smartphones, The Korea Herald reports.

My first experience in a virtual world was in 1991 as a PhD student working in a virtual reality lab at NASA. I was using a variety of early VR systems to model interocular distance (i.e. the distance between your eyes) and optimize depth perception in software. Despite being a true believer in the potential of virtual reality, I found the experience somewhat miserable. Not because of the low fidelity, as I knew that would steadily improve, but because it felt confining and claustrophobic to have a scuba mask strapped to my face for any extended period.

What tech leaders need to know about the metaverse and why it might be something for us to reconsider.

In November 2020, Facebook announced they were switching their brand name to Meta, and unveiled their new vision for the future of their platform in an announcement video. Zuckerberg has described the Metaverse as “internet that you’re inside of, rather than just looking at,” and the video focused heavily on VR and mixed reality / augmented reality technology.

Sony, Panasonic, HTC and other consumer electronics companies are releasing new VR and metaverse products at CES.

The metaverse, which requires a massive amount of computing power, is set to benefit global chipmakers— but other tech-related industries could also gain from it, analysts say. Widely seen as the next generation of the internet, the metaverse refers broadly to a virtual world where humans interact through three-dimensional avatars that can be controlled via virtual reality headsets like Oculus.

The headsets simulate a summer pasture and have resulted in a higher yield and quality of milk.

A farmer in Turkey says he’s purchased VR headsets for his cows so they’ll produce more milk and be less anxious. On its face, a giant barn full of cows with headsets strapped to their furry faces to increase profitability seems pretty dystopian — but as Turkish news outlet Anadolu Ajansi reported this week, it does seem to be working.

Late last October, Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a huge announcement: Going forward, the company would be known as "Meta." That parent company would still encompass the same portfolio of brands that it did before: Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, and Oculus, albeit with a new intent: "to help bring the metaverse to life," he said.

Our annual panel of industry watchers revisit their calls for 2021 and make a few more for the year ahead

Starting Monday, November 29th 2021 thru Tuesday November 30th 2021, Voyager will offer new customers an additional $15 in Bitcoin on top of their regular $25 Bitcoin sign-up reward, giving $40 total in Bitcoin just for joining the popular and high-reward crypto exchange. This makes their sign-up incentive one of the largest in the industry, and does not even take the 12% interest that customers earn on their crypto into account.

As rumors about Apple's rumored AR headset only grow, the company is said to have hired Meta's augmented reality communications lead.

Holiday family gatherings in Meta’s virtual world would probably include robot avatars and a digitized appearance by Mariah Carey

We can now navigate the confines of our galaxy thanks to the 360º virtual recreation that NASA astronomers have done with the data and images collected by the telescopes that observe our visible universe.