Portrait of Noam Shazeer, cofounder and CEO of Character.AI, a conversational AI startup. Taken at … [+] the companys workplace in Palo Alto, CA.(Winni Wintermeyer for The Washington Publish through Getty Photos)
The Washington Publish through Getty Photos
Character AI Is In The Cash. Right here's one other horse within the race to be your private AI. Well-liked with younger adults (18-24), Character AI permits customers to speak with digital variations of widespread celebrities, or they will create their very own. It's a freemium product which fees ten bucks a month for most popular entry. In March, former Googlers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas raised $150 from Andressen Horowitz. Now they want much more money for extra computing, they usually're turning to dad for a billion {dollars}. Enterprise capitalists could give them much more.
A MetaQuest 3 is seen on show in the course of the Meta Join Developer Convention at Meta's headquarters … [+] in Menlo Park, California on September 27, 2023. (Picture by JOSH EDELSON / AFP) (Picture by JOSH EDELSON/AFP through Getty Photos)
AFP through Getty Photos
Meta Quest To Enter China Through Tencent. After being booted out of China 14 years in the past for disparaging authorities controls (go Zuck!) Meta is returning (cash talks) with a lower-cost Quest that will likely be launched in China by Tencent. This new, low-cost Quest 3, Quest Lite, or Quest Junior, or no matter they name it, would substitute the Quest 2 because the low-price choice in Western markets as effectively. All of that is based mostly on reporting from the Wall Road Journal, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, and the Verge, which reported on the story earlier.
Meta Lowers Value of Quest 2 To $250. Now that the Quest 3 has launched, everyone seems to be ditching their new and used Quest 2s. They're $199 at Wal-Mart and as little as $60 used on eBay. If cash was conserving you out of a VR headset, right here's an opportunity to seize the perfect, and lowest-priced, headset available on the market, which CNET referred to as the perfect for VR gaming in 2023, for 20% of its retail price. The VR expertise is considerably the identical as that within the Quest 3. The solely disadvantage is a budget outward dealing with cameras within the Quest 2 gained't nice for brand spanking new pass-through MR experiences, of which there are nonetheless remarkably few.
Atlas Raises $6M To Launch 3D Generative AI Platform. The Vienna, Austria – based mostly Atlas' suite of AI merchandise helps enterprise and next-gen creators generate customized, IP-specific belongings for video video games, digital ecosystems and XR experiences. Whereas in stealth, the corporate closed two funding rounds: a $4.5M spherical led by sixth Man Ventures (6MV) and a $1.5M spherical led by Collab+Forex. Different buyers embrace the a16z Scouting Fund through Shrapnel, Contango, Gaingels, GFR Fund, New Renaissance Ventures, Sq. Enix and Wagmi Ventures.
The CivitAI dwelling web page. NSFW.
CivitAI
Picture Gen Archive Civit AI Raises $5.1M From Andressen. I've been accused of being inside baseball earlier than, however that is vital for a few causes. CEO and co-founder Justin Mier says the concept for the startup was to create a spot for folks to share Gen-AI fashions they skilled to make use of on Steady Diffusion, the most effective text-to-image turbines, but additionally essentially the most technically demanding. Educated fashions from Civit include their metadata (immediate, settings). When you discover a mannequin you want, you chop and paste into Steady D (in a means far too difficult to clarify) and viola! Picture and world consistency. There are thousands and thousands of variations of open-source Steady Diffusion operating on native containers like my gaming PC, so something goes. NSFW. Deep Fakes. Neither Steady nor Civit can do something about that.
The new AI Instrument utilized by Grimes to clone her voice and musical model earlier this yr is now … [+] out there.
CreateSafe
CreateSafe, The Firm Behind Grimes AI, Pronounces $4.6M Funding. In Could 2023, Grimes made headlines for cloning her voice and enabling musicians and artists to make use of her voice in new unique songs. She used a platform referred to as TRINITI, on which over 1,000 songs have already been created. TRINITY presents 5 instruments: voice transformation and cloning, clone and license voice recordings, text-to-audio samples, trade chat, plus distribution and administration instruments. Polychain led the elevate with participation from Paris Hilton's 11:11 Media and others. Grimes additionally joined CreateSafe's advisory board. Her supervisor, Daouda Leonard is CEO and co-founder.
AltSpaceVR Lives On In Microsoft Workplace which is lastly integrating Mesh VR into Microsoft. Now co-workers can meet in a Groups Mesh, ,which appears like AltspaceVR, nonetheless legless, however in enterprise apparel. AltSpace was a well-liked social VR (aka Metaverse) platform Microsoft rescued in late 2018, solely to close down, regardless of neighborhood outcry, in 2022, as a result of it had no marketing strategy. In Groups Mesh (or Mesh Groups?), VR is inspired however not required. Microsoft is betting that amongst its 320 Million Groups customers, there are lots of who need a totally different, extra immersive, option to be collectively when teammates are distant.
The AI Pin.
Humane
Humane's New AI Pin Might Have Baked Longer. I used to be on the listing to purchase one of many first ones. It's so tempting. The AI Pin can do life logging on steroids and educate itself to serve you. However, for $699, and a month-to-month subscription of $25, you'll get none of that. No e-mail. No messenger. No voice memos. So what's it going to know or be taught with out that? I'm my emails.
The Oculenz
Ocutrx
Ocutrx Pronounces New AR Headset For Imaginative and prescient Impaired. There are over twenty corporations aiming for the large marketplace for the partially sighted and blind inhabitants, which accounts for 250 million folks worldwide. Ocutrx' OcuLenz is a head mounted show created particularly for these affected by Superior Macular Degeneration (AMD) by using pixel manipulation software program, with a patented near-eye optical engine, powered by a Qualcomm XR-2 chipset. They're taking orders on their web site for a Q1 supply.
Victory XR Is Named Yass Prize Semi-finalist. The Yass Prize is one million greenback award for Sustainable, Transformational, Excellent and Permissionless Training. The firm additionally simply introduced the launch of its a centesimal Metaversity, which incorporates the highest Universities within the nation together with Hardvard and Stanford.
Movie Director Dave Clark Created This Cinematic AI Trailer In Two Hours. "This was an train to assist think about a function screenplay that I wrote years in the past. By no means earlier than might I ever create one thing so near what's in my head to pitch my movie. No extra limitations. Nothing holding you again from telling your story," he instructed me in an e-mail. Midjourney was used to generate the pictures and Runway so as to add movement. Edited in Adobe premiere.
AI Aniamtion dwelling web page.
AI Animation
Animator Launches Complete Cinematic AI Web site. Jon Draper took a second from his day job operating his animation studio, UK-based Stormy Studios, to create a showcase, useful resource and neighborhood web site for these exploring the naescent artwork of Cinematic AI. Draper characterised the positioning as a "random AI exploration {and professional} 'pottering.'" I believe it's fairly neat, becoming a member of Curious Refuge and sturdy communities coalescing round RunwayML, Pica, and Gen-AI corporations.
XR Tech Blogger Tom Friske Educated a Tech Information GPT. Fisk's day job is metaverse strategist at Accenture within the UK. The Immersive Wire Chat Companion (IWCC) a GPT based mostly on the most recent data on the metaverse and spatial computing, skilled on Tom's wonderful weekly e-newsletter. I requested IWCC what was occurring this week and it hit a lot of the tales on this column. It nonetheless can't write something near this column and for that I suppose we must always each be grateful.
This Week in XR can be a podcast hosted by the creator of this column, Ted Schilowitz, Futurist, Paramount International, and Rony Abovitz, founding father of Magic Leap. This week our visitor is Dr. Linda Jacobson, Ph.D., VR pioneer, founding workers member of Wired, who's at this time Director of Advertising for HaptX which makes VR Gloves for industrial and protection functions. We could be discovered on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.
What We're Studying
AI is about to fully change how you employ computer systems. (Invoice Gates/Gatesnotes)
What Is Spatial Computing? (Avi Bar-Zeev, Medium)
How Digital Actuality Is Turning into A Sport Changer In The Enterprise Panorama (Pierre Raymond/Due)