Thursday, February 16, 2023

MetaVerse, MetaCommerce



How the Metaverse Could Change Work the metaverse promises to bring new levels of social connectedness, mobility, and collaboration to a world of virtual work. ....... four major ways: new immersive forms of team collaboration; the emergence of new digital, AI-enabled colleagues; the acceleration of learning and skills acquisition through virtualization and gamified technologies; and the eventual rise of a metaverse economy with completely new enterprises and work roles. .......... new possibilities to rethink the office and work environment, introducing elements of adventure, spontaneity, and surprise. .........

A virtual office doesn’t have to be a drab, uniform corporate environment downtown: why not a beach location, an ocean cruise, or even another world?

......... Our work colleagues in the metaverse will not be limited to the avatars of our real-world colleagues. Increasingly, we will be joined by an array of digital colleagues — highly realistic, AI-powered, human-like bots. ......... The metaverse could also revolutionize training and skills development, drastically compressing the time needed to develop and acquire new skills. ............. the emergent metaverse provides an opportunity for enterprises to reset the balance in hybrid and remote work, to recapture the spontaneity, interactivity, and fun of team-based working and learning, while maintaining the flexibility, productivity, and convenience of working from home. ........... Feeling under pressure with too many meetings scheduled today? Then why not send your AI-enabled digital twin instead to take the load off your shoulders? ......... “the metaverse,” a term originally coined by author Neal Stephenson in 1992 to describe a future world of virtual reality. .......... a virtual reality version of today’s internet. ........ The metaverse draws on a vast ensemble of different technologies, including virtual reality platforms, gaming, machine learning, blockchain, 3-D graphics, digital currencies, sensors, and (in some cases) VR-enabled headsets. ......... rapid progress is also taking place in computer-generated holography that dispenses with the need for headsets, either by using virtual viewing windows that create holographic displays from computer images, or by deploying specially designed holographic pods to project people and images into actual space at events or meetings). Companies such as Meta are also pioneering haptic (touch) gloves that enable users to interact with 3-D virtual objects and experience sensations such as movement, texture, and pressure. .............. You can’t keep 20 people engaged in the flat 2-D environment of a video call; some people don’t like appearing on camera; you’re not simulating a real-life scenario. That is why companies are turning to metaverse-based platforms .......... “Informal and spontaneous conversations account for a huge amount of business communications — research suggests up to 90% in areas such as R&D ............. “We have created well-being areas designed as forests, or aquariums. They could even be on the moon. These areas can contain on-demand content such as guided meditations and/or exercise classes.” ......... “It’s about community building, conversations and interactions. We want to enable worker avatars to move between a manufacturing world and an interior design world, or equally take that avatar and go and watch a concert in Roblox and Fortnite.” ............ one third of UK remote workers were experiencing difficulties in separating home and work life, with more than one quarter finding it hard to switch off when the work day finishes. Virtual workplaces can provide a better demarcation between home and work life, creating the sensation of walking into the workplace each day and then leaving and saying goodbye to colleagues when your work is done. .......... “The Space-Station Office” with views of planet Earth to “The Pirate Office,” complete with ocean views, a Captain’s Cabin, and a Forecastle Lounge for socializing. For the less adventurous, you can choose from options like the virtual Rooftop Party or meeting in the Zen Gardens. .............. These AI agents will act as advisors and assistants, doing much of the heavy lifting of work in the metaverse and, in theory, freeing up human workers for more productive, value-added tasks........... Rachel, an always-on mortgage adviser; and Daniel, a digital double of the UBS Chief Economist, who can meet multiple clients at once to provide personalized wealth management advice. ........ Emotions are the next frontier in the metaverse. ....... autonomous animation (such as expression rendering, gaze direction, and real-time gesturing) to create lifelike, emotionally-responsive digital humans ........ digital humans are taking on roles as diverse as skincare consultants, a covid health adviser, real-estate agents, and educational coaches for college applicants. ........ Digital humans are highly scalable — they don’t take coffee breaks — and can be deployed in multiple locations at once. They can be deployed to more repetitive, dull, or dangerous work in the metaverse. ......... The metaverse could revolutionize training and skills development, drastically compressing the time needed to develop and acquire new skills. AI-enabled digital coaches could be on-hand to assist in employee training and with career advice. In the metaverse, every object — a training manual, machine, or product, for example — could be made to be interactive, providing 3-D displays and step-by-step “how to” guides. Virtual reality role-play exercises and simulations will become common, enabling worker avatars to learn in highly realistic, “game play” scenarios, such as “the high-pressure sales presentation,” “the difficult client,” or “a challenging employee conversation.” .............. Surgical technology company Medivis is using Microsoft’s HoloLens technology to train medical students through interaction with 3-D anatomy models; Embodied Labs have used 360-degree video to help medical workers experience the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease and age-related audiovisual impairments, to assist in making diagnoses; manufacturing giant Bosch and the Ford Motor Company have pioneered a VR-training tool, using the Oculus Quest headset, to train technicians on electric vehicle maintenance. ........ a series of nine augmented reality training models for front-line nurses in the UK, using 3-D animation and augmented reality to test learners’ skills in specific scenarios and to reinforce best practices in nursing care. ............ “The game becomes the learning activity. In the medical world, we’ve used gamified technologies to train lab technicians; you’ll break out in different groups and then go to, say, a virtual PCR testing machine where you’ll go through stages of learning about how operate that machine, with your training result then recorded.” ........... immersive gamification to enable first responders to do repeat training, try different strategies, see different outcomes, and look at different ways of working as a team .......... virtual-world training can offer important advantages over traditional instructor or classroom-based training, as it provides a greater scope for visually demonstrating concepts (e.g., an engineering design) and work practices, a greater opportunity for learning by doing, and overall higher engagement through immersion in games and problem-solving through “quest-based” methods. .......... and set scaled challenges ........ The visual and interactive nature of metaverse-based learning is also likely to appeal particularly to autistic people, who respond better to visual as opposed to verbal cues. Virtual reality tools can also be used to combat social anxiety in work situations, for example by creating realistic but safe spaces to practice public presentations and meeting interactions. ...........

The internet didn’t just bring new ways of working: it brought a whole new digital economy — new enterprises, new jobs, and new roles. So too will the metaverse, as the immersive 3-D economy gathers momentum over the decade ahead.

......... Alongside the creators are the “meshers,” developers who design the basic 3-D templates that others can customize and tailor as virtual products. A successful mesh can be replicated and sold thousands of times, earning significant income for its developer ........... just as we talk about digital-native companies today, we are likely to see the emergence of metaverse-native enterprises, companies entirely conceived and developed within the virtual, 3-D world. ........... the metaverse likely bring a vast swathe of new roles that we can only imagine today: avatar conversation designers, “holoporting” travel agents to ease mobility across different virtual worlds, metaverse digital wealth management and asset managers, etc. ........... the computing infrastructure and power requirements for a full-fledged working metaverse are formidable ........... potential risks of addiction, or unacceptable behaviors such as bullying or harassment in the virtual world ............. allow employees to move seamlessly between physical, online, and 3-D virtual working styles, using the consumer technologies native to the metaverse: avatars, gaming consoles, VR headsets, hand-track controllers with haptics and motion control that map the user’s position in the real world into the virtual world (although some versions use only cameras). .......... highly stimulative, immersive, challenge-based content. .......... the younger generation, many of whom have grown up in a gaming, 3-D, socially-connected environment. ........... millions of developers, gamers, and designers. .......... “interoperability” — seamless connections — between different virtual worlds. .......... the emergent metaverse provides an opportunity for enterprises to reset the balance in hybrid and remote work, to recapture the spontaneity, interactivity, and fun of team-based working and learning while maintaining the flexibility, productivity, and convenience of working from home. .......... metaverse-based work must match the virtual experiences that workers, particularly younger workers, have come to expect of the technology in their consumer and gaming lives.


Exploring the Metaverse the appeal of virtual realms: They’re places where power can be inverted, disappointments escaped, and capitalist inequities left behind for something more exciting, malleable, and meaningful. .......... online universes like Fortnite and Roblox currently attract nearly 400 million users .......... The market for them will soon be worth more than $1 trillion ........ Fashion brands from Nike to Gucci are designing clothes and accessories for the metaverse. J.P. Morgan and Samsung have set up shop in Decentraland. On Roblox players can operate their own Forever 21 stores and even sell their own designs in them. ......... incorporate augmented and virtual reality, store information on blockchain, and allow users to own digital goods. So like “the internet,” the term “the metaverse” describes a sprawling network of sites and spaces. .......... People don’t just want to consume. It’s far more engaging to have gamified, contextual experiences. ......... In the metaverse you’re less a user than you are a member. ........ Roblox as an example of what’s to come. On it players design games and spaces, and people gather for events in a way that they can’t on social media sites .......... worked with Paris Hilton to build Paris World on Roblox, where she threw a New Year’s Eve celebration that drew more attendees than Times Square’s did. “This is the future of partying,” she tells the authors. ............ the metaverse (and its cousin, Web3) is the emphasis on ownership ......... Instead of the dopamine hit of likes, the rewards of online life come in cold, hard crypto......... Work isn’t becoming play; play is becoming work. ......... Dystopia is one risk. Another is disappointment: We dream of the metaverse but end up with a mall.

What is metaverse in blockchain? A beginner's guide on an internet-enabled virtual world These days, everyone seems to be talking about "the Metaverse" as the next big thing that will alter our online lives. ......... a shared "imaginary realm" that is "made available to the public across the worldwide fiber-optics network" and projected onto virtual reality goggles in the novel. ........ digital settings that have been enhanced with virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR). ........ Mark Zuckerberg revealed in July 2021 that the company intends to construct a more maximalist version of Facebook that includes social presence, office work and entertainment. .........

The most popular ideas about the Metaverse come from science fiction

.......... a living experience that exists continuously for everyone and in real-time, just as it does in "real life." .......... It never "resets," "pauses," or "ends," — it just keeps going endlessly. ........ “a virtual space” isn't a metaverse........ it is not a “virtual theme park.” Similarly, a metaverse is not a “new app store”; instead, it is fundamentally different from contemporary internet/mobile paradigms, design and priorities.......... You can collaborate on ideas using a sizable virtual whiteboard, bring your computer and keyboard into VR to collaborate with others, or have expressive discussions that feel more like you're in person. ........ Not only does blockchain allow for fast confirmation of information, but it also allows for cryptographically secure and protected transactions. Blockchain and crypto assets are a fundamental and integral aspect of how virtual reality will be deployed. ......... These transactions must be secure and virtually fast. ......... Epic Games, the maker of the famous video game Fortnite, has raised $1 billion from investors to help fund its long-term metaverse aspirations. .......... Roblox, which describes the metaverse as a place where "people can come together within millions of 3D experiences to study, work, play, create and socialize. ......... Gucci, an Italian fashion business, teamed up with Roblox in June to sell a line of digital-only accessories. Coca-Cola and Clinique both sold digital tokens that were marketed as a way into the metaverse. ........... there are only a few potential leaders in the early Metaverse, including Microsoft, Apple, Meta and Amazon. ........ Xbox Live links millions of video game gamers all over the world.......... virtual reality and augmented reality would enhance the global economy by $1.5 trillion by 2030, up from $46.5 billion in 2019.


What Is The Metaverse And Why Should You Care? Right now, what will become the Metaverse is actually a series of disconnected metaverses, like the ‘walled gardens’ of the early internet [darpa.net, bit.net, or aol.net] that eventually came together to form the internet as we know it today. ........... Fortnite, for example, is separate from Roblox, which is separate from Decentraland and others. ........ Blockchain, the ‘crypto finance hub,’ makes it possible to precisely define a virtual thing so it can be bought and sold. ......... “If paying real money to own virtual land sounds a bit crazy, remember when most of us thought that purchasing domain names was crazy. But then, suddenly, it wasn’t crazy … [and many] people made a lot of money selling coveted domain names.” ......... “If you’re trying to reach an audience of 15-30-year-olds they’re probably not on the internet or on social media any more, they’re probably in the Metaverse. ........... In 2020, 12.3 million people attended a single virtual concert by rapper Travis Scott, hosted in Fortnite. When you watch the video of that concert (available online), you realize after a short while that the dancing figures … were all real people, connecting from locations around the world. ......... “There are things you can do in virtual reality and augmented reality that you just can’t do in real life across distance. You can mimic being together in ways that aren’t possible over Zoom. You can point to something to explain, use hand gestures (in some platforms), draw on a piece of paper, go places together. Think about the incredible possibilities, such as a collaboration between surgeons, or creating a clay model for a new-car design. These and all sorts of other collaborative activities are all easy in the right metaverse world, which eliminates the impediment of distance........... Auto companies already are designing in ‘digital twins,’ doing their first dummy crash test in a metaverse world, and collaborating on model modifications in augmented reality.”

What Is the Metaverse, Really? Tech giants are ushering in the next version of the internet. But what does that even mean? ........ The next version of the internet is coming, and it’s called the metaverse. ......... an evolved, three-dimensional internet where logging in isn’t necessary. It may also incorporate elements of virtual and augmented reality. .......... The metaverse refers to an immersive and persistent three-dimensional virtual realm, shared with many users, that spans various digital platforms and merges with the physical world, where people can shop, work, play and hang out together in real time. ........... “A massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds that can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of data, such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communications, and payments.” .......... Without 3D capabilities, the metaverse would just be the internet. .......... As big and diverse as the real world. ......... we are still several years away from being able to tick all the boxes required of a true metaverse. ........ Second Life proved to be a massive hit upon release, with around a million users signing up. Harvard University held classes in it, rapper Jay-Z threw a concert in it and Rolling Stone called it “the future of the Net.” Eventually, though, enthusiasm for Second Life waned, and the platform’s growth flattened. ......... Roblox, a sandbox-like virtual platform where people can build and play games and experiences, was launched in 2006 — although it took more than a decade for it to become a mainstream success. By January 2022, Roblox had nearly 55 million daily active users, and Roblox Corporation CEO David Baszucki called his company “shepherds of the metaverse.” .......... The popularity of Roblox and Fornite — along with a host of other platforms and apps like Minecraft and Snapchat — helped accelerate discussions about the imminence of the metaverse (in some tech and gaming circles, at least). But it was Facebook’s 2021 rebrand to Meta that catapulted the idea of the metaverse into the larger public consciousness. .......... Web3 is a term used to describe a decentralized internet built on a blockchain foundation. Central to Web3’s premise is that power over the internet will eventually swing away from a handful of tech giants and toward the many individual users and developers. .........

an embodied internet you are within, rather than have access to.

....... Platforms such as Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft are not in themselves metaverses, but destinations within the metaverse. There will be lots of these sorts of destinations, not unlike individual websites on the internet today. In other words, Fortnite is not a metaverse, in the same way that Facebook is not an internet. The two are both planets within a larger galaxy. ............. Two popular examples positioning themselves at the intersection of blockchain, Web3 and the metaverse are The Sandbox and Decentraland. Both offer immersive virtual worlds, as well as tools that allow users to build monetizable projects within those worlds. And unlike many tech companies commonly associated with the metaverse, The Sandbox and Decentraland are owned by their users and built on the Ethereum blockchain. ........... requires enormous amounts of computer processing and advancements made in smartphone, gaming device and VR and AR headset technology. ......... the idea of a single metaverse is still theoretical ........ the metaverse will likely emerge with a constellation of companies, collectives and independent developers operating under some agreed-upon policies and protocols......... Fortnite is free to play, and yet the game still brought in $5.8 billion in revenue in 2021. .......... Take Roblox as an example. On the platform, users have the ability to create their own games using Roblox’s developer tools. They can then monetize their creations by selling them to other users. ......... a more exciting, imaginative successor to the internet than any science fiction novel could predict.


Meet the metaverse: Creating real value in a virtual world the next iteration of the internet, seamlessly combining our physical and digital lives. ......... In the first five months of 2022, more than $120 billion have been invested in building out metaverse technology and infrastructure. That’s more than double the $57 billion invested in all of 2021. ......... an immersive virtual environment that connects different worlds and communities. .......... It will have a lot of the components of Web3 and gaming and AR, but it will be much larger. ........... The complexity and excitement of the technology that underpins the metaverse is a whole source of renewal for innovation. ........... There are similarities to the transition to Web 2.0 in 2004 that was sparked by social networks and user-generated content. ......... billions of dollars are flowing into every corner of metaverse infrastructure to help get it there ........ We surveyed more than 3,400 consumers around the world and found two-thirds are excited about transitioning everyday activities to the metaverse, especially when it comes to connecting with people, exploring virtual worlds, and collaborating with remote colleagues. Almost 60 percent of consumers prefer at least one activity in the immersive world versus the physical alternative. More surprisingly, 79 percent of consumers active in the metaverse have made a purchase. ............ a quarter of them believe it will generate more than 15 percent of corporate revenue in the next five years. ......... it could generate up to $5 trillion in impact by 2030—about the size of Japan’s economy, the world’s third-largest. ........... the government of Seoul, which plans to spend at least $32 million on a metaverse ecosystem to improve city services, planning, administration, and support for virtual tourism. .........

Removing geographical barriers opens the doors to access in exciting new ways.

.......... The best way for business leaders to explore is by becoming metaverse users themselves.


New look at human development points way to inclusive growth broke the planet down into 40,000 microregions, a view 230 times more granular than a country perspective ........ Germany was made up of 401 microregions, and Indonesia had 502. ....... using nighttime luminosity from satellite images as a measure of activity......... whether we zoomed into the mountains of Italy, the jungles of Colombia, the outer reaches of Nigeria—there were pockets of vibrancy, growth and promise that were not visible at the country level. We changed the name of the report to Pixels of progress.” ......... “In some places, people gained more than 20 years of life expectancy over 20 years of time. In most individual countries, regions that started lower in life expectancy actually grew faster than those at the top. Rendered graphically, the catch up is visualized as a massive convergence.” ......... “This type of ‘catch-up innovation’ is just as significant as the initial scientific breakthrough,” points out Marc. “One example is the elimination or reduction of infectious diseases in Africa.” ........ two billion people achieved higher living standards. Half of them live in China alone—the second billion are spread across 75 other countries. “It’s what we call ‘China times two’” ......... we’re almost down to less than 5 percent of people living in the poorest parts in the world ..........

There may never be more children than there are now

.......... There may never be more people living in rural areas on the planet than there are now......... ‘Wow, do you have more data?’ and ‘It’s much better news than I expected,’” says Chris. “But the one that will stay with me is the client who emailed to say ‘Thanks for the presentation. I’m hopeful in a way I’ve not been in some time.’”


In a boost for the ‘metaverse,’ Roblox stock pops 25% after strong Q4 earnings for the time being, Roblox is still where the action is for today’s young gamers or “metaverse” participants if you want to call them that. (Technically, the metaverse doesn’t exist yet. It’s only a buzzword.) .......... Roblox had noted that half of its user base was 13 or older, suggesting it was successfully retaining at least some of the users that many had expected would age out of the Roblox experience. ......... Roblox may compete more directly with Meta’s Horizon Worlds by launching on Meta’s own Quest platform.

WE’VE LOST THE PLOT Our constant need for entertainment has blurred the line between fiction and reality—on television, in American politics, and in our everyday lives. ......... the trend started, as so many do, on TikTok. Amazon customers, watching packages arrive through Ring doorbell devices, asked the people making the deliveries to dance for the camera. The workers—drivers for “Earth’s most customer-centric company” and therefore highly vulnerable to customer ratings—complied. The Ring owners posted the videos. “I said bust a dance move for the camera and he did it!” ....... Dystopias often share a common feature: Amusement, in their skewed worlds, becomes a means of captivity rather than escape. George Orwell’s 1984 had the telescreen, a Ring-like device that surveilled and broadcast at the same time. The totalitarian regime of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 burned books, yet encouraged the watching of television. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World described the “feelies”—movies that, embracing the tactile as well as the visual, were “far more real than reality.” In 1992, Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi novel Snow Crash imagined a form of virtual entertainment so immersive that it would allow people, essentially, to live within it. He named it the metaverse.

What Is the Metaverse? A New Reality Explained The Metaverse is a massively trending topic in today’s technology landscape. ........ XR, blockchain, and AI. ........ Blockchain is already making waves in the Metaverse as a way of investing in and supporting artists through NFTs, smart contracts, and decentralized finance. ......... Although hand, eye, and face tracking are not perfect. Developers commonly use AI to fill in the animation gaps where tracking tech fails to capture user movement. ......... Walmart and Ikea are paving the way for immersive shopping and navigation through easy-to-use mobile applications. ......... the gaming environment as the “starting point” of the Metaverse ......... around 59% of US adults identifying as gamers. ......... the medium encourages users to immerse themselves in digital worlds and join communities unrestricted by geographic location. ........ hyper-realistic renders for film, gaming, and XR productions. ....... Recently, significant companies adopted Roblox as a new and engaging advertising opportunity. NIKELAND debuted last year to motivate movement among children and increase brand awareness. ........... The gaming landscape is already home to user-generated content, virtual goods, and environments. The environment also provides an excellent landscape for developing and testing new technology, like XR mechanics, content moderation, and cryptocurrency. .......... Digital communities have existed for several years beyond the Metaverse – practically since the dawn of the internet. We’ve used everything from online forums and social media platforms to video games to connect with other human beings. Social experiences are some of the most recognizable pillars of the Metaverse .......... Following the pandemic, companies are adopting immersive tools for improving workflows between on-site and at-home employees. ........ The Metaverse also creates incredible opportunities for online learning and training in the workplace, allowing people to step into unique experiences where they can build muscle memories and new skills. ........ AR/MR Metaverse services provide an invaluable marketing route for firms. Additionally, geo-tagging technology has the power to replace billboards with easy-to-develop immersive adverts overlaid in urban environments. ......... Already, digital assets marketplaces like Opensea are collaborating with major immersive firms to unite blockchain, NFTs, and crypto into Metaverse services. ........... A central concept of the Metaverse is that the digital world should be accessible and open to everyone. No single company should have complete control over the Metaverse. We should all have a voice and equal respect in the Metaverse. .......... Like any technology, the Metaverse should have endless room to grow and develop as we learn more as a species. We’re already seeing endless new opportunities for the Metaverse emerging in developing new XR tools and NFTs. ....... A Metaverse is where users can effectively learn, build, play, communicate, and collaborate with anyone. Simultaneously, it makes the world smaller by connecting us regardless of geographical location and, more significantly, allowing more opportunities. .

Walmart Opens AR Clothing Try-On Service The retail giants adds 270,000 clothing items to its immersive retail app .......... Today, US retail giant Walmart introduced a new augmented reality (AR) smartphone service that lets customers virtually try on articles of clothing. ........ The company’s Be Your Own Model application generates real-time 3D (RT3D) digital clothing based on a topographic map created by AI and machine learning algorithms. ........ The application marks Walmart’s fifth AR update in six months, as the firm explores new ways to enhance the buyer’s journey with Web3 tools. ........ the retail giant leverages AR to enhance in-app or in-store shopping experiences. ........ The View in your Space service provides digital twins of approximately 300 products. ........ Walmart has been experimenting with Metaverse-lite solutions since 2014 when the firm released a digital shopping demo as a marketing promo ahead of SXSW 2014. .

52 Metaverse Statistics A 3D internet is coming with the metaverse, which combines our physical reality with augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR). ........ The metaverse will have social and economic systems in place, where user avatars can enjoy a wide range of immersed content. Unlike a video game, the overall experience doesn’t pause or end. One of the most notable aspects of this new virtual world is its unprecedented interoperability. Imagine purchasing a Roblox skin and then using it in Fortnite or other online games effortlessly. .......

metaverse could be the next best thing to teleportation.

......... Forbes named the metaverse one of the top ten trends everybody must be ready for in 2023. Global spending on VR/AR, the metaverse's foundation technologies, is expected to rise from $12 billion in 2020 to $72.8 billion in 2024. Because of this, leaders in industries like gaming, retail, arts, healthcare, and blockchain are determining how to position themselves as critical players in this emerging ecosystem. .......... Imagine virtually witnessing a historical event instead of reading about it, or watching a basketball game in 360-degree surround sound rather on a TV set. Attending a conference virtually and interacting with others as if they were with you will be possible, because your metaverse presence will augment your physical one. ............ promises to facilitate new forms of human connections, work, leisure, and even travel. .......... the metaverse is both a mirror of reality and a new universe, allowing the creation of an advanced reality with innovative scenarios .......... An avatar will represent you, and this online character can either mimic your physical characteristics or take on a completely different form. ......... In AR, a digital overlay projects images and graphics onto the real world. Pokémon Go is an excellent example of AR where the characters are captured in real-world settings. ........ people and companies have already spent $2 billion on metaverse land! ......... designed entire concerts for fans to attend where they can interact with musicians like Ariana Grande, Travis Scott, and Marshmello. These filmed and animated concerts allow fans to navigate the game area and approach the artist's avatar in these time-shifted interactive encounters. ......... it is limitless, allowing developers to create and design entire worlds. ......... most gamers and streamers aren't all that different from their real-life friends. This implies individuals prefer online friends who are like them in real life. ........... ️The global AR, VR, and MR market will roughly reach $250 billion by 2028. ........ ️ By 2032, there will be 1.4 billion mobile AR users worldwide. ........ Metaverse’s global market value is $47.48 billion in 2022, and has a robust CAGR of 39.44%. By 2030 the value is expected to reach $678.80 billion. ......... 70% of consumers between the ages of 16 and 44 are aware of AR, despite the technology only being available for a few years now. Stats show that the adoption rate is akin to that of eCommerce. ........ Virtual art galleries now have a market worth of $2.4 billion, and are still expected to grow in 2023. With the growing popularity of NFTs and virtual reality, it's no surprise that artists are maximizing this mode of digital art format. ........ A digital Gucci bag was sold for more than $4,100, outbidding the item's actual price in real life. ....... On Roblox, 33 million people saw Lil Nas X's show. ........ 45.8 million people saw Travis Scott's Astronomical show. ........ Disney is developing a metaverse theme park. ........ ️Metaverse for marketing will continue to gain momentum. One great example is when AB InBev partnered with Zed Run to promote NFT horses, breed them, sell them, or use the unique NFTs for special events. From prices of $30, the prices now have reached $165,000. ........

️The metaverse may help people overcome disabilities (39%) and improve creativity and imagination (37%).

.......... ️In a poll of 1000 respondents, 48% said they would join the metaverse for the art and live entertainment, while 44% would participate for bitcoin and NFTs. ........

️Metaverse is slated to add $5 trillion to the global economy by 2030, given the clamor for placing marketing and events in the virtual space. eCommerce still reigns as the largest economic force ($2.6 trillion), followed by virtual learning ($270 billion), advertising ($206 billion), and gaming ($125 billion), respectively.

........ The metaverse, according to Intel, will require 1,000 times more computer power than is currently available. Economy-wise, the metaverse will soon have a significant global impact. Industry 4.0 and the metaverse ecosystem are intertwined. Exciting ways to earn money in the new economy will emerge from taking over from monotonous service jobs, which offers low-wage workers more freedom. .............

There are 400 million monthly active users dwelling on the Metaverse. The largest chunk comes from Roblox (230 million), followed by Minecraft (165 million), and Fortnite (85 million).

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Your Next Swipe Might Be on an AI Chatbot daters who are tired: of navigating several apps at a time, optimizing their profiles, and facilitating dozens of conversations that go nowhere. ........ “I feel like it’s easier for me to be more emotionally connected to Eren than humans because I’m in control,” one user told us about her AI boyfriend. “He doesn’t try to impose his viewpoints. He asks me for my feedback.” ........ .

Whatever happened to the metaverse? Enthusiasm for a virtual future is draining away — and so is investment ......... Remember when we were all going to ditch our humdrum lives, tedious physical needs and uninspiring friends and family, so that we could live a life of virtual bliss in the metaverse? When we could give up the endless pursuit of self-improvement and just exist as perfect avatars instead? ......... It has been just one year since Meta’s fabulously dystopian Super Bowl advert for its VR headsets, in which a group of friends who have lost touch get back together in the virtual world (in the real one they were all alone, with no buddies — or lower halves).......... Type “metaverse” into Google Trends and you’ll see search traffic for the word has collapsed by about 80 per cent over the past year or so. These days, if you want to raise a load of cash, you’d be better off name-dropping “generative AI” — artificial intelligence that can “generate” text, images or other data. Venture capital investment into that particular sector jumped 425 per cent between 2020 and 2022. ........ Reality Labs, the division that makes the Meta Quest headsets, made an operating loss of $13.7bn last year. ........ Microsoft, meanwhile, has killed its “industrial metaverse team” just four months after setting it up, laying off 100 members of staff. ........ The likes of Zuckerberg appear to think it’s basically a VR world, offering the thrill of having video meetings as avatars in virtual boardrooms. ....... “That’s because you’re thinking about it the wrong way,” said Yung. “You need to think about the metaverse the same way you think about the internet. It’s not one thing. It’s everything.” ......... there have been many attempts to create such a metaverse over the last two or three decades. ........ . the biggest problem is that no matter how good the hardware gets, people basically don’t want that.” ....... we are not about to step into a suddenly formed, blockchain-powered virtual world together. The metaverse never really began — and yet it’s already over. .

The PlayStation Goggles Are a Win for Gamers. Not for the Metaverse. Sony’s new $550 headset offers best-in-class virtual reality gaming, but it’s still hard to see why we need V.R. goggles at all. ......... virtual reality still has a ways to go before becoming a staple for work and play.Credit... ........... Will a fantasy where our office meetings and social gatherings take place mostly in virtual reality ever come true? ....... As a tech critic who has worn almost every pair of virtual-reality goggles released in the last seven years, I’ve been holding my breath for a long time. And based on my testing of this year’s first big hardware release in the metaverse category — Sony’s PlayStation VR2, which arrives Wednesday — I’ve concluded that V.R. still has a ways to go before becoming a mainstream staple for work and play. ........ games are the most popular V.R. applications and productivity apps for taking video calls through headsets haven’t gained traction. ......... Why use V.R. for making video calls, streaming movies or playing games when the existing methods already work well? ........ more often than not I found myself wondering why a game should be played in V.R. instead of on a television screen. ......... Gaming may currently be V.R.’s killer app, but if you want fresh and exciting games, the console-plus-TV combo is still king. ........ all the goggles still felt too heavy. In my experience, I could wear them for no longer than 30 minutes before starting to feel neck strain. ......... And like all the goggles that came before it, the PlayStation VR2 looks pretty ridiculous. ......... In its current state, V.R. is still a mostly solitary experience. When you wear the PlayStation goggles, you block out your view of the real world. What you’re doing in the game is shown on the TV screen that the PlayStation is plugged into. That lets others in the room follow along, but it’s not very social......... To have friends to play with in the metaverse, they must buy the same headset — and the tech is still expensive. ......... maybe one day — when the tech is cheaper, has a truly killer app and doesn’t make people look like weirdos — we’ll all hang out in the metaverse. For now, I’ll continue to meet folks in person and online the old-school way. .





Why the metaverse is a becoming popular tool to teach Black history From watching Martin Luther King Jr. speak to following Black travelers on their journey along Route 66, the metaverse takes users back in time without leaving the present. ........ one of countless projects promising to bring users to a moment in time ........ What intrigues Gault the most about the metaverse is the ability to “create something you couldn’t really create in the real world,” he said. The tool also makes it practical for people to create these experiences without spending a lot of money ............ “More often than not in the African American family, our history is passed down through oral history — through talking to your aunts and your uncles, and your grandmothers and great-grandmothers around family events,” Turner said. “And we’re losing some of that. So, this is an opportunity to spur those conversations.” ......... they expect the metaverse will be a more refined, immersive, aspect of daily life for a half-billion or more people globally by 2040. .

Will the Metaverse Be Entertaining? Ask South Korea. In the world’s testing ground for tech, K-pop singers are being spun up out of pixels and doing battle in a virtual universe. ........ This, some say, is the future of entertainment in the metaverse, brought to you by South Korea, the world’s testing ground for all things technological. ........ . “Other places want to venture into the metaverse, but to be successful, you need to have good content. In Korea, that content is K-pop.” .......... Karina, a real-life member of the band Aespa, can be seen on YouTube chatting with her digital self, “ae-Karina,” in an exchange that comes off as seamlessly as late-night TV. ....... Today, Korean “virtual influencers” like Rozy and Lucy have Instagram followings in the six figures and promote very real brands, like Chevrolet and Gucci. ........ The influencers have been purposely made to look almost real, but not quite; their near-human quality is part of their appeal, said Baik Seung-yup, Rozy’s creator. ......... about 70 percent of the world’s virtual influencers are Korean. ......... The South Korean government is investing more than $170 million to support development efforts here, forming what it calls a “metaverse alliance” that includes hundreds of companies ........ “the most wired and wireless country.” ......... The show’s use of avatars lets K-pop singers be judged by their talent, not their looks ....... Mave, its artificial band in progress, as the first K-pop group created entirely within the metaverse, using machine learning, deep fake, face swap and full 3-D production technology. To give them global appeal, the company wants the “girls” of Mave to eventually be able to converse in, say, Portuguese with a Brazilian fan and Mandarin with someone in Taiwan, fluently and convincingly. ........... once such virtual beings can simulate meaningful conversations, “no real human will ever be lonely.” .



We believe in the future of connection in the metaverse .

What Is the Metaverse, Exactly? Everything you never wanted to know about the future of talking about the future. ........ TO HEAR TECH CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg or Satya Nadella talk about it, the metaverse is the future of the internet. Or it's a video game.

Or maybe it's a deeply uncomfortable, worse version of Zoom? It's hard to say.

.

What is the metaverse? An explanation and in-depth guide The metaverse is described as the inevitable evolution of the internet. But what exactly is the metaverse, and what will it become? Learn what businesses need to know now. ........ Imagine a virtual world where billions of people live, work, shop, learn and interact with each other -- all from the comfort of their couches in the physical world. .......... In this world, the computer screens we use today to connect to a worldwide web of information have become portals to a 3D virtual realm that's palpable -- like real life, only bigger and better. Digital facsimiles of ourselves, or avatars, move freely from one experience to another, taking our identities and our money with us. ......... This is known as the metaverse and, hype notwithstanding,

it does not exist today

. ....... ....... the metaverse economy could reach $5 trillion by 2030 ........ E-commerce is expected to be the dominant engine, with gaming, entertainment, education and marketing in the metaverse also becoming important sectors. ........ the current version of the metaverse is shaping up as a multiverse: a multitude of metaverses with limited interoperability as companies jockey for position. ....... the next iteration of the internet: a single, shared, immersive, persistent, 3D virtual space where humans experience life in ways they could not in the physical world. ........ The metaverse is a dynamic, open and interoperable space, much like the internet but in 3D.
.



The Metaverse in 2040 Hype? Hope? Hell? Maybe all three. Experts are split about the likely evolution of a truly immersive ‘metaverse.’ They expect that augmented- and mixed-reality enhancements will become more useful in people’s daily lives. Many worry that current online problems may be magnified if Web3 development is led by those who built today’s dominant web platforms .

Saturday, February 11, 2023

Cole Gordon: Translating Ancient Sales Wisdom Into Pandemic Forced Remote Sales Work

Monday, February 06, 2023

Big Tech And AI

Big Tech companies use cloud computing arms to pursue alliances with AI groups Deals between Google, Microsoft and Amazon and ‘generative AI’ start-ups raise competition concerns ...... Google’s recent $300mn bet on San Francisco-based Anthropic is the latest in a string of cloud-related partnerships struck between nascent AI groups and the world’s biggest technology companies. ......... The technology behind products including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a chatbot that can converse with users through text, requires enormous amounts of computing power — expensive infrastructure controlled by the same handful of tech giants......... AI start-ups that need to train models have little choice but to rush into the arms of large companies offering essential cloud computing at discounted rates and access to the large amounts of capital they need........ After the Financial Times first reported the Google-Anthropic investment gave the search giant a 10 per cent stake in the company, the two companies announced a separate cloud partnership. ....... The arrangement echoes the $1bn cash-for-computing investment that Microsoft made in OpenAI three years ago. In January, Microsoft announced a further “multiyear, multibillion-dollar” investment in OpenAI estimated at $10bn. ........ The deal cemented Microsoft’s position as exclusive infrastructure provider to one of the world’s leading AI start-ups. Chief executive Satya Nadella claimed that Microsoft had built a supercomputer to handle the OpenAI work, and that it could now handle some AI calculations at half the cost of its rivals. Reducing cost is key for the compute-intensive development of large language models: estimates put the cost of running ChatGPT, assuming 10mn monthly users, at $1mn per day.......

Amazon’s Trainium chips, custom-designed processors that rival Google’s Tensor Processing Unit.





Wednesday, February 01, 2023

XR: Extended Reality

What Is Extended Reality (XR) and How Is it Changing the Future? XR, cross reality, or extended reality, is a catchall term for several different but related technologies. It rolls together similar acronyms like VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), and MR (mixed reality)....... XR is “reality-plus” tech using any kind of display. XR is VR plus AR.......... All XR tech takes the human-to-PC screen interface and modifies it, either by 1) immersing you in the virtual environment (VR), 2) adds to, or augments, the user’s surroundings (AR), or 3) both of those (MR)....... A couple of examples are immersing gamers in the action by putting a screen (a smartphone display or headset) right in front of the eyes (VR) or adding game characters to real-world surroundings like in the popular Pokémon Go (AR)........ devices with AR, VR, or MR tech are all considered “XR devices.” if you’ve played a VR game like Star Wars: Squadrons or Half-Life: Alyx or used Google Maps to navigate, you’ve already used XR tech. Virtual reality (VR) is a subset of extended reality (XR). VR is an immersive computing or gaming experience where the user’s entire field of vision is filled via the device’s display........ while all VR is XR, not all XR is VR........ augmented reality (AR) may use your phone’s camera to superimpose game characters onto your smartphone’s display, as if the character was in the room with you. That’s AR, and it’s also XR, but it’s not VR.......... VR is immersion, such as when you use a smartphone screen in a headset to fully immerse yourself in gameplay. AR is augmentation, such as when you use an app to superimpose a digital tiger in your living room with your phone’s display......... all MR is XR, but not all XR is MR.......... XR is already popping up all over, with applications from manufacturing to shopping to HR to gaming........ Businesses are reaping the benefits of XR tech already, with immersive technologies as part of try-before-you-buy experiences. For example, if you’re shopping online for a couch you can see how it actually fits into your living room. Some retailers are using XR tech to allow you to get a preview of the real thing. That leads to a reduction in returns and even one-ups the brick-and-mortar retail experience......... AR can show how new factory layouts will look before they’re set up, and maintenance crews will soon create plant walkthroughs that make machines that need servicing stand out in vibrant red or orange. XR hands-on training can give step-by-step virtual experiences in real-world facilities. You’ve probably already played one of the top XR games in history, Pokémon Go, which puts friendly little “pocket monsters” in your living room and neighborhood........... the Microsoft HoloLens 2, which can track your hand and eye movements for a seamless blend between the virtual environment and the real world........ Google Maps. Street view is technically XR, as is the satellite view you can use during navigation. When you do a Zoom call and someone uses a virtual background or an I-am-not-a-cat filter, that’s XR, too....... Get ready for XR to change your life deeply in the next couple of years. You’ll see it pop up in sports (analyzing your golf game and giving pointers, for example) and in healthcare (showing your path through the hospital to the X-ray department with blinking arrows). In education, virtual field trips will broaden young horizons in new, exciting ways. You’ll even navigate tomorrow’s brick-and-mortar stores with AR maps that guide you to the products you’re searching for........ XR is a new buzzword in the tech world, but it’s pretty simple to understand. XR is an umbrella term that rolls in VR, AR, and MR. In a nutshell, XR technology is any tech that takes your display and makes it more immersive, or makes it interact with your real-world surroundings in some way. And it truly is changing the future. .

What does ChatGPT Mean for Enterprise-Grade XR? Virtualspeech is integrating ChatGPT for VR training, while Microsoft integrates the tech into Azure ....... ChatGPT is the latest trending tech topic, kicking off 2023 with an AI-powered chatbot which answers general-purpose questions and requests. ........ Meta is developing Project CAIRaoke self-learning and conversational AI network to assist with everyday routines. Meta is also integrating its four key AI platforms into Horizon-based Metaverse and immersive content creation services. ........ The service also allows users to generate content such as stories and articles. ........ In December, Ammaar Reshi created and sold a children’s book that he wrote using ChatGPT and physically published via Amazon Kindle Publishing in an exceedingly short time period. ........ Enterprise end-users could use ChatGPT to generate business resources such as research documents, marketing content, automating sales processes, instructional material, and translations. ........ 23 percent of customer service companies currently use AI chatbots to engage with customers......... Meta’s Messanger service currently operates 300,000 chatbots .......... 80 precent of customers are using chatbots at some point during their buying journey. ......... The integration enables Virtualspeech to offer flexible and efficient AI-based upskilling services. ........ The VR training service uses ChatGPT to voice avatars that help trainees refine soft skills like interview technique, presentation skills, and handling difficult conversations.......... the platform’s integrated ChatGPT avatars can answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests from the user. .......... a VR training platform that generates two-way conversations to promote self-driven learning opportunities in business environments. ......... The platform also provides a route with improved access for users with disabilities and those who have difficulty accessing traditional training methods. ........ uses ChatGPT to simulate challenging conversations between employees and managers. ........ Virtualspeech claims its platform can help managers train for hard discussions while presenting co-workers with openness, respect, and support. ........ Like other accompanying XR technologies, like hand-tracking, mixed reality (MR) passthrough, and spatial audio, AI chatbots can increase immersion by simulating realistic human-like verbal reactions to a user’s actions. .......... Current Azure AI client KPMG is using Microsoft solutions to assist companies in understanding significant efficiencies during tax ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) initiatives. .

He Used AI to Publish a Children’s Book in a Weekend. Artists Are Not Happy About It Artificial intelligence systems like Midjourney are trained using datasets of millions of images that exist across the Internet, then teaching algorithms to recognize patterns in those images and generate new ones. That means any artist who uploads their work online could be feeding the algorithm without their consent. Many claim this amounts to a high-tech form of plagiarism that could seriously harm human artists in the near future. ........ “The main problem to me about AI is that it was trained off of artists’ work,” adds Adriane Tsai, also a children’s book illustrator. “It’s our creations, our distinct styles that we created, that we did not consent to being used.” ........ And at comedy clubs, artificial intelligence is being used to deliver standup jokes. ...... “As somebody who makes my money and finds my joy in writing, it’s deeply troubling to see people seeking cheap alternatives to actual human writing, which is already one of the most deliriously underpaid professions,” says Abraham Josephine Riesman, an author. .



Artificial Intelligence Can Now Craft Original Jokes—And That’s No Laughing Matter Artificial intelligence can diagnose tumors, read maps and play games, often faster and with more accuracy than humans can. ........ Following a formula is something AI is exceptionally good at. So are a lot of successful comedy writers. ....... The book is a distillation of a course he taught in New York City after scrutinizing decades of monologues and reverse engineering the most successful jokes. ......... Toplyn isn’t precious about comedy writing: it’s a job, one that a person can learn to do well if given the right inputs. The jokes that got the biggest laughs for Leno and Letterman follow identifiable formulas populated with “handles”—people, places, things and other references—each with a variety of related associations that can be combined to form a punch line. Given enough time and data, he realized, a computer could potentially learn to make these jokes too. .......... Toplyn counters that critics overlook how much communication follows simple formulas, even the funny kind. ....... Piotr Mirowski was working as a search engineer at Bing when he noticed the similarities between his day job and his personal passion, improv. The principle of search engineering is to teach the computer how to identify the best result for a given query. In improv, Mirowski says, performers are also trained to follow their instincts and do what feels best in that scene. It’s not always perfect, and the results sometimes have a hilarious absurdity, as anyone who has started typing a Google query with the predictive search feature on knows. Mirowski co-founded Improbotics, an international improv troupe that works alongside an AI that tosses out prompts and lines that human performers have to work into the show. ......... Improv comedians often draw upon cues shouted out from the audience. An AI can draw upon ideas from all over the world and across history. The goal isn’t to build a thing that will make the laughs for us, Mirowski says, but instead one that can help humans find new things to laugh about. ........ “Then Jimi Hendrix gets an electric guitar, and it’s like, ‘Oh. That’s what this is about.’” .......... There’s a common saying that robots should do the jobs that are too dirty, dangerous or dull for humans. Comedy can be all of those things, but we still want it for ourselves. .

Talking Less Will Get You More
Kamala Harris

Pope Francis In Congo



This Mogul Lost Tens of Billions of Dollars in Days. What Happened? Gautam Adani is facing perhaps his biggest challenge yet as a small U.S. investment firm accuses his Indian conglomerate of fraud and stock manipulation. ....... Last week, Hindenburg Research, a small investment firm in New York, accused Mr. Adani’s company of “brazen accounting fraud, stock manipulation and money laundering.” The Adani Group has rejected the claims from Hindenburg, which stands to profit if the conglomerate’s shares fall. ......... Since the report, the Adani Group has shed tens of billions of dollars in market value in less than a week. ......... Mr. Adani started a polymers import-export business in the 1980s and gradually expanded into infrastructure. ....... In the last decade, he secured one of his biggest international deals — the Carmichael project in Australia, one of the largest open-pit coal mining operations in the world. ......... The Adani conglomerate’s success in some ways paralleled the growing Indian economy, which is now the fifth largest in the world. Mr. Adani, 60, has styled himself as an industrialist who is helping to address his country’s lack of infrastructure........... Mr. Modi, like Mr. Adani, is from Gujarat, and when Mr. Modi became prime minister in 2014, he flew to New Delhi on an Adani plane. Mr. Adani’s relationship with Mr. Modi has created a widespread perception in India that Mr. Adani can strike any deal he wants, creating an uneven playing field. .......... Mr. Adani has rejected claims of preferential treatment. The foundations of his business, he said in a recent interview, were laid in the 1980s, when the Indian government relaxed trade restrictions. ....... He is a follower of the Jain religion, which emphasizes asceticism, and he and his family tightly control his conglomerate. (Hindenburg has criticized the ownership structure of his company.) ......... Months before Hindenburg made its allegations, the dizzying rise of an Adani subsidiary’s shares drew scrutiny. Much of the trading activity in the subsidiary, Adani Enterprises, was traced to holding companies based in tax havens, leading to speculation that the stock — which had helped propel Mr. Adani’s personal wealth — was being manipulated. Shares in Adani’s seven subsidiaries have soared more than 800 percent in the past three years, according to Hindenburg. ........... “The big issue is that Adani has spent the last four years in raising debt on Wall Street,” Mr. Buckley said. “If you raise money in America, you have to play by America’s rules.” .......... Named after the famous doomed airship, Hindenburg is what is known as an activist short seller on Wall Street. The firm hunts for frauds and other irregularities in public markets, exposes the wrongdoing and makes money while doing so. It profits when its target, often a publicly traded company, sees a drop in its share price. ........... The shorts say they are helping police the market. ........ Hindenburg, which is only a few years old, has targeted about 30 companies and made its name by taking down Nikola, the electric vehicle maker. .......... In the Adani Group, Hindenburg’s founder, Nathan Anderson, has taken on a goliath. Hindenburg said it had researched Mr. Adani’s businesses for two years before publishing its report on Jan. 24. The Adani Group has threatened to sue Hindenburg, which responded by saying it would welcome a suit in the United States, where it could demand Adani documents as part of legal discovery. .......... Among Hindenburg’s allegations are that offshore shell companies run by Mr. Adani’s older brother, Vinod Adani, helped the conglomerate manipulate its share prices. The shell companies are also used to launder money from private Adani companies to the publicly listed ones, Hindenburg said, “to maintain the appearance of financial health and solvency.” ........ Highlighting what it called “obvious accounting irregularities and sketchy dealings,” Hindenburg said the fact that the listed Adani companies did not have long-serving chief financial officers was a red flag. The short seller also called into question the quality of the independent auditor for two subsidiaries, Adani Enterprises and Adani Gas. Employees of the auditor were “essentially fresh out of school, hardly in a position to scrutinize and hold to account the financials of some of the largest companies in the country.” ............ Hindenburg went on to say that even if its allegations were ignored, the Adani Group companies were so overvalued that their stocks could fall 85 percent. The group, Hindenburg added, is also overburdened by debt. ................ The Adani Group has called Hindenburg’s allegations an attack on India and its “growth story and ambition.” Hindenburg has countered by saying, “India’s future is being held back by the Adani Group, which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation.”

Bon Voyage, Boeing 747. You Really Did Change Everything. It quickly made global air travel more affordable than it had ever been, fulfilling Trippe’s vision of a world where plumbers and schoolteachers, not just the well-heeled, could think about taking their families to London or Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo. .......... the 747 created a worldwide web long before there was a World Wide Web. ........ The 747 was nearly three times the size and capacity of any jet airliner at the time ........ Some professional pilots said the plane was so big and so heavy that it would never get off the ground — literally. It did fly, of course ......... All told, 747s have carried more than six billion passengers about 60 billion nautical miles, the rough equivalent of 144,000 trips to the moon and back. ............ In bringing air travel to the masses, it further shrank our world and allowed for a degree of human connection that was simply unthinkable for prior generations. ......... it gave the human appetite wider choices, be it just-picked kiwis from New Zealand or fresh Copper River salmon from Alaska. Unhelpfully, it also helped viruses to travel with ease across the globe. ......... Hawaii had just 171,367 visitors in 1958, the year before Pan Am started flying the 707 to Honolulu. By 1970, the 747’s inaugural year, that figure was up to 1.75 million ......... it was the 747 that brought worldwide travel within reach for hundreds of millions of people. Today, air travel is a victim of its own success, and most of us hardly give more thought to flying on an airplane than we do to taking a bus; we may even consider the former a more miserable experience. .......... overall air travel today remains something of a miracle. Whether you need to get to Paris or Pasco, you can usually do so in a matter of hours, at a price that allows you to think about taking such a trip in the first place and with an astonishing degree of confidence that you’ll get there safely. ......... Aviation takes a frightful environmental toll, and for most of us, the single most significant thing we could do to fight climate change is simply to stop flying. ........... aviation remains one of the most difficult activities to decarbonize

It’s Not Going Well for Britain’s New Prime Minister “We will halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut waiting lists and stop the boats,” he intoned. ........ entered office with a mountain to climb. The cost-of-living crisis is just the start: Wherever you turn, strife seems to rise to meet you. ....... there’s the health care crisis, the housing crisis (both ownership and rental), the education crisis, the child care crisis, the transport crisis, the climate crisis and, not least, the constitutional crisis threatening the end of the union with Scotland. In Britain, it’s far easier to document what isn’t teetering on the brink of collapse. ......... Even a great statesman would need more than three months to make headway on such deep-rooted social ills. ........ merely maintains a failing system. ........ British households are in the midst of the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s ......... a leader both misfiring and weak. ........ Even Margaret Thatcher handed public sector workers a 25 percent pay rise upon her arrival in office in 1979, to end rolling strike action. Discontent with Mr. Sunak’s approach has earned him a rare rebuke from the monarchy. The freshly minted King Charles III used his Christmas Day address to praise the “health and social care professionals and teachers and indeed all those working in public service.” .......... The first three months of his tenure, though, have been a disappointment. For Mr. Sunak, facing an unhappy country, a restive party and an opposition leading in the polls, it looks like a long year ahead.

Are French People Just Lazy? France has been gripped recently by a wave of strikes and demonstrations — protesters old and young, rural and urban, progressive and conservative, blue and white collar, all taking to the streets to protest their government’s effort to nudge the retirement age from 62 to 64. ......... Are the French, as the stereotype goes, being just lazy? ........ Though the aggregate productivity of French workers is slightly lower than that of American workers, it is dramatically higher than that of their European peers. In fact, it is higher than the G7 average. ......... the French give the lie to popular tropes — and their country’s legally mandated 35-hour workweek — by working more hours per week than do their famously industrious German counterparts. .......... Yes, the French are also lazy. It’s just not in the way we lazily think. ......... Michel de Montaigne, who in 1571 ........ He went on to invent an entirely new kind of writing — the essay ......... For the man who transformed our way of reading and writing, he was seriously unserious. “If I encounter difficulties in reading, I do not gnaw my nails over them; I leave them there.” He added: “I do nothing without gaiety.” ........... The radical thinker Paul Lafargue is famous today for a pamphlet published in 1880: “The Right to be Lazy.” Not surprisingly, then, that he depended on the financial support of someone else: Friedrich Engels, who did the same for Lafargue’s father-in-law, Karl Marx. ............ Our natural state, he argued, is leisure. Yet industrialists and ideologues, to enjoy lives of ease, had inculcated in the rest of us the belief in the “right to work.” ......... Mr. Lordon was a guiding spirit to the “rise up at night” protests in 2016, when demonstrators occupied public places across France to oppose the labor reforms proposed by the then-Socialist government. One of their demands was the creation of a universal basic income. This would, in effect, subsidize laziness — or, more accurately, a certain kind of laziness. While la paresse is a common word for laziness in French, so too is l’oisiveté. Deriving from the Latin otium, it means focused calm or even spiritual elevation, so very different from negotium, the sort of work that gets in life’s way.

It’s Time to Stop Living the American Scam I advocated idling, daydreaming, hanging out and goofing off. My conclusion: “Life is too short to be busy.” ........ “The Colbert Report” even called, but I was unreachable in the Idaho panhandle at my friend Carolyn’s anniversary party, for which my agent has never really forgiven me. (Meg, I am sorry; Carolyn, I blame you; Mr. Colbert, I am still available.) .......... A new generation has grown to adulthood that’s never known capitalism as a functioning economic system. ........ My generation, X, was the first postwar cohort to be downwardly mobile, but millennials were the first to know it going in. Our country’s oligarchs forgot to maintain the crucial Horatio Alger fiction that anyone can get ahead with hard work .......... Through the internet, we could peer enviously at our neighbors in civilized countries, who get monthlong vacations, don’t have to devote decades to paying for their college degrees, and aren’t terrified of going broke if they get sick. To young people, America seems less like a country than an inescapable web of scams, and “hard work” less like a virtue than a propaganda slogan, inane as “Just say no.” .......... The pandemic was the bomb cyclone of our discontents ........ We learned that nurses, cashiers, truckers and delivery people (who’ve always been too busy to brag about it) actually ran the world and the rest of us were mostly useless supernumeraries. The brutal hierarchies of work shifted, for the first time in recent memory, in favor of labor, and the outraged whines of former social Darwinists were a pleasure to savor. ......... Of course, everyone is still busy — worse than busy, exhausted, too wiped at the end of the day to do more than stress-eat, binge-watch and doomscroll — but no one’s calling it anything other than what it is anymore:

an endless, frantic hamster wheel for survival

. ........... “the C-minus lifestyle.” And it’s no longer just a subcultural rumble: Companies in Britain are now experimenting with a four-day workweek. ......... American conservatism, which is demographically terminal and knows it, is acting like a moribund billionaire adding sadistic codicils to his will. ......... “It’s pretty funny that the world is ending and we all just have to keep going to our little jobs lol.” .......... Midcentury science fiction writers assumed that the increased productivity brought on by mechanization would give workers an oppressive amount of leisure time, that our greatest threats would be boredom and ennui. But these authors’ prodigious imaginations were hobbled by their humanity and rationality; they’d forgotten that the world is ordered not by reason or decency but by rapacious avarice. .......... In the actual dystopian future we now inhabit, the oligarchs have realized they can work everyone harder, pay them less, eliminate benefits, turn every human institution from medicine to corrections into a racket, charge far more for basic rights and services than people in any other nation would stand for without revolting, and get rich beyond the penny ante dreams of a Carnegie or Astor. ........ In the past few decades, capitalism has exponentially increased the creation of wealth for the already incredibly wealthy at the negligible expense of the well-being, dignity and happiness of most of humanity, plus the nominal cost of a mass extinction and the destruction of the biosphere — like cutting out the inefficient business of digestion and metabolism by pouring a fine bottle of wine directly into the toilet, thereby eliminating the middleman of you. ............. I still hope to make it to my grave without ever getting a job job — showing up for eight or more hours a day to a place with fluorescent lighting where I’m expected to feign bushido devotion to a company that could fire me tomorrow and someone’s allowed to yell at you but you’re not allowed to yell back. ............. And I don’t believe most people are lazy. They would love to be fully, deeply engaged in something worthwhile, something that actually mattered, instead of forfeiting their limited hours on Earth to make a little more money for men they’d rather throw fruit at as they pass by in tumbrels. ......... It’s no coincidence that so many social movements arose during the enforced idleness of quarantine. One important function of jobs is to keep you too preoccupied and tired to do anything else. Grade school teachers called it “busywork” — pointless, time-wasting tasks to keep you from acting up and bothering them. ......... And there is too much that urgently needs to be done: a republic to salvage, a civilization to reimagine and its infrastructure to reinvent, innumerable species to save, a world to restore and millions who are impoverished, imprisoned, illiterate, sick or starving. All while we waste our time at work.


‘Depression Rooms’ and ‘Doom Piles’: Why Clearing the Clutter Can Feel Impossible The link between messiness and mental health is real. These low-lift tips for keeping a clean-enough home will help. ........ experts have long recognized the link between messiness and mental health. The clutter that can accumulate when people are experiencing a mental health crisis is neither a form of hoarding, nor the result of laziness. The culprit is extreme fatigue ........... People are “oftentimes just so mentally and physically exhausted that they don’t feel like they have the energy to take care of themselves or their surroundings,” Dr. Schmidt said. “They just don’t have the capacity to engage with housecleaning and upkeep that they probably once did.” .......... A messy home can also contribute to feelings of overwhelm, stress and shame, making you feel worse than you already do. And while decluttering will not cure your depression, it can give you a mood boost. If you are struggling and it feels impossible to keep your surroundings tidy, here are a few tips on how to clean strategically to optimize your energy and your space. .......... While she worked to declutter her home, Ms. Davis started posting videos of her progress on TikTok, where she now has 1.5 million followers. ......... focus on having a livable space, not a spotless one. ........ One of her most popular strategies is “five things tidying,” the idea that there are only five things in any room: trash, dishes, laundry, things with a place and things without a place. ........ Once your space is cleanish and relatively decluttered, try to take a few minutes each day to keep it that way. Ms. Davis recommended setting a timer for five or 10 minutes and getting as much taken care of as you can during that time.

Salman Rushdie’s Miracle City His new novel is about a kingdom that is founded on pluralism but fails to live up to its ideals.

Our Favorite Ad Blockers and Browser Extensions to Protect Privacy Everything you do online—from browsing to shopping to using social networks—is tracked, typically as behavioral or advertising data.

Ukraine Carries Out Wide Anticorruption Raids Ahead of Visit From E.U. Leaders uncovered a plan to embezzle more than $1 billion at the state-owned Ukrnafta oil company and an oil-refining company through tax evasion and other tactics.

Pope, in Congo, Urges an End to the Country’s Cycle of Violence Francis began the second day of his visit to Africa with a direct appeal to the warring groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo to put down their weapons and forgive one another. ......... On his second day in Congo, part of a six-day trip that will also take him to South Sudan, Pope Francis focused on what he called a “forgotten genocide” in the Congo, seeking to bring a measure of peace to an overwhelmingly Christian country that has known little of it. ....... Sitting beside Francis in the National Palace on Tuesday, the country’s president, Félix Tshisekedi, accused the world of forgetting Congo, of plundering its natural resources and of engaging in complicity in the atrocities of the east through “inaction and silence.” ........ “In addition to armed groups,” he said, “foreign powers eager for the minerals in our subsoil commit cruel atrocities with the direct and cowardly support of our neighbor Rwanda, making security the first and greatest challenge for the government.” ........ Ladislas Kambale Kombi, 16, from Eringeti, recounted how men in fatigues hacked his father to death in front of him, putting his head in a basket, and how his brother too was murdered and armed men carried his mother away. “I can’t sleep at night,” he said, saying it was hard to understand the “almost animalistic brutality.” ........ Through a friend who spoke French, Bijoux Mukumbi Kamala, 17, from Goma, stood before the pope and recounted how rebels took her into a forest and offered her to their commander, who raped her multiple times a day “like an animal” for more than a year and a half before she could finally escape. ........ The M23 has intensified its attacks against the Congolese government for failing to honor a 2009 agreement that would have integrated them into the army and for marginalizing people who speak Kinyarwanda, Rwanda’s official language. ......... Many fear the rising threat of an all-out war in the Great Lakes region of Africa. ........ he excoriated “a war unleashed by an insatiable greed for raw materials and money that fuels a weaponized economy and requires instability and corruption.” ........ only forgiveness can open the door to the future, for it opens the door to a new justice that, without ever forgetting, puts an end to the vicious cycle of revenge.”



What ‘No’ on F-16 Fighter Jets Might Mean for Ukraine If the usual script plays out, the Biden administration’s reluctance to provide the planes could be temporary, officials say. ........... First, Kyiv asks for an advanced weapons system. The Biden administration says no, and quietly suggests that Ukraine could get the same type of weapon from its European neighbors, in half the time. But NATO countries in Europe, still smarting from President Donald J. Trump’s oft-spoken wish to break up the alliance, refuse to commit to sending anything to Ukraine that would provoke Russia unless the United States is right in there with them. So, after months of hemming and hawing, the Biden administration says yes, and the gates to more weapons open. ........... Almost 50 years later, American Air Force pilots are still flying the F-16, as are pilots in a host of U.S. partner nations. .......... A Ukrainian military that is fortified by fighter jets and tanks in perhaps a year would be able to mount counteroffensives to take back territory seized by Moscow. ....... called the fighter the “most maneuverable ever built, with the exception of the F-22” — another fighter jet.

Dissecting Elon Musk’s Tweets: Memes, Rants, Private Parts and an Echo Chamber Mr. Musk’s Twitter feed is often an echo chamber. He regularly sees, likes and replies to messages that are about him or are posted from accounts that often act as his cheerleaders ........ “The purchasing of Twitter was a power move, politically,” said Joan Donovan, the research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard. “He is one of the richest men in the world buying a social media company in a move that is expressly about politics and influence on culture and on media.” .......... Often, his updates are limited to just memes — joking images or videos that are copied and widely shared. Many have origins on fringe sites or cryptocurrency message boards that are popular with his followers. ......... The use of memes, Ms. Donovan said, is a way for Mr. Musk to signal to his followers that he is “in the know and keeping up with internet culture.” ......... Mr. Musk has tweeted many memes about taking the “red-pill,” a reference to the movie “The Matrix” that has been adopted by far-right groups as a way to condemn liberal ideology. ......... At Twitter, as with many of his other companies, Mr. Musk has no traditional press team. Instead, he tweets. ........ His activity increasingly consists of replying to users who have mentioned him.

The War Between the Catholic Cardinals

The Yale Library That’s a Temple to Learning … and a Portal to Hell In “Hell Bent,” Leigh Bardugo continues the fantastical journey she began in “Ninth House.” ...... Sterling Memorial Library, a Gothic temple to learning (and to hell, it turns out) that looms in the middle of campus. ........ Just like its predecessor, this novel conjures a Yale swirling with all manner of magic — by turns frivolous, self-enriching, reckless, amusing and very dark indeed. Much of it is concentrated in the university’s real-life senior societies, whose fictional versions each traffic in a single arcane magical specialty. (Skull and Bones, for instance, uses human entrails to make stock market predictions for influential alumni; St. Elmo conjures storms; Book and Snake can reanimate the dead.) A shadowy regulatory body known as Lethe presides over the societies’ supernatural rituals and polices their use of magic, like a fantastical version of OSHA.