Leaked Documents Show Facebook and Twitter Working Closely With DHS, FBI to Police Disinformation: Report

November 2, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Facebook became Meta one year ago: Here’s what it’s achieved

October 31, 2022 Coin Telegraph

The company changed its name on Oct. 28, 2021, reflecting growing ambitions to transcend beyond social media and into Web3 and the Metaverse.

It’s been just over a year since social media giant Facebook rebranded as Meta at the Facebook Connect conference on Oct. 28, 2021.

The name change reflected the company’s growing ambitions to transcend past social media and into the world of Web3, crypto, NFTs, and the Metaverse — virtual worlds where consumers are likely to spend more of their time for both work and play.

The company has been busy.

In December 2021, Meta debuted its Horizon Worlds virtual reality social networking project, while it also opened up advertising for more crypto ads on Facebook.

In April 2022, reports emerged that the company has been considering a digital currency designed for use in the Metaverse internally dubbed as "Zuck Bucks,” though no further updates on the project have been seen since.

In May, the company filed five trademark applications for a payments processing platform with support for cryptocurrencies and digital assets called Meta Pay.

In September 2022, the company announced that 2.9 billion users would have the ability to post digital collectibles and NFTs they own across Facebook and Instagram across 100 countries by linking their wallets.

Meanwhile, on Oct. 11, Meta announced a partnership with tech giant Microsoft to bring a range of Microsoft Office 365 products into Meta’s virtual reality (VR) platform to try and coax other companies to work in virtual environments.

However, the year has not come without its challenges, particularly when it comes to the company's Metaverse ambitions.

Last week, Altimeter Capital’s CEO and founder called Meta’s $10 billion to $15 billion a year investment into the Metaverse as “super-sized and terrifying.”

Meta’s Q3 report appeared to only solidify these concerns, with the stock price falling 23.6% following its release, while Meta’s virtual reality research and development arm Reality Labs posted an accumulated loss of $9.44 billion so far this year.

Many may also remember Meta’s Eiffel Tower fiasco when an image of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's avatar standing in front of a virtual Eiffel Tower was mocked over lackluster visuals.

*Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse avatar which became an internet meme*

Meanwhile, an Oct. 15 report from The Wall Street Journal suggested that the company has slashed its monthly active user goal for Horizon Worlds by more than half, suggesting the company's flagship Metaverse was "falling short."

This backlash was touched on by Zuckerberg during the Q3 earnings call on Oct. 26, noting that “we’re iterating out in the open” and that the social Metaverse platform was still an “early version.”

“It's a kind of a live early product platform, and that's evolving quickly, but obviously has a long way to go before it's going to be what we aspire for it to be,” said the CEO.

Nevertheless, the technology giant is continuing to push forward with its foray into Web3 and other projects including artificial intelligence, with Zuckerberg noting on the call that “we’re on the right track with these investments” and the company “should keep investing heavily in these areas.”

The company recently unveiled its latest virtual reality headset, the Meta Quest Pro during an Oct. 11 virtual event; along with the partnership with Microsoft, and a new computer platform from Reality Labs.

“Work in the metaverse is a big theme for Quest Pro. There are 200 million people who get new PCs every year, mostly for work.”

“Our goal for the Quest Pro line over the next several years is to enable more and more of these people to get their work done in virtual and mixed reality, eventually even better than they could on PCs,” said Zuckerberg.

“Between the AI discovery engine, our ads and business messaging platforms, and our future vision for the metaverse, those are three of the areas that we're very focused on,” he added.

Tech talent migrates to Web3 as large companies face layoffs

October 30, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Analysis

Web3 companies continue to hire amidst a bull market as tech giants undergo layoffs and hiring freezes.

As inflation continues to grow, coupled with a looming recession, many tech firms are having to cut portions of their staff. To put this in perspective, data from Layoffs.fyi found that over 700 tech startups have experienced layoffs this year, impacting at least 93,519 employees globally. It has also been reported that tech giants like Google, Netflix and Apple are undergoing massive job cuts.

While many of these layoffs are likely due to an economic downturn, this has resulted in an overwhelming amount of talent flocking to early-stage Web3 companies. For example, Andrew Masanto, a serial entrepreneur who has founded a number of startups, told Cointelegraph that he recently launched Nillion, a startup specializing in decentralized computation, to help ensure privacy and confidentiality for Web3 platforms.

Although Nillion is still in its early stages, the technological innovation behind the company has already proven to be appealing. Since the company’s inception in October this year, leading talent from companies like Nike, Indiegogo and Coinbase have joined the growing startup.

For instance, Slava Rubin, founder of the crowdfunding website Indiegogo, told Cointelegraph that he had recently joined Nillion as the company’s chief business officer based on the opportunity to join a startup with an innovative business model.

“The tech behind Nillion is massively innovative, as it focuses on advancing secure multiparty computation (MPC). MPC is known for being slow and unable to work for certain use cases. The risk of failure doesn’t concern me here since it’s such a huge opportunity to solve this problem,” he said.

The notion of building technology to advance MPC also attracted Lindsay Danas Cohen to Nillion. Cohen previously served as associate general counsel at Coinbase before joining Nillion this year as the company’s general counsel.

Although Coinbase announced in June that it was cutting its staff by 18%, Cohen explained in a recent blog post that she left Coinbase to join Nillion due to the opportunity to help advance privacy and data sharing through MPC. “This would be a true zero-to-one innovation,” she wrote.

While the crypto industry continues to face a bear market, it’s clear that the projects being built during this period are seen as an exciting opportunity. “I built Indiegogo during the 2008 bear market, and I think we will see the same thing in this market. In about three to five years, we will see some very strong companies emerge that know how to use capital efficiently,” Rubin remarked.

Indeed, well-funded Web3 companies continue to hire, while large tech companies face layoffs and hiring freezes. Sebastien Borget, co-founder and chief operating officer of The Sandbox, told Cointelegraph that the popular metaverse platform currently has a total of 103 job openings. “The excitement of working in the front row of Web3 is big, and we are enjoying this interest towards our open positions,” he said.

According to Borget, The Sandbox has grown to 404 employees this year, almost doubling in size from its 208-employee workforce it had in December 2021. Borget added that The Sandbox’s virtual real estate known as “LANDs” is now worth over $1 billion in total market cap.

Moreover, as Web3 companies continue to bring on both new and acquired talent, young jobseekers seem to be displaying a greater desire to obtain the skills needed to join these firms.

Priyanka Mathikshara Mathialagan, president of the Stanford Blockchain Club, told Cointelegraph that she has seen an increasing number of undergraduate students at Stanford taking blockchain-focused courses in preparation for careers after graduation.

Recent: What the Russia-Ukraine war has revealed about crypto

“This year, we had more students enrolled in professor Dan Boneh’s cryptography class than those enrolled in traditional computer science courses,” she remarked.

Despite the bear market, Mathialagan also believes that there have been significant improvements made within the Web3 space, resulting in a more positive outlook toward the sector. For example, she mentioned that the Ethereum Merge that took place on Sept. 15 has helped ensure a more energy-efficient platform, creating appeal for students that may want to leverage the Ethereum network for Web3 projects. Mathialagan added that while a numerous amount of theoretical research has been performed for years within fields like computer science, Ph.D. students are considering Web3 due to new opportunities for advancement. She said:

“The math used in theoretical computer science and cryptography is similar to the math needed to advance zero-knowledge proof-based applications. There is now an industry that wants to pay Ph.D. students for their research and put these findings to use. For example, there is a large demand for distributed system engineers since every single blockchain is really a distributed system. These are the people who can design consensus algorithms and new architectures for scalable and secure blockchains.”

This seems to be the case, as Masanto shared that Nillion has hired 10 engineers within the last six months. Borget added that The Sandbox is currently hiring 17 engineers, along with game designers, architects and other individuals capable of supporting brands building in the company’s metaverse.

Skepticism remains

While it’s notable that Web3 companies are actively hiring, a number of concerns remain. For instance, although companies remain focused on building during a bear market, fundraising may be problematic.

Given this, it’s important to point out that Nillion is currently being bootstrapped by its founding team. A spokesperson from Delphi Digital, a crypto-focused research firm, also told Cointelegraph that while the company is currently hiring across the board, no funds have been raised.

“We have been completely bootstrapped up until now.” While impressive, running a company based on personal finances or operating revenue may be concerning for job seekers. For instance, Mathialagan noted that students starting a career in Web3 want to be assured that the company will exist two to three years down the road.

Jessica Walker, chief marketing officer of Fluid Finance — a fintech company focused on revolutionizing banking with blockchain — further told Cointelegraph that it is a waiting game to see what companies have the strongest communities and teams capable of withstanding the crypto winter, adding:

“It’s important for organizations to build partnerships and roll out products, while also being able to budget their overhead costs during this time.”

Moreover, Mathialagan believes that it’s challenging for students, along with individuals within the Web2 sector, to get connected with Web3 companies. For instance, while companies like Nillion have brought on individuals from organizations like Coinbase, Indiegogo and Nike, Masanto shared that he already knew a handful of these people prior to hiring.

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Walker also remarked that due to the bear market, recruiters need to pay additional attention to detail when onboarding new team members. “Some uncertainty comes from new hires about the security of their role, especially during a bear market. At Fluid, we often try to hire from our community first,” she said.

Although strategic, Mathialagan mentioned that the Stanford Blockchain Club is compiling a list of job postings to help students connect better with Web3 firms as more hiring takes place: “For students, hiring remains the biggest single problem even beyond security issues faced by Web3 companies today.”

Twitter Reveals ‘NFT Tweet Tiles’ in Order to ‘Impact’ the Social Media Experience

October 29, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Mad Money’s Jim Cramer Apologizes for Being Wrong About Facebook Parent Meta After Stock Plunges

October 28, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Facebook is on a quest to destroy Web3

October 17, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Mark Zuckerberg's tech empire has a long history of using centralized systems to hurt users. Now it's trying to join Web3.

The future of how we socialize online is being defined as we speak, and it’s far too important to leave things to the likes of Meta and other mega social companies. Just a surface-level look at Meta’s history is enough to understand its tendency to severely miss the mark.

Some companies like to use Web3 principles to right the wrongs of Web2. And as a poster child for large, centralized organizations, Meta offers us some of the most useful examples of those wrongs.

Let’s touch on three times that Meta fell short of building the future of online social experiences.

It limited Open Graph

In 2010, Meta — still operating as Facebook at the time — released its “Open Graph” protocol, providing developers with a network of links between friends in order to encourage other people to take up its apps. It was a way for users to carry their Facebook identities from app to app, making it easy for developers to give those users a personalized experience. However, a few years later, the company shifted gears to become ruthless in cutting off friends, its newsfeed and other data access for developers.

The primary reason for this was to limit competition, as Facebook was worried about people reverse-engineering its social graphs and creating their own versions of Facebook. So, it ended up killing a product that many in the community nowadays call essential. It was ahead of its time — until it stopped making business sense.

Facebook felt that it was arming its competitors by giving them this data, and with its centralized power, Facebook had the unilateral ability to dramatically cut off this access.

It took the @Metaverse Instagram handle from the user who registered it

Online social identities are of great importance to users — they represent who you are and bear the weight of your effort and time spent online. So, when Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, getting a new logo and image, a situation with social media handles presented an unanticipated problem.

An active Instagram user who had already registered @metaverse as her username was already regularly sharing photos from that handle. Then, without warning, Meta blocked her account. When that story came to light, it resulted in some predictably negative press for the social media giant.

Transparency and ownership are core values of the emergent decentralized paradigm. Social platforms of the future will be designed in such a way that abuse of power is either operationally impossible or super easy to identify. What’s yours will be yours, and no software or administrator will be able to change it manually.

Cambridge Analytica

In case you needed a reminder, Facebook spent much of the 2010s collecting the personal data of millions of its users on behalf of British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. That data was predominantly used for political advertising with user consent, and it was a defining scandal within the company’s history.

And despite being major news at the time, it doesn’t appear to have changed anything about how the company operates or how users could be protected. When NPR followed up on the story in 2021, it found that Facebook didn’t take responsibility for its behavior, nor did consumers see any reform as a result.

If anything, the company’s reckless actions only proved the need for an internet layer of self-sovereign identity and access controls. More and more people are waking up to the importance of identity on the internet, and that’s something blockchain is perfectly tailored to address. Meta’s history also provides a textbook example of surveillance capitalism, which should offend any internet user right to their core.

We’ve now surfaced three well-documented incidents demonstrating that older generations of mega social platforms and the data business model they represent can’t be trusted to bring about a mature ecosystem for the internet-using public.

Those mega platforms cast a long, dark shadow over social media overall, but the future of the space is bright. The crypto explosion over the past 10 years makes it clear that large, centralized entities don’t hold the same influence they used to.

What can we do about it?

The solution to Meta rests with all of us. The future of the internet is a collaborative effort of many different projects, developers and sovereignty-minded users.

The stage is set for small, nimble next-generation companies to radically redefine how people express their identity and interact with connections online. The smaller, committed teams will be focused on making an impact and building upon each other, as opposed to bolstering existing revenue.

These new companies have the opportunity to build the primitives for a decentralized society to emerge from the bottom up. They can create a standard and infrastructure for people to accrue and own their status and social capital, both within and across diverse social networks. They can build trust into the fabric of their social networks and enable truly meaningful connections and better discoverability. In doing so, they can create a more decentralized, open, resilient internet for everyone.

The events of older-generation firms also underline the importance of having a protocol for the internet that is owned by no one and can’t be centrally controlled. A protocol is needed to help coordinate these efforts, set standards for social data interoperability, provide a universal data storage solution that is both decentralized and economically scalable, and enable application builders to quickly tap into existing resources.

Such a protocol would be a powerful tool to fight back against the surveillance capitalism of companies like Meta. It would give users full control over their data and identity, and make it much harder for bad actors to abuse personal data.

But this is no small feat. The next web is a huge undertaking that will require the commitment of many different people and organizations. It will be an unprecedented manifestation of human “scenius,” a concentrated and voluntarily orchestrated collective brilliance.

The good news is that the general ethos of the web may have fundamentally changed. Composability and interoperability are more than technical designs — they are also intrinsic value propositions we genuinely hold up to and share with others to work together. This is a demand that we must meet if we want to build a better future for the internet.

The consequences of inaction

Inaction is also a form of action. The consequences of not doing anything about the problems posed by Meta are clear. Your digital identity will never truly be yours and will always be at risk of being moderated, altered or even obliterated. Given that we are increasingly integrating our physical life with the digital, blurring the lines between the two and posting more personal and collective value in the digital, this danger looms darker and bigger.

In a larger picture, we’ll be sliding into a society of total surveillance capitalism, where not only will everyone lose control of their data and identity, but their data will be further commercialized to turn users into products who gradually lose sight of the problem and the will of action. A total system driven by profit diminishes the room for any discussions or endeavors regarding human agency and the meaningful social connections of human collectives.

We need to take action now to build a better future for the internet and human society at large. The next web provides us with an opportunity to do things differently, and we, together, must seize it.

Wilson Wei is the co-founder and CEO of CyberConnect, a decentralized social graph protocol that helps DApps bootstrap network effects and build personalized social experiences.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Quest Pro VR headset raises privacy concerns for Meta’s future in metaverse

October 17, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Meta announced its latest VR headset, Quest Pro, which includes a new eye and facial movement tracker said to enhance digital avatar expressions and realism.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced its latest virtual reality (VR) headset at the Meta Connect 2022 event on Oct. 11. The company introduced new features to enhance digital avatars, which raised privacy concerns regarding data collection.

The Quest Pro is the latest piece of VR technology released by Meta as it continues its push into the Metaverse. It utilizes five cameras inside the headset, which are positioned to watch and track a person’s facial expressions and eye movements. In addition, it has five external cameras, which will be employed in the future to track other bodily movements to mimic real-world motions.

Sneak peek of the future today at Meta Connect :
✅ Our first mixed reality device @MetaQuestVR Pro
✅ The start of a new way to work in the metaverse
✅ Cutting-edge @RealityLabs research to build technology that connects people

Read more https://t.co/Ryf01kVM4c pic.twitter.com/2c1i7AAm7U
— Meta (@Meta) October 11, 2022

These upgrades integrated into the Quest Pro are in an effort to boost digital avatar quality in the metaverse. According to Meta, they will accurately and uniquely reflect a user’s emotions and expressions in real-time.

This comes after major internet backfire (and memes) from a photo posted by Mark Zuckerberg over the summer of his less-than-realistic metaverse avatar.

Identity in the Metaverse is a prominent topic of discussion in the space as designers and developers try to create realistic experiences in the digital world.

Industry experts assume that despite the new headset’s default off setting for facial tracking, it won’t last long. Facebook has long struggled with its usage and collection of biometric data relating to privacy ethics. Despite the fact that these companies claim they do not sell these personal pieces of information, many reports saying otherwise have since surfaced.

Last November, Facebook announced it would delete data extraction from facial recognition of over 1 billion people after being faced with government investigations, class action lawsuits and regulatory concerns.

In April, whistleblower Frances Haugen spoke out in an interview with concerns as to how Meta will handle privacy and sensitive data in the Metaverse. Haugen said without increased transparency and accountability, it will “repeat all the harms you currently see on Facebook.”

She continued to say that at the end of the day, there will always be a conflict between what these companies present to the public and what they will do to make money:

“At the end of the day, their business model revolves on taking your data and monetizing it.”

On Twitter, users have mixed reactions to the VR set, with some gawking at the price yet praising the technology, while others remain skeptical about their privacy. One user said VR gaming is an “amazing” experience but wants guaranteed privacy rights:

It’s amazing playing Java Minecraft in VR. I disagree with you on this one Doc. The bigger issue is who controls the Metaverse, we don’t want Meta without at least guaranteed privacy restrictions once eye tracking becomes standard.
— LightningAussie⚡️#SnifferSupremacy (@LightningAussie) October 16, 2022

Although decentralized technologies such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain and cryptocurrencies are becoming a mainstay of metaverse development, this might not be enough when big tech is involved.

When big tech companies like Meta go full speed into the Metaverse, centralization starts to creep back in. Vitalik Buterin is quoted saying that Facebook’s metaverse will “misfire” because it’s too early to know what people want.

Nonetheless, Meta continues to push forward. Aside from the Quest Pro announcement, it also announced a partnership with Microsoft to bring Office 365 products to digital reality.

Meta’s Web3 hopes face challenge of decentralization and market headwinds

October 13, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Meta’s metaverse aspirations haven’t fared well for the tech giant, as the firm wiped out nearly five years’ worth of market cap in just 10 months of 2022.

Facebook went under a major brand overhaul to project its focus on the Metaverse and rebranded to Meta in late 2021. The major shift for the social media giant surprised many, but looking at Facebook’s record with emerging tech trends, it was only a matter of time before it jumped into Web3.

Meta’s crypto aspirations first came to light in 2019 after a failed experience in the digital payment sector with a Messenger-integrated payment option. The tech giant subsequently revealed its plans to launch a universal stablecoin backed by a basket of fiat currencies from different nations. The plan was to introduce a global digital payment network with the help of its social media reach of more than two billion active users on Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram.

However, with the uncertain nature of the asset and Facebook’s tainted record in managing private user information, regulators around the globe were suspicious at best. Lawmakers in the United States compared it to scrip while others vowed to never let it see the light of day.

A rebranding from Libra to Diem did not help the nascent payments project, and the stablecoin officially shut down in February this year.

Meta has since shifted its focus toward Web3 and aims to become a leader in the Metaverse. Meta has spent billions of dollars on specialized hardware and virtual reality tools. However, with the advent of the bear market, Meta’s metaverse bet has started to look shaky as well.

Richard Gardner, CEO of global software and hardware solution provider Modulus, told Cointelegraph that Meta hasn’t found its core competence yet, stating:

“Great companies know their strengths and exploit them. Facebook is now in the unenviable position of attempting to compete within the metaverse economy. Unfortunately, that’s not where the company’s core competencies are.”

“Worse, they’re competing against dozens, and maybe hundreds, of smaller companies that are more nimble and agile to adjust to the ever-changing landscape. These companies were specifically built to develop and exist within the metaverse ecosystem. Facebook was not. Shareholders won’t allow this dalliance to continue,” he added.

Meta’s biggest challenge is decentralization

Meta — which boasts the lion’s share of the world’s social media user base — is currently struggling to transition from its Web2-based origins toward a decentralized Web3 ecosystem. Meta has already experienced a multitude of failures with its stablecoin foray and many experts believe that its metaverse aspirations look misguided at this point as well.

John Payne, CEO of metaverse operating system developer Croquet.io, explained to Cointelegraph that the consensus is that big tech firms like Meta making a foray into Web3 must first understand the ethics of it. He explained:

“The biggest competitor to Meta’s view of the Metaverse is the open, interoperable standards-based Web. Open technologies usually win. The web is everywhere, on every device with a screen. It has the largest community of developers in the world. And, portals based upon open web standards will make the Metaverse truly independent and interoperable. The web will be the foundation for the Open Metaverse and that is where the vast majority of people will thrive.”

Meta’s metaverse aspiration, unlike its stablecoin projects, doesn’t have any regulatory setbacks, but despite that, the company is struggling to keep up in the Web3 race. This is primarily because, unlike the last decade when Meta could copycat their competitors’ new features (e.g., Stories from Snapchat, Dating from Tinder, Live Video from Periscope, etc.), or simply acquire their competitors (e.g., Instagram, WhatsApp, Beluga, etc.), they have to build out this entire platform themselves from the ground-up.

Recent: Polkadot: How parachains are changing a blockchain-centric ecosystem

Additionally, there aren’t many mature acquisition targets in the industry right now, and the U.S. government has signaled its distaste for Big Tech’s continued acquisitions of competitors in what it considers possible violations of antitrust laws.

Some in the Web3 space believe that the sector’s open and decentralized nature goes against the Web2 company’s main aim of establishing a monopoly. Rick Porter, CEO at decentralized social media platform DSCVR, told Cointelegraph:

“The Metaverse has to be open, integratable and unowned by any single entity. Meta’s push to own the Metaverse is antithetical to this concept. Further, Facebook’s historical failure to maintain the open integrations that it first envisioned with Open Graph does not bode well for its Metaverse aspirations. With the advent of Web3 and open ecosystems, it’s hard to see the Metaverse inside Facebook’s walled garden.”

Meta’s past conduct continues to haunt its present

Being the first in a new market gives opportunities, but experts believe Web3 is all about digital data ownership and Meta has to prove that it can be trusted despite a tainted past.

In July, The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Meta’s acquisition of VR application creator in a bid to restrict the tech giant’s growing monopoly. Later in September, the social media giant was slapped with a $402 million fine by the Irish Data Protection Commission for its handling of children’s privacy settings on Instagram.

To become a reliable point of interaction for the masses in the Metaverse, the tech giant must get its act in order and regain the trust of the main public before it goes on exploring the Metaverse.

Some have noted Meta’s focus on the hardware aspect of virtual reality — spending $10 billion on its Reality Labs augmented reality and virtual reality division — rather than improving and building a safe metaverse experience for users. There have been social issues within its metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds, where people have complained about facing various types of harassment.

While Meta has enjoyed successful sales of its popular VR headsets, Horizon Worlds’ daily active users — which numbered 300,000 as of February 2022 — are dwarfed by the billions of active users across Meta’s other platforms.

Recent: Vyper, Solidity and Scrypto: How the smart contract languages compare

The firm is also facing market headwinds. This year’s bear market has been tough on a lot of firms, and Meta has particularly suffered. Since August 2021, the firm’s stock has fallen from an all-time high to lows not seen since 2018.

Arthur Sabintsev, chief information officer at Web3 infrastructure provider Pocket Network, told Cointelegraph that Meta’s inexperience in Web3 has forced the firm to find its path by burning a large chunk of investments on untested products such as VR technology. He explained:

“This big bet they’re taking is better than trying to compete in an ever-crowded field of social media apps, like YouTube and TikTok, to which they have been perpetually losing market share and mindshare. The hope here with this bet is that over the next decade, as virtual reality technology progresses, just as mobile technology evolved, people will naturally change how they spend their time with the technology online. If this unfolds, Meta will have a massive first-mover advantage at their scale.”

The firm has already lost $2.8 billion on Reality Labs and has quietly reduced its workforce by 10% amid growing concerns. With early losses in its heavily invested VR hardware division, a worsening market condition, and Facebook’s failed track record at managing users’ private data, the company’s metaverse endeavor could face more turbulence ahead.

Microsoft and Meta partnership brings Office 365 apps to the Metaverse

October 12, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

A suite of Microsoft products will feature in Meta’s new Virtual Reality headset, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling it the “virtual office of the future.”

Meta Platforms has partnered with technology giant Microsoft to bring a range of Microsoft Office 365 products into Meta’s Virtual Reality (VR) platform, aiming to entice companies into working in virtual environments.

During Meta’s Connect 2022 keynote on Oct. 11, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said its Teams video calling app would integrate with Meta’s “Quest” and newly unveiled “Quest Pro” VR headset allowing people to gather in a virtual space akin to a boardroom.

Familiar Microsoft productivity applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and SharePoint will also be made available within Meta’s VR. Nadella added future functionality would include the ability to stream a Windows Cloud computer to Meta’s headsets.

*An image of a Microsoft Teams meeting within a VR environment. Source:* *Microsoft*

Microsoft’s enterprise-level mobile device and identity management applications will be compatible with Meta’s Quest and Quest Pro headsets, Nadella said, allowing companies to manage and secure VR headsets in their corporate networks just as they would computers or phones.

Meta is betting its Quest Pro headset, packed with new features, will tempt users into a virtual workday. The company claims the new equipment is more comfortable, has better performance and improved clarity with higher resolution over its existing headset.

The Quest Pro is also said to have “more intuitive” feedback on its hand controllers and what’s called “real-time expression tracking,” in which the user’s virtual avatar mimics the facial expressions, such as smiles and winks, of its real-life counterpart.

In the keynote, Nadella said the pandemic has brought about a “once-in-a-lifetime” chance in formerly office-based work environments, referring to the ongoing remote work policies first implemented due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“We’re bringing the Microsoft Teams’ immersive meeting experience to Meta Quest in order to give people new ways to connect with each other,” Nadella said, adding: “Now, you can connect, share and collaborate as though you are together in person.”

“As in-person work ramps up, we want everyone to have the ability to feel like they’re present,” Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg added.

Microsoft Teams will also be cross-compatible with Meta’s VR space for business meetings called Horizon Workrooms, Zuckerberg said this cross-device experience will be “the foundation of the virtual office of the future.”

Since the company changed its name from Facebook Inc to Meta last year, its focus and resources have heavily shifted into building what Zuckerberg calls an “open” and “interoperable” Metaverse.

It hasn’t come cheap with the company’s research and development arm, Reality Labs, burning through billions of dollars to put forward the hardware and virtual worlds required, spending $5.7 billion alone so far in 2022.

Despite the losses, Zuckerberg was adamant about the “massive opportunity” in a July Q2 earnings call, even acknowledging that such losses could continue for several more years.

Nifty News: Enter the afterlife in style, Solana NFT game demo hits Epic store and more

September 30, 2022 Coin Telegraph

build-a-bear

300 holders of the Spartan NFT will be able to spread their ashes at a 35-foot memorial to Spartan soldiers, to be built in Greece.

The company behind the Spartan Race has released a nonfungible token (NFT) collection which will immortalize the names of the initial holders in stone, with plans to build a 35-foot (10.5 meters) statue in Ancient Sparta encircled with 15,000 name-engraved stones.

Spartan founder and CEO Joe De Sena plans to bury his ashes under his stone at the site dubbed the Spartan 300 Memorial, which will pay homage to the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which 300 Spartans were said to have fought and were killed.

Of the 15,000 NFTs, 300 will be “Super Rare,” with holders of that NFT type given the option of spreading their ashes over the memorial after their death, which could see it become one of the first NFTcollections to grant someone a final resting place.

Owners can sell their NFT on markets such as OpenSea, but it’s unclear if this burial perk is transferred to the new owner.

The passes sell for $3,000 and also permit holders up to nine years of unlimited access to all Spartan brand events, including its 70-hour long Death Race and its Tough Mudder obstacle race, as well as with exclusive merch drops.

NFT holders will also be granted access to an exclusive yearly event in which they can train with pro athletes along with testing the fitness brands’ products and obstacles.

Star Atlas launches demo on Epic Games store

Solana-based NFT game Star Atlas launched its first playable pre-alpha on Sept. 29 through the Epic Games store for owners of its NFTs, allowing them to view in-game vehicles they’ve purchased within the games’ environment.

Star Atlas is an open-world space exploration strategy game set in the year 2620 in which players can buy and sell NFTs representative of vehicles such as spaceships, players also mine for resources to sell on the in-game marketplace and join political factions.

The Showroom pre-alpha demo is powered by the Unreal Engine 5, a 3D creation tool released in April by Epic Games, and is used in its flagship game Fortnite.

The Star Atlas developers have also launched an open source tool, The Foundation Software Development Kit (F-KIT), which allows Unreal Engine 5 developers to more easily integrate their titles into the Solana blockchain.

Build-A-Bear enters Web3

Stuffed animal retailer Build-A-Bear Workshop is entering Web3, partnering with NFT marketplace Sweet to launch its first NFT collection in celebration of its 25th year in business.

The NFTs will be minted on the Polygon blockchain and will begin with the October auction of a physical and digital bundle which includes a unique physical teddy bear studded with Swarovski crystals along with its NFT counterpart.

A second November auction will offer five silver teddy bear NFTs also accompanied by matching physical counterparts before a December launch of 5,000 NFTs are made available for public mint.

CryptoPunk sells for 3,300 ETH

A rare CryptoPunk has sold on NFT marketplace OpenSea for 3,300 Ether (ETH), worth over $4.4 million, to an anonymous buyer on Sept. 28 marking the fourth-highest sale in terms of ETH spent, according to data from DappRadar.

CryptoPunk #2924 features rare attributes such as being an “ape” type, of which only 24 exist in the 10,000-strong collection. It also has one “accessory” — a hoodie which is a rarity in the collection, and more so as it is the only “ape” to feature one.

The most expensive CryptoPunk ever sold was purchased for 124,457 ETH, worth over $530 million at the time of purchase in Oct. 2021

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Warner Music Group announced a partnership with NFT marketplace OpenSea to allow select artists to launch NFT collections on customizable and dedicated landing pages to build their Web3 presence.

Facebook and Instagram users in 100 countries can connect their crypto wallets to post and share NFTs across both platforms with parent company Meta supporting digital assets from the Ethereum, Polygon and Flow blockchains.

Facebook

Skepticism remains

It limited Open Graph

It took the @Metaverse Instagram handle from the user who registered it

Cambridge Analytica

What can we do about it?

The consequences of inaction

Meta’s biggest challenge is decentralization

Meta’s past conduct continues to haunt its present

Star Atlas launches demo on Epic Games store

Build-A-Bear enters Web3

CryptoPunk sells for 3,300 ETH

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