Babbitt | Metaverse Daily Must-Read: After seven years of hard work, Apple released the first MR headset. The XR industry, which has been silent for a long time, is about to kick off a new prelude?

Abstract: On June 5th, local time, Apple’s 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) “Code the New Universe” officially kicked off, and the long-awaited mixed reality (MR) headset made its debut. It's Apple's first head-mounted display device, and the company's first foray into the field. This is the first new category product released by Apple after many years.

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The Jinan Start-up Zone issued eight policies to cultivate metaverse industries, and the highest award is 10 million

According to the Jinan Times, recently, eight policies of the metaverse have been issued in Jinan's starting area for the transformation of new and old kinetic energy. It is reported that the starting area will support the construction of the metaverse innovation platform. Financial subsidies of 30%, 20%, and 10% of the actual investment amount will be given to newly recognized platforms at the national, provincial, and municipal levels, respectively, and the maximum rewards will be 10 million yuan, 8 million yuan, and 5 million yuan.

Apple released its first MR head display device Apple Vision Pro, priced at $3499

Apple CEO Cook announced today that Apple will launch a new AR platform and a revolutionary mixed reality (MR, which combines AR and VR) products Apple Vision Pro. It is reported that Vision Pro is equipped with Apple's first 3D camera, which allows users to watch and shoot 3D videos. At the same time, Vision Pro will also focus on games, work, and communication. This device will bring the world into "spatial computing". Users can control the depth of experience in VR or AR through the Digital Crown, similar to controlling the volume on Airpods Max. Finally, the first Visio Pro was equipped with the M2 chip and the new chip is branded as the R1. Apple (AAPL.O) also unveiled a new operating system, visionOS, which will be available for the company's first mixed reality headset, the Vison Pro. The Apple Vision Pro will go on sale in early 2024 for $3,499.

Hollywood's largest union will discuss with Hollywood film companies about the salary of actors in the AI era

According to a report by the Financial Associated Press on June 6, as part of this week's contract negotiations with film companies, SAG-AFTRA, Hollywood's largest union, will begin to discuss the issue of the salary of actors in the AI era, that is, how actors should learn from their "AI doppelgangers". get paid for their work.

The intrusion of AI into show business is causing deep unease in Hollywood, who fear the technology could lead to fewer job opportunities for screenwriters, voice actors and others. Additionally, Hollywood actors worry about losing control of their image. AI technology has been used to make deepfake videos that are fake enough to be fake, and Hollywood stars including Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise have become the protagonists of AI fake videos. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG chief negotiator, said: "Over the past 18 months, we have been watching the rapid development of generative AI technology in real time, and it has affected our members." "AI doubles" are properly compensated and "informed consent" is given to how those doubles are used. SAG-AFTRA will meet with Hollywood studios on Wednesday to begin finalizing a new three-year contract.

Baidu launched a code writing assistant "Comate" based on large models

According to the "Kechuang Board Daily" report on June 6, at the Wenxin Large-scale Model Technology Exchange Conference (Chengdu), Baidu Smart Cloud launched the "Comate" code assistant, and officially opened the invitation for testing. Hou Zhenyu, vice president of Baidu Group, said that the "Comate" code assistant is a new generation of coding assistance tools based on large models, and a large number of tests have been conducted within Baidu. The test results show that nearly 50% of the suggested codes written by "Comate" were adopted by developers. According to Baidu insiders, auxiliary code writing is the main product function in the first phase. In the second phase, "Comate" will realize natural language code generation in specific fields and scenarios, and the third phase will realize natural language development in all fields.

Huawei's human-machine dialogue patent can generate replies based on topics

According to a report by the Financial Associated Press on June 6, the Tianyancha App shows that the patent "a system and method for human-computer dialogue" applied by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. has been authorized. The abstract shows that at present, a generative dialogue robot is known to understand the user's question through deep learning, and then generate a reply verbatim according to the question. However, the questions entered by users often involve multiple topics. Therefore, how to adaptively generate accurate answers based on the dialogue content on the basis of understanding natural language has become a technical problem that needs to be solved urgently. In this embodiment of the application, a plurality of dialogue robots are pre-configured. When the text input by the user is received, the topic judgment is performed on the text, and the text is assigned to the corresponding dialogue robot for calculation according to the topic involved in the text, so as to generate a text-specific Reply, so that on the basis of understanding natural language, it can adaptively process according to the topics involved in the text, generate accurate replies, and improve user experience.

The European Union requires large tech companies to flag AI-generated content, analysis says there are technical obstacles to actual implementation

According to United Press International, European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova announced on June 5 that the EU has asked technology platforms including Google, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok to detect images generated by artificial intelligence (AI). , video, and text with clear labeling to the user.

However, tech companies are not obliged to comply with this latest requirement from the EU, as it is only part of a voluntary code of conduct. Some analysts believe that the implementation of this new regulation still faces technical obstacles, that is, there is no technology that can quickly and effectively detect AI-generated content at this stage, so most companies should only work on a "best effort" basis. Also, Twitter is not on the list of required companies, as Elon Musk announced in May that he was withdrawing from the voluntary code of conduct. Jorova said that Google CEO Sundar Pichai had previously told her that Google is developing technology that can detect and label AI-generated content in real time, and is constantly improving.

Interpretation of the relationship between AI and copyright by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs: Public sale of AI products may constitute infringement

According to news from IT House on June 6, the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Cabinet AI Strategy Department recently released an explanatory document on the relationship between artificial intelligence and copyright. The document states that the role of copyright is to "protect works that are 'creative expressions of thought or feeling'", but that does not include data (facts) and ideas (style of writing, drawing). In other words, the relationship between AI and copyright should be considered separately in the "generation/use phase" and "AI development/learning phase".

This means that when publishing AI-generated images or selling illustration books, the same laws apply as ordinary copyright infringement. If an AI image is determined to be similar to or dependent on (created based on) an existing work, the copyright owner may apply for damages or an injunction for copyright infringement, and the infringer may also be subject to criminal penalties.

On the other hand, when using someone else's copyrighted work for AI development, a copyrighted work may be used without the copyright owner's permission if "the act of use is not intended to infringe on the thoughts or feelings expressed by the other". The official document gives a counterexample: if the necessary information is extracted from a landscape photo to make a 3D CG image, but the purpose is to make an image that can feel the "essential characteristics expressed" of the original photo, this behavior also constitutes infringement.

Analyst: Microsoft’s embedded AI revenue growth of US$100 billion

According to "Kechuangban Daily" citing Juheng.com, Evercore ISI analyst Kirk Materne wrote in a research report that by 2027, by adding AI capabilities to its product portfolio, Microsoft could generate $100 billion in revenue in the most optimistic scenario. revenue growth. Materne said AI will ultimately affect every industry and region, and that Microsoft is uniquely positioned as platforms shift to AI over the next few years.

IDC: Apple will accelerate the evolution of AR/VR to productivity tools

According to Shanghai Securities News, IDC expects that Apple’s new product launch will accelerate the evolution of AR/VR devices into productivity tools. Although the price of Vision Pro is relatively high this time, its positioning is higher than that of previous head-mounted display products. Through supporting ecology and new hardware functions, it highlights the characteristics of productivity tools. At present, domestic AR/VR ecological content is still dominated by game experience, and there is still a gap between the development of content applications and overseas excellent applications, and high-quality content teams are relatively scarce. However, IDC also believes that it is difficult for the Chinese market shipments to achieve explosive growth due to Apple's new product release in the short term. Vision Pro is priced at a high level and is mainly aimed at the high-end market. It is difficult to increase the shipment scale of the overall domestic market with one product.

Guo Minghao: ChatGPT can change the future more than Apple MR headset

Well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo posted his investment views on Vision Pro on Twitter. He said that Apple demonstrated the vision of spatial computing and the design innovation of AR/MR devices, but did not demonstrate the necessity of using Vision Pro in daily life. In contrast, ChatGPT/AIGC is currently more convincing in changing human life in the foreseeable future. The higher-than-expected selling price and release date will require waiting for more than half a year, which is not conducive to short-term investment sentiment. What needs to be closely observed is whether Apple can provide more attractive applications/content/ecology before the pre-order demand and release.

In addition, Guo Mingchi also said that it is expected that Apple’s AR/MR headsets will be shipped in large quantities at the end of 2023Q4 or early 2024 (the previous expectation was 2023Q3). Shipments in 2023 are expected to be lower than market expectations. However, for investors, the focus of observation now is not on shipments, but on whether new product releases can convince people that Apple's AR/MR headset is the next star product of consumer electronics. (Financial Association)

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"More than 20,000 Apple MRs, Cook made another joke? "

In the reminder of "One more thing", Apple MR glasses - Apple Vision Pro was officially released, "Vision Pro marks the official entry of human beings into the era of spatial computing". Cook standing on the stage said excitedly. In general, after watching this press conference, you can understand why this product has caused polarized evaluations within Apple before: on the one hand, for the XR industry, it is possible to integrate performance, experience and applications into a piece of hardware Among the devices, only Apple can do it; but on the other hand, it is destined to be a long way from Cook's ideal "next-generation space computing platform".

"90% of online content may be compiled by AI within 3 years, how do major technology companies stop false information? "

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"Apple Vision Pro "leaked" which AI capabilities of Apple? "

It is generally believed in the industry that the "Metaverse" boom has receded, and Apple's entry into the XR track is a bit late, but it turned out to be a "king bomb" product like Apple Vision Pro, which surprised the industry. Well, the industry generally turns its attention to artificial intelligence, and Apple launched the "metaverse" device Apple Vision Pro, which makes people doubt Apple's ability in artificial intelligence. This article will take stock of the new Apple Vision Pro at WWDC 2023. What artificial intelligence capabilities does Apple reveal?

"The Hope of the Metaverse? Apple Vision Pro: just don't mention the "Metaverse"》

Apple unveiled the Vision Pro, its first-generation mixed reality headset at WWDC, but that's a big difference from Meta's Oculus virtual reality platform: In the field of immersive headsets, Apple has chosen augmented reality. Reality (AR), while Meta chose Virtual Reality (VR).