TOPIC

Metaverse

Are we the frogs in an AI pan? AI ponders this and other questions. Photo: Bernard Cohen and Starryai

Opinion | Does AI think we have already lost control of AI?

AI earnestly examines its navel and declares, on balance, in bullets, that we should just live with it

Doctor Who’s Daleks had it right, it seems: resistance is useless as AI quickly expands its reach

17 Jul 2024 - 8:45AM

Humanoid robots, 6G on the horizon as China seeks to hop tech hurdles

6 Jul 2024 - 1:03AM

Hong Kong blockchain gaming firm Animoca weighing 2025-26 IPO, founder says

27 Jun 2024 - 6:00PM

Hong Kong’s Animoca Brands enters Saudi Arabia’s Web3 ground floor

The Web3 video gaming unicorn has signed an MOU with Saudi Arabia’s state-backed science park, months after a US$50 million investment in its Neom smart city.

24 Mar 2024 - 1:36AM

A game on Animoca Brands’ metaverse platform The Sandbox, where people can socialise, play games and attend concerts. Photo: The Sandbox

ByteDance invests in chip firm InnoStar as VR unit Pico faces Apple’s Vision Pro

ByteDance’s latest semiconductor-related investment shows the lengths being taken by the company to overcome the impact of tighter US tech sanctions on mainland China.

14 Mar 2024 - 7:00PM

Opinion | When Sora meets VR, AI offers great rewards – and risks

OpenAI’s groundbreaking Sora, which generates video from text prompts, could offer never-before immersive experiences when combined with virtual reality – but could also boost misinformation and erode trust.

23 Feb 2024 - 7:30PMvideocam

Apple’s Vision Pro lifts the prospects for extended reality sector: Rokid CEO

Rokid chief executive Misa Zhu Mingming said Apple’s Vision Pro headset is expected to spur broader demand for more affordable and ergonomically designed AR and VR wearable devices.

15 Feb 2024 - 5:30PM

Rokid expects to double unit sales of its augmented reality glasses to around 400,000 this year, from nearly 200,000 in 2023. Photo: Handout

Cryptocurrency unicorns Animoca Brands and HashKey agree to partnership

Under the deal, Animoca Brands will list its Sand cryptocurrency token on HashKey Exchange as the crypto firms gear up for a recovery in the battered virtual asset market.

23 Jan 2024 - 9:00PM

China convenes Huawei, Tencent, Baidu to draft metaverse standards

The newly formed working group is tasked with building, maintaining and promoting metaverse industry standards, China’s technology regulator says.

20 Jan 2024 - 4:11PMvideocam

China augmented reality start-up Rokid gets US$70 million in new funding round

Rokid deal comes as Chinese authorities increasingly step up as private equity investors in projects in line with local development strategies.

10 Jan 2024 - 10:52PM

Rokid’s AR glasses on display at CES International in 2018. Photo: AP

‘Girl math’, MH370 jokes: Singapore’s biggest social media stories of 2023

Singapore may be small, but its capacity for online drama is surprisingly huge. Read on for the year’s biggest social media stories to set tongues wagging in the city state.

4 Jan 2024 - 2:40PM

Jocelyn Chia in a still from a TikTok video of her performance at a New York comedy club. Photo: TikTok/@ComedyCellarUSA

Beijing to draft national Web3 development plan amid strict cryptocurrency ban

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said a strategic Web3 development plan will be drafted ‘in line with the country’s conditions’.

21 Dec 2023 - 9:30PM

Meet 4Eve, the Thai pop girl group who could rival Blackpink

The T-pop girl group just gave a Metaverse concert in The Sandbox – and its members Jorin and Punch have modelled for Dior, Balenciaga and Tom Ford Beauty

1 Dec 2023 - 4:00PM

Russia puts Meta spokesman on wanted list

Andy Stone was added to the list on Sunday, Russian state new reported, weeks after Russian authorities in October classified Meta as a ‘terrorist and extremist’ organisation.

27 Nov 2023 - 10:47AMvideocam

Bored Apes descend on Hong Kong amid NFT firm’s bet on Asia

The first ApeFest outside New York drew thousands of people from 60 countries, with support from the Hong Kong government, according to Yuga Labs.

8 Nov 2023 - 4:49PM

The ApeFest DJ poses at the end of his set on the main stage on November 4. Photo: Matt Haldane

Facebook owner to lay off employees in metaverse chip unit

The unit, called Facebook Agile Silicon Team, or FAST, develops custom chips for Meta’s AR and VR devices, which currently use silicon from external provider Qualcomm.

4 Oct 2023 - 12:00PM

Meta launches Quest 3 headset, just ahead of Apple’s Vision Pro

The Facebook owner has introduced its latest line-up of head-worn devices, staking fresh claim to the VR/AR industry just ahead of Apple pushing into the market.

28 Sep 2023 - 10:12AM

Genshin Impact creator miHoYo switches chairman role to another co-founder

The change in leadership at miHoYo comes at a time when the Shanghai-based firm has become the main challenger to Tencent Holdings and NetEase in the world’s largest video gaming market.

20 Sep 2023 - 9:10PM

Chinese start-up counts on Apple’s headset to unleash XR demand

With Apple on track to launch its Vision Pro headset next year, GDI thinks the world is ready to embrace VR and related technologies.

17 Sep 2023 - 9:00AMvideocam

China wants up to 5 metaverse companies with ‘global influence’ by 2025

A new blueprint issued by five national Chinese agencies aims to develop the domestic metaverse for industrial use through technologies like blockchain and AI.

10 Sep 2023 - 7:01AMvideocam

Facebook owner Meta Platforms to lower minimum age for Quest VR user accounts

Meta Platforms said it will lower the minimum age for a Quest headset user account from 13 years old to 10 later this year, despite rising concerns about children spending too much time on social media.

17 Jun 2023 - 11:46AM

Meta Platorms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said lowering the minimum age for users of its Quest virtual reality headset is a family-friendly way for more people to explore the metaverse. Photo: dpa

LVMH joins forces with Epic Games to create virtual shows and fitting rooms

Gucci and Ralph Lauren have flocked to Roblox to launch digital fashion experiences, but Dior and Louis Vuitton’s parent company hopes to ply Gen Z too with its new metaverse strategy

15 Jun 2023 - 4:30PM

LVMH will partner with Epic Games to bring shoppers a new virtual style experience. Photo: Reuters

Crypto founders optimistic about Beijing Web3 paper, link it with Hong Kong

Binance’s Zhao Changpeng, Huobi’s Justin Sun, and Animoca’s Yat Siu all touted the promising signs of Beijing’ ‘Internet 3.0’ white paper.

30 May 2023 - 12:00PMvideocam

Letters | By embracing NFTs and metaverse, Hong Kong can remodel its global role

Readers discuss opportunities for the city to take the helm in the new tech landscape, and how the government can encourage use of its online identity authentication app.

30 May 2023 - 11:30AM

Where does Hong Kong stand in the race to be Asia’s Web3 hub?

Revenue in the digital assets market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 16.1 per cent from 2023 to exceed US$102 billion by 2027, with almost a billion users tapping in.

23 May 2023 - 1:28PMvideocam

A girl flying a kite at the waterfront of West Kowloon Cultural District on 15 February 2023. Photo: Sam Tsang.

Baidu’s metaverse chief quits as search engine giant shifts focus to AI

Ma Jie, the head of metaverse operations at Chinese search engine giant Baidu, has left the company after it switched its focus to generative artificial intelligence (AI), the technology behind ChatGPT.

19 May 2023 - 8:00PM

Ma Jie, who was in charge of Baidu’s metaverse project, has left the company. Photo: Handout

Macroscope | Rather than fear a godlike AI, let’s put the tech we invented to good use

‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton has raised the heat on the AI debate amid fears over godlike technology. But AI’s benefits far outweigh the risks – as long as we develop protocols and rules to ensure its ethical use.

15 May 2023 - 1:00AMvideocam

Meta-backed study says metaverse will be 2.4 per cent of US GDP by 2035

The metaverse could contribute as much as US$760 billion to US GDP, according to the report from Deloitte and commissioned by Facebook owner Meta Platforms.

10 May 2023 - 11:02AM

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Metaverse

The metaverse is a conceptual next-generation version of the internet that consists of shared three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds where people can interact, trade, play games and do more. The term was coined by the science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, but a broader, multi-platform version of the concept gained widespread recognition in 2021 when Facebook changed its name to Meta.