Spatial News™ #018
This week we're all about revisiting XR, Metaverse, & NFT Hype Cycles, AI for virtual world generation, Spatial News from Finland, and more!
Welcome to the 18th newsletter, Spatialists! Once again there’s so much on the Spatial News™ desk that it’s a challenge deciding what gets included and what gets jettisoned. “Life is a roller coaster, you have your ups and downs unless you fall off.” -John Updike, Pulitzer Prize winning writer
Spatial Spotlight: mlxar
Spatial8 welcomes its newest ecosystem member, mlxar!
“mlxar has built an AI that creatively generates virtual worlds and cities from reference images. The company’s vision is to provide a no code AI world builder platform for the content creator economy, especially for the next generation of content creators.”
Read more about them on Spatial Spotlight.
The XR Curve
Alvin Wang Graylin, China President at HTC, edited the graphic below to present his view that “[t]he [XR] industry is going through a standard startup growing pain cycle & will dominate media consumption within 5-10 yrs.”
In newsletter #007 we discussed Professor Bob Stone’s 7-8 year hype cycle for XR, which he surmised is similar to the metaverse hype cycle. Graylin’s chart shows similarities in the time frame and the rise and fall of hype when faced with the hard slaps of reality.
In that same issue we also discussed NFT hype since its wrapped up in all of the metaverse hype as well. According to Giorgo Torre, A. Manager at KPMG Qatar, “[t]he average price of a nft dropped more than 48% since the peak in November/21”.
So, if we say that the hype started with the mass media coverage of the Beeple sale in March/21, then that’s a catapult launch up a lift hill with a first drop exhibiting some record-breaking speed and airtime. That’s world-class hypercoaster territory right there. (Go here for your roller coaster terminology.)
In Torre’s LI post, he also provides the following chart (after Gartner).
I’m curious to see how VC funding continues to play into this as NFTs head towards the trough.
Is the Web3 and Metaverse Boom about to go Bust?
Stephen Moore, Editor at Medium, goes into more detail about the NFT dip.
”Now, 12 months on [following Beeple’s ‘Everydays — The First 5000 Days’],
• monthly buyers dipped below 800,000 for the first time since its peak in January.
• the average NFT price fell from $6800 in January to $2000
• secondary sales dropped to 7,900 per day, from an all-time high of 103,765 per day last September
• market cap has dropped from a high of $23 billion to around $10 billion, losing over half its value
• global keyword search volume for the term ‘NFT’ done [down? -Joh] 60–70% since January 2022.
Is this merely a Bitcoin-esque blip on the path to these new technologies establishing themselves, or is this the bubble bursting already?”
In another recent LI post Charles Adkins, Co-Founder of NFT Thought Leaders, describes a Web3 drop that is more giga coaster (with 300-ft/91-m drops) than hypercoaster. At the same time, he is more hopeful comparing the coming shake up of Web3 to that of early Web1 and/or Web2 (it’s not so clear which one).
”There's a bubble looming in this industry[…] IMO: 98% of all projects will go to ZERO in web3[…] people will lose everything.
Because it will all come back to problem solving, right?
Keep an eye on the people solving real problems
Data privacy, authentication and tracking of supply chain, KYC, AML, access control, processing power, spatial building and computing (metaverse)[…]and look at the tools that are being used in the process
Wallets, platforms [like Overly’s platform, see last issue -Joh], mint engines, metaverse building tools and generators [like mlxar’s -Joh], game engines, processors, edge computing, VR, and on and on and on.My advice: be extremely diligent in new and emerging technologies and find something you love for the long term.”
While we wait, enjoy some
Spatial News™ from Finland
“Goodbye Reality”
is a video presenting how and why Finnish artist Jani Leinonen utilizes the power of Varjo’s XR-3 and the Unity engine to create a phygital experience that makes NFTs tangible.
Helsinki’s Korkeasaari Zoo Uses AR to Teach about the Amazon
“The City of Helsinki and the Korkeasaari Zoo produced a learning game called Sademetsän henki (Spirit of the Rainforest) for the Amazonia house. The interactive game is designed for [and co-designed by!] schoolchildren and other visitors to Korkeasaari Zoo to enrich the visit.”
The experience was co-created by none other than VR studio and S8 ecosystem member Zoan.
5th Opera Beyond Jam Session
Opera Beyond Jam Sessions are a series of interactive online events that exchange thoughts and share best practices from the crossroads of performing arts and new digital technology. Includes inspirational master classes from visiting speakers, concrete case studies from various organizations and open discussion between all participants. Participation is free of charge.
This Jam Session focuses on technology-supported audience outreach programs with a special focus on the elderly and debuts March 31st, 2022 at 15:00-17:00 CET (or 16:00-18:00 Finnish time). Follow the link for more details.
AWE Nite Northern XR: Eyes on Estonia
Once again, I’d like to invite you to AWE Nite Northern XR’s unique meet up that doesn’t only focus on a single city’s XR community but the entire Nordic and Baltic region.
On April 7th we have “Eyes on Estonia” which will include the Spatial News™ newscast, a spotlight on some exciting projects, and a panel discussion with a who’s who in the Estonian XR scene! Check out the Meetup page for more details and directions on how to join.
Thanks for joining me on this winding journey, Spatialists!
Joh, riding rollercoasters till I’m 90 and my dentures fly out
Spatial8
P.S. Don’t forget to take our Future Technologies Usage Survey 2022 for a chance to get some random NFTs!