This Week in XR: AI Copyright Confusion, Nintendo Returns to XR Games, Messaging to Hiber3D’s 3D Virtual World

The US Copyright Office has issued a ruling Space Opera, created with the GenAI text-to-image application Midjourney, which is not eligible for copyright protection. The piece created by Matthew Allen won an award at last year’s Colorado State Fair. Does this apply to movies created with AI-generated images and animations? I wonder. I am opposing this everywhere because it is still unclear when and in what contexts AI-generated content can be copyrighted. After all, if humans are writing scripts, creating prompts, recording audio or voice prompts, and editing AI-generated footage, is the human at the center of this process the owner? Do you have documents? If a band trains its own model with its own recorded music and that model creates new songs at the band’s suggestion, is that work eligible for copyright? ? Experts believe that this issue will be resolved by the US Supreme Court.

Apple’s AI Ajax is said to be better than ChatGPT Apple is reportedly spending millions of dollars every day to train its most advanced language model. People involved in its development say Information that Apple’s most advanced LLM, internally called Ajax GPT, has been trained on more than 200 Billion parameters and is more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-3.5. This model was originally created for internal use, according to previous reports from Bloomberg. The team that has been rebuilding Siri for the past five years is also involved. Glad to know they exist.

Mixed reality masterpiece ‘Seven Ravens’ debuts at Venice Film Festival. The award-winning immersive entertainment company Felix and Paul Studios is out Narrator: The Seven Crows by Jim Henson, its first mixed reality experience, at the 80th Venice Film Festival on August 30. Once again, the venerable production company is at the forefront of immersive art and entertainment. The story jumps off the page. Literally. The mixed reality experience might be the 10-year-old Montreal studio’s best work yet.

The 2023 Venice Film Festival is the coming-out party for cinematic AI. Hollywood has been hesitant about AI over the past year, to say the least. Indeed, the biggest strike in 60 years has at its core fear and loathing of artificial intelligence. Yet in another world, at the 80th Venice Film Festival, a more optimistic, hopeful view of AI’s cinematic potential is being espoused by some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, including Tom Hanks, Robert Zemekis, Joe Russo and Darren Aronofsky.

Time’s Top 100 most influential people in AI. The 2023 TIME100 AI list features 43 CEOs, founders and co-founders: Elon Musk of xAI, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Andrew Hopkins of Exscientia, Nancy Xu of Moonhub, Kate Kallot of Amini, Pelonomi Moiloa of Lelapa AI, Jack Anthropic’s Clark, Waabi’s Raquel Urtasan, Cohere’s Aidan Gomez and more.

Google’s innovative AI tools now turn text into the online world. Hiber3D has integrated Google’s AI tools to give creators the ability to import the content they want to see—and create a vibrant world. At Google Cloud Next in San Francisco last week, startup Hiber announced the integration of Google’s general AI technology into the Hiber3D development platform, which aims to simplify the process of creating in-game content.

Nintendo is rumored to be working with Google on a VR headset. Please file this information in the “I’ll believe it when I see it” section. According to Nash Weedle, who has previously provided accurate leaks about Nintendo, a VR headset prototype already exists. Nintendo is said to be testing micro-LED displays from Raxium, the company Google acquired last year. The prototype is rumored to have mixed reality capabilities and a cost-effective, energy-efficient micro-LED display. It will be a standalone device that does not require a console connection.

Meta is said to be working with LG on the new Quest Pro. Here’s a slightly more credible rumor about a new headset that LG and Meta are said to be developing together to compete with the Apple Vision Pro. A Korean news report says Meta is working with LG to release a successor to its high-end Quest Pro virtual reality headset in 2025. The headset is rumored to cost around $2,000 and will use LG’s own screen.

Is famous VR blogger and televangelist Tony “Skarred Ghost” Vitillo losing his religion? Tony says this could be the fall of VR. As early as this time last year, it was clear that Meta was pushing the Quest ecosystem in the wrong direction, causing usage to drop significantly. Most Quests are now in a drawer. According to the developers, sales in the Quest store have decreased by 65%. Turns out, VR isn’t good for gaming. Meta bets on what the farm will be like, now they’re trying to figure out what people will want besides the Beat Saber and the Walkabout Mini-Golf (both solid in Mixed Reality). Bottom line: since the majority of early adopters are gamers, Meta focuses on games first. This strategy was a historic mistake, even though almost anyone could have made the same mistake. Gamers prefer gaming consoles. Innovations like MR are unlikely to bring them back. The only thing that can do that is a large-scale hit like Game of Thrones. The expected next wave of devices from Samsung, Apple, Meta/LG, Google/Nintendo, won’t hit the mass market until 2025. Fall is a good time to look at where we are now. XR, but we know what happens later in the Fall.

Walkabout Mini Golf (WMG) has just launched its 21st course, Alfheim – Land of Elves. Based on Norse mythology, Alfheim features the amazing art and precise putting physics that characterize the WMG Mini Golf world, many of which are based on famous IPs such as Journey to the center of the EarthAnd 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In a new twist, in Alfheim, the user can transform into an elf imbued with magical powers.

This Week on XR is also a podcast hosted by the author of this column, Ted Schilowitz, Futurist, Paramount Global and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap. This week our guest is Curtis Hickman, co-founder and Creative Director at The Void. He just released Hyperreality: The Art of Designing Impossible Experiences. Here is my review from earlier this summer. We can be found on Spotify, iTunes and YouTube.

What we are reading

Disney’s Separatist Chaos (CNBC)

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