Hartmann Capital

🔥 This week in XR 🔥 Samsung Electronics soft confirms their headset is set to release later this year at Galaxy Unpacked Meta is shifting from Applab (beta apps) to being tagged early access on the main store on August 5th, increasing discoverability Meta is offering free multiplayer trials on weekends for top games New “VR games showcase” alludes to AAA titles dropping, next month.

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 🤖🕹 - Sloyd launched 3D Model generation and coloring. - Microsoft partners with Inworld AI to create an AI developer toolkit. - Gaxos.AI partners with Meshy. - Magnific AI launched a plugin for Photoshop. - crewAI released v0.36.0. - Odyssey creates Hollywood-grade visual AI. - Julius AI announced Workflows. - Stability AI now allows both non-commercial and commercial use for Stable Diffusion 3. - Perplexity's new Pro Search starts rolling out on Android. - Scale AI announced a strategic partnership with AWS. - Anthropic launched a Console offering a built-in prompt generator. - Meta AI develops compact language model for mobile devices. - Cloudflare launches a tool to combat AI bots. - Hugging Face says it detected ‘unauthorized access’ to its AI model hosting platform. - WhatsApp is testing an AI selfie generator tool. - ElevenLabs launches free AI voice isolator. - Stability AI releases Stable Assistant features. - Apple unveils iPhone 16 Pro AI Integration. - Originality.ai announces new AI detection models: 2.0.1 Standard (BETA) and 1.0.0 Lite. - Groq unveils lightning-fast LLM engine; developer base rockets past 280K in 4 months. - Microsoft drops ‘MInference’ demo, challenges status quo of AI processing. - Chinese developers scramble as OpenAI blocks access in China. - Oura unveils AI health advisor a day before Samsung Galaxy Ring's likely debut. - Skillsoft partners with Microsoft to launch GenAI skill development program. - Autogon releases a culturally inclusive Gen-AI video tool for localized content. - Bumble makes it simpler for users to report fake profiles that use AI-generated photos. - Samsung launched the Galaxy Ring, an AI-powered competitor to Oura smart rings. - Vimeo joins YouTube and TikTok in launching new AI content labels. - Former congressman and OpenAI board member Will Hurd joins Personal AI board. 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: Read: How generative AI could reinvent what it means to play By Niall Firth. Nintendo rejects the use of generative AI. Luma AI turns crypto memes into viral videos. China leads the world in adoption of generative AI, survey shows. The AI industry must earn $600 billion annually to cover massive hardware costs. 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: - Volley raises $55M for voice-enabled AI games. - Skild AI raised a $300M Series A at a $1.5B valuation. - Frumtak Ventures closes $87M 4th fund for Iceland investments. - Index Ventures raised $2.3 billion for new venture and growth funds. - Lockheed Martin secured $4.6 Million DARPA Contract for AI development. - Captions raised $60M at a $500M valuation, total funding $100M. - Enso Technologies raised $6M.

🔥Top VR headlines this week🔥 -LIV partners with Meta for official Mixed Reality Content Capture -All of Meta’s Horizons Worlds can now be accessed on Mobile & Web outside of VR -Quest v67 update brings updates to multitasting multiple apps and a smoother typing experience -Apple opens Vision Pro pre-order site for UK, Canada, Germany, Australia & France -Zuck teases holographic AR glasses with the end goal of replacing smartphones

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 🤖🕹 - ElevenLabs introduced Iconic Voices. - Released: GPT4All 3.0: The Open-Source Local LLM Desktop App. - DeemosTech announced that Rodin Gen-1 API is now available for beta testing. - Meta introduced Meta 3D Gen: A new system for end-to-end generation of 3D assets from text in <1min. - Perplexity Pro Search: Upgraded for more advanced problem-solving. - OpenAI develops a new CriticGPT Model that finds errors in ChatGPT’s replies. - Figma disabled a recently launched generative AI app design tool after a user showed it just copied Apple's weather app. - WhatsApp will introduce a Meta AI Chatbot with selectable Llama 3 models. - WhatsApp is testing a new AI Selfie generator tool. - GraphRAG (from Microsoft) is now open-source. - TikTok is developing a new AI Chatbot called Genie. - Solos AirGo Vision is the world’s first smart glasses with GPT-4o. Suno launched its iOS app in the US and plans to roll out a global version and an Android app. - Apple is reportedly working to bring AI to the Vision Pro. - Oracle announced HeatWave GenAI, featuring in-database LLMs. - Baidu launched an upgraded AI model, says Ernie Bot hit 300 mln users. - Meta will enable influencers to create AI versions of themselves. - Google says Gemma 2 will be available to researchers and developers through Vertex AI starting next month, including with a new 9B-parameter model. 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: - Nintendo Confirms No Use Of Generative AI For First-Party Games - Meta’s new LLM Compiler could transform how software is compiled and optimized. - DIVID detects AI-generated videos with nearly 94% accuracy. 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: - Runway is in talks to raise $450M at about a $4B valuation. - MagicAI is looking to raise $200M at a $1.5B valuation. - Bitmagic raised $4M for an AI platform that generates 3D games from consumer prompts. - Stability AI raised $80M. - Orby AI raised a $30M Series A. - Sentient raised $85 Million, co-led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, to accelerate open AI development. - Fluently raised $2M. - Clay raised $46M at a $500M valuation, bringing its total funding to $66M. - Dust raised $16M. - Synthflow AI raised $7.4M in seed funding. - DNEG raised $200M from Abu Dhabi's UASG at a $2B valuation to develop an AI-powered, photorealistic CGI creator.

How will gamers view free-to-play vs premium VR titles as they get older? Sinn Studio Inc.'s Almir Brljak shares his thoughts from last month's AWE conference in Long Beach.

How much bigger is Meta Quest (standalone VR headsets) than PCVR (compute tethered PC)? Gorilla tag peak Daily Active Users on PC: ~5000 Gorilla Tag peak Daily Active Users on Quest: ~1,000,000 Quest GT player base is 200x(!) bigger than PCVR Quest devices are significantly cheaper and have less friction to operate ($300-$500), compared to the minimum $1000 investment to use PCVR.

Why we’re betting big on #MarketingFi in 2024 -- and the monumental shift it is ushering in: https://lnkd.in/drW2NYAu

AWE was a success! I hosted a panel on the Meta Quest ecosystem with some of the most talented founders/designers - discussing what works best on Quest. The tl;dr? - Quest is primarily a gaming system, but there is room for successful non-games - Build for the archetypal 2024 user, not the 2016 PCVR user - Countless titles are doing $1M+, dozens are $10M+ - Developers can get edge by working with Meta on their internal iniatives - F2P & Social are rapidly grabbing market share + a lot more in the talk (on YouTube soon!) Arturo Perez, Almir Brljak, Emily O'Neal, & Pablo Colapinto were the best speakers and shared great insights on their 0-1 journeys. Thank you Sonya Haskins, Ori Inbar & the rest of the AWE team for putting on such a great event!

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 🤖🕹 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬: - Polygonflow Dash introduced the first Unreal Engine GPT-4o assistance. - Runway introduced Gen-3 Alpha, new base model for video generation. - NVIDIA hints at the future of DLSS for AI-generated textures and NPCs and presents L4GM, a 4D large reconstruction model that can turn a single-view video into an animated 3D object. - OpenAI delays ChatGPT’s new voice mode because of safety testing - Google DeepMind's new AI tech will generate soundtracks for videos. - ElevenLabs unveils an open-source creator tool for adding sound effects to videos and a reader app for TTS on the Go. - Synthesia 2.0 launched incl. new avatar capabilities. - Microsoft pauses controversial AI Recall feature on new Windows computers. - Anthropic introduced Claude 3.5 Sonnet, matching GPT-4o on benchmarks, and announced a big new feature for business. - Notion released new tools to make website building easier. - EU countries won't get Apple Intelligence and other new iOS features this year. - Amazon’s new AI-powered Alexa might cost up to $10 monthly. - CoralApp, incubated by Binance Labs, will launch an AI-driven phone for web3. 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: - The ‘Doom’ creator says AI can do many things - except be original. - Embracer plans to bet on generative AI after firing over a thousand developers. - Record labels sue two startups for training AI models on their songs. 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: - OpenAI acquired Rockset. - Gracia AI raised $1.2M for creating photorealistic volumetric spatial videos. - Stability AI appoints new CEO Prem Akkaraju and secures funding from a group led by Sean Parker. - BrainsparkGames raised £1.4 million towards building educational AI mobile games. - Genspark raised $60M for its AI-powered search engine. - You.com raised $50M for AI assistants with web access. - Substrate raised $8M to simplify AI application development. - Transformer model chipmaker Etched.ai raised $120M to challenge Nvidia’s market dominance. - HeyGen raised $60M in Series A funding. - Creatio raised $200M at a $1.2B valuation for its no-code CRM and workflow platform.

From ceiling-suspended head-mounted displays to brain activity input -- the history of VR has included many cycles and innovations which still propel its continued use to this day. Swipe to learn more about the past, present, and future of VR ➡️