Last week’s developments brought with it a trove of new products for both consumers and enterprises. With a fresh outlook in virtual, augmented, mixed, and extended reality (VR/AR/MR/XR), companies began releasing their current lineup with fresh innovations amid major tech events and a challenging tech market.
The following recaps highlight the top news articles from last week. Please like and share our work on social media, and sign up for our newsletter at https://www.xrtoday.com/sign-up/ for ongoing updates!
Ready Player Me Integrates Avatars for Mini Royale: Nations
XR Today hosted an interview with Ready Player Me Chief Executive, Timmu Toke, to discuss his company’s latest update in avatar technologies. The Tallinn-based company has partnered with hundreds of immersive space developers like TCL, RTFKT, HiberWorld, Spatial, and Sidequest.
In the interview, Toke explained how the addition of Ready Player Me avatars led to major developments in metaverse interoperability, the rise of enterprise technologies, and increased use cases for artificial intelligence (AI) for avatar functionality, among others.
He also commented on the future of the Metaverse, adding that it was “alive and well” despite major upheavals across the Big Tech space. Additionally, the firm integrated its technologies with numerous others, including Phantom wallet, Solana, MetaMask, and Nami, among others.
Meta Faces Fresh Rumours after Media Layoff Reports
Fresh rumours that Meta Platforms would lay off thousands more workers surfaced in a Bloomberg report last week, leading to tense speculation on the tech giant’s future. Meta’s workforce could see a 13 percent slash in its headcount, following initial cuts of 11,000 workers in November last year.
The report cited anonymous sources and referenced issues. These included an ongoing row with Apple over advertising and privacy upgrades, regional and transnational restrictions on data and adverts and a spike in overhead costs of 22 percent. Meta CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg also explained in quarterly reports he wanted to create a “stronger and more nimble organization” following the company’s restructuring.
Lenovo Debuts XR-Ready P-Series ThinkStations
Lenovo debuted three ThinkStation P-series workstations last week, which aim to level up processing capabilities across industry verticals. This includes immersive reality, AEC, animation, computer-aided design (CAD), and other sectors.
Lenovo designed the new PX, P7, and P5 workstations along with British automaker Aston Martin. The stellar devices feature novel NVIDIA RTX GPUs and up to 120 Intel Xeon cores for unrivalled processing power.
How Will Xiaomi’s AR Smart Glasses Square Up with Rivals?
At the Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, Spain, Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi unveiled its latest creation — the Xiaomi Wireless AR Glass Discovery Edition.
The firm’s first-ever set of standalone augmented reality (AR) smart glasses feature “retinal-level” electrochromic adaptive displays, Qualcomm Snapdragon Spaces functionality, lighting adjustment, and hand-tracking for gesture control, among other features.
It also leverages Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 processor, micro-OLED screen, 1200 nits of brightness, and other key functionality for a seamless, immersive experience. Users can also control smart home features via the headset, allowing greater human-computer interfacing with smart devices.