Musk Accepts Zuckerberg’s Cage Match Challenge in Vegas
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s social media feud has escalated into a real-life cage match. The bout is rumored to be linked to Meta’s upcoming Twitter clone. While Reels allowed Meta to counter TikTok, cloning Twitter may be a greater challenge.
Kobold Metals Secures $200M for AI Mining of Minerals
With rising demand for electric vehicle batteries, Kobold Metals raised $200 million to use AI in mining lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper. The funding round includes investments from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Bond Capital.
Gen-AI Elven Labs Raises $19M for Text-to-Speech Technology
Elven Labs raised a $19 million Series A round for its technology converting text into speech using synthetic voices that mimic various demographics. The round was co-led by Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and Andreessen Horowitz, with numerous notable entrepreneurs participating.
Second Life Celebrates 20 Years
Second Life, the first open-sandbox Metaverse, turns 20 this year. Launched by Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale in 2003, the metaverse platform boasts 750,000 monthly users and pioneered digital currency trading for fiat money.
ChatGPT App Store Launch
Bringing order to the AI market, ChatGPT’s new app store could challenge existing app stores run by companies like Salesforce and Microsoft. The platform’s app store aims to replace the currently fragmented AI directories market.
Meta Lowers Users’ Minimum Age for VR to Ten
Meta has reduced the minimum age requirement for its VR platform to just ten years old, after noticing many younger users were already in its Horizon social VR Metaverse.
AI Still Lags Behind Canine Intelligence, Says Meta AI Chief
Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, highlighted the limitations of current AI systems comparing them to dog intelligence. Even though AI systems may be able to pass the Bar exam, they still struggle with simple tasks like loading a dishwasher.
Voicebox: Meta’s Generative Text-to-Speech AI
Voicebox, Meta’s new text-to-speech AI technology, aims to transform the spoken word much like ChatGPT Dall-E did for text and image generation. However, neither the app nor its source code are being released to the public due to concerns about potential misuse.
