AI-generated avatars drama ⚖️, OpenAI to make $1 billion by 2024 💸, Apple and Google next XR controllers 💍, and more! ✨
Welcome to another week of Augmented Rarity, I'm so glad you're here 💚
As always, we'll cover the latest AI and XR news for creative minds like yours aaand I want to announce that… 🥁
...Augmented Rarity has now its own profiles on Instagram 📸, Twitter 🐦 and Linkedin 💼, so it would mean the world to us if you followed us there 🌍🤖 Artificial Intelligence
AI-generated avatars
Not reading Lensa’s terms and conditions is a big mistake we all made 🙄 as we allowed them to use and distribute for free any of the images we uploaded to get our viral AI-generated avatar.
But that’s not only it, there’s another controversy around Lensa and all these AI-generator profile pics: some artists have recognized their own style (and signatures) in the portraits generated by the apps 🎨, leading to concerns that their intellectual property and soul has been compromised.
ChatGPT
Stack Overflow 🧑💻 has temporarily banned ChatGPT as it answers were usually incorrect or nonsensical 😅. It’s not new that ChatGPT is not always accurate and can be wrong while seeming confident in its answer BUT let’s keep in mind that it is a free research tool.
ChatGPT reached 1M users in 5 days of its release 🚀. According to estimates, the company will generate $200 million in revenue in 2023 and $1 billion in 2024 🔥. Such impressive growth led it to crash several times over the past week but they managed to keep it less frustrating with some literary humor 👇
🥽 Extended Reality
New in
Apple’s new patent could make wearing VR/AR headsets more comfortable for extended periods 👓. It aims to manage heat and control noise output, but it's uncertain if it will be implemented in a future product 🥲.
Google is exploring using rings and bracelets control their AR glasses 💍. And guess is not falling behind, Apple is exploring that too with a smart ring to sense a user's health conditions, such as heart rate, blood oxygen, blood pressure and more.
It's great to see Google and Apple exploring more natural control schemes for smart glasses than just tapping the side of your head 🙉
New headset in the market! Pre-orders for the PlayStation VR 2 are now open 🎮 to everyone in the US and UK, with prices ranging from $549.99 to £529.99, and deliveries taking place between February 22nd and 28th, 2023.
Miscellaneous
Epic Games has announced that Fortnite will not be receiving VR support at this time. I must admit I’m disappointed because Fortnite recently got its massive Unreal Engine 5 update, and I thought it was in preparation for VR support. But not yet 🥲
🗃 Resources
New category, resources! Not sure how this will develop, but I want to bring you more value in this weekly email 👀
Read, watch, listen
📹 A reflection by Marques Brownlee on AI replacing creators, or not
📹 This creative technologist made a ghost typewriter powered by ChatGPT
To try/download
Get yourself a nice set of AI generated profile pics. I know, I know, this looks like when all the bros changed their Twitter avatar to NFTs, I know. But we are not bros here when the tech is real.
My honest review: after trying 3 different products, I LOVE LOVE LOVE them BUT I’m still not 100% happy with the results.
The ones I tried so far:
Lensa app (50 selfies for 7€ - there’s a 1 week free trial so no need to subscribe monthly)
Profilepicture.ai (120+ AI Avatars for 18€)
Avatarai.me (120+ AI Avatars for 14€)
Apps I might try next because they are trending in the Apple app store and buying AI selfies is my new hobby:
And that’s it for today! I have big plans for this newsletter for 2023, so you might start to see small improvements every week 🤓
As always, thank you so much for reading and see you again next Friday 💚
Rings and bracelets make so much sense as an input... much less intrusive than shouting "Hey Google" or something like that! Also makes you think about how Apple could utilize the Apple Watch for this sort of thing...