🔒 "Not Guilty"
Apple's Mixed Reality, Polygon, Shopify 🛍️
Gm tech enthusiasts,
I hope you all had a fabulous holiday season and are ready to tackle the new year. We are kicking off the new year with some news focused towards the future, from Apple’s headsets to ChatGPT4.
The value of both Solana and Cardano spiked by over 21% late Sunday, with Dogecoin hitting 3-week high as well. Finally some greenery entered coinmarketcap:
Let’s dive in.
Headlines 📰
“Not Guilty”. 🧯
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud, conspiracy, campaign finance law violations, and money laundering. Ex-Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX Co-founder Gary Wang already pleaded guilty last month to criminal charges, hoping to get a deal. Ellison acknowledged she knew that what both firms were doing was “wrong,” that there were commingling of funds from start, and that she knew the money taken out of FTX would come from customer funds. Not sure if judges will buy what SBF is selling.
Shopify to cancel all meetings. ❌
Shopify announced cancelling all meetings with more than two people to save time. I’m curious what this will bring — because while meetings longer than 30 minutes / more crowded than 6 people don’t really provide much value, there still is a benefit to be gained from brainstorming and free-flowing conversation (especially for remote workers.) On the other hand, sometimes there are so many meetings that employees can’t find time to actually do the work. Elon is similar in this mindset - he says he encourages to “walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value.” (Shopify is known for its web3 initiatives as well)
Apple’s Mixed Reality. 🕶️
Apple’s mixed-reality headset has become the iPhone maker’s most hotly anticipated new product of 2023. The biggest question is whether the headset would have the revolutionary impact the original iPhone did on the smartphone market. We know that it will be mixed reality with a button that enables VR to turn into AR. The goal is of course to have an AR glasses that is not cumbersome, and the mixed reality headset will be a step towards that direction. What I’m confident about: 1) It will be expensive. 2) It will get a lot of press. 3) It won’t be for the mainstream user, but the XR-curious and developers.
Off to Polygon. 📳
Tthe startup behind top Solana NFT collections DeGods and y00ts, DeLabs, reportedly received a $3 million grant to move y00ts to Polygon. Though Polygon is known for its partnerships this came to me as a surprise as well.
Speed Round 🕺
Tech layoffs are happening faster than at any time during the pandemic (well yes,
RTFKT COO Nikhil Gopalani was hacked by a “clever phisher” who stole his NFT collection.
Coinbase NFT dropped a Rolling Stone x Pussy Riot NFT called MATRIARCHY NOW.
Microsoft claims it has no idea when Call of Duty came out — as part of the blockage of its Activision Blizzard acquisition.
Hermès and the creator of the NFT collection MetaBirkins, Mason Rothchild, are set to go to trial starting January 30, 2023.
AI researchers say GPT-4 could pass Bar Exam
Foundation is releasing a new creator tool, Worlds.
Tesla delivered a record 1.31 million cars in 2022 despite Elon being Elon
Did you know that Unstoppable WoW3 has a Metaverse headquarters in Decentraland?
Amazon confirmed plans to lay off over 18k workers. Patagonia layoffs continue!
Coinbase reached a $100M settlement with New York regulators, pumping its stock price. The platform will pay half as a fine for breaching anti-money laundering laws due to letting customers open accounts without proper KYCs.
New York City schools have banned ChatGPT, citing rampant student cheating.
Apple has been fined $8.5 million for illegally collecting iPhone user's data for ads. Also, EU regulators fined Meta $414 million yesterday after ruling that the company illegally required Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp users there to opt in to personalized ads.
Tweet Check. 🐦
New Article. 🖊
I wrote about the new social app built on blockchain, which was shared by the company and the founder on Twitter. Read it on 137pm here.
Reading List. 📚
-Aleyna
Disclaimer: Investing in NFTs comes with inherent risk including technical risk, human error, platform failure and more. This newsletter is strictly educational and nothing we offer is financial advice. We are not professionals or licensed advisors. Views my own and not any other company I’m affiliated with.
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