📔 Weekly Journal: Epic Games Metaverse Pivot

[6 min read] Your weekend guide to getting ahead on the digital frontier. Today, the usual market news as well as Epic Games commitment to an interconnected metaverse connecting Disney with Fortnite

Welcome to this week’s Weekly Journal 📔, your guide to the latest news & innovation in emerging technology, digital assets, and our exciting path to the Metaverse. This is week 108 of the 520 weeks of newsletters I have committed to, a decade of documenting our physical and digital lives converge.

New subscribers are encouraged to check out the history & purpose of this newsletter as well as the archive.

- Ryan

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🌐 Digital Assets Market Update

To me, the Metaverse is the convergence of physical & virtual lives. As we work, play and socialise in virtual worlds, we need virtual currencies & assets. These have now reached mainstream finance as a defined asset class:

🔥🗺️ 7-day heatmap below, showing the current share of the market for the top cryptocurrencies, and their change in price over the last week.

🎭 Crypto Fear and Greed Index is based on volatility, social media sentiments, surveys, market momentum, and a few other bits and pieces.

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🗞️ Interesting news from this week

Epic Games’ Future Plans: Epic Games has outlined its vision for the coming years, focusing on unifying its development tools into an interoperable Unreal Engine 6. This integration aims to allow developers to create applications deployable across multiple platforms, including games like Fortnite. Epic is also collaborating with Disney to create a persistent universe interoperable with Fortnite, emphasizing the company’s commitment to an interconnected metaverse.

Meta Releases AI Model to Enhance Metaverse Experience: Meta has introduced an AI model named Meta Motivo, designed to control the movements of human-like digital agents, thereby enhancing the realism of avatars in the metaverse. This initiative is part of Meta’s substantial investments in AI and metaverse technologies, with capital expenditures projected between $37 billion and $40 billion for 2024.

Valentino Metaverse Integration into Physical Retail: Valentino Beauty’s recent pop-up in New York showcased the blending of metaverse technology with physical retail. Visitors could digitally try on new products using smart mirrors, enhancing the shopping experience. This trend reflects a broader movement in fashion and beauty towards combining digital and physical experiences to engage consumers more interactively.

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👓 Read of the Week: “Epic Has a Plan for the Rest of the Decade”

This article (The Verge) delves into Epic Games’ ambitious vision for the metaverse, including the integration of Unreal Engine 6 and the creation of a persistent, interoperable universe. It provides insights into how Epic plans to bridge gaming, entertainment, and technology while partnering with major brands like Disney to define the future of connected virtual worlds.

It’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in the evolution of the metaverse and its real-world applications.

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🎥 Watch of the week: “Web3 Gaming Explained (2024)”

This video provides a comprehensive breakdown of Web3 gaming as of 2024, exploring its evolution, current trends, and future prospects. It delves into how blockchain technology is transforming the gaming industry, offering insights into decentralized gaming ecosystems, player ownership of in-game assets, and the integration of cryptocurrencies and NFTs in gaming.

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AI 🎨🤖🎵✍🏼

In the Metaverse, AI will be critical for creating intelligent virtual environments and avatars that can understand and respond to users with human-like cognition and natural interactions:

AI’s Influence on Human Desires: Cambridge Researchers Sound the Alarm: Researchers at Cambridge University have raised significant ethical concerns about the potential for artificial intelligence to map and manipulate human desires. Their findings suggest that advanced AI models could soon be capable of understanding human intentions with unprecedented precision, which raises questions about the autonomy of individual decision-making.

The study delves into how AI could exploit data patterns to predict and influence user behaviour, especially in areas like advertising, political campaigns, and personalised content delivery. While the researchers acknowledge the benefits of tailored experiences, they warn that these capabilities could also erode privacy and challenge ethical boundaries.

This revelation has sparked a broader conversation about how to safeguard against the misuse of AI in ways that might compromise individual agency. Experts are calling for stricter regulations and ethical guidelines to ensure that AI systems are designed with transparency and respect for user autonomy. For those invested in the intersection of technology and ethics, this development underscores the urgent need for frameworks that balance innovation with moral responsibility.

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That’s all for the free version this week! If you have any organisations in mind that could benefit from learning about emerging technology, be sure to reach out. Educational workshops are one of many consulting services I offer.

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DCA With Me 🤑

Dollar Cost Averaging is an investment strategy in which an investor regularly invests a fixed amount of money into a particular asset/asset class at regular intervals, regardless of its current market cycle. By doing so, the investor can reduce the impact of market volatility and potentially earn a better return over time. Motto = time IN the market beats trying to time the market

To experiment with this, I invest $50 NZD into a Digital Asset every week. Each week I will choose an asset that seems underpriced in the short term and has positive long-term potential. My timeframe is 3-5 years. I don’t give financial advice but if you want to follow along with me you can use my easycrypto.co.nz referral link to support this newsletter. Let’s dive into this week’s pick: