Drawshop Kingdom Reverse, a DAO-based P2E NFT game backed by KRUST Universe, a global blockchain investment giant, and Presto Labs, one of the largest algorithmic trading firms in Asia, is recruiting closed beta testers for the upcoming metaverse game Drawshop Kingdom Reverse, which is to be launched within Q1 of 2023. This milestone is a major move for the DKR team on its mission to create numerous utilities using JOY tokens and build a single P2E metaverse ecosystem.
This news comes in the wake of many recent accomplishments of the DKR Project, including DKR being appointed as one of the most innovative projects in South Korea by BTS Labs (Hong Kong) in September 2022.
Led by world-class game developers, game directors, and blockchain developers from KRAFTON and PATI games, the DKR Project aims to solve the problems of P2E gaming: lack of fun gaming experience and token inflation.
With creative IPs and game methodologies, the DKR Project offers players quests and challenges, making it more fun throughout the game. This free-to-play game gives players opportunities to create their Drawshop land, where they can grow and collect in-game currencies to upgrade their assets (Dolls and Machines) to make it profitable in the later stage.
Tailer Park, Director of DKR explained, “Players can’t get bored of playing the game, as new challenges will come up regularly. It is all about maximizing monetization within the game ecosystem, which will never bore our game players.”
Furthermore, DKR Project solves the chronic issue of token inflation by incorporating veNomics, which provides advanced staking and voting systems. DKR ecosystem runs in a fixed circulation that only can depreciate in number. Instead of selling the rewards, players are encouraged to utilize their $JOY by re-investment or via staking (sJOY) to increase their profits in the DKR ecosystem.
Yongjin Kim, Founder of Presto Labs, added, “Presto Labs is proud to be one of the first few backers for the DKR project. Engaging game contents with advanced tokenomics (veNomics) shall be their strong value proposition to win in the market.”
(L-R): Thales Australia & New Zealand CEO Jeff Connolly and Professor Emma Johnston, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) sign the MOU agreement. Image credit: University of Sydney
The University of Sydney and Thales Australia have extended their collaboration to carry on with research and development of game-changing technologies in aerospace, space, defence, and digital security sectors.
With an emphasis on digital technologies like big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was established in 2017 to conduct research, develop, and master emerging technologies.
The partnership extension will maintain the strong collaboration, which includes long-standing activities such as:
Intelligent Robotic Systems for Real-Time Asset Management Industry Transformation Research Hub of the Australian Research Council;
collaboration with the SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre on vision-based space object detection and tracking;
Research and development work centred on Autonomous Mine Countermeasures with the Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre (TAS-DCRC); and
The development of integrated optical components for communication and LIDAR (light detection and ranging) applications.
The university said its relationship with Thales Australia has also achieved excellent results through directly supported PhD programs in Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, and Electrical and Information Engineering. Thales also sponsors eight engineering industry positions and has supported direct research in Low Altitude Air Traffic Management for drone operations.
As the partnership progresses, both organisations seek to embed employees within each other’s organisations in order to accelerate the translation of research and development into community-impacting solutions, with a special emphasis on national security results.
Professor Emma Johnston, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), and Thales Australia and New Zealand CEO Jeff Connolly inked the new collaboration extension.
“Our researchers have the ideas and expertise that can help make Australia and the world a better place to live and this partnership accelerates the translation of our ideas into real-world impact. Some of the new projects we are excited about are collaborations with the University of Sydney Business School focused on drone operations and logistics – this is the type of work that can make a difference to daily life,” Professor Johnston said.
According to University of Sydney Dean of Engineering Professor Willy Zwaenepoel, the best ideas originate from teamwork, and working closely with Thales allows the university to ensure that research answers can be transformed into actual achievements.
“We look forward to growing the collaboration over the coming five years including finding new opportunities in our new faculty initiatives – the Digital Sciences Initiative and Net Zero Initiative,” Professor Zwaenepoel said.
Thales Australia and New Zealand Chief Technical Officer Dr John Best stated that “over the previous five years we have not only delivered some tremendous research outcomes, including application in support of key defence capabilities. We have also developed teams who are skilled in identifying the research challenge in practical problems and able to plan and execute a research program to deliver real impact to our customers and end users. We will further build this capability to strengthen our collaborative impact.”
Financial contagions can be triggered easily, if conditions are right. First one financial institution falls and then others follow, like a chain of falling dominoes.
The cinder that sparked the global financial crisis in 2007 is considered by many to have been a March 14 briefing by executives of the Lehman Brothers’ investment bank.
Under intense questioning from financial analysts, the executives admitted the bank had overstated the value of billions of dollars in subprime mortgages.
This news saw Lehman Brothers’ stock price crash, and led to investors losing faith in the entire edifice of complex financial deals that had been so profitable for banks and brokers.
As share prices fell, more investors scrambled to sell their stock, driving prices even lower. The contagion spread through global share, property and derivative markets.
Of course, it was a crisis waiting to happen. It took years to create the rickety system that collapsed under pressure. It was going to happen sooner or later. But it still needed a trigger.
We’re at a similar point in cryptocurrency markets.
2022’s major collapses
This year has seen several major crypto-related collapses.
In May the Terra/Luna cryptocurrency, considered a reputable stablecoin with a total market cap of US$31 billion in April, was wiped out.
In July the US-based crytocurrency lender Celsius, with assets valued at US$12 billion in May, went bankrupt.
Then in November, FTX – one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, valued at $US32 billion at the beginning of 2022 – collapsed, taking with it the assets of 1.2 million customers.
Binance fears
Crypto owners are spooked, waiting for the next exchange to drop.
Last week it looked as if that might be the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, after customers withdrew US$1.9 billion of assets in 24 hours.
To put that in perspective, that’s just 3.5% of the US$55 billion in assets Binance reported it was holding on December 18. Binance says withdrawals have settled down.
But the panic was real enough – apparently triggered by some large depositors interpreting a trading halt for one of Binance’s listed coins as signifying something more serious.
Centralised exchanges are a risk
In any market crisis there’s always an underlying problem that provides the fuel for a cinder to spark.
In this case the problem is that Binance and other centralised crypto exchanges (known as CEX) are riskier than other ways to store crypto assets.
There are good reasons for any crypto owner, after seeing what happened with FTX, another centralised exchange, to withdraw their assets.
The lesson from FTX is that if you don’t have self-custody of your crypto assets, you have no real control.
Centralised cryptocurrency exchanges are more like banks than exchanges. They act as custodians, holding customers’ crypto or fiat currency, similar to holding money in a bank account.
But banks are regulated – in part to minimise the disastrous “bank runs” that occurred regularly in the past.
This includes a global regulatory framework known as the Basel prudential guidelines, introduced in 1988 to ensure every bank holds enough capital and sufficient liquidity to meet withdrawals. It also requires banks to report financial information on a regular basis.
We take all this for granted. But it didn’t happen magically. It’s a function of careful planning based on strict minimum liquidity and capital requirements imposed by banking regulators.
Containing the next crisis
Banks are closely supervised because they hold most of the money in the economy. For the economy to function it is vital that people can store money safely and securely, and accessed when required.
We need the same oversight of cryptocurrency.
Every centralised crypto exchange is in danger if customers’ withdrawals exceed its liquid assets. If it can’t cover withdrawals, it must freeze customers’ accounts. At that point the end is nigh. This is what happened with FTX – albeit the person making the most problematic withdrawals was founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
The next big crypto collapse is not a question of “if” but “when” – and whether governments can work quickly enough to build the regulatory buffers to stop collapse leading to contagion.
It may not be possible to avert a crisis, but it can be contained.
Samsung Electronics today announced the development of its 16-gigabit (Gb) DDR5 DRAM built using the industry’s first 12-nanometer (nm)-class process technology, as well as the completion of product evaluation for compatibility with AMD.
“Our 12nm-range DRAM will be a key enabler in driving market-wide adoption of DDR5 DRAM,” said Jooyoung Lee, Executive Vice President of DRAM Product & Technology at Samsung Electronics. “With exceptional performance and power efficiency, we expect our new DRAM to serve as the foundation for more sustainable operations in areas such as next-generation computing, data centers and AI-driven systems.”
“Innovation often requires close collaboration with industry partners to push the bounds of technology,” said Joe Macri, Senior VP, Corporate Fellow and Client, Compute and Graphics CTO at AMD. “We are thrilled to once again collaborate with Samsung, particularly on introducing DDR5 memory products that are optimized and validated on ‘Zen’ platforms.”
This technological leap was made possible through the use of a new high-κ material that increases cell capacitance and proprietary design technology that improves critical circuit characteristics. Combined with advanced, multi-layer extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, the new DRAM features the industry’s highest die density, which enables a 20 percent gain in wafer productivity.
Leveraging the latest DDR5 standard, Samsung’s 12nm-class DRAM will help unlock speeds of up to 7.2 gigabits per second (Gbps). This translates into processing two 30 gigabyte (GB) UHD movies in just one second.
The new DRAM’s exceptional speed is matched by greater power efficiency. Consuming up to 23 percent less power than the previous DRAM, the 12nm-class DRAM will be an ideal solution for global IT companies pursuing more environment-friendly operations.
With mass production set to begin in 2023, Samsung plans to broaden its DRAM lineup built on this cutting-edge 12nm-class process technology into a wide range of market segments as it continues to work with industry partners to support the rapid expansion of next-generation computing.
TeamViewer has announced that GlobalFoundries (GF) has used TeamViewer’s Augmented Reality (AR) platform Frontline to digitally modernise its warehouse operations at its Dresden location.
In a statement, TeamViewer said GF realised significant benefits from the installation of TeamViewer’s solution, including up to 25 per cent faster warehouse process execution, improved staff ergonomics, a picking error rate near to nil, and a decrease in waste of around 100,000 paper sheets per year.
“At GF, we always strive to improve our operational efficiencies to better fulfill our customers’ needs. When looking for a solution to digitally transform and improve our warehouse operations, we found that an Augmented Reality based solution could really make a difference for us. Now, with the roll-out of TeamViewer Frontline, we were able to take efficiency, accuracy and sustainability of warehouse logistics to a whole new level,” GF Senior Director of Logistics Kevin Hidalgo said.
Executive Vice President Solution Sales and Delivery Jan Junker stated: “Around 80 percent of the global workforce is not working at a desk, but in manufacturing, production, logistics or field service. With our AR solutions, enterprises have the first-time opportunity to also digitalize the tasks and processes from these areas and seamlessly connect the workers to the company’s existing digital infrastructure. The benefits that GlobalFoundries achieved in such short time speak for themselves.”
At the GF warehouse, the software leads warehouse workers through the picking process with clear step-by-step instructions presented right in their field of view on the smart glasses. Together with the integrated voice control, it provides workers with 100 per cent hands-free information, entirely replacing the previous paper-based approach.
According to TeamViewer, the entire TeamViewer Frontline implementation at GF’s Dresden location took approximately 10 weeks. TeamViewer is collaborating with GF to discover further ways to use the technology and is investigating use cases other than vision picking.
Each year, Fast Company’s panel of editors and writers investigate the world of technology to showcase what it believes to be the Next Big Thing in Tech across companies of all sizes, from multinationals to start-ups. This year Lenovo was chosen, alongside 120 other companies, that demonstrated fresh thinking, and cutting-edge technology. Lenovo was highlighted as one of several companies trying to make the world a better place by tackling basic societal problems.
It’s the mission of technology innovation to solve pain points and problems confronting people and society. Lenovo’s research team developed the Lenovo Future Classroom to solve many problems that exist in traditional classroom teaching and online education.
Developed during a global pandemic, which shifted learning from the classroom to online, the Lenovo Future Classroom, developed by Lenovo Research, is a highly interactive immersive learning environment where teaching and learning can be conducted in a mixed reality and holographic way.
With the Lenovo Future Classroom, teachers can create an immersive educational experience without the need for specialist VR/AR headsets. They can fully interact with virtual content in ways they’ve been unable to before, and this technology has now been deployed across several universities in China.
The Lenovo Future Classroom is an important part of Lenovo’s efforts to reimagine education of the future over the next five years, both for local, in-person classroom teaching and for remote, virtual teaching. The Lenovo Future Classroom allows teachers to conduct virtual experiments that can pose risks in the real-world, and help with observations that could be difficult outside of a state-of-the-art laboratory, for example the study of microscopic particles, the solar system and beyond.
The technology also has the potential to change the future of remote teaching, allowing teachers to bring together students from across different campuses, cities, and countries, helping them deliver the same learning experience in an engaging way, improving educational equity for those who have difficulty accessing quality educational resources.
We think 2022 will be remembered as a year when foundational pieces of technology enabling our vision for the future made their way into the hands of developers and users for the first time. This October, Meta shipped several of them in Meta Quest Pro: Mixed reality is a key part of the journey toward full augmented reality devices, and eye and face tracking are essential pieces of the technology stack needed for AR and VR devices to reach their full potential. Quest Pro also brought important advances in display and optics that will move VR hardware forward for the long term.
The long-term value of these technologies will come from how they’re adopted by the ecosystem of developers, creators, and builders that has formed around these devices. That’s why I’m especially proud that we shipped Quest Pro when we did, because the sooner people can begin working with new technology like this, the sooner its full value and potential can be unlocked. We’ll be living with the benefits of this work for decades to come.
Introducing Meta Reality: Mixed Reality Is More Than Just a Video Feed
Mixed reality is about much more than just displaying a live video feed of your surroundings inside the headset. For it to work properly, the headset needs to understand your room as a 3D space, recognizing the surfaces and objects around you and how they can interact with digital objects. It requires technologies like Spatial Anchors, which allow virtual things to occupy fixed spaces in the physical world, as well as Scene Understanding for reconstructing physical spaces virtually, as well as stereoscopic color Passthrough, for capturing the physical world and representing it accurately in the headset with a sense of depth for greater comfort. Meta Reality, our system for mixed reality, combines all these technologies and more into a single system for developers to build with.
Unlocking Advanced Experiences with Eye and Face Tracking
Eye and face tracking have a wealth of possibilities, both today and long into the future. Right now, eye and face tracking are delivering more expressive avatars on Meta Quest Pro, allowing people’s digital selves to more closely match their real-world facial expressions. This is one of many steps we’re taking to create an avatar system that can improve the quality of communication, expression, and connection in virtual spaces — and we’ll have plenty more to share on this in 2023.
But the longer-term possibilities unlocked by eye and face tracking technology go far beyond avatars. Our vision for true AR glasses will require years of progress making our devices slimmer, lighter, faster, and more powerful, all while consuming way less battery power and generating much less heat. One major efficiency gain will come when devices are smart enough to only render the highest-resolution graphics in the small area where a user is actually looking. This October we demonstrated this capability for the first time thanks to the eye tracking technology on Quest Pro, and it’s going to be driving progress in VR and AR for many years to come.
Introducing Infinite Display: Measuring Visual Quality in VR
The visual quality of a VR device depends on a range of technologies that go beyond the typical metrics we’ve used when describing the displays on a computer, TV or phone. Along with display resolution, factors like system resolution, sharpness, contrast and color range each play an important part. So does the optical stack itself, where lenses, coatings and films each make a huge difference. We recently shared more detail on how each of these come together in Meta’s Infinite Display system for VR optics, the product of years of investment in research and development for VR and AR technologies. That R&D will continue paying off long into the future, and earlier this year we showcased some of the research prototypes we’ve built to demonstrate these next-generation display technologies.
Supporting the Virtual World-Building Community
We also saw the beginnings of a new community of creators on our platforms: the virtual world builders. It’s not often you get to witness a whole new way of self-expression and community building emerge on a platform, and the ways creators worked their magic on Horizon Worlds this year was a thing to behold. We’re going to spend 2023 focused on helping this community flourish.
Meta is far from the only company working on pushing the boundaries here, and we expect to see new competitors joining us in building for AR and VR next year. As new devices hit the market, we believe our industry will enter a new era of growth and competition that will bring enormous benefits to users and the developer community. And Meta will have new devices of its own to share, including the successor to Meta Quest 2, our all-time best selling VR device. You’re going to love it. And you’re definitely going to love the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase in Spring, where we’ll once again show off some of the awesome new games coming in the next year.
Tencent Cloud announced a partnership with Nexon Co., Ltd., to accelerate the launch of its mobile app NEXOTOWN.
NEXONTOWN, now available in South Korea, is a metaverse platform that houses open halls, camping sites, classrooms, and conference halls where players engage with each other in the virtual world, utilising items and characters from Nexon’s online games.
Tencent Real-Time Communications (TRTC)-powered NEXONTOWN currently enables users to speak with other gamers, with real-time video conferencing and a feature for trading in-game stuff on the way. In addition to regular audio and video calls, TRTC enables NEXONTOWN to access features like high resistance, with up to 80 per cent audio packet loss rate and 50 per cent video packet loss rate, as well as dedicated line-level ultra-low latency, with an end-to-end anchor’s latency of within 300ms, meeting the needs of real-time interaction.
The advanced TRAE audio 3A engine, energy competition-based in-room audio mixing, special audio technology, code rate reduction of non-ROI area, time-domain SVC tech, as well as low threshold and fast access and high concurrency support are just a few of the industry-leading ultra-high quality audio and video features that Tencent Cloud offers NEXONTOWN.
“We look forward to more possibilities that will be unlocked by virtual world platforms. In line with this, we are pleased to be providing a one-stop metaverse solution including real-time audio and video services for NEXONTOWN, a mobile app that houses virtual venues, pushing forward digitalization and opening more doors for various metaverse events and functions,” Tencent Cloud International Senior Vice President Poshu Yeung said.
Sehyoung Oh, Department Manager, NPlatform Business Department of Nexon, said, “NEXONTOWN welcomes everyone to a world of virtual gatherings and events, powered up by high-quality and high-performance services via Tencent Cloud. We look forward to reaping more benefits from Tencent Cloud’s one-stop solution, which makes NEXONTOWN’s virtual halls, classrooms and conference sites more engaging, interactive and realistic.”
In addition to TRTC, Tencent Cloud provides access to its interactive media and communication services to game publishers worldwide. These services, which include the Game Multimedia Engine (GME), Stream Services, Instant Messaging, and Media Processing Services, among many others, aid game publishers in building a comprehensive service platform for cross-product communication, interaction, and transactions for players of various games.
Businesses may now use various metaverse-related services offered by Tencent Cloud To give their users complete immersion and realism in the virtual world. These include digital individuals and avatars like hosts, salespeople, and customer service representatives, as well as avatars created using real-time face swapping and cloud rendering. Virtual simulation, virtual cities, and virtual campuses are also included.
Tencent Cloud has recently launched Tencent Cloud Media Services, an international audio and video solution brand centred on industry-leading, comprehensive, and simple-to-use media solutions to help build immersive experiences. Tencent Cloud provides comprehensive support for organisations to establish their metaverse company and prosper in the hyper-realistic digital world, drawing on Tencent Cloud’s years of experience in gaming and audio/video areas. The metaverse solution leverages state-of-the-art computing, storage, network, and audio/video technologies such as smart codec and AI to provide one-stop technical services for various metaverse projects.
Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (SRI-B) today inaugurated the Samsung Innovation Campus program at the Cambridge Institute of Technology (CIT) in Bengaluru to upskill youth in future tech domains such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data and Coding & Programming. This initiative strengthens Samsung’s commitment towards the Government’s Skill India initiative as part of its vision of #PoweringDigitalIndia.
At the classroom facility, students and faculty at CIT will work on advanced technology training as well as projects on domains such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Coding & Programming, making students industry-ready. Through the integration of technology, basic software skills and emerging capabilities, the program seeks to empower its participants to grow into well-rounded professionals.
Additionally, engineers from SRI-B will mentor the faculty at CIT to bridge the industry-academia gap.
Mr. Mohan Rao Goli, Chief Technology Officer, SRI-B and Mr. DK Mohan, Chairman, Cambridge Group of Institution inaugurated the Samsung Innovation Campus at CIT along with Padmashri Prof RM Vasagam, Scientist at ISRO and Chairman, Aerospace Engineering Division Board, The Institution of Engineers (India). Other guests included Mr. Sanjeev Prasad, Head HR, SRI-B, Mr. Srimanu Prasad, Head, Tech Strategy, SRI-B, Mr. Nithin Mohan, CEO, Cambridge Group of Institutions and Dr. G. Indumathi, Principal, Cambridge Institute of Technology.
“The goal of the Samsung Innovation Campus is to contribute to the development of India by empowering youth with education. We are very excited about the launch of Samsung Innovation Campus at CIT that will empower students with skills to not only improve their digital literacy, learning abilities, creativity and imagination but also create opportunities for them in future tech domains. This will further boost new India’s growth story and strengthen our commitment to Powering Digital India,” said Mr.Mohan Rao Goli, Chief Technology Officer, Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore.
“Samsung Innovation Campus is a great initiative to bring one of the finest global technology leaders, Samsung and CIT together to form a classroom dedicated to cutting edge technologies. We are privileged that Samsung reached out to CIT to serve as a partner for this pioneering initiative. We are aware that we have a lot of work to do to deliver results and will do everything to make it a success. I am confident that our cooperation with Samsung opens a new page in our capacity to contribute to the development of our students and ultimately, India,” said Mr. DK Mohan, Chairman, Cambridge Group of Institutions.
Youth enrolled for the program will undergo classroom and online training and complete their hands-on capstone project work in their selected technology areas from among Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data and Coding & Programming.
The demand for engineers/scientists with knowledge in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data is high. The Samsung Innovation Campus curriculum is designed to help close the skills gap and make students industry-ready.
Samsung Innovation Campus acts as a hub for students and professors to work with SRI-B experts, enabling them to have an in-depth understanding through hands-on exposure and by solving real-world challenges using cutting-edge technologies.
As part of its collaboration with the Institute, Samsung has also setup a Data Lab at the campus. The Samsung SEED Lab (Student Ecosystem for Engineered Data) in the Institute premises will enable lab members, faculty and students to work on AI & Data Science projects under the mentorship of SRI-B. The lab plans to execute projects by establishing an end-to-end pipeline for data, which includes data collection, data engineering (curation, labelling, data management archival, etc).
The Samsung SEED Lab, which is a collaborative initiative between SRI-B and CIT for five years, is spread across 1,800 sq ft. In its initial phase, the lab has been equipped with facilities, such as servers, data acquisition devices, quality analysis tools, among others. It also has a backend infrastructure to store, process and archive large volumes of data. In the subsequent phases, the in-house capabilities of the lab will be expanded to cater for technologies such as 3D and AR/VR.
ASX-listed drone manufacturer Nightingale Intelligence Systems is wrapping up the year with new contracts with global giants including energy company Haliburton and global information management company Iron Mountain.
In an ASX announcement, Nightingale said it has seen unparalleled growth since its inception only a few years ago, with notable existing clients such as the US Air Force, Ineos, Lyondell Bassell, Sanofi, and Snowy Hydro.
The company said these contracts demonstrate the versatility of Nightingale’s proprietary technology across multiple industries, as well as its strategy of focusing on physical security in a bid to add deputy in features specifically designed for security applications.
Nightingale also executed technology and partnerships with Magos Systems, ShotSpotter, Harris Radio, ProWatch, Exacqvision, ATAK, and Genetec.
Its partnership with advanced radar technology provider Magos System is aimed at enabling the dispatch of a drone to a triggered event detected from a Magos ground radar unit.
Nightingale is also working with gunshot detection system provider ShotSpotter to develop and advance precision policing solutions, allowing the dispatch of a drone to a gunshot event for faster response than a patrol car.
Furthermore, with its number of clients in the Defence industry, Nightingale can now send C2, video, and telemetry data through Harris radio units.
“Nightingale is delighted to be partnering with these iconic companies, and they are symbolic of our continued expansion and traction across the market globally. The diversity of the industries and verticals represented by these clients is indicative of Nightingale’s focus on physical security as well as the demand for security automation across different industries,” said Jack Wu, Nightingale Security’s chief executive officer.
“Physical security is a team sport, not an individual sport. Nightingale is clear on its role as a force multiplier and the benefits of integration as it makes the combined solution a much more useful security stack. It also increases the value of existing security infrastructures that Nightingale’s customers have already invested in. It’s a case of 1+2 being greater than 3.”
The company says it plans to continue innovating its solutions with other technological advancements planned for 2023.
