Former Twitter India head, Manish Maheshwari, quits his latest metaverse EdTech venture Invact Metaversity. The EdTech startup is an educational company that has been set in the metaverse.
Over the last few days, we have been in the news, more than we have ever been! So here is the official update. Manish Maheshwari has stepped down from his position as Chief Executive Officer and Director of Invact, Inc. as of May 27, 2022.
This new development was revealed by Maheshwari last Friday through a Tweet on the microblogging platform. After this episode, Tanay Pratap, Invact Metaversity’s co-founder and chief technology officer, will take over as the company’s new CEO.
In his tweet, he mentioned he is leaving the firm to take a break for a few months before looking for other chances. “It is heartbreaking for a founder to leave the startup, like a mother leaving her baby. I am going through the same emotion,” he added in his tweet.
In December 2021, Maheshwari and former Microsoft executive Pratap founded Invact Metaversity.
To date, the company has raised $5 million from 70 prominent global executives and entrepreneurs, including Kishore Biyani of Future Group and Mohandas Pai of Infosys.
On Twitter, Maheshwari’s angel investor Gergely Orosz alleged Maheshwari is keeping the firm “hostage” and that he misled the company’s investors. However, this was deleted soon after it was posted.
According to some, the cause of this development is that one founder wanted the firm to be an edtech company, while the other wanted it to be a metaverse enterprise. Maheshwari had said earlier, “At Invact Metaversity, we do not want to be another online school. We started with a vision to deliver a significantly differentiated learning experience for students, leveraging the metaverse’s potential.”
He also added that they have arrived at a fork in the road and are considering their options. Moreover, he also revealed his disagreements with Pratap about the company’s goal.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, in collaboration with Nurithm Lab, has released DermaAid, a smartphone app that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose skin diseases.
The primary goal of this artificial intelligence-enabled application is to address access and accuracy issues in the clinical diagnosis of dermatological illnesses, such as skin and oral cancers.
Dr. Somesh Gupta, a Professor in the Department of Dermatology and Venereology at AIIMS, revealed this development to PTI.
According to him, DermaAId is a mobile app that utilizes a machine learning AI-driven algorithm to make a simple smartphone with a 1 MP camera into a skincare tool. Moreover, the newly launched AI app will perform as a clinical decision support tool for general practitioners to enhance their capacity and awareness of skin problems.
Dr. Gupta said, “The technology behind the app is deceptively simple. A doctor takes a photo of lesions on a patient’s body and uploads them to the cloud server. Within 15-30 seconds, the app provides possible disease conditions based on machine analysis of images.”
He further added that the actual diagnosis happens in the backend as the dermatologist-level categorization of skin problems and treatment choices are provided by the AI machine learning algorithms located on the secure server. Acne, psoriasis, eczema, vitiligo, tinea, male alopecia, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma are among skin diseases that the app can detect.
Interestingly, the application has a commendable accuracy of nearly 80%, mentioned officials. The application has the potential to revolutionize the country’s healthcare system as there will be more healthcare data available and faster development of smart analytics. Dr. Gupta claims that India has 12.5 lakh, allopathic practitioners, with only 3.71 lakh having specialized or post-graduate credentials, according to estimates from the Union Health Ministry.
“The app can be handy, especially in rural India where general practitioners are not readily available, and healthcare workers can address the immediate needs. It can also be deployed to screen oral cancer,” he added.
Global audit, tax, and advisory services providing company KPMG partners with American software company Blue J to develop tax analysis tools for the UK market that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to support decision-making on complex tax issues.
With its cooperation with Blue J, KPMG UK hopes to harness Blue J’s expertise in predictive analytics tools for tax attorneys and accountants to develop a new tool that would reduce the time consumed in complicated tax filings for its employees in the United Kingdom.
Chief Expertise Officer – Tax & Authorized at KPMG, Stuart Tait, said, “The Blue J know-how helps us to navigate sophisticated laws and case legislation, which dramatically reduces the time it takes to analyze technical positions and can assist with the large caseload.”
He further added that they expect that by freeing up our employees’ time, they will be able to devote more resources to collaborating with their clients on their most pressing business issues. They will be able to estimate tax scenario outcomes with greater than 90% accuracy and four times the speed of typical research approaches like keyword and Boolean searches, thanks to AI.
Blue J’s tool is now available to all 2,500 of KPMG’s tax and legal experts, and Tait says it will speed up the firm’s technical analysis and increase the timeliness and accuracy of advice provided to customers.
“This decade will see unimaginable progress within the sophistication of study instruments that use AI to allow professionals to ship superior outcomes for his or her purchasers, in a much more environment-friendly method than beforehand attainable,” said CEO of Blue J, Benjamin Alarie. Benjamin also mentioned that KPMG is at the forefront of this trend, and they are thrilled to be working with them on this solution.
The Delhi Traffic Police plans to soon deploy an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS) in the streets of the national capital.
This new development is a step by the authorities to reduce congestion and facilitate faster vehicular movement in Delhi, which to date has been a huge concern.
According to officials, the new system, which is based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, would be critical in permitting speedy access to emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks.
The AI-powered traffic management system will be able to synchronize all the traffic signals and make decisions regarding traffic lights.
“We have been given eight months for the project, and the first detailed project report must be prepared after surveying the traffic at 42 junctions to cover 1,200 signals and 600 blinkers. It has to be submitted by November this year,” said Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic Headquarters-II) SK Singh.
He further added that The department had signed an agreement with the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) for an integrated traffic management system, and the assignment has been allocated to a consulting firm.
Moreover, a green channel will be included in the new AI-enabled traffic management system to make it easier for emergency vehicles to move about.
Earlier, Chandigarh also announced its plans to adopt a similar AI-powered system to smoothen the traffic conditions in the region.
Delhi’s traffic management system will also be connected with all municipally controlled parking lots to notify vehicles of available parking spaces before arriving at the event.
“They can look for updates on the Municipality Corporation of Delhi’s mobile application, which will generate a pop-up message. It will also be linked with Google maps,” SK Singh.
Last December, Metaverse grabbed headlines across the world for unfortunate reasons. In the metaverse VR platform Horizon Worlds from Meta, a beta tester reported she was virtually “groped.” The incident which took place on November 26, was officially reported by Meta on Dec 1. The incident sparked debate on the definition and jurisdiction of ‘crimes’ that could possibly take place in the metaverse. Most recently, the UAE’s artificial intelligence minister, Omar Sultan Al Olama, told the gathering at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday that he believes persons who commit “serious crimes” in the metaverse should face real-world criminal consequences.
From a technical perspective, the metaverse is just the internet’s successor. The metaverse is commonly thought of as an embodied internet. This means you may engage and have tactile sensations in a setting that is almost genuine but not quite. Everything is a virtual replica!
Although it does not yet exist, tech behemoths are already pouring billions of dollars into its development. However, there are a number of safety issues surrounding its development.
Omar Sultan Al Olama stated that the realistic nature of any metaverse that emerges might allow individuals to be terrified in ways that aren’t now feasible. He explained that if he sends you a text on WhatsApp, it may terrify you, but it will not trigger the memories that will cause you to develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). However, in the metaverse, if he murders someone, it will be an aggressive and undesirable act that qualifies as a crime, he continued.
It is crucial to note that PTSD is not necessarily trigged in the manner Omar explained. Because PTSD can be triggered by a variety of circumstances, there is no physiological benchmark by which it appears. Clinical diagnosis is accomplished via observation and conversations with medical professionals.
Al Olama encouraged the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations’ specialized organization for information and communication technologies, to hold a discussion about establishing international metaverse safety rules that individuals must follow regardless of where they reside. On the internet, for example, there are agreed rules to prohibit drug trafficking and child pornography.
Furthermore, Al Olama noted that migration from one metaverse platform to another must be feasible, implying the development of interoperability across different metaverse platforms created by different firms. Chris Cox, the chief product officer at Meta agreed with the minister and remarked that the world should be led by international rules when it comes to the metaverse.
However, developing laws and regulations around crimes in the metaverse won’t be easy. For instance, will these laws be written to protect people or protect virtual avatars and people who write codes that populate the metaverse? What about ‘violence’ that already happens in the virtual worlds of gaming including gaming in the metaverse?
As the metaverse promises to merge both the real and virtual world, there are key ethical questions that arise. What should users do? What exactly is the distinction between right and wrong? Is it possible to commit homicide in the metaverse? What does justice entail?
While it may seem reasonable to prohibit exceptionally unpleasant content, like images of child sexual assault, things become murkier in the virtual world while understanding what constitutes to be labeled as virtual “murder.” This is an argument that surely exceeds the definition of the term in the real world, as metaverse exists ‘virtually’; thus wrestling the minds of lawmakers.
Not only murder, anything that is considered illegal in the real world, will require a new definition in the metaverse. Let us say, someone, shoplifts or steals some inventory (no we are not trying to make a Les Miserable version in metaverse), the first concern is what’s the worth of the item that was stolen? Is the worth something that can be measured in virtual currency or does it have any real-world value? Or is it an NFT? If it is an NFT, the avatar who stole it is a hacker who has now transferred to it an untraceable wallet address?
This emphasizes how difficult it is to describe even virtual stealing when virtual objects are fictitious. You can’t “steal” something that doesn’t exist. This is also one of the reasons why there have not been any convictions regarding the theft of virtual assets. To make things worse, metaverse users may also have a hard time clarifying the difference between virtual and digital objects to law enforcers, due to a lack of guidelines.
In addition, there’s the conundrum of who gets to decide what should be considered illegal in the metaverse. Furthermore, legislators will need to be proactive in ensuring that Metaverse technology is compliant with data protection standards.
At the same time, while user-on-user crimes such as cyber trespassing, deceit, assault, obscenity, and harassment already occur on the internet, there’s no reason they won’t exist in the metaverse as well. So, if things go unchecked owing to law loopholes on the metaverse, expect to be targeted and harassed for your race, gender, political inclination, and just about any opinion or belief you express in the metaverse.
There is, however, a silver lining: earlier this year, the South Korean Communications Commission convened a meeting to examine user protection on the metaverse, particularly the issue of sexual harassment targeting children. The council, which is part of the Korea Communications Commission, is made up of 30 media, legal, technology, and industrial management specialists who will debate metaverse concerns including violence, sexual crime, and inclusion. The measure requires the platforms to disclose any sexual offenses to law enforcement officials immediately.
There have been several instances in the metaverse when youngsters have been harassed or have been sexually exploited. A 14-year-old girl was forced into taking off her avatar’s clothes in a metaverse and then told to make her avatar engage in sexual activities, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in September 2021.
South Korea has been strongly open to the notion of metaverse for months now. Earlier this year, the Korean government made news when it revealed intentions to invest 224 billion Korean won (almost $200 million) in its local “metaverse ecosystem.”
Even UAE is not lagging behind to ensure its stance in the metaverse industry. In order to capitalize on prospects in the metaverse, the Dubai government has announced the formation of a dedicated task force to follow the latest advancements in the digital economy.
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, and Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Finance, issued the directives to establish the task force at a meeting of the Dubai Council on May 19. The strategy intends to boost the metaverse sector’s contribution to Dubai’s economy to $4 billion by 2030 and to enhance its GDP contribution to 1%.
Global financial service provider JPMorgan has identified a new use of blockchain technology in trading and lending, reports Bloomberg.
JPMorgan is experimenting with blockchain for collateral settlements, the latest Wall Street test of the technology in traditional financial asset trade.
According to JPMorgan, in New York, the initiative will allow investors to pledge a broader range of assets as collateral and utilize them outside of market hours.
The bank’s first such transaction took place on May 20, when two of its businesses used its private blockchain to transfer the token representation of BlackRock money market fund shares as security.
Ben Challice, JPMorgan’s global head of trading service, said, “What we’ve achieved is the friction-less transfer of collateral assets on an instantaneous basis.”
He further added that despite the fact that BlackRock was not a counterparty, they have been substantially involved since the beginning and are looking at using this technology.
Since late 2020, JPMorgan has utilized blockchain to perform intraday repurchase, or repo, transactions, which are a sort of fixed-income short-term borrowing. The network, which includes Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and BNP Paribas SA as partners, has handled more than $300 billion in repo transactions.
The bank wants to extend tokenized collaterals to cover stocks, fixed income, and other asset categories in the coming months, according to the statement.
Global eCommerce giant Amazon Style announces the launch of its first artificial intelligence (AI)-powered physical retail store in Los Angeles, United States.
The store will sell men’s and women’s clothing, shoes, and accessories in sizes XS-XXL. In addition to Whole Foods and its cashier-free Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh grocery shops, Amazon now operates three physical locations.
Amazon Style will feature Levi’s, Tommy Hilfiger, Champion, and other labels, and while it will not have Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, it will have actual workers on hand to assist you from beginning to end.
“We’re bringing more looks and less clutter to in-store shopping. Our advanced machine learning algorithms continually refine to find looks just for you based on your preferences,” mentioned Amazon.
The company’s highly capable machine learning algorithm analyzes the preferences of customers to recommend the best suitable item for them, and according to Amazon, it also continuously refines itself to deliver better results.
Talking about the design, the fitting rooms at Amazon Style are private locations where customers may browse an almost unlimited array of outfits without having to leave.
Customers just scan QR codes on each article of clothing in the store to build a list of goods they’d want to try on in a fitting room or pick up in the store. Therefore, the store effectively eliminates the need to carry bulky items around, providing an enhanced shopping experience to walk-in customers.
Moreover, customers can order garments on Amazon.com, have them delivered to the store, try them on, and return them there if they really do not like them.
Be it any sort of business, small or big, it requires advertising and marketing in today’s world. Including videos in your marketing strategy makes a smart choice as videos are a must-have to capitalise on your brand, generate more leads, and engage people for a longer span. However, the thought of a tight budget for small businesses often holds people back from investing in video advertisements. But, little they may know, with the advent of technology and increase in digitalization, video ads and marketing for any business have become pretty easy.
Videos are the most popular content online, which empowers your brand visibility. Many brands are already involved in video advertising strategy, while others are keenly looking forward to implementing it to get expected returns and other associated benefits. Nevertheless, many businesses, especially small businesses, are still far away from using this practice.
Through this post, we will let you know the best video advertising tips for small businesses that will help expand your business and stay ahead of competitors in the market.
Making effective videos for small businesses
The whole idea behind making videos is to reach out to maximum people. Videos are considered to drive wide internet traffic. Small businesses looking to venture into video advertisements need proper resources, time, investment, and commitment to get the desired results. By following the below-given tips, you can create effective advertisement videos for small businesses.
Using a good editing tool
To create the videos rightly and perfectly, you need to invest in a good video editing tool. These video tools transform your videos into attractive pieces, which people would like to see. A good video editor is defined as the one that lets you do editing by adding different audio and visual effects to your content. Using a video editor, you can make any kind of video, such as a promo, explainer, how-to, unboxing, and so on. A video editor also comes with a video cutter or trimmer to help you remove unwanted parts from your video. Interestingly, many video editing tools provide an option of pre-made templates, making the editing job easy by giving you designs to make some attractive video pieces.
Keeping in mind the platform for publishing your video
After you have done the needed editing and trimmed important pieces of your video using a video cutter, it’s time to work on the adjustments needed in your video as per the platform you will post it on. Since not all video platforms are the same, you need to tailor the length and style of your video content as per the social media.
Apart from this, you must also know on which social media platform you have more followers, and then optimise your videos accordingly for that platform.
Don’t waste time and get to the point
Did you know that viewers tend to watch only interesting videos and skip those that are lengthy and pointless? Therefore, you must keep your videos short and crisp while ensuring to create a hook in the starting. To grab the attention of the viewers, consider adding relevant points in your video from the beginning itself, i.e., within the first few seconds so that people continue to watch it. You can use a good video cutter to delete unwanted parts from your video ads to make them look worthy.
Show your specialty
Being humble with your videos won’t do any justice. Your videos must reveal a strong message while concentrating on attractive audio and visual effects to make an impression on those who are watching. So, add a storyline and showcase interesting aspects related to your business to keep viewers engaged.
Don’t miss out on CTA
Creating a storyline and keeping the audience engaged is one thing. But, you also need to add a CTA to your view for people to take the next step. Therefore, add a CTA at the end of your video content to keep people engaged further with your brand and encourage conversions.
Some additional tips for your small business video advertising strategy
Give an edge to your small business by making short and interesting video ads for social media sites. Below are some more tips for leveraging your video advertising strategy.
Ensure testing
A/B testing is crucial for the success of the video ad. You can use different methodologies to track your video success. If you can find the correct combination, you can get the expected ROI.
Stick to one CTA
End your video with one CTA while ensuring that it is relevant to your video content and appropriate for the viewers.
KPIs
Setting KPI is a great idea. When you know what you are expecting from your ad campaign, you can easily draw the ways to accomplish your goals while knowing whether your marketing strategy is working well or not.
Mobile view optimization
The majority of the people prefer watching videos on their mobiles. Therefore, using a mobile editing tool to adjust video dimensions for a mobile-friendly view is essential. So, invest in a decent video maker tool to showcase a professionally created video ad.
Keep things entertaining
Your videos should be compelling and to the point while delivering an accurate message. Most people miss out on keeping the fun and entertainment in video ads alive to achieve this. So, if you want to convert your leads to customers, make sure to add that touch of fun.
Take help from the team
It’s true that video making can sometimes go out of budget and burn a hole in your pocket. But, you can always keep your budget within limits by encouraging your teammates or employees to act in video ads instead of opting for professionals. Such videos with real players are not just cost-effective but also keep the true essence alive.
Conclusion
Video advertising is the secret to success for any business, and who said it cannot be done for small businesses. Video advertising, when done rightly, can leverage any business while bringing the desired benefits. We hope with this post, you shall be able to take your business ahead and become a key player in the market!
A new program of the New York State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA) and tech startup Intuition Robotics aims to provide a companion robot named ElliQ to several isolated seniors.
According to officials, the robot can send medication reminders, wellness suggestions, and friendly conversations from a “proactive and empathetic” in-home artificial intelligence.
Researchers have connected social isolation to a 50 percent higher chance of dementia, a 32 percent higher risk of stroke, and a 29 percent higher risk of heart disease. Therefore, the new initiative might drastically help in reducing these numbers by providing a companion robot to isolated seniors in the region.
Moreover, the robot also comes with a screen that can display pictures, weather-related information, and also handle video calls, making it a highly capable robot.
“Despite misconceptions and generalizations, older adults embrace new technology, especially when they see it is designed by older adults to meet their needs,” said Greg Olsen, Director of NYSOFA.
He further added that ElliQ is an excellent addition to traditional kinds of social engagement and help from professional or family members for persons who experience some sort of loneliness and desire to age in place.
ElliQ focuses on what matters most to people, such as memories, life validation, connections with friends and family, and general health and well-being. According to an Intuition Robotics official, the initiative will begin with an informative webinar for the state’s case managers on May 31, following which they can begin nominating seniors who they feel would benefit the most from having ElliQ in their homes.
CEO and Co-founder of Intuition Robotics, Dor Skuler, said, “Many seniors live on a fixed income, so having state or federal programs to help alleviate loneliness is crucial in order to get ElliQ into the hands of seniors who can benefit from the technology.”
Global technology giant IBM announces the launch of its new Elastic storage system 3500, which is specifically built to handle high-performance artificial intelligence (AI) and modern data analytics workloads.
The newly launched storage system outperforms the rest of the company’s software-defined portfolio thanks to a mix of new hardware and the IBM Spectrum Scale.
IBM Elastic Storage System (ESS) 3500 combines IBM Spectrum Scale for ESS with high-performance Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) Generation 4 storage in a 2U form factor.
According to the company, its new solution improves the speed and availability of other workloads while also accelerating AI workloads and optimizing GPU compute settings.
“ESS 3500 is built on a flash-optimized design with an end-to-end strategy to bring extremely high throughput and low latency to AI, machine learning, deep learning, and multi-cloud environments. ESS 3500 is designed from the ground up with AI in mind, combining innovative, flexible, and powerful NVMe storage built with IBM Spectrum Scale to meet the challenges of keeping your GPU-rich compute servers fully utilized,” mentioned IBM.
Moreover, other workloads and computing environments benefit from the ESS 3500’s industry-leading performance and dependability. According to the company’s spec sheet, the flash storage uses PCIe Gen 4 SSDs with a throughput of up to 91 Gbps when combined with the CPU.
The array can expand from 46 TB to over 1 PB utilizing a 2.5 compression rate, and the sustained throughput can be raised to 1.8 TBps when scaling the ESS 3500 to a cluster of 20 units.
