OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which took the world by the storm after its launch in November, is now facing a temporary ban in Italy over “unlawful” personal data collection and the lack of an age verification system for children.
The Italian data protection agency, known as Garante, was prompted to act by ChatGPT’s data breach on March 20, which, according to OpenAI, allowed a number of users to see other users’ information, such as their first and last name, email address, and the last four digits of their credit card number.
Garante accused the US-based AI company of having “no legal basis” that justifies “the massive collection and processing of personal data” it needs to “train the algorithms on which the platform relies.” It also added that the lack of an age verification mechanism exposes children to “inappropriate” responses.
As a result, on Friday, the Italian regulator opened an investigation into OpenAI and has temporarily blocked access to GhatGPT in the country.
In response, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altam tweeted that GhatGPT has ceased its services in Italy, stating, however, that he didn’t think the company had violated any privacy laws.
We of course defer to the Italian government and have ceased offering ChatGPT in Italy (though we think we are following all privacy laws).
Italy is one of my favorite countries and I look forward to visiting again soon!
Open AI has 16 days to respond with appropriate safety measures, or it could risk either a fine of up to €20 million or 4% of its total worldwide annual turnover.
Rising concerns
ChatGPT’s stirring capabilities are breeding growing concerns over the exponential advancement of generative AI.
In late March, the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) called for EU and national authorities to investigate OpenAI’s system.
“For all the benefits AI can bring to our society, we are currently not protected enough from the harm it can cause people,” Ursula Pachl, Deputy Director General of BEUC, said in a statement.
The organisation fears that until the union’s AI Act takes effect, consumers will be at risk of harm from a technology which is not sufficiently regulated, and for which they’re not prepared.
Across the Atlantic, an open letter signed by AI experts and industry executives called for AI labs to immediately pause for at least six months the training of systems more powerful than GPT-4, ChatGPT’s successor.
The signatories — including researchers at DeepMind, computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, and Elon Musk — highlighted the need for regulatory policies, stressing that “powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”
Tech industry opposition
The Italian regulator’s move to suspend access to ChatGPT could lead to a loss of economic opportunities in the country, Daniele Servadei, founder of Bologna-based SaaS ecommerce startup Sellix, told TNW.
“It limits the development and growth of the AI and tech sectors, preventing local companies from harnessing the technology,” he said.
Servadei further noted that the ban could have” a chilling effect” on AI development in Italy and beyond, “as developers and investors may fear future bans or restrictions on their products, which could hinder innovation and investment in the sector.”
Simone Basso, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Milan-based travel scaleup WeRoad, also stressed the potential negative impact on local businesses.
“ChatGPT has enhanced productivity for teams at WeRoad and worldwide, but recent decisions in Italy — from banning research on synthetic meat to holding back 5G rollouts — have hindered the country’s technology, innovation, and productivity growth,” Basson told TNW.
Basson added that while consumers can circumvent Garante’s restrictions using a VPN, companies with solutions based on such technologies “face uncertainty” and will be forced to prioritise other markets.
Is Italy setting a precedent for Europe?
While ChatGPT was already unavailable in mainland China, Hong Kong, Iran, Russia, and parts of Africa, Italy is the first Western country to take action against the AI system.
Germany could soon follow Italy’s lead, Ulrich Kelber, the German data protection commissioner, toldHandelsblatt.
Meanwhile, authorities in France and Ireland are in contact with the Italian regulator, Reuters reports.
“We are following up with the Italian regulator,” said a spokesperson for Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner. “We will coordinate with all EU data protection authorities in relation to this matter.”
The regulators’ concerns about ChatGPT — along with its popularity, as the fastest-growing consumer app in history — singal the need for co-ordinated and transparent EU policies that regulate the use and development of large language models.
It’s still unclear how ChatGPT and similar models will be impacted by the EU’s impending AI Act, which aims to strike a tricky balance between safety and innovation.
For the Fectar AR and VR content creation platform users, creating XR content with hand tracking feature has just become simpler and easier.
Launched in 2020, Fectar is “the multi-sided platform that makes the metaverse accessible for everyone, everywhere.” Focused on creating AR and VR spaces for education, training, onboarding, events, and more, and aimed at non-technical users, the company provides a cross-platform, no-code AR/VR building tool.
Last week, Fectar integrated the Ultraleap hand tracking feature within its AR and VR content creation platform, allowing users to build VR training experiences with hand tracking from the beginning.
AR and VR Content Creation With Integrated Ultraleap Hand Tracking
Ultraleap was founded in 2019 when Leap Motion was acquired by Ultrahaptics, and the two companies were rebranded under the new name. Ultraleap’s hand tracking and mid-air haptic technologies allow XR users to engage with the digital world naturally – with their hands, and without touchscreens, keypads, and controllers.
Thanks to the Ultraleap feature, Fectar’s users will now be able to create and share immersive VR experiences that use hands, rather than VR controllers. According to Ultraleap, this makes the interaction more intuitive, positively impacts the training outcomes, reduces the effort of adoption, and makes the experiences more accessible.
Non-Technical People Can Develop Immersive Experiences
The new addition to the AR and VR content creation platform is a strategic decision for Fectar. The company’s target clients are non-technical content creators. They don’t need to know how to code to create VR apps and tools, including training programs.
This is, in fact, one of the most frequent use cases of the Fectar AR and VR content creation platform. “We want our customers to be able to create world-class VR training experiences,” said Fectar CTO and founder, Rens Lensvelt, in a press release. “By introducing Ultraleap hand tracking to our platform we’re giving them an opportunity to level up their programs by adding an intuitive interaction method.”
VR Programs and Tools – the Future of Collaborative Work and Training
Virtual reality content has expanded beyond the field of games or applications for entertainment. VR is part of education and training, medicine, business, banking, and, actually, any kind of work.
This is why an AR and VR content creation platform for non-technical users, like Fectar, is so successful. Companies worldwide want to create their own training and collaborative VR tools, without hiring developers.
“The combination of Ultraleap and Fectar provides people with the right tools they need to develop the best education or training programs – and makes it easy to do so. We already know that enterprise VR programs improve productivity by 32%,” said Matt Tullis, Ultraleap VP of XR. “By making that experience even more natural with hand tracking, Fectar customers can expect to see their VR training ROI increase even further.”
In a world of screens and pixels bright, Where virtual worlds come to life, We step into a realm of sight, A place where reality takes flight.
With headsets strapped and controllers held, We enter a realm of the unknown, Where limitless possibilities are spelled, And our imaginations are grown.
VR becomes increasingly part of society, A new way to escape and explore, A place where we can be anyone we want to be, And experience adventures like never before.
From gaming to education, To work and entertainment too, VR holds endless fascination, And we’re just beginning to see what it can do.
But as we immerse ourselves in this new dimension, We must remember the world outside, For though virtual reality holds our attention, It’s in the real world where we reside.
Parisians overwhelmingly voted to ban e-scooters on Sunday, in a hotly-debated referendum that hasdivided the French capital.
Voters were given two choices: “for” or “against” a city-wide ban on shared e-scooters.
89% voted in favour of the ban, but the overall turnout was low, with only 7.5% of eligible voters casting ballots.
The vote was non-binding but city authorities havevowed to “abide by the decision”, said Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
The streets of Paris will be cleared from shared e-scooters by September 1, the mayor said. That’s when the contract with Dott, Tier, and Lime — the three e-scooter providers currently operating in the city — will expire.
The ban will not have an effect on the e-bikes offered by shared micro-mobility companies, which will remain in the city.
Despite welcoming e-scooters with open arms in 2018, Paris’ local government has progressively tightened its grip over the past five years, enforcing designated parking zones and speed limits, and restricting the number of operators.
But despite the regulations, concerns over safety, following several fatalaccidents, and complaints about scooters blocking sidewalks and disrupting other commuters, brought the issue to a head, with many calling for an outright ban.
Mayor Hidalgo agreed, saying the e-scooters were a “source of tension and worry.” But instead of banning them outright, she brought the decision to the people.
In January, the mayorannounced what she described as a “public consultation”, to settle the issue ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The e-scooter operators quickly launched a counter-offensive, offering free rides to all users that vote in their favour, and employing social media influencers to back their cause. But to no avail.
With the results now in, Paris is now set to become the first European capital to ban the mode of transport.
Berlin-based Tier Mobility, Amsterdam-based Dott, and San Francisco-based Lime said they were “disappointed” by the news.
The operatorssaid in a joint statement that the deployment of only 21 ballot stations and no option to vote digitally led to “an extremely low turnout, heavily skewed toward older age groups.”
In 2022, Paris recorded about 20 million trips on 15,000 shared e-scooters — 71% of these users were under 35. Many riders are also tourists, who don’t get to vote.
Some would have preferred a middle ground in the voting process.
Transport Minister Clement Beaune supports a continuation of e-scooters in Paris, but with more rules. He pointed to statistics that suggest e-scooters have replaced up to one in five journeys that would otherwise have been made with emissions-producing vehicles.
Mayor Hidalgo, on the other hand, called the result “a victory for local democracy.”
Hadi Karam, general manager for France at Lime, told AFP last week that Paris was going “against the current” in seeking to ban rental e-scooters.
Elsewhere in France, the mayor of Lyon, France’s third largest city, has just agreed to a four-year extension of its contract with Tier and Dott.
Further afield, New York, London, and Madrid are all expanding the use of e-scooters in a bid to decarbonise their transport systems.
It remains to be seen whether Paris’ ban on e-scooters will encourage other cities to follow suit, but it does represent a major blow for Dott, Tier, and Lime, who have now been barred from operating in one of the world’s largest shared micro-mobility markets.
Some of Europe’s hottest startups arrived at TNW València last week to develop ideas, expand networks, create new leads, and — and most importantly of all — fight.
Not in the physical sense, of course, but in a fiercely-contested TNW València pitch battle. After surviving a series of fiery knockout clashes, eight of Europe’s most electrifying startups were selected for the contest final on Friday.
València provided the perfect stage for the showdown. The region is Spain’s fastest-growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, with the most startups per capita in the country. It was also bathed in glorious sunshine — but this was no vacation for the contenders. With thousands in attendance, an all-star jury on the front row, and a springboard to success on the line, the stakes were high for all the startups.
To the victor goes an array of spoils, including a 4 square-meter turnkey booth at TNW Valencia 2024 and two business passes for TNW Conference in Amsterdam on June 15-16. But best of all the prizes — and I say this without a scintilla of bias — is a full feature on TNW’s wonderful website by our marvellous media team.
Before we reveal the winner, here are the eight elite finalists who pitched for first place.
Internxt
Internxt was the first startup to qualify for the final battle. Credit: TNW
Many of today’s biggest internet companies are essentially data mining companies. Google, for instance, generates over 80% of its revenue from advertising, which it amasses by leveraging user data for ad targeting.
Internxt has created an alternative model: data storage that respects user privacy.
The València-based startup provides an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service, which means nobody can see your files. Founded in 2020, the company has positioned itself as a privacy-centric competitor to Google Drive.
“We provide an easy way to manage, share, and store user data in a completely private way,” says Joan Mora, head of data and analytics at Internxt.
Users can get 10GB of free storage. If they need more, premium subscriptions that provide from 20GB to 2TB are available for as little as low as €0.89 per month.
Sophie’s Bionutrients
Eugene Wang founded Sophie’s Bionutrients after his daughter suffered an allergic reaction. Credit: Sophie’s Bionutrients
Sophie’s Bionutrients has reimagined protein production. It’s the first company in the world that uses microalgae to develop 100% plant-based and sustainable alternative protein.
The microalgae is cultivated inside bio-reactors and harvested within days. This rapid process also minimizes the quantity of energy and water that’s required.
Both the idea and name for the company came from the daughter of Eugene Wang, the co-founder and CEO of Sophie’s Nutrients.
“Sophie is allergic to shellfish,” says Wang. “That’s how the whole thing started — I was looking for a way for people to get nutrition from the ocean without using the animals.”
The startup began life in Singapore, before moving its headquarters to the alt-protein hotspot “Food Valley” in the Netherlands. Wang now plans to take the product around the world, in a B2B business model that will first target small and medium-sized food manufacturers.
CAPS
CAPS wants to make urban flights a daily routine. Credit: CAPS
CAPS is developing a product that seems futuristic: an urban aircraft for single passengers. Yet the company expects the tech will soon be available to the public.
“My strong belief is that you will be experimenting with flights in urban areas within the next 10 years,” says Paul Cass, CEO of CAPS. “For that to properly be done, it has to be quiet, safe, and affordable.”
The startup’s founders got the idea after growing sick of their long commute to college. In a garage, they began to assemble a more convenient alternative: a flying car.
Their concept evolved into a driverless aircraft for single-passenger trips in urban areas. Both small and entirely-electric, the vehicle is built for a quiet flight with optimum security. In case of technical trouble or emergencies, a professional driver in the company’s operating centre can remotely control the aircraft.
CAPS is confident that the design offers the safety, affordability, and practicality needed for mass adoption. With the world’s electric air taxi network scheduled to launch in 2024, the vision could be closer to reality than it first appears.
Wenalyze
The Wenalyze team is led by CEO Carlos Albo (second from right). Credit: Wenalyze
In tricky economic times, these companies face mounting challenges. Insurers can provide a safety net, but bad information is reducing the security. According to Wenalyze, insurance companies have 47% of their data wrong, leading to underinsurance and premium leakage.
The Spanish startup wants to reduce the risks. The company uses open data analytics to correct, update, and enrich SME information. As a result, insurers, banks, and financial institutions can offer their clients the right coverage.
To access the enhanced insights, users only need to enter the name and address of the SME. Wenalyze’s system will then analyse open data sources and deliver real-time results.
“By protecting SMEs, we protect our economy,” says Carlos Albo, CEO and co-founder of Wenalyze.
Therminer
Therminer has an unusual recycling plan. Credit: Therminer
Amid a global energy crisis, the vast electricity consumption of data centres has become a pressing concern. But even greater harm to our climate comes from heating, which comprises half of the world’s total energy consumption. That’s roughly the same imapct as electricity and transportation combined.
Therminer has created a system that addresses both concerns: a cooling solution for servers that reduces their energy consumption and recycles the wasted heat to warm buildings.
According to Gonzalo García, CEO and co-founder of Therminer, the system cuts 95% of the energy consumed to cool servers — and recycles 90% of the heat they release. “Our competitive advantage from the data centre perspective is that we can reduce operational costs and our data centres are more sustainable,” he says.
From its base in València, Therminer produce the hardware, installs it in homes, and manages the data centre services. The initial target for the system is single-family homes.
“They can use our waste heat and we can create a decentralised network of data centres and then sell hosting power,” says García.
Chaise Longue
Affordable comfort is an elusive pleasure on flights. Credit: Chaise Longue
Flying economy is rarely a pleasurable experience, but Chaise Longue believes comfort doesn’t have to cost a fortune — and has the chair to prove it.
The Madrid-based startup has created a double-decker airplane seat configuration. The design increases comfort, reduces cabin weight, and provides at least the same passenger capacity. Best of all, it’s made for economy class.
The extra space comes from maximising the cabin’s verticle volume. Overhead luggage compartments are removed, with bags instead stored in bays under seats. The result is bigger recline angles, extended leg room, and more overall space.
The modular structure is designed for swift integration into existing aircraft. According to Alejandro Núñez, Chaise Longue’s founder, CEO, and designer, most leading airlines are interested in the system — and planes are just the start.
“We are also moving into other industries such as trains, buses, and ferries — for the lowest class and for the cheapest tickets,” says Núñez. “We are trying to improve that experience for everyone.”
Nightstream
Nightstream has spotted a big gap in Twitch’s business model. Credit: Nightstream
Twitch enjoyed explosive growth during the pandemic, and still consistently doubles its pre-COVID audience numbers. Many advertisers, however, remain wary of entering the market, which can appear too large and complicated. Nightstream wants to help these brands to grow alongside smaller streamers.
The startup found that brands currently use just 250 streamers to advertise. That means that oer 1.5 million daily viewers — and 95% of streamers — are being overlooked. Nightstream’s software is designed to capitalise on these opportunities.
The company’s tools and services allow brands to connect with streamers that will reach their target audience. Streamers, meanwhile, get the chance to build their audiences, earn money, and win prizes.
Brands are given data dashboards and analytic tools to analyse the performance of each player in the ecosystems. Nighstream also picks moderators for each streamer and brand, which further strengthens the partnership. To increase the streamers’ audiences, the startup rewards viewers as they become part of the communities.
“With our API and software, they can develop and connect directly with brands that don’t have enough money to connect with the biggest streamers,” says Luis Ruiz Climent, co-founder of Nightwatch.
Crowmie
Crowmie uses blockchain to decentralise energy investment. Credit: Crowmie
Crowmie has invented a unique approach to sustainability: the first investment platform in tokenised renewable energy projects.
The concept aims to turbocharge the adoption of renewable energy, while democratising investment in the sector. At present, the vast majority of the market is controlled by large energy generators, which are financed by the traditional banking system. Crowmie allows the public to make their own contributions — and get returns.
After registering, the user can invest a minimum of just €100 in any asset on the platform. The user receives tokens in return. These entitle them to monthly rents for the electricity generated and sold by the energy project. Users can also sell the tokens to another investor at any time.
The investment is used to build facilities that produce electricity. Once built, the projects generate renewable electricity that’s sold to the grid. Profits from this sale are distributed among investors according to the number of tokens they hold.
“We have completely changed the way of investing in traditional assets, accelerating the energy transition, supporting the business fabric, and allowing anyone in the world to invest from just 100 euros,” says Fernando Dávila, CEO and co-founder of Crowmie.
The future of tech was on display throughout TNW València. Credit: TNW
The winning pitch
All eight finalists would make worthy champions, but there can only be one winner of the pitch battle. To find who our all-star jury chose for the grand prize, follow our coverage of TNW València next week.
For those of you who couldn’t attend the event in-person, we hope to see you next year, for more pitches, talks, learning, networking, and festival vibe in beautiful València.
VRChat, the popular social VR platform, announced that flatscreen ports for both Android and iOS are currently in development.
The company says in a developer blog that while there’s still no release date on the books, the Android version has already been used by team members to attend large meetings.
Additionally, the Android version will support any world or avatar that works on Meta Quest, since the standalone also runs Android.
Here’s a quick look at an early build, which the studio stresses isn’t a final version:
VRChat on Android Mobile will only be available to VRChatPlus subscribers, the studio says, offering it as a beta to polish UI and UX before a full public launch. Beta access is expected to arrive to VRChat Plus members in three to four months. The full public launch on Google Play is expected in three to six months after the beta release, the studio says.
VRChat on iOS however is expected later, with more details to follow. The studio says it will be more complex, as content will need to be rebuilt for the iOS platform since it uses a different graphics framework.
The addition of iOS support is also slated to fracture VRChat worlds into three distinct supported platforms instead of the previous two, which for now includes PC and Quest. The studio maintains the situation is “[n]ot ideal”.
VRChat isn’t the first social VR app to offer flatscreen versions on mobile. Competitor Rec Room offers the widest network of supported devices, which in addition to VR support on Quest, PSVR and SteamVR headsets also includes flatscreen support for iOS, Android, Xbox, and PS4/PS5.
Meta’s own Horizon Worlds platform is also set to launch on non-Quest devices sometime soon, which will include both the Web and mobile versions.
Ming-Chi Kuo, a respected supply chain analyst, reports that Apple is tamping down enthusiasm for its upcoming mixed reality headset, which was rumored to see its big announcement at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June.
In a tweet, Kuo reports Apple is delaying release of its MR headset due to decreased optimism in recreating the “iPhone moment” the company was hoping to achieve with the device.
Kuo, an analyst at Asia-Pacific financial services group TF International Securities, is widely considered one of the most accurate voices in predicting Apple releases. Kuo has made many predictions in the past based on supply chain movements, including Apple’s 2020 switch to its own custom ARM-based processors for Mac computers, the 2019 release of a new MacBook Pro with a 16-inch display, and the release of the entry-level iPad with an A13 chip in 2021—just to name a few.
Kuo says Apple’s MR headset, which is reportedly codenamed N301, is being pushed back “another 1-2 months to mid-to-late 3Q23,” noting that the assembly line delay could mean we won’t see the new device at WWDC 2023 in early June as previously reported by The Financial Timesearlier this month.
It was said Apple CEO Tim Cook was a leading force in pushing the device’s launch this year, something that’s reportedly been a source of tension between the Apple chief and the industrial design team since the company began efforts in 2016.
Furthermore, Kuo says that due to the device’s delay in mass production, “the shipment forecast this year is only 200,000 to 300,000 units, lower than the market consensus of 500,000 units or more.”
“The main concerns for Apple not being very optimistic regarding the market feedback to the AR/MR headset announcement include the economic downturn, compromises on some hardware specifications for mass production (such as weight), the readiness of the ecosystem and applications, a high selling price (USD 3,000-4,000 or even higher), etc,” Kuo concludes.
If you’ve been following with the Apple rumor mill for the past few years, you’ll know there are almost too many reports to name at this point. To simplify, we’ve included a list of the headset’s rumored features and specs which we’ve collated from those reports.
Take note, none of the info below has been confirmed by Apple, so please take it with a large grain of salt.
Rumored Apple MR Specs
Resolution: Dual Micro OLED displays at 4K resolution (per eye)
FOV: 120-degrees, similar to Valve Index
Chipset: Two 5nm chips. Includes a main SoC (CPU, GPU, and memory) and a dedicated image signal processor (ISP). Chips communicate via a custom streaming codec to combat latency.
Battery: Waist-mounted battery, connected via MagSafe-like power cable to the headset’s headband. Two-hour max battery life, although hotswappable for longer sessions.
Passthrough: ISP chip contains custom high-bandwidth memory made by SK Hynix, providing low latency color passthrough
Audio: H2 chip, providing ultra-low latency connection with the second-generation AirPods Pro and future AirPods models. No 3.5mm and possible no support for non-AirPod BT headphones.
Controller: Apple is said to favor hand-tracking and voice recognition to control the headset, but it has tested a “wand” and a “finger thimble” as alternative control input methods.
Prescription Lenses: Magnetically attachable custom prescription lenses for glasses-wearers.
IPD Adjustment: Automatic, motorized adjustment to match the wearer’s interpupillary distance.
Eye Tracking: At least one camera per-eye for things like avatar presence and foveated rendering
Face & Body Tracking: More than a dozen cameras and sensors capture both facial expressions and body movements, including the user’s legs.
Room Tracking: Both short- and long-range LiDAR scanners to map surfaces and distances in three dimensions.
App Compatibility: Said to have the ability to run existing iOS apps in 2D.
Price: $3,000 – $4,000
Design Rumors
Outer Shell: Aluminum, glass, and carbon fiber to reduce its size and weight. Cameras are largely concealed for aesthetic reasons.
Presence Displays: Outward-facing display can show user’s facial expressions and also presumably eye movements. Said to be an always-on display similar in latency and power draw of Apple Watch or iPhone 14 Pro.
Dedicated Passthrough Switch: Digital Crown-like dial on its right side to switch between VR and passthrough.
Headstrap: Various available, including consumer-focused headstrap similar in material to Apple Watch sport bands with built-in speakers. Unspecified, but different headstrap targeted at developers.
Once predominantly known for IKEA, Ericsson, and Volvo, in the past decade, Sweden has emerged as one the most valued tech ecosystems in Europe, with Stockholm ranking as the fifth top performer in 2021.
The success of Swedish startups such as Tink and Spotify has turned the capital city into a world-renowned tech hub, attracting the attention of international investors — and for good reason.
Stockholm is home to nearly 3,000 startups and scaleups, and counts 208 VC investors and 101,000 tech employees.
The city has also bred more tech unicorns per capita than any other region in the world except for Silicon Valley — that is, 0.8 per 100,000 inhabitants. Some of those unicorns include the buy-now-pay-later fintech firm Klarna, lithium-ion battery developer Northvolt, and e-mobility provider Voi.
Stockholm’s fertile landscape reflects Sweden’s overall growth in the tech sector. Last year alone, the Nordic nation not only retained its place as the EU’s best-performing innovation leader, but also emerged as Europe’s fourth top ranking country in VC funding per capita, reaching $540 (€504).
To get a closer look at the city’s thriving ecosystem, we’re zooming in on six trailblazing local startups and scaleups.
Let’s dive in.
Exeger
Founded in 2009 by Giovanni Fili, the Swedish deeptech scaleup has developed a unique solar cell, Powerfoyle, which can be seamlessly integrated into existing devices and convert all forms of light to virtually endless energy.
Unlike typical solar cells, Powerfoyle is a silicon-free technology, and thanks to a special dye, it absorbs indoor and outdoor light through a process called artificial photosynthesis.
Giovanni Fili holding a Powerfoyle strip. Credit: Exeger
For Fili, who has a multi-year background in entrepreneurship and the commercialisation of high-tech innovations, looking into the everyday applications of solar power was a natural step.
“We realised after a few years that this had a huge potential because we can screen print this solar cell, which allows a free-form design with different shapes, colors, and textures,” Fili tells me.
Now, 14 years later, Exeger has raised over €180 million across 12 funding rounds, counts more than 200 employees, and owns two solar-cell factories in Stockholm.
From left to right: The Urbanista Phoenix, the Adidas RPT-02 Sol, and the Urbanista Los Angeles. Credit: Exeger
According to Fili, it’s all about providing consumers with energy independence, while also increasing product sustainability and reducing battery or cable waste.
For Exeger, Powerfoyle’s flexibility and customisable nature means the sky is the limit. The company recently secured a partnership with SES-imagotag to provide an alternative source of power to the electronic labels and IoT devices the company supplies to retailers. The scaleup envisions further applications for its technology in consumer electronics, IoT, and smart workplaces.
Sesamy
Sesamy was co-founded in 2021 by Måns Ulvestam, Karl Rosander, and Markus Ahlstrand — the same trio that founded Acast, the global podcast giant.
Sesamy also operates in the digital media realm, but with a focus on news and magazine content. The company targets publishers who want to offer their readers an option to purchase a single article as a complement to subscriptions.
“Our mission is to enable people to actually pay for good quality journalism, while helping publishers increase their incremental revenue,” Ulvestam tells me. And based on the company’s data, consumers are willing to pay on average €2 per article.
In case a reader purchases three or four articles from the same outlet, Sesamy’s Smart Software can identify whether it would cost them less to become a subscriber and prompts them accordingly, driving further engagement. “Some of the data we have so far are very encouraging; 5.5% of the readers buying a single-purchase article then become subscribers,” Ulvestam notes.
Co-founders Måns Ulvestam and Karl Rosander. Credit: Sesamy
The startup counts eight publisher partners so far, boasting three big Swedish outlets: Breakit, Kvartal, and Nyheter24. Currently, Sweden is the company’s focus market, being “at the forefront when it comes to thinking about how to monetize news,” co-founder Karl Rosander says. Nevertheless, Sesamy is looking into expanding into other European countries as well.
Sesamy’s current business focus is to engage with as many outlets as possible in order to collect enough data on publisher revenue and consumer behaviour and thereby further develop its software — and, in time, for instance, suggest dynamic pricing based on the articles’ length, exclusivity, etc.
Apart from the pay-per-article option, the startup’s software platform offers various interchangeable web components including the integration of services such as payment methods, third-party webhooks, and social media login.
In November, Sesamy raised €3.3 million during its second seed round, bring its total to €7.3 million.
X Shore
The award-winning electric boat manufacturer aims to facilitate the transition to maritime emobility by combining Scandinavian design with technology, innovation, and sustainability.
The startup was founded in 2016 by one of Sweden’s best-known entrepreneurs, Konrad Bergström, but has been reinvented since 2019, when Jenny Keisu took over as CEO.
CEO Jenny Keisu. Credit: X Shore
For Keisu, who has an extensive background in business law and impact investing, achieving price parity with fossil fuel-powered boats while offering high-performance vessels is key to the industry’s net-zero transition. And that’s what X Shore set out to do.
In September 2022, the company launched its second model, the X Shore 1, following the release of its first commercial boat, the Eelex 8000, in 2020. Both models come with a modular design for increased functionality and can be configured with various layouts that accommodate activities from fishing and diving to watersports and socialising — thus reducing the need for multiple boat ownership.
X Shore’s vessels also feature smart boating capabilities, including overboard detection, navigation, and range estimate. This is combined with a respective app and a special captain’s watch — a smart watch which can be used as a remote key to unlock the boat and as a “person over board” detector.
The Eelex 8000 is powered by a 170kW electric motor, comes with a 100NM range, and can reach a 30+ knot top speed. Credit: X Shore
Compared to the Eelex 8000, which costs a little over €300,000, the X Shore 1’s price starts at €99,000 — the average cost of a vessel in its category. “Within 48 hours after its launch, we sold out all boats that we could produce in the first half of this year, and we’re also sold out for 2023,” Keisu explains.
The X Shore 1 is powered by a 125kW electric motor, comes with a 50NM range, and can reach a 30 knot top speed. Creidit: X shore
Driving down the price enough to engage with a larger customer base — while maintaining sustainability — was the result of two factors: an EV-oriented design from the outset and in-house production.
The startup manufactures the hull and does the assembly using largely automated processes at its factory in the city of Nyköping, which leaves only the battery and electrical components to be sourced overseas.
X Shore sells its boats in Europe and North America, which currently represents its bigger market. For operators of multiple vessels, it also offers a Fleet Management System for connected X Shore boats. The startup raised almost €50 million in its latest funding round.
Alight
Alight is a leading Nordic provider of solar power-as-a-service, co-founded in 2013 by Dr Harald Overholm, Richard Nicolin, and Wilhelm Lowenhielm. The scaleup develops, owns, and operates solar projects for businesses that want to switch to renewable energy.
Alight helps companies cover their energy needs either with offsite installations in the form of solar farms, or with onsite installations of panels on rooftops, parking lots, or unused land. The scaleup provides energy through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) — fixed term contracts at a pre-negotiated price lasting between 10 and 20 years.
The company’s decision to focus on commercial solar stems from two reasons, according to co-founder and CEO Dr Harald Overholm. First comes the fact that 70% of power worldwide is used by companies. Second, the trio was inspired by the US market, where solar-as-a-service first got traction in the commercial and industrial segment, and shortly after in the residential.
Alight’s co-founder, Dr Harald Overhom. Credit: Patrik Ekenblom
“We had some sort of base hypothesis that commercial solar was a pretty good place to start,” Overholm says. “And we think that the European market is now moving very quickly towards us because government incentives are being rapidly scaled down.”
Alight is developing more than 1 gigawatt (GW) worth of PPA-based projects across Sweden, with a further 170 megawatts (MW) under development across the rest of Europe. It also handles Sweden’s largest operational solar park to date, and is set to have an installed capacity of at least 5GW by 2030. Some of its clients include Toyota, Swedbank, and trading company Bixia.
Alight’s onsite solar panels at Toyota Material Handing in France. Credit: Alight
But the road to success has been no bed of roses.
“People could not understand why we started the company when we did so,” Overholm explains. “And it was also horribly difficult to find investors,” he adds, citing a lack of interest in impact and sustainability projects at the time.
“So when, in 2022, we raised €150 million in equity, with an additional €20 million to €30 million coming in [from] buying out secondaries from previous investors, it was insane.”
Prior to that the company had done two funding rounds — following an initial angel capital injection — raising €2 million in 2015 and €5 million to €6 million in 2019.
Now, Alight is also developing co-located battery storage to mitigate solar power’s intermittent nature and enable its further rollout.
Milkywire
At the age of 31, marketing veteran Nina Siemiatkowski decided to pursue photography in Kenya, where she witnessed first-hand the hurdles local organisations were facing to secure funding and resources in their efforts to address pressing environmental issues.
Siemiatkowski decided to build a company that solves this problem and founded Milkywire in 2018.
The startup provides a smarter and more efficient solution to environmental, cause-driven donation, connecting vetted impact organisations around the world with companies and individuals who want to offer support, but are unsure how to donate effectively.
‘Initially, when I founded Milkywire, the idea was to connect the platform to consumers directly,” Siemiatkowski tells me. “But a year and a half ago we completely pivoted as a business.” Since then, the startup has been implementing a B2B2C business model.
Milkywire’s founder and CEO, Nina Siemiatkowski. Credit: Emma Svensson
Milkywire’s platform enables companies to take responsibility for their environmental footprint and make a positive contribution by financing high-impact initiatives beyond their immediate value chain. Businesses can select organisations from five different causes, such as wildlife and climate transformation.
The platform also offers transparent and traceable reporting of the companies’ donations and impact metrics, which can be used to engage stakeholders and customers. To facilitate that, Milkyware provides integrated tools that enable customers to contribute to the same causes.
The startup currently counts numerous partner companies, including Klarna, PANGAIA, and Footway. To date, it has raised $25 million (€23.5 million) in donations.
“The timing couldn’t be better for us,” Siemiatkowski says. “There’s massive demand for sustainability solutions and, from what I know, we’re sitting with a quite unique solution.”
Doconomy
Founded in 2018 by Mathias Wikström and Johan Pihl, Doconomy has merged climate tech with fintech, and is on a mission to help banks, brands, and consumers to better understand their environmental footprint through financial transactions.
Since launching the world’s first transaction-based footprint calculator, Doconomy has been building a global ecosystem, with its technology used by Mastercard and world leading banks such as BNP Paribas and Nordea — which translates to over 850 million potential end-users across 30 countries.
Driven by the aim to inspire consumer behaviour change and encourage them into a more sustainable lifestyle, the founding duo was interested in the credit card as an everyday tool that’s connected to consumption patterns.
Co-founder and CINO Johan Pihl. Credit: Doconomy
“We looked at how environmental data could be presented in a tool that you’re willing to use every day, and that, in the end, would motivate behavioural change,” Pihl tells me.
The result was Doconomy’s core solution, a cloud-based environmental impact index (Åland Index), which enables CO2 and H2O calculations for all digital financial transactions.
The Åland Index is complemented by a set of other digital tools, such as the Lifestyle Impact Calculator, helping individuals assess their footprint based on lifestyle choices, and the Product Impact calculator, which enables brands to calculate their products’ CO2 footprints. The startup also offers the DO mobile banking service, which allows consumers to manage their finances and everyday climate action.
Co-founder and CEO Mathias Wikström. Credit: Doconomy
Thanks to its data and the ecosystem it’s built, Doconomy has created a standardised language around how impact is measured. But using this language to drive consumer engagement and, in the end, behavioural change, remains “as tricky as ever,” co-founder Mathias Wikström says.
Doconomy is now focusing on achieving exactly this and believes that its recent acquisition of financial well-being fintech startup Dreams Technology will play an integral role in that objective.
What’s the secret to Stockholm’s success?
Stockholm has several unique and powerful ingredients that stimulate startup growth.
For Alight’s co-founder Harald Overholm, the city breeds a culture of entrepreneurship, while a strong network of entrepreneurs, mentors, and angel investors can provide guidance.
The collaboration and advice of like-minded entrepreneurs and expertswas also pointed out by Milywire’s founder, Nina Siemiatkowski, and Sesamy’s co-founder, Karl Rosander, who also added access to capital as an important element of the ecosystem.
“I think collaboration is closer at hand in Sweden than in many different markets,” Mathias Wikström, Doconomy’s co-founder and CEO, says. “There’s a strong social security network, a strong trade labour union, [and] a strong industry and trade labour union agreement dating back to the 40s and 50s. We’re not keeping our success close to our chest. We’re rather sharing it with many, I think slightly more than in other parts of the world.”
Swedish mentality plays a vital role for Johan Ekelin and Christian Ihre — co-founders of Lynxeye, a Stockholm-based strategy consultancy supporting companies in transformative shifts, which has been part of the ecosystem since 1999.
Co-founders Johan Ekelin and Christian Ihre. Credit: Lynxeye
“We’re a bit of a caring nation, you could say, with a more human-centric mentality,” Ekelin tells me. “We want to find solutions to problems, and we try to democratise the offerings, and that’s good for innovation,” he notes, adding that Sweden is characterised by “a high level of social consensus.”
This, according to Ihre, stems from a simplistic survival instinct, the need to “stick together,” due to the country’s weather and climate conditions. Much like the Vikings created their own infrastructure webs and ecosystems, modern society has another kind of ecosystem, where companies, institutions, government, and people know they need each other to survive. “This has transcended our culture for millennia,” Ihre notes.
But this doesn’t mean that Sweden’s business sector is closed within itself. On the contrary, Ekelin believes that creating international brands and companies is one of its biggest strengths.
“Being a small country means that there’s a small home market, so you have to look openly for other opportunities around the world and be informed about what’s going on outside of Sweden.”
It’s exceedingly rare to see a VR software startup transition to making hardware, let alone decent hardware. But that’s exactly what Bigscreen—creators of the long-running social VR theater app of the same name—has done with its upcoming Beyond headset.
Bigscreen has clearly targeted PC VR enthusiasts who are willing to pay for the best hardware they can get their hands on. And with major players like Meta and HTC focusing heavily on standalone headsets, Bigscreen Beyond could prove to be the best option they’ll find any time soon.
Photo by Road to VR
The company has set out to make a headset that’s not just better than what’s out there, but one that’s much smaller too. And while it remains to be seen if the headset will hit all the right notes, my initial hands-on shows plainly the company knows what it’s doing when it comes to building a VR headset.
Bigscreen Beyond Specs
Resolution
2,560 × 2,560 (6.5MP) per-eye
microOLED (2x, RGB stripe)
Pixels Per-degree (claimed)
28
Refresh Rate
75Hz, 90Hz
Lenses
Tri-element pancake
Field-of-view (claimed)
93°H × 90°V
Optical Adjustments
IPD (fixed, customized per customer)
eye-relief (fixed, customized per facepad)
IPD Adjustment Range
58–72mm (fixed, single IPD value per device)
Connectors
DisplayPort 1.4, USB 3.0 (2x)
Accessory Ports
USB-C (1x)
Cable Length
5m
Tracking
SteamVR Tracking 1.0 or 2.0 (external beacons)
On-board Cameras
None
Input
SteamVR Tracking controllers
On-board Audio
None
Optional Audio
Audio Strap accessory, USB-C audio output
Microphone
Yes (2x)
Pass-through view
No
Weight
170–185g
MSRP
$1,000
MSRP (with tracking & controllers)
$1,580
Custom-made
Bigscreen is building something unique, quite literally—every Beyond headset comes with a custom-made facepad. And this isn’t a ‘choose one of three options’ situation, Bigscreen has a sleek app that walks buyers through the process of capturing a 3D scan of their face so the company can create a completely unique facepad that conforms to each specific customer.
And it really makes a difference. The first thing that Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar showed me during a demo of the Beyond headset was the difference between my personal facepad (which the company created for me prior to our meetup) and someone else’s facepad. The difference was instantly obvious; where mine fit against my face practically like two connected puzzle-pieces, the other facepad awkwardly disagreed with my face in various places. While I’ve recognized for a long time that different facial topology from person-to-person is a real consideration for VR headsets, this made me appreciate even more how significant the differences can be.
The facepad may look rough, but it’s actually made of a soft rubber material | Photo by Road to VR
Shankar says the custom-fit facepad is an essential part of making such a small headset. It ensures not only that the headset is as comfortable as it can be, but also the user’s eyes are exactly where they’re supposed to be with regard to the lenses. For a headset like Beyond, which uses high magnification pancake optics with a small sweet spot, this is especially important. And, as Shankar convincingly demonstrated by shining a flashlight all around the headset while I was wearing it, the custom-fit facepad means absolutely no external light can be seen from inside.
And the custom facepad isn’t the only way each headset is dialed in for each specific customer; instead of wasting weight and space with the mechanics for an IPD adjustment, the headset ships with one of 15 fixed IPD distances, ranging from 58–72mm. The company selects the IPD based on the same face scan that allows them to make the custom facepad. And given the size of the Beyond headset, there’s no way that glasses will fit inside; luckily the company will also sell magnetically attached prescription inserts for those who need them, up to −10 diopter.
Diving In
With my custom facepad easily snapped onto the headset with magnets, it was time to dive into VR.
The baseline version of the $1,000 Bigscreen Beyond headset has a simple soft strap, which I threw over the back of my head and tightened to taste. I felt I had to wear the strap very high on the back of my head for a good hold; Shankar says an optional top-strap will be available, which ought to allow me to wear the rear strap in a lower position.
Photo by Road to VR
As I put on the headset I found myself sitting in a dark Bigscreen theater environment, and the very first thing I noticed was the stellar darks and rich colors that are thanks to the headset’s OLED displays. The second thing I noticed was there was no sound! That’s because the baseline version of the headset doesn’t have on-board audio, so I still had to put on a pair of headphones after the headset was donned.
While the baseline headset lacks on-board audio, Bigscreen is offering a $100 ‘Audio Strap‘, which is a rigid headstrap with built-in speakers. As someone who really values rigid straps and on-board audio, I’m glad to see this as an option—for me it would be the obvious choice. Unfortunately the company wasn’t ready to demo the Audio Strap.
Shankar toured me around a handful of VR environments that showed off the headset’s 2,560 × 2,560 (6.5MP) per-eye displays, which offered a level of clarity similar to that of Varjo’s $2,000 Aero headset, but with a smaller notably field-of-view (Bigscreen claims 90°H × 93°V).
On many current-gen headsets like Quest 2 you can’t quite see the individual lines of the screen-door effect, but it’s still clear that it’s there in aggregate. While the Beyond headset isn’t ‘retina resolution’ there’s essentially no evidence of any screen-door effect. Everything looks really sharp. This was best demonstrated when I ran around in Half-Life: Alyx and the game felt like it had instantly upgraded graphics compared to a headset like Valve’s Index.
There is, however, some persistence blurring and glare. Shankar openly demonstrated how the brightness of the display directly relates to the level of persistence. While there’s some noticeable persistence at the default brightness, when overdriving the display’s brightness the persistence becomes entirely unbearable. The reverse is true; turning the brightness down below the default cuts the persistence down noticeably. While it would be nice if the default brightness had less persistence, at least users will be able to trade brightness for lower persistence based on their specific preference.
By now, you’ll have seen it. Pope Francis walks across the frame, his focus on the mid-distance. He’s brightly lit as though it’s early morning. A silver cross hangs from his neck, dangling over his snow-white, Balenciaga-inspired puffer jacket. It’s the baller bishop, the steezy father, his holy drippiness — and he’s been ordained from on high.
If you were on social media at any point over the past weekend, you would have seen the image. And — if you were anything like me and seemingly millions of other people — you didn’t immediately realise it was AI-generated.
In history books, this will likely go down as the first time the public was fooled en-masse by an AI-generated image. But this is just the beginning, a marker of times to come.
The AI pope’s rise to prominence
The picture first reached the public in any real sense on Twitter, with this tweet in particular being widely shared:
The image itself was created by a Reddit user (interviewed by Buzzfeed here) and posted to the Midjourney subreddit on Friday, along with three other images the AI-driven picture generator created from the prompt.
Then it went haywire in that peculiarly online way; memes flowing, people sharing the image with comments like, “the pope slings pipe with a real fuccboi energy” — and, of course, individuals using Photoshop to the fullest extent of its mighty powers:
It was only further through the weekend that many people who’d seen or shared the fake picture of the pope realised it was AI-generated. In some senses, it’s not hard to spot a computer is behind the image.
I’ve marked some areas where you can see tell-tale signs of an AI-generated image, from blurriness and odd textures to issues with creating hands.
The thing is, while you’re scrolling through thousands of images and videos on social media, these small details are easily missed. Let’s put it this way: if we had to sit and analyse every single image that came across our feeds, we’d never get anything done.
A mass hallucination
We’ve been getting closer and closer to an inflection point recently, much of it driven by the launch of Midjourney version five. In fact, we were close to the public believing an AI-generated image is real with pictures of Trump being arrested. Thankfully, the fact they looked clearly fake — as well as the lack of corresponding news stories about the incident — meant that the majority of people weren’t fooled at first glance.
But the AI pope changed all that.
This moment has been a long time coming — and it’s no surprise it was a celebrity or public figure that made us reach this inflection point. As journalist Ryan Broderick pointed out on Twitter, one possible explanation for this image in particular spreading like wildfire is “the pope aesthetically exists in the same uncanny valley as most AI art.” This makes bizarreness an inherent part of his public character, meaning these AI-generated images can pass our bullshit detectors easier.
I think it goes even further than that. Just consider the increasing surreality of the past several years. Picture the photo of Trump in the White House, beaming in front of piles of fast food with a sombre portrait of Abraham Lincoln behind him. Or the one of the capital riots’ shaman, a man wearing a horned hat with his face painted, cavorting around the heart of American politics.
Trump, who can’t even spell hamburger, invited the Clemson Tigers to the White House and served them Wendy’s, McDonalds, and Burger King.
In retrospect, what feels more likely? The pope wearing a stylish jacket or the President of the United States serving McDonald’s in a historic reception room? It’s hard to tell, because society itself has become increasingly uncertain, truth and normality more and more abstract.
Inching into hyperreality
The pictures of the pope with immaculate drip are broadly harmless, the worst outcome being that some people think the Catholic church and the man who once signed a Lamborghini are materialistic or money-obsessed. But if we applied the same mass belief of a fake image to something like politics, things can go downhill quickly.
AI-generated images would be bad enough in times of relative political dignity, but we’re currently living through what some refer to as a post-truth era, where many politicians and news stations simply, well, lie.
Not only is public trust in governments at historic lows, but this is made worse by an ageing population in the western world. Many older people struggle to use their phones, let alone can separate AI-generated images from truthful ones.
We are, for all intents and purposes, going further into hyperreality, a concept termed by Jean Baudrillard. This is a concept where the real and artificial merge, becoming indistinguishable from one another. It’s impacting everything, from fashion to the aesthetic of AI images themselves.
Let’s put it in more concrete terms. Midjourney v5 and online communities are already pumping out images that poke at the edges of reality, creating scenarios that didn’t exist. The historic quality of those photos further undermines our own ability to separate fact from fiction.
Something wild is happening on the Midjourney subreddit.
People are telling stories and sharing photos of historic events – like the “Great Cascadia” earthquake that devastated Oregon in 2001.
And it doesn’t take a huge analytical mind to consider what realistic images of, say, the moon landing being staged could have on the populace at large.
I’m really stuck between thinking this is awesome and being terrified. Terrisome. Awesified.
The influence of hyperreality doesn’t just mean things being created, its influence can go the other way too.
And what’s stopping politicians from claiming that’s exactly what it is? Surely no one could’ve been that wrong? It must be AI. A fake. A generated image peddled by those who can’t accept the unfettered glory of a finally free United Kingdom?
Expect Conservative politicians to claim this image as doctored at some point in the future.
Thinking small to act big
Here, we come to the crux: what can be done to fight this insidious march of AI-generated images into an unprepared society? The worrying part is no one really knows.
Two years ago it would’ve been impossible to predict that an AI-generated picture of the pope would shake society, or that doctored audio of Biden and Trump amusingly talking about games would rip through the internet.
Yes, the EU and UK have been active in trying to create AI legislation, but even the best rules will lag behind the increasing pace of technology. This doesn’t mean that these rules should be abandoned, simply that more needs to be done around them.
Media studies — once derided as a ‘doss’ subject — is now more important than ever. In this era of mainstream misinformation, being able to analyse the passage of information is a vital skill. This must be extended.
In a world of AI generation, we need to teach people how these systems operate, how to check for doctored images, the value of sources, and basic methods of finding the closest approximation to the truth there is. This sort of AI-informed media studies should be rolled out to not only every school across Europe, but offered to those of all ages.
Another route that I believe is vital in this coming age of hyperreality is local action. As humans, we’re designed to operate in small groups. It’s one of the reasons why the news cycle is so anxiety-inducing; we’re simply not built to take in the problems of the whole world.
As AI spreads, it’s going to make getting an accurate picture of the wider world tougher. But what we can understand is what directly surrounds us.
Political divides can swiftly disappear when a hole in the road needs fixing or a school needs to raise funds. In these situations, you deal with living, breathing people that are attached to a community, rather than a faceless online mass. In a world of hyperreality, holding on to the aspects we know are true can help cut through the bullshit.
As the phrase goes: think global, act local. If — alongside AI education and legislation — we look towards solving local issues with an eye on worldwide ones, the rise of this sort of technology can happen without turning society into some sort of mush. Hell, maybe AI generators of all kinds could be used for fun and harmless activities.
But if we allow this technology to drag us into full hyperreality without taking appropriate precautions, then who knows what might happen — but I don’t have high hopes of it being good.
And all this because someone put the pope in a drippy jacket.
The issue is prevalent at every level of the industry. A2022 poll by Web Summit showed that 67% of women in technology feel unfairly paid compared to their male peers.
Despite this pessimistic picture, technology can also provide a means to close the gender equity gap.
That’s the mission of acclaimed gender economist and former Global 500 global executive, Katica Roy, who will be speaking at TNW València on March 31.
For Roy, the work has personal roots. When she returned to work after her maternity leave, she experienced pay inequity herself. She decided to devise her own solution. In 2017, she foundedPipeline Equity, an SaaS company aiming to improve intersectional gender equity in the workplace.
Pipeline Equity’s award-winning HR analytics platform uses AI and cloud computing to help companies operationalise their DEI commitments into daily actions, and improve inclusion and equality by 70% in three months.
“Interestingly enough, what we found in the market is that 96% of CEOs put equity in their top priorities, but only 22% of employees regularly see it shared and measured,” Roy tells TNW. “So you have this 74% gap between employer branding and the actual employee experience. That’s what we aim to close.”
Equally interesting is that the original research behind Pipeline Equity found that, across 4,000 companies in 29 countries, for every 10% increase in intersectional gender equity, there’s a 1% to 2% increase in revenue. “Equity isn’t simply the right thing to do, but also a massive economic opportunity,” Roy says. To be precise, that economic opportunity could add $12 trillion to global GDP.
In fact, equity’s economic return during a downturn is higher than in regular times, she explains. This means companies that put equity at the core of their crisis management during uncertain times can see twice the returns.
But despite the social and economic advantages of gender equity, Roy believes that there are two things companies are getting wrong: focusing on programmatic rather than systemic change, and focusing on ‘fixing’ women instead of fixing the system.
She argues that it’s “critically important” for us and our global economy to hardwire equity by phasing out our biases using AI.
“With a system that’s equitable by design, we have the opportunity to really facilitate equity within our lifetime. The question isn’t whether we can reach equity using technology. It’s whether we will choose to. Because it is within our realm to make this reality.”
Katica Roy will be speaking at TNW València, which takes place at the end of March. If you want to experience the event, we’ve got something special for our loyal readers. Use the promo code TNWVAL30 and get a 30% discount on your conference business pass for TNW València.
Nreal Air is largely a virtual screen viewer. While it does have native apps designed for AR, it becomes a lot more versatile when displaying content from a tethered device like a mobile phone or game console. Nebula, the app that allows these features, will also now be available for Windows computers.
Changes Coming to Nreal’s Nebula Ecosystem
The job of Nebula is to “project 2D content into an interactive 3D space.” To get much use out of the company’s AR glasses like Nreal Air, you need to have Nebula installed on the device. The glasses launched with support for the Android operating system and subsequent updates brought compatibility to Mac and a number of game consoles.
A recent release from the company confirms that Nebula is coming to Windows. The Windows version of Nebula also comes with enhanced tracking, an optimized aspect ratio, and a curved virtual screen. The 3DoF tracking was specifically touted for helping gamers playing simulation-type games.
A Boon for Gaming (and Maybe Productivity)
As of this writing, the Windows version of the Nebula app is not yet available and no rollout date was included in the release shared with ARPost. Still, the announcement brings some excitement both in productivity and gaming applications.
PC Gaming on a Virtual Screen
The main drive of the update, according to the release, was to catch PC gamers. A recent user survey found that console gaming is the second highest use case just behind streaming media.
“We are thrilled to see the growing popularity of Nreal Air among the gaming community, and we are committed to providing gamers with the best possible experience,” co-founder Peng Jin said. “As the gaming industry continues to evolve, we believe that Nebula for Windows is a game-changer for the desktop gaming market.”
I don’t always game, but when I do I use a Windows PC. Many a time I’ve resorted to connecting my laptop to a TV via an HDMI cable to get a bigger screen. Having used Nreal Air for watching videos online, I can definitely see the draw that the giant virtual screen can have for gaming.
Multiple Virtual Screens for Productivity
The third leading use case is productivity. Even though this was downplayed in the release, it’s something that I’m excited to try out.
In my review of the Nreal Air I said that reading fine text in the glasses was still a bit of a chore. However, with the changes to screen aspect and other updates to the Windows version of Nebula, I’d be willing to revisit the glasses for productivity. Being able to glance back and forth between multiple screens instead of opening and closing tabs on my laptop would be great.
Any Day Now
The only thing not to like about the announcement is the lack of a release date. I’m still a little skeptical of how conducive Nreal Air can be to productivity tasks like writing but one way or another this opens up a significant market for these already popular AR glasses.
![[test]-a-vr-poem](https://theverysoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/78618-test-a-vr-poem.jpg)
