Horizon Worlds, Meta’s social VR platform for Quest, is only open to 18+ users for now, however the company says it’s expanding to include teens aged 13 to 17 in the US and Canada.
Meta says the new policy will go into effect in “the coming weeks,” effectively opening the company’s first-party social platform to its entire user base in those countries; Meta only allows users 13+ to actually use Quest devices.
To prepare for the wave of younger users, the company is also releasing some age-appropriate protections and safety defaults.
Safety features will include the ability for teens to control who they follow and who can follow them back. Profiles are also set to private by default, which obscures active status and location. Worlds and events will have content ratings, so younger teens can’t get in.
A new voice mode feature is also rolling out to everyone, which garbles voices of both unknown people and teen’s voices by default. Raising your hand to your ear temporarily lets you hear other users when voice mode is switched on, Meta says.
“We’re rolling out to teens slowly, so that we can carefully examine usage and are taking a phased approach before expanding more broadly,” the company says in a blogpost. “We can’t wait to see everything these new members of the community bring to Worlds.”
Parents and guardians can use the parental supervision tools to manage their teen’s experience and “support healthy conversations about safety in VR,” Meta says. To learn more, check out the new Family Center.
The company also released a safety tutorial to see the new features in action:
While Meta only just released official word of those changes to Horizon Worlds, the news was actually first reported by The Wall Street Journalin February, which was based on an internal memo that alleged the social VR platform was under performing and needed to increase user retention to keep up with the competition. According to the memo seen by WSJ,Horizon Worlds’ weekly retention rate was 11% in January 2023, which the company aimed to increase to 20%.
A goal outlined in the memo maintained Worlds needed to reach 500,000 monthly active users (MAU) in the first half of 2023, ultimately reaching the one million mark by year’s end. At the time, it was reported the platform was hovering around 200,000 MAUs, or just below the December peak.
There’s no telling when the flatscreen version of Horizon Worlds is due to arrive, however Meta maintained it would be opening the Quest-only social platform to Web and mobile devices “soon.”
Vinci Games, the studio behind popular VR basketball game Blacktop Hoops, has raised $5.1 million in a seed funding round.
The round was led by Makers Fund, with participation from Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Pioneer Fund, Anorak Ventures, BonAngels, and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin. Vinci Games was previously supported by Y Combinator, and also successfully completed a Kickstarter campaign in September 2022 to the tune of $60,000.
The studio says the new funds will be used to develop Blacktop Hoops, which is currently available through Quest’s App Lab distribution channel for Quest 2, and on Steam for PC VR headsets.
First released in April 2022 in alpha, Blacktop Hoops now includes a number of online multiplayer modes, including 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 matches.
The streetball-inspired game, which has kicked off its open beta today, currently has a [4.9/5] star rating from around 9,000 users on App Lab, and a ‘Very Positive’ overall user rating from around 500 on Steam.
The open beta introduces to the game its first set of DLC, called the ‘Rising Legends Pack’, bringing five new AI bosses inspired by real-world streetball legends.
Founded by Oculus veteran Nathaniel Ventura and Maciej Szcześnik, former lead game designer of The Witcher series at CD Projekt Red, Blacktop Hoops is said to feature intuitive dribbling, dunking, and shooting basketball mechanics designed for VR.
“We’re excited to build the next generation of competitive sports in virtual reality,” said Ventura, Vinci Games CEO. “This round of funding helps us grow our team and build new groundbreaking features and content pushing the boundaries of VR. Blacktop Hoops has been designed from the ground up to be easily accessible for casual players with a high skill cap for competitive players; it’s extremely easy to pick up but difficult to master.”
During its time in Y Combinator, Vinci Games says it hope to build “Electronic Arts for VR sports games,” and that starting with Blacktop Hoops, it’s focusing on the “next-generation of arcade sports games for all platforms.”
SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket may have exploded during launch this week. However, that does not mean that Elon, or humanity for that matter, is not determined to enter a new era of space exploration.
To reach further out into the universe, we will need to not only figure out how to send people to Mars, but also how to upgrade our life-support systems and accommodations.
To that end, European aerospace manufacturer Airbus has dreamt up LOOP, a “multi-purpose orbital module” meant to replace the ageing International Space Station (ISS). According to Airbus, it has designed LOOP to “make long-term stays in space comfortable and enjoyable for its inhabitants.”
Sleek space accommodations
Compared to the iconic images of astronauts floating about in the tiny communal spaces on the ISS, the three-level deck of LOOP does indeed look a tad more agreeable. Looking at the images, it could almost be enough to make all your USS Enterprise fantasies come true. Although, as you would remain in orbit, you would not really get to “boldly go,” etc.
Living quarters complete with exercise bikes against the wall. Credit: Airbus
But don’t imagine swarms of futuristic uniformed space travellers beaming onto the platform. Airbus has designed the 8-metre diameter LOOP to comfortably house a four-person crew. Although, it could be adjusted to host eight astronauts at the same time.
The LOOP consists of three decks: Habitation, the Science Deck, and a Centrifuge that can create gravity conditions for the station’s inhabitants. The three-level structure also allows for “safe harbour” separation if necessary. Joining the decks together is the so-called Tunnel at the centre, surrounded by a greenhouse structure.
One of the intended modules is the Science Deck. Credit: Airbus
Meanwhile, the modular approach is intended to be precisely that – modular. This means that customers could choose to replace any of the decks to adapt the station to individual mission profiles and objectives. An option could also be, according to the developer, to connect several LOOP modules into a larger station. With all the space tourism hype, could we see a boutique space station hotel? Never say never.
No assembly required
LOOP is designed to fit with an upcoming generation of superheavy launchers, such as the aforementioned Starship, that will be able to launch the entire module in one piece (once their own launches are successful). This means that it will be fully operational almost immediately when reaching orbit.
Under the LOOP concept umbrella, Airbus is also offering a whole range of space exploration supporting technologies, such as thermal control solutions, power generation and management, environmental control and life support systems, etc.
Airbus LOOP coupled with Spartan Space’s Inflatable Module and a visiting spacecraft. Credit: Airbus
While Airbus has presented several concepts over the years that haven’t gotten anywhere close to reality, the company does have a rich heritage when it comes to contributing to international space missions. Most recently, it became the first ever non-US company to build a mission-critical element for an American Human Spaceflight Mission.
The Kevlar-covered European Service Module and its 15,000 solar cells propels and manoeuvres NASA’s new Orion spacecraft. Furthermore, it supplies the crew with water and oxygen, as well as regulates thermal controls.
Will customers go for it?
As with many aerospace concepts, for LOOP to truly make it from the design stage and into development, Airbus will need signals from customers who are willing to purchase the product. In this case, there needs to be someone willing to part with sums of near-astronomical (pun intended) proportions. Especially considering that the cost of the International Space Station, including development, assembly and running costs over a decade, lands at around €100 billion.
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Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy. Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy.
Alphabet has merged the UK-based DeepMind and US-headquartered Google Brain into a single AI research unit. Imaginatively named “Google DeepMind,” the new group unites two camps that had developed an internal rivalry.
“Combining all this talent into one focused team, backed by the computational resources of Google, will significantly accelerate our progress in AI,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a Thursday blog post.
The new unit will be led by Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of DeepMind and aUK government AI advisor. Born in London, Hassabis is a former child chess prodigy who finished high school two years early and co-created the Theme Park video game when he was 17.
After earning degrees in computer science and cognitive neuroscience, Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010. Four years later, the company was bought by Google for a reported £400m (€452m) — the Big G’s biggest European acquisition yet.
In his new role as CEO of Google DeepMind, Hassabis will lead the “development of our most capable and responsible general AI systems,” said Pichai.
Joining Hassabis at the new unit is Jeff Dean, who co-founded Google Brain. Dean will serve as Chief Scientist at both Google Research and Google DeepMind, and report directly to Pichai.
“Working alongside Demis, Jeff will help set the future direction of our AI research and head up our most critical and strategic technical projects related to AI, the first of which will be a series of powerful, multimodal AI models,” said Pichai.
The AI competition
The merger comes at a turbulent time for Google’s AI efforts. Despite rearing a raft of research breakthroughs, the company has been shaken by the explosive emergence of OpenAI. The November release of ChatGPT reportedly led Google management to issue a “code red” about the tech giant search engine business.
To add insult to injury, ChatGPT is based on an architecture developed by Google Brain — the transformer. OpenAI acknowledges this influence in the name of its vaunted family of large language models: generative pre-trained transformers (GPT).
By combining the two research units, Google hopes to convert the science into products and services.
The move has already received support in DeepMind’s home country. In the UK, government officials were quick to welcome the merger.
“This is a big development,” tweeted Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. “It sounds very techy, but Google has just merged its two artificial intelligence research units into one… based in the UK. There is going to be lots of competition and a long way to go, but this is a significant step.”
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It turns out you don’t need a rocket to explore the edge of space.
French startup Zephalto has just announced plans to send eager tourists to the stratosphere in a space balloon by 2025. Starting at €120,000 per person, the six-hour round trip would offer “unparalleled views” of Earth and a fine dining experience from the comfort of a luxurious pressurised capsule named Celeste.
“We choose 25 km high because it’s the altitude where you are in the darkness of space, with 98% of the atmosphere below you so that you can enjoy the curvature of the Earth in the blue line. You’re in the darkness of space, but without the zero gravity experience,” Vincent Farret d’Astiès, Zephalto founder and aerospace engineer, toldBloomberg.
The trip would include gourmet meals both before and during the flight, aperitifs, winetasting, stratographic photography, and the possibility to share the experience instantly with the people back on Earth via Wi-Fi. The capsule, currently being designed by French architect Joseph Dirand, would have 20 square metres of interior room, accommodating six passengers and two pilots.
Zephalto’s capsule, which hasn’t yet been built, would transport six passengers and two pilots, and intends to be a lap of luxury. Credit: Zephalto.
The balloon, filled with helium or hydrogen, would depart from France and rise to 25 km over the course of about one and a half hours. This is about twice as high as commercial jets operate but well below the boundary of space (which lies 80-100 km above sea level). Once at peak altitude, the balloon will hover for three hours to ensure you have enough time to soak up the views, before descending back to the ground.
While this might seem like a load of hot air, the startup, founded in 2016, has already secured backing from some high-profile players, including Airbus, Dassault, National Center for Space Studies (CNES), and European Space Agency (ESA).
Zephalto aims for 60 flights per year once it begins commercial operations. It has already conducted three test flights with pilots on board, though none have reached the full altitude. However, the company expects to hit the target height in a test flight later this year.
A prototype of Zephalto’s space balloon, carrying two passengers, took off successfully for the first time during a test flight on August 21, 2020. Credit: Zephalto.
Crewed high-altitude balloons are not a novel idea. In 1931, Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard ascended 16km in a pressurised capsule attached to a helium balloon, becoming the first person to ever reach the stratosphere. Since then, crewed high-altitude balloons have risen to over 34km, although the technology has never gone commercial — yet.
Space Perspective and Worldview, both US-based, are also developing their own versions of the technology. They both plan to launch even earlier than Zephalto, in 2024. Spanish startup Zero2Infinity is also developing a space balloon although it has yet to announce a launch date. Furthermore, Japanese startup Iwaya Giken has built a much smaller capsule that it hopes will cost just tens of thousands of dollars once the company achieves economies of scale.
While perhaps not quite as alluring as blasting off into real space aboard a rocket, as promised by billionaire-owned firms like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic, proponents say balloon trips offer a number of distinct advantages.
Firstly, they’re a lot cheaper. A Virgin Galactic flight startsat $450,000, while a trip aboard one of SpaceX’s rockets could set you back tens of millions of dollars. Even though the balloons don’t travel as high as these rockets, which average altitudes between 50-120km, operators say they still fly high enough for viewers to experience the overview effect — an intense perspective shift that many astronauts say kicks in when you view Earth from above.
An image of Earth taken from an unmanned weather balloon at an altitude of 23km, similar to the heights that Zephalto’s space balloon will ascend to. Credit: Forbes/University of Leicester
What’s more, despite numerous advances in recent years, rockets remain complex, expensive, and unpredictable (SpaceX’s launch failure this week is a prime example). Passengers must undergo significant training and medical checks before even thinking of boarding one. However, Zephalto says that anyone healthy enough to fly on an airliner can board a space balloon.
The startup also claims that the first Celeste flight will mark the lowest amount of CO2 generated by a space flight: 26.6 kg for the entire 6-hour journey, equivalent to the carbon footprint of a “pair of denim trousers.” By contrast, at a launch in 2016, the Space X Falcon 9 rocketemitteda whopping 116 tons of CO2 in just 165 seconds.
All this equates to what could become a more sustainable and accessible alternative to rocket-based space tourism.
However, Zephalto hasn’t even completed its first commercial test flight or arrived at the final design for the capsule, and keeps pushing back the launch date. The startup is also vague on a number of details, including where exactly the balloons will launch from, or whether it has secured permission to fly from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Other startups like Worldview follow a similar trend — it announced in 2013 that its space balloons would enter commercial operations in 2016.
But despite the fact that the space balloon startup scene seems better at making promises than delivering them, Zephalto, like most of the other startups mentioned, is already taking pre-reservations. Lift-off could take place in two years’ time — if all goes to plan.
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The popularity of motorsports shows no sign of waning. With its reach amplified by the Netflix hit show Drive to Survive, Formula One in particular has gained an entirely new audience platform. What its electric car Formula E sister league may lack in characteristic sound profile (and on-screen drama), it makes up for in environmentally friendlier engineering.
With new battery technology, Formula E cars might soon beat those of F1 for speed. Furthermore, the experience gleaned from the tracks could also be applied to enhance commercial EV batterylife and performance.
Ultra-high performance platform on display in Bologna
This week, WAE (formerly known as Williams Advanced Engineering, a branch of Williams Grand Prix Engineering, the company behind the Williams F1 racing team), displayed its latest ultra-high performance electric vehicle platform EVR at the E-TECH Europe conference in Bologna.
The EVR is currently being displayed outside of the UK for the first time. Credit: WAE
With its state-of-the-art 85kWh battery and peak power of 1650kW, EVR enables sub-2.0-sec 0–100km/h acceleration and a top speed of more than 400km/h. For reference, the top speed ever registered by an F1 car was just over 397km/h, when the Honda F1 team drove a modified version of their Formula One car across the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
The third generation Formula E cars currently racing reach speeds of around 320 km/h. Meanwhile, Croatia’s Rimac Nivera set the top speed for an electric hypercar last year when it it hit 415 km/hat the Automotive Testing Papenburn track in Germany.
Offering EV developers a modular approach
The company says that EVR has an inherent flexibility and modularity which allows it to offer startups a complete turnkey solution with the entire vehicle, as well as exterior design support.
“We wanted to put something out there on our own platform because, whether it’s a new starter, a brand re-entrance, or even an established OEM looking for a halo car, it’s a step up on the development of vehicles that might take three to four years. We can give them something which is already 12 months into that process,” Chris McCaw, lead engineer at WAE, stated.
In addition to the EVR platform, WAE’s stand at E-TECH also featured its Scalable Battery Module (SBM) system and the prototype TE-1 e-motorbike, Triumph’s first zero-emission prototype demonstrator.
The TE-1 is part of Triumph’s electric motorcycle strategy. Credit: WAE
WAE provides the electrical systems for almost all the electric race series including Gen 3 Formula E, Extreme E, ETCR and electric Skootr racing. Since 2013, clients of the company’s products have won nine driver’s championships and eight constructor’s championships, putting it on a far better footing recently than its petrol-powered cousin.
Today, WAE also launched Elysia – its new battery intelligence branch sprung from over a decade of experience in the electric high-performance car business. The company says it brings together electrochemistry, modelling, AI and data science to increase the performance of any battery system.
Battery intelligence software to increase battery health and lifespan
Elysia’s software package is divided into two branches. The first consists of embedded algorithms designed to run on standard automotive-grade hardware platforms. The second is a cloud platform that features prognostics designed to detect real-world failure mechanisms. According to the company, this will benefit everything from e-scooters to road cars and electrified mining trucks.
Tim Engström, technology lead at Elysia by WAE, says that the modern lithium-ion battery is currently going through a “second advent,” much due to the utilisation of data availability.
“The arrival of mainstream, low-cost telematics has afforded manufacturers and fleet owners the ability to understand more about their vehicles than ever before,” Engström states.
Elysia’s battery management algorithms can be applied to a range of use cases. Credit: Elysia by WAE
However, he believes that the transformative opportunities of this data has been, up until now, underutilised. Following a major push on connectivity, now the time has come to harness the battery data and “transform electric mobility on a larger scale.”
“Battery intelligence is a new discipline that connects battery data seamlessly with electrochemists, battery systems engineers, and data scientists with the sole goal of delivering actionable insights to enhance and protect value across the battery lifecycle,” Engström continued.
The presentation of EVR and the launch of Elysia took place during the second edition of the E-TECH Europe conference in Bologna. The city sits at the centre of Italy’s “motor valley,” which has given birth to iconic brands such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Ducati and Bugatti.
Hundreds of companies exhibited their products in areas such as EV technology, fuel cell solutions, polymers, satnavs, driver identification systems, autonomous driving and connectivity.
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Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainabili Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainability, green tech, AI, and EU policy. With a background in the humanities, she has a soft spot for social impact-enabling technologies.
A new EU-backed project aims to help quantum tech startups and SMEs move faster to hardware production, enter this very competitive field early, and remain within the union’s borders.
Dubbed Qu-Pilot, the €19m project aspires to solve a pressing challenge of the European industry: transitioning innovation from lab to market. The ultimate goal is to accelerate the time-to-market of the bloc’s industrial innovation in quantum technology and help establish a trusted supply chain.
Qu-Pilot will remove a significant barrier for companies, namely piloting, which requires considerable cost, infrastructure, and time investments.
The project will leverage existing piloting infrastructure, primarily spread across European research and technology organisations (RTOs). It will also facilitate product development loops in collaboration with the union’s hardware sector. This will result in the first federated European production capabilities for quantum technologies, which will contribute to setting standards in the field and be accessible to startups and SMEs.
These federated pilot lines will focus on four technology platforms: superconducting, photonics, semiconducting, and diamond technologies, enabling applications in quantum computing, communication, and sensing.
The technology platforms within Qu-Pilot and the main application areas where they’re currently used in. Credit: Qu-Pilot
Qu-Pilot consists of 21 partners from nine different countries, including the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Belgium’s Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), and Fraunhofer Society in Germany. The project started this month and will run for 3.5 years.
Alongside the Quantum Technologies Flagship, the newly-launched Qu-Pilot is part of the EU’s strategic plan to boost quantum development in the bloc, convert research into commercial applications, and secure its technological sovereignty in the field.
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Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainabili Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainability, green tech, AI, and EU policy. With a background in the humanities, she has a soft spot for social impact-enabling technologies.
Following its European expansion in Dublin, London, and Berlin in the past few years, Reddit is now opening its first regional sales hub in Amsterdam.
Centrally located in the wider European market, adjacent to countries with a strong customer base such as Germany and France, and breeding a competitive talent pool, the Dutch capital emerged as the perfect location to further drive the growth the US-based company has seen in Western Europe.
The hub’s mission is to bring together the platform’s EMEA markets in a central location and support a wide array of customers spread across Europe in meeting their advertising goals. It will house over 50 employees in sales and engineering, and serve as the home base for the EMEA Ads Engineering team as well.
According to Susanne Mostertman, EMEA Head of Mid-Market and Small Business (SMB) Sales, who will be leading the hub, the company plans to significantly growth both the sales and engineering teams by the end of 2023, and Amsterdam will be Reddit’s largest office in continental Europe by employee number.
“We know from our research that Reddit users in Europe are open to seeing ads or content from brands on the platform, and are more likely to trust a brand that participates on Reddit than brands they see advertising on other platforms,” Mosterstman told TNW. “By expanding our footprint in Amsterdam — and Europe more broadly — we’re able to better connect Reddit’s audience with brands they’re interested in and care about.”
This new chapter of Reddit in Europe, Mostertman added, enables the platform to focus on the teams and resources that can best attend to its advertisers in the region “with local and country-specific experts ready to provide tailored guidance.”
These efforts will not only support large advertisers such as Google, Warner Bros., and reMarkable, but European startups as well. The Amsterdam hub is already working together with a number of existing partners, including payment provider Klarna and refurbished device marketplace Back Market.
“Partnering with Reddit has allowed us to reach out to a wide variety of communities — from tech to fashion and everything in between — to encourage responsible shopping at the right time,” said Salah Said, Head of Sustainability at Klarna.
Reddit’s new European office will located in Amsterdam’s Plantage neighbourhood in the city centre. Hiring is still ongoing and the company plans to host a recruiting event later this spring.
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ChatGPT has had anything but a triumphant welcome tour around Europe. Following grumbling regulators in Italy and the European Parliament, the turn has come for German trade unions to express their concerns over potential copyright infringement.
No less than 42 trade organisations representing over 140,000 of the country’s authors and performers have signed a letter urging the EU to impose strict rules for the AI’s use of copyrighted material.
As reported first by Reuters, the letter, which underlined increasing concerns about copyright and privacy issues stemming from the material used to train the large language model (LLM), stated,
“The unauthorised usage of protected training material, its non-transparent processing, and the foreseeable substitution of the sources by the output of generative AI raise fundamental questions of accountability, liability and remuneration, which need to be addressed before irreversible harm occurs.”
Signatories include major German trade unions Verdi and DGB, as well as other associations for photographers, designers, journalists and illustrators. The letter’s authors further added that,
“Generative AI needs to be at the centre of any meaningful AI market regulation.”
ChatGPT is not the only target of copyright contention. In January, visual media company Getty Images filed a copyright claim against Stability AI. According to the lawsuit, the image making tool developer allegedly copied over 12 million photos, captions, and metadata without permission.
LLM training offers diminishing returns
The arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has sparked a flurry of concerns. Thus far, these have covered everything from aggressive development due to a commercially motivated AI “arms race,” to matters of privacy, data protection and copyright. The latest model, GPT-4, was trained using over a trillion words.
Meanwhile, one of the originators of the controversy, the company’s CEO Sam Altman, stated last week that the amplified machine learning strategy behind ChatGPT has run its course. Indeed, OpenAI forecasts diminishing returns on scaling up model size. The company trained its latest model, GPT-4, using over a trillion words at the cost of about $100 million.
At the same time, the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act is nearing its home stretch. While it may well set a global regulatory standard, the question is how well it will be able to adapt as developers find other new and innovative ways of making algorithms more efficient.
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True crime has become a national pastime. From documentaries and dramatized biopics to endless podcasts and YouTube channels, folks can’t get enough of diving into real-life murders and missing person cases – some solved, some apparently never to be solved. And now, you can explore a new file of cases in augmented reality with CrimeTrip.
Taking a CrimeTrip
CrimeTrip is a true crime AR game for iOS and Android from developer studio Prologue. The experience, viewed and navigated entirely through a mobile phone, puts you in the middle of painstakingly reproduced crime scenes from six unsolved crimes from the seventies and eighties including heists, mob hits, and more. Three are available now, with three coming soon.
The app download is free, but, after playing through a free “prologue” and tutorial, you have the option to buy an individual story for $3.99, or bundles of stories going up to the complete game for $12.99. According to the app, this allows the platform to be supported entirely ad-free.
Hands-On the Game
If you have enough open space, you can navigate within the game by walking to some degree. However, the game worlds are big enough that no matter how big and clean your living room is you’ll have to use the on-screen controls eventually. (My biggest issue with the game was accidentally holding my phone in a way that covered the camera and lost my tracking.)
CrimeTrip is split between crime scenes and a pretty expansive police department office. The office includes resources that you will need to dive into the case, including the cork board where you put it all together.
“[CrimeTrip] revisits the podcast genre, following non-linear routes, constantly shifting between the present and the past,” Prologue founder and creative director Jonathan Rouxel said in a Medium post. “Designers elevate the status of the audience who is no longer perceived as a community of passive listeners but as active participants.”
On-screen controls don’t do all the work. Sometimes the best way to view a scene or the only way to find an item is by physically getting on your hands and knees. A good portion of the game might be “played” on the various online communities as you compare notes with other true crime enthusiasts.
While scenes and clues are accurately created with great detail, the characters and events in the stories appear as luminous point clouds – so there’s no unsettling blood and gore to deal with. The cheeky, fourth-wall-breaking game narration should be amusing to true crime enthusiasts and not too stressful for people new to the genre.
A Careful Handling of a Touchy Subject
True crime is a sensitive subject – and people can be very sensitive to it. Stories can be emotionally challenging to hear and research, and living people are sometimes affected by true crime commentators jumping on a story still in development. CrimeTrip avoids both of these problems in two important ways.
First, the graphical style and the narration style of the game keep things from being too heavy. We saw a similar approach with USA Today’s Accused experience last year. Second, the cases in this experience are old enough that all of the suspects have passed away so players can enjoy the puzzling stories without stressing the impact on survivors too much.
The fact that the cases are so old and so cold helps add allure to the game as well. There are no bad guys left to catch so it’s okay that even AR-enabled sleuths aren’t able to conclusively agree on whodunit. In ongoing cases, it would be great if the culprit could be caught and taken off the streets. But these forty and fifty-year-old tales can remain unfinished puzzles forever.
Check it Out if You Dare
So, is CrimeTrip worth your money? Check it out. The free app includes free previews to all available episodes – and that’s not just gameplay videos, you get to play the game. Still not sure? You can buy the cases one at a time. So, if you’re even remotely interested in true crime, it can’t hurt to check out.
Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy. Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy.
It’s been a tough start to the year for tech investments. According to a new report, European VC fundraising is on pace for its lowest annual total since 2015.
Research by PitchBook, a financial data firm, found that European VC funds raised over €20bn in each of the past four years — but only €3.4bn in Q1 2023. Total VC deal value fell 32% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) to €11.8bn. Deal count, meanwhile, dropped 19%.
Pitchbook called the quarter “the first substantial decline” from the pace set in the past four years.
“The VC ecosystem could finally be displaying the effects of the challenging fundraising conditions,” the study authors wrote. “Capital investment into startups has slowed, and if muted exits markets persist, returns will be stifled and long-term capital commitments could be harmed.”
The analysts found that exit activity had also plummeted. Amid adverse macroeconomic conditions and weaker valuations, substantial VC exits effectively ceased in Q1. Pitchbook expects the activity to remain quiet for the next few quarters.
In Q1, the preferred route to exit was via mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Four out of the five largest exits in the quarter were through M&A. Such exits tend to be smaller, but they offer increased security and synergies — which can be crucial for startups facing economic uncertainty.
Public listings, meanwhile, have lost appeal due to the dangers of choppy markets. According to Pitchbook, they’re unlikely to pick up until inflation cools, interest rate hikes cease, and business confidence re-emerges.
In Q1 2023, European VC activity generated only €1.6 billion in exit value — a 69.6% QoQ decline.
Pitchbook’s report echoes the findings of other analysts. According to research by Dealroom, just over 2,300 European funding rounds closed in Q1 2023 — the lowest number since 2016.
The decline comes amid concerns over high inflation, monetary policy tightening, and the stability of the financial system. In these challenging economic times, investors and operators are prioritising capital efficiency and robust paths to profitability.
With focuses shifting from growth to cost bases, layoffs became extensive in Q1. Pitchbook expects this trend to continue as companies seek to extend runways during 2023.
Despite the gloom, there are signs of hope in emerging areas of tech. Notably, Europe surpassed the US in private spacetech investment during Q1, while quantum computing raised a continental record $220m, according to Dealroom.
Pitchbook is also confident about the prospects for the resurgent energy sector. Near-term interest and long-term climate targets in Europe are creating new opportunities for backers and startups in the industry.
“We believe deal activity in the clean energy subsector will continue to grow as renewable energy sources are developed globally,” said Pitchbook’s analysts.
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Not too far in the future, camper lovers could be going on holidays that are much kinder to the very nature they are looking to enjoy. At the beginning of this week, London and Vancouver-based startup First Hydrogen revealed the design for its next-generation zero-emission Recreational Vehicle (RV).
The concept has been developed in collaboration with Switzerland-headquartered EDAG Group. Its introduction follows the presentation of First Hydrogen’s next-generation light commercial vehicle (LCV), also a result of a partnership with the global mobility expert.
The company states that the first generation of its fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) have already entered road trials with members of the UK Aggregated Hydrogen Freight Consortium (AHFC), starting with fleet management company Rivus.
They will be tested for several different use cases, including delivery of groceries and parcels, health care and roadside assistance. First Hydrogen will then use data and feedback from the road trials to inform the development of its Generation II vehicle.
Hydrogen fuel cells superior to battery EVs?
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First Hydrogen’s vehicles are powered by high performance Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell stacks supplied by Ballard Power. This generates electricity by converting chemical energy stored in hydrogen fuel into electrical energy, using a proton-conducting polymer membrane as the electrolyte. They operate at relatively low temperatures (50 to 100 °C) and can quickly vary output to meet shifting demand, which makes them a good fuel cell choice for the automotive industry.
The company says this gives it a leg up on regular EVs as the hydrogen FCEV can carry heavier payloads. Furthermore, it takes much less time to refuel the hydrogen than it takes to recharge an electrical battery. The next-generation LCV range is projected at 500+ km.
“These concept vehicles provide a glimpse of our company’s future and give a clear indication of our brand direction within the LCV space,” said Steve Gill, CEO of Automotive for First Hydrogen.
First Hydrogen’s next-generation fuel cell LCV will be informed by data from Generation I vehicles currently in road trials. Credit: First Hydrogen
While the quest to decarbonise road transport is admirable in and of itself, there is also a solid financial foundation for the product: the global LCV market is projected to reach €686 billion by 2030. For the RV market, the corresponding prediction for the end of the decade is just under €107 billion.
In Europe, RV sales hit an all-time high in 2021 with 260,000 new vehicles sold, very likely spurred by restrictions following the global health crisis. Here, First Hydrogen identifies particular opportunities with an often eco-conscious campervan crowd.
“The First Hydrogen campervan is an example of how we see hydrogen fuel cell and other electric vehicle technologies having wider applications,” Gill added.
Looking to increase green hydrogen production
As with most startups working with hydrogen, First Hydrogen has to ensure that there will be enough to supply its products. No one will purchase a vehicle that cannot be powered after all, no matter how zero-emission it may be.
Furthermore, the hydrogen needs to be green, meaning produced using renewable energy, otherwise the eco-friendly concept goes out the window. In summer last year, First Hydrogen applied for funding from the UK Government’s £240 million (€272 million) Net-Zero Hydrogen Fund (NZHF).
The company’s two green hydrogen production projects will have an initial capacity of 40MW each and be situated in the Greater Manchester area and the Thames Estuary. The second round of NZHF competition is currently underway for both development and capital expenditure.
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