The success of the Quest is important because I also expect that Meta’s AI ambitions quickly and easily become a staple part of that operating system.
I say this because another piece of Meta tech, its Ray-Ban glasses, are now also integrating Meta’s AI into their function too.
This is Meta’s smart glasses. And now with AI this is the kind of form factor that we want to see from the next generation of devices.
I went on to note that,
So you have Meta pushing forward on the expansion of its virtual and augmented reality operating system.
You have Meta integrating its AI into its glasses that it’s selling in conjunction with Ray-Ban.
And then you have Meta releasing and improving its AI, Llama 3.
And then concluded that,
Meta looks to be the one that’s really making headways into AI and products with AI that people actually might want and use.
Which means that if we were to look for a “winner” of AI in the next few years, I think Meta might just be the one on the top step of the podium.
Sorry for the lengthy quotes, but this was only five months ago. And in tech and AI, five months is a lifetime.
This week Meta had its “Meta Connect” two-day conference where it released a bunch of new tech and announcements to market.
The Quest 3 being a step forward in hardware and pricing for pure AR/VR headset technology, but the thing on everyone’s minds is the launch of Meta Orion.
It’s Meta’s first “true augmented reality glasses”.
Yes, they’re a little bit Roy Orbison in nature (if you know, you know). But they are but some stretch the most form-function-friendly AR glasses I’ve ever seen.
To give a comparison to the competition, Snap (Snapchat) just a week and a bit ago released its “Spectacles” AR glasses. And while full of tech, they frankly look shocking.
Compare that with Meta’s Orion,
I’ve said it before, you could have the best tech in the world, but if your industrial design sucks, you’re destined for doom.
It should be said Meta won’t be releasing this version to consumers. It’s opening up access for Meta employees and select groups of people to test, try, and feedback for further development.
But it’s clear – Meta is streets in front of everyone on this. If this is its first iteration of Orion, and it looks this good already, I can’t wait for generation two, three and four of it. And by the time we get the consumer version, and Meta develops year in year out to get to Orion 16s, I can only image they’ll be as mass market and ubiquitous as our smartphones.
This may very well be Meta’s iPhone moment. I expect that in the next few years, this is the catalyst for what takes the company up to and past the market cap of Apple.
I love the comments and feedback you give us here at AI Collision 💥 it’s why throughout these posts we add “Leave a comment” buttons around to try make it easy for you to give us your thoughts.
Sometimes the comments are deep in thought, sometimes deep in humour, but always welcome and I always encourage you to leave your thoughts when you can.
Taking this one step further though, for some reason Tuesday’s comments inspired me to take the comment as use it as an input for AI image generators. I think it was the Ed Miliband comments which tipped me over the edge. Either way, I figured (and I might do this more regularly) I would take the comments and give AI free reign to turn them into something artistic.
Here are the results…
First off the comment, “Can’t wait to see the look on Ed Miliband’s face when the Labour Government realises that wind power alone will not sustain the country’s development of AI and then announces an abrupt u-turn and authorises more coal, Nuclear and oil development within the Uk,” which according to Pixlr’s AI image generator looks like,
The next comment was a bit lengthier so it was likely going to result in something more realistic. I was very intrigued with what would come out. So, I decided to look at what Microsoft’s CoPilot would throw at me.
Based on the prompt, “create an image of not one but two SMR component manufacturing facilities are being constructed in South Yorkshire. Both Holtec international and Rolls-Royce are investing serious amounts of money in these factories to ensure the components required to build small nuclear power stations is readily available at scale. AI services require large amounts of reliable energy, preferably uninterrupted and definitely without the unnecessary intermittency and frequency spikes associated with renewables. Like it or not the smart money says we are going nuclear,” Copilot gave me the following:
Then as it was another Ed Miliband comment, I thought I’d switch up the image generator. This time I turned to xAI’s Grok with, “Miliband doesn’t have the gumption to eat a bacon sandwich let alone read the writing on the wall re nuclear,” which looks like this:
What I do find interesting here is the approach each different AI takes to generating the image when no instruction is given on what style to use. What is also clear though is that while these AI images are good, there’s still a long way to go to really making them incredible!
Boomers & Busters 💰
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom 📈
Vertiv (NYSE:VRT) up 15%
Gorilla Technology (NASDAQ:GRRR) up 14%
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) up 13%
Bust 📉
Predictive Oncology (NASDAQ:POAI) down 10%
Symbotic Inc (NASDAQ:SYM) down 7%
Vicarious Surgical (NYSE:RBOT) down 7%
From the hive mind 🧠
For all the fun and exciting things that AI is coming up with, we must not forget that when AI is applied in the medical field it can result in something even more exciting and beneficial for humanity…saving lives.
Hmm…sounds like a government initiative. Which on the face of it, it probably bad. But then, Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, Google, Nvidia, IBM and Anthropic are all involved and so is $100 million. I don’t quite know what to make of it…what do you think?
We’ll keep the poll from Tuesday running a bit longer, till next week. However, the results are firmly clear about your view on how nuclear could advance the UK’s energy situation.
After all, if Microsoft pumping billions into restarting Three Mile Island is good enough, then surely it’s a good enough strategy for other countries.
The UK has nine current reactors, two in construction, two planned and two proposed. Meanwhile China has 158 proposed, the US has 37. The introduction of SMR technology may increase this and decrease time to market. Rebooting existing infrastructure may accelerate it further.
Existing plants, and potential plants coming to the end of their life that could be continued, rebooted or reactivated is something I suspect we’ll be seeing more of in the coming year.
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When a number of already successful companies come together to collaborate on AI and the way it is powered. It is a clear indication that they no longer have faith in the existing power infrastructure to meet their needs. I believe that these companies are interested in creating their own dedicated uninterrupted power supplies independently. The future of their businesses is heavily dependent upon reliable constant energy and the current systems are failing to integrate renewables into existing power grids. I see this as a collective strategic approach to ensure that they can thrive and survive whilst the rest of us put up with power cuts and brown outs caused by renewable energy intermittency destabilising the existing power grids.
When a number of already successful companies come together to collaborate on AI and the way it is powered. It is a clear indication that they no longer have faith in the existing power infrastructure to meet their needs. I believe that these companies are interested in creating their own dedicated uninterrupted power supplies independently. The future of their businesses is heavily dependent upon reliable constant energy and the current systems are failing to integrate renewables into existing power grids. I see this as a collective strategic approach to ensure that they can thrive and survive whilst the rest of us put up with power cuts and brown outs caused by renewable energy intermittency destabilising the existing power grids.