Emerging Tech Round Up 4-22-24

A roundup of activity in the emerging tech space

Brand Activity

Adidas Announces Long Term Partnership with STEP’N

• STEP’N is a Solana based move-to-earn game that launched in 2021

• Users can equip NFTs that award tokens when moving, running, or jogging

  • Those tokens can then be used to upgrade your digital sneakers, buy power ups, or be cashed out to USDC

  • STEP’N was one of the first crypto applications to be in the Android and Apple mobile app stores and currently has around 5 million players; perhaps the biggest player base of any Web 3 application.

• STEP’N announced a long term partnership with Adidas (via the Alts NFT collection)

  • The first of many announced activations will be an NFT sneaker mint that will have perks within the STEP’N game

  • The sneakers will be raffled on STEP’N marketplace starting at $2,500 with the Alts by Adidas’ NFT holders receiving preferential treatment

• The sneaker mint is getting heavy PR support from Solana and its' affiliates as this marks Adidas’s first foray into the Solana Blockchain

• Article links:

  • https://forkast.news/adidas-and-stepn-unveil-nft-sneaker-collaboration/

Nike Releases New .Swoosh Shoe and Sock

• Nike has released two new items exclusively for their .Swoosh members

  • The first item is an Air Force 1 Low 404 which was inspired by the 404 error page that pops up when you have an incorrect domain

  • The sneaker is exclusively available for .Swoosh members via the SNKRS app

  • The bar to entry is low, as anyone who signs up for a .Swoosh account before April 18th will have access to the drop

• In other news, .Swoosh also announced an exclusive sock design that will be dropping to members on 4/23

  • A six pack will cost $28 and feature multiple color ways

• In ‘non-news’, we are still waiting for the promised update from .Swoosh concerning their digital items and interoperability in games that Nike is associated with

• Article links:

  • https://x.com/dotswoosh/status/1777417204268429571?s=46&t=_7pDgE5H9aTXqeaCBEEtYw

Telegram Doubles Down on Crypto Interoperability

• Telegram has been working on incorporating the TON blockchain into its social messaging app

  • Their last development introduced a novel way to buy ad space via crypto as well as letting users tokenize their user names

• This week they announced introducing NFT’s to the platform:

  • Telegram intends to tokenize all stickers, emojis, and gifs native to the platform via the TON Blockchain

  • The use of stickers are popular on all social media apps, but Telegram’s community especially loves them, sharing roughly 700 billion stickers a month

  • We will have to wait and see how the tokenization effects the usage of these stickers and if a marketplace will eventually be introduced

• Article links:

  • https://nftplazas.com/telegram-stickers-and-emojis-nft/

AI

New Text-to-Music AI Application Udio Impresses

• In the past, there have been a number of underwhelming music AI applications; with one of the most challenging hurdles for AI has been the ability to pitch someone's voice to different octaves within the same track

• Udio has solved this and is capable of creating music across a variety of genres

  • The lyrics are surprisingly coherent and enjoyable, and the rhythms and song compositions are well-produced and interesting

  • The quality is comparable to that of songs you might hear on the radio

• The application itself works like previous image generating applications such as MidJourney

• The user can write out a prompt in a chat bar that then generates the output which in this case is music

  • The more specific you are in the prompt the better the output

  • The application is also filled with other users’ songs, creating a sort of AI Spotify hybrid

• Describing the impressive output pales to listening to it, so we encourage you to play around with the platform below

• Article links:

  • https://www.udio.com/

  • https://gizmodo.com/dune-the-broadway-musical-and-8-other-brain-dead-songs-1851403849

Humane AI Faces Backlash

• Humane AI released a product called PIN which is a wearable AI device

• The device runs on its own network and has an internal AI that can answer questions, give you direction, and make recommendations based on your location

• It also features a projector that is hand activated with users being able to use hand movements to control the dashboard

• The goal of the product is to act as a sort of replacement of a majority of smart phone features while enabling the user to keep their eyes on their life and not a screen

• In practice, the AI itself is incredibly unreliable, and unforgivingly slow

  • Siri or Alexa respond much faster than the Humane AI Pin with more accuracy

  • The projector dashboard is hard to use and clunky

  • The price point is high at $700 in addition to a monthly subscription that has a monthly cost to work

  • Tech reviewer Marques Brownlee called it the worst product he has reviewed.

• Article links:

  • https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/videos

Metaverse / Gaming

A Bitcoin Based Gaming Console Sells Out Entire Supply

• Ordz Games is a Bitcoin focused gaming company that recently unveiled its first hardware product which is called BitBoy One

• BitBoy One resembles a high tech Gameboy of sorts that promises tons of functionality with a $500 price point

• The BitBoy One can not only run games created on Bitcoin but can also act as an emulator, playing a variety of titles from previous consoles

• It can also act as a Bitcoin hard wallet as well as mine tokens by simply leaving the device running

• Article links:

  • https://decrypt.co/226086/bitboy-one-preview-bitcoin-gaming-handheld-price-date

Ragnarok Online Makes the Jump to Crypto

• Ragnarok Online is a widely popular online MMORPG that was released in 2002 and boasts an impressive 167 million downloads

• It was recently announced that Ragnarok’s next game will be integrated into the Ethereum gaming network Ronin which also houses popular games such as Axie Infinity

• This partnership focuses on Ragnarok’s upcoming release Ragnarock Monster World which combines tower defense gameplay with monster collecting

  • Users will be able to capture, train, and eventually battle each other’s monsters

  • How exactly Ronin’s blockchain will be utilized has yet to be announced

• It will be interesting to see if the existing community will take the jump and try out this new release on the Blockchain

• Article links:

  • https://nftplazas.com/ragnarok-monster-world-ronin/

Web3

Yuga Sells off some of its IP

• In a move that is being welcomed by many within its community Yuga has sold off two of its gaming focused collections

  • The first being HV-MTL which had players creating a visually appealing base that would then be voted on by the rest of the community with winners recieving $APE

  • The second was Legends of Mara was plagued with technical difficulties from day 1

    • However the sale of Legends of Mara is somewhat surprising as the game itself was supposed to set some of the lore up for Yuga’s upcoming game Otherside

• Yuga’s head of gaming will also be departing the company and joining Farside (the purchaser of these games) as Chief Product Officer

• Article links:

  • https://x.com/yugalabs/status/1780629042661638580?s=46&t=_7pDgE5H9aTXqeaCBEEtYw

Doodles Make an Appearance at Coachella

• Doodles continues to make waves in pop culture, this time showing up at popular California music festival Coachella

• As detailed in the last newsletter Doodles recently announced an animated movie that will feature rappers Coi Leray and Lil Wayne as voices to animated Doodle character

• During Coi’s set the character she is set to voice appeared numerous times during the visuals for her show

• She also performed two unreleased songs which are speculated to be included in the upcoming film

• Article links:

  • https://twitter.com/jholguin/status/1779917724052857120?utm_source=newsletter.nftlately.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=doodles-at-coachella

Crypto

Hong Kong Approves ETFs

• Hong Kong has officially become one of the most crypto-friendly nations after its recent ETF approvals

• Unlike in America, Hong Kong has not only approved Bitcoin spot ETFs but also Ethereum ETFs

• China has long cracked down on crypto and even tried to outlaw it a couple of times

• Article links:

  • https://decrypt.co/226462/spot-bitcoin-ethereum-etfs-approved-in-hong-kong

Uniswap Hit with Lawsuit from SEC

• Uniswap is one the largest decentralized exchanges built on Ethereum allowing users to swap and sell tokens

• Decentralized exchanges are sometime preferred in crypto over centralized exchanges due to the security they offer

  • In a decentralized exchange the transactions are done peer to peer with no intermediary, so no bad actor can influence the exchange such as the case was with SBF and FTX

• Unfortunately the SEC has sent a Wells Notice to Uniswap Labs and intends to sue them over security charges

• This comes in a broader SEC crackdown within the crypto sector as they have already come for Ripple, Coinbase and others over the last year

• Uniswap’s founder Hayden Adams vowed to fight the charges in court saying “I am confident that the products we offer are legal and that our work is on the right side of history. But it’s been clear for a while that rather than working to create clear, informed rules, the SEC has decided to focus on attacking long-time good actors like Uniswap and Coinbase, all while letting bad actors like FTX slip by."

• Article links:

  • https://decrypt.co/225771/ethereum-giant-uniswap-getting-hit-sec-lawsuit-company-warns