Month: March 2022

News

Disney appoints director to lead metaverse development

By on Wednesday, March 23, 2022
disney metaverse

Through the metaverse, Disney plans to connect the virtual and the real, to create a new space in which its users can engage in a different way.

On February 15, Disney CEO Bob Chapek appointed a new director to lead metaverse development at the company. Mike White becomes a senior VP at Disney and heads the department in charge of the metaverse.

Mike White takes over as head of metavers at Disney

Previously, Mike White was in charge of customer experience at Disney. Prior to joining the company in 2011, White worked at large technology companies, including Yahoo. Following in Meta’s footsteps, Disney intends to take the lead on the subject of metavers and influence the development of this new web standard. Bob Chapek did not provide many details on how Disney plans to make money with its metaverse, but said that White’s task will be to “bring the virtual and real worlds together”.

The Disney CEO points out that “for nearly 100 years, our company has defined and redefined entertainment by leveraging technology to bring stories to life in deeper and more impactful ways.” He says the metaverse is the next great frontier in storytelling and the perfect place for Disney to execute its strategy of excellence and innovation.

It’s not hard to imagine how Disney could explore the possibilities of the metaverse. For example, one can imagine a virtual Disneyland, much more advanced than the existing real-world versions, with advanced experiences in each of Disney’s universes.

15 years before seeing a final version of the metaverse?

In his statement, Chapek also clarified that “we have an opportunity today to connect these two worlds and create a completely new paradigm for our users to engage in a different way.” This prospect of a virtual world at Disney, however, seems remote.

Indeed, despite the investment and hype surrounding the metaverse, the technology is not ready. Meta’s leaders estimate that it will take fifteen years for their vision to become a reality.

That’s not stopping many companies from testing new experiments. Warner, for example, is going to create a music theme park in the Sandbox metaverse. The music label has associated a nice bunch of stars to its project.

Among others, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa and Green Day are expected to perform in Warner’s music theme park. Carrefour has also bought a virtual land in the Sandbox metaverse. There is talk of a possible opening of a virtual supermarket and the sale of certified virtual products in the form of NFT. In short, more and more projects related to the metaverse.

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AMD doubles Intel for the first time in terms of capitalization

By on Friday, March 11, 2022
amd intel war

49 billion dollars. That’s the amount AMD invested last week in its acquisition of Xilinx, a California-based semiconductor giant that initially specialized in programmable SoCs, but is now very diversified. This acquisition allows AMD’s market capitalization to soar to $198 billion, surpassing that of its rival Intel ($193.70 billion as of February 17). A first in the history of both companies.

This increase in AMD’s valuation is also the consequence of a number of shares that has greatly inflated following the purchase of Xilinx: 1,628 billion compared to approximately 1,200 billion previously.

AMD and Intel’s valuation is still far from approaching that of Nvidia

However, with this new valuation, investors’ expectations are also revised upwards towards Lisa Su’s company. As underlined by the specialized site Guru3D, the purchase of Xilinx gives hope for a greater potential of growth thanks to a more marked diversification.

It must be said that until now AMD was mainly specialized in the design of processors and graphics cards for laptops, desktops and servers. Remember that on the x86 CPU market (AMD’s core business) the firm only has about a third of the market share. The rest is controlled by Intel, says Guru3D.

For AMD, the whole issue of buying Xilinx is therefore to expand the field of possibilities … and to establish itself on other sectors. Getting its hands on Xilinx is therefore a smart move by AMD. It is indeed a manufacturer who touches everything.

The brand has been able to establish itself in the sectors of 5G equipment, the Internet of Things, but also in the field of technologies dedicated to autonomous vehicles. Xilinx also has a strong presence in the embedded chips and devices sector, as well as in the networking devices market. These are all areas in which AMD will now be present, at least indirectly.

Note that it is this drive towards diversification that has allowed Nvidia to reach its current market capitalization, estimated at 662 billion dollars. AMD and Intel are far from it. As a reminder, the GPU giant has invested in the field of AI and neural networks, two high-growth sectors.

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