OpenAI Bolts To A Billion, AI21 Raises $155 Million, Nvidia Stalked By IBM

ChatGPT Enterprise Send OpenAI Revenue Past $1B. Although based on the GPT-4 model like ChatGPT Plus, the Enterprise edition includes priority access for faster performance.

AI21 Labs closes $155 million in Series C. The three year old Tel-Aviv company provides text-based generative AI services for enterprises. Investors include Walden Catalyst, Pitango, SCB10X, b2venture, Samsung Next and Amnon Shashua, the founder of Intel-owned Mobileye and an AI21 Labs co-founder. Google and Nvidia also participated. The new funding brings the company’s total capital raised to $283M at a valuation of $1.4 billion.

Nvidia, beware! IBM has a new analog AI chip that could give the H100 a run for its money. Techradar says Nvidia shouldn’t get too comfy.

Magic Leap 1’s “end of life” date will be December 31, 2024. Magic Leap 1 is no longer available for purchase, but will continue to be supported through December 31, 2024. Maybe there are ten thousand of these out in the wild. Installed software should continue to work but if it doesn’t, you’re on your own.

VRChat Mobile Is Now Available In Alpha On Android. You have to be cross platform, you have to be on mobile. And so is Meta Horizons. Horizon mobile so far only supports worlds that specifically add support for mobile devices. They’ve got a long way to catch Rec Room, which exploded when it was released on game consoles and mobile two years ago.

“INVASION” is a fake trailer from Mehmet Aldış, a 35-year-old Turkish Cypriot with a passion for photography. In the past year, he’s been focused on GenAI. Aldis used the Midjoruney text-to-image tool to create each shot, and then turned these high-resolution images into 3-second videos using Pikalabs. The video was upscaled to 4K resolution using Topaz AI. It took Aldis a total of 1.5 weeks to produce it.

FIVARS 9th Annual VR Festival Is Back and Available Online through October 3rd. FIVARS’ online theater enables users to view 360 films with or without a headset, attend talks, network, and enjoy live virtual performances. There will be live events in Toronto Sept 15-19 at Studio idFK gallery, in the Queen St. W arts district. Selected works include “The Carrier,” a narrative experienced from a baby’s viewpoint; “Night Creatures,” which features stop-motion fruit bats attending film festivals; and “Gumball Dreams,” the VR Theater piece that’s at the Venice Film Festival right now. “FIVARS is more than a festival,” says festival director Keram Maliki-Sanche. “It’s a unique platform for groundbreaking storytelling in the age of spatial computing.”

This Week in XR is also a podcast hosted by the author of this column, Ted Schilowitz, Futurist, Paramount Global, and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap. This week our guest is Michael Mack, CEO and Owner, Europa Park. We can be found on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.

Two Ted Talks To Expand Your Mind

Bilawal Sidhu, “AI powered tools to supercharge your imagination”

Lucas Rizzotto, “Why I build my own time machine.” Also, “Where Thoughts Go,” and upcoming “Pillow.”

What We’re Reading

VR Pioneer Jeremy Bailenson: VR Is More Tool Than Toy (ZDNet)

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2023/09/01/this-week-in-xr-openai-bolts-to-a-billion-ai21-raises-155-million-nvidia-stalked-by-ibm/