Suggested readings week 36/2022
The HTML of Metaverse
Extraordinary new technologies can be limited by missing protocols and standards for interoperability and consistent usage experience.
HTML is the name of a language that describes an internet webpage, and you're using it each time you visit a website.
USD is a new protocol invented by Pixar that describes complex virtual scenes that are typically shared when visiting (or experiencing) a metaverse world. Stay tuned for the potential that a standard protocol will give to interactive applications!
https://www.roadtovr.com/nvidia-usd-html-metaverse-foundation/amp
Ethereum and proof of stake
Vitalik Buterin (the inventor of Ethereum, one of the most successfull crypto architectures based on blockchain) is determined to mantain a high technical profile and security for his creation, without accepting that the high energy costs of transactions recording make it less appealing.
Energy consumed for validating each single transaction is now one of the major criticisms to crypto currencies and other blockchain use cases (not without doubts about the real energy cost of fiat currencies). So Buterin launched years ago a challenge for defining and describing a new scheme for transactions validation, that will enter into daily use on Ethereum very soon introducing an important evolution to the entire crypto community.
Recreating Bell Labs
The real value of an environment similar to the one created by Mervin Kelly at Bell Labs is under discussion in these days of business evolution led by Deep Tech. Undoubtly, at Bell Labs (and PARC) the freedom to research in interdisciplinary ways and discuss with anyone about ideas and applications, was key to give humanity a few of the most important inventions of a century.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-022-00426-6
Floods mapping
Sometimes technology can helo fight climate change, or at least mapping it for awareness.