Napster's Metaverse Pivot, Samsung CEO's Death, and Recreating Extinct Animal Gaits

Napster's Metaverse Transformation

• 🎵 Infinite Reality has acquired the Napster brand for $27 million, aiming to transform it into a social music platform for extended reality devices.
• 🚀 The new Napster will feature concert experiences, digital merchandise sales, and direct artist-fan interactions, with a focus on enabling artists to connect with, own, and monetize their fan relationships.
• ⏳ While Napster still holds licenses to stream millions of tracks, the launch date and platforms for the metaverse version remain unannounced.

Tech and Business Briefs

• 💔 Samsung co-CEO Jeang Ki Hon passed away from a heart attack at age 63, leading to his co-CEO becoming the sole leader of the company.
• 🔒 US officials are under fire for discussing classified military operations in a private Signal group chat, which inadvertently included a journalist, highlighting Signal's unsuitability for government communications.
• 🗣️ OpenAI has updated its ChatGPT voice mode for paid users with GPT-40, aiming for more natural and less interrupted conversations, while Sam Altman will focus more on research and product development.
• 🚗 Waymo intends to launch its robo-taxis in Washington D.C., but faces regulatory hurdles due to current laws prohibiting autonomous vehicles without safety drivers.
• 🎧 Apple Music will integrate with DJ software and hardware, allowing DJs to stream music directly from the cloud, though connectivity issues could pose a challenge.
• 📈 Netflix is adding support for HDR10 plus streaming using the AV1 codec for its premium subscribers, potentially making AV1 its most streamed codec.
• 📣 TikTok is launching an ad campaign in the US to highlight its benefits for Americans and small businesses, amidst ongoing concerns about a potential ban.

Recreating Ancient Animal Movement

• 🐾 Researchers are investigating ways to bring extinct animals back to life, not just through genetic engineering, but by studying their locomotion from fossilized footprints.
• 🤖 A team from EPFL and Humboldt University created a robot named Orobot based on 300 million-year-old footprints of the extinct vertebrate Orobates pabsti.
• 💡 This research helps understand how early vertebrates transitioned from water to land and requires simulating aspects like spine bending, leg height, and joint movement.
• 🌍 The study utilized computer simulations and real-world robot testing in substrates like mud to accurately recreate the animal's gait, offering insights into evolutionary biology.
• ✈️ This methodology could potentially be applied to study the origins of flight, such as with Archaeopteryx.