/w=1920,quality=90,fit=scale-down){kind=logo}
May 4, 2024
Issue No. 102
CURATOR:
Welcome to this week's AtherXplorer, covering the latest in gaming, blockchain, and everything in between.
This week’s top picks include:
Artificial Intelligence
Amazon Releases Enterprise AI ‘Amazon Q’
Amazon is expanding its enterprise artificial intelligence capabilities with wider availability of its Q chatbot. Previously only available to a small number of users since its November launch, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said bringing Q to more people will help address issues of misalignment for developers. The chatbot acts as an AWS assistant, learning from a company's data and workflows so employees can ask questions about business operations, coding, HR, and logistics.
Amazon's AI focus has largely been on other businesses under its AWS division. It operates Amazon Bedrock, where companies can access popular language models and AI content generation tools to build their own generative strategies. Bedrock customers cited include GoDaddy, National Australia Bank, Sun Life, and Toyota Connected North America for cloud platforms. To further support developers, Amazon added new Q Developer capabilities providing coding assistance, app testing, security scanning, and troubleshooting. Developers can also automate tasks and document code through summoned AI agents.
Additionally, Amazon Q Apps aims to simplify building AI-powered apps for non-coders by generating the requested app after describing it in a prompt. While Amazon has released some consumer-facing AI tools like its Rufus shopping assistant, its efforts have primarily targeted developers and enterprise customers through AWS and AI model libraries like Bedrock. The expanded availability of Q reflects Amazon's emphasis on offering artificial intelligence capabilities for businesses.
GitHub Previews Copilot Workspace
GitHub has introduced Copilot Workspace, an AI-native developer environment that aims to improve the coding process using natural language. In technical preview, it allows developers to brainstorm, plan, build, test and run code from a single interface. While Copilot provides coding suggestions, Workspace operates at a higher level to reduce friction when starting tasks.
Workspace differs from existing tools by being conceptually designed from the ground up to incorporate AI. It removes stress faced when coding from a blank canvas. Everything generated by the AI is editable, allowing developers to learn while modifying suggestions into workable code. Workspace also includes an integrated terminal for immediate testing and deployment, and supports collaboration where teams can jointly work on proposals.
The environment emphasizes reducing context switching through a single portal for the whole development workflow. It can be accessed from any device via the mobile web, providing parity with the full desktop interface. While GitHub's Codespaces and mobile apps address certain use cases, Carter described Workspace as the company's first fully-featured mobile development experience.
Some key capabilities include editability at all levels, integrated terminal with secure port forwarding, built-in collaboration features, and an optimized mobile interface. The goal is to give developers more control over features by lowering barrier to exploring ideas. Carter argued this could standardize skills across enterprise teams through a common workflow. Though still in alpha, feedback will inform GitHub's go-to-market strategy for generally releasing Workspace.
Google DeepMind Created New Image Generator Standard ‘Gecko’
Current benchmarks for evaluating text-to-image AI models have limitations in comprehensively assessing their capabilities. Google DeepMind developed a new benchmark called Gecko to address these shortcomings.
Gecko provides 2,000 text prompts categorized into specific skills at varying complexity levels, probing a wide range of abilities. It introduces extensive human ratings for images generated by several models in response to the prompts. Over 100,000 annotations were gathered across different evaluation templates to discern performance factors like inherent prompt ambiguity versus model quality.
Gecko also features an enhanced automatic evaluation metric based on question answering that better correlates with human judgments compared to existing metrics. When applied to state-of-the-art models on the benchmark, previously undetected differences in their strengths and weaknesses were revealed.
DeepMind's own Muse model performed best overall when subjected to Gecko's rigorous examination. The researchers hope their work demonstrates the need for diverse, robust benchmarks and metrics to accurately understand text-to-image AI. Making the Gecko resources publicly available will help advance the field. While attractive sample generations seem impressive, rigorous testing is still crucial for determining true capabilities before real-world deployment.
In Other AI News…
Gaming
Helldivers 2 Gets Review-Bombed After Developers Announce PSN Account Requirement for Steam Players
Developers Arrowhead Game Studios and Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that the PC game Helldivers 2 on Steam will soon require a PlayStation Network account to play. Starting May 30, all new players will need to link their Steam account with a PSN account. Current players have until June 4 to do so. Previously, playing Helldivers 2 on Steam did not require a PSN account.
In response, many players have left negative reviews on the game's Steam page expressing frustration over the sudden change. While the overall review rating remains positive, the percentage of positive reviews has dropped some since the announcement. SIE explained the temporary optional linking of Steam to PSN accounts was due to technical issues at launch but that grace period will now expire starting May 6 for new players and June 4 for current players.
It's important to note a PSN account can be made for free online without a PlayStation console. SIE encourages creating accounts ahead of the expiration dates. They believe this change will help build a united community despite the short-term inconvenience. Gamers can read more about new Helldivers 2 content like a Warbond and increased level cap, blizzards, and sandstorms in recent updates.
Ubisoft’s New F2P FPS ‘XDefiant’ Gets May Release Date
Ubisoft has announced that its free-to-play FPS game XDefiant will be releasing on May 21st for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. This date marks the beginning of the game's preseason phase, giving players early access ahead of the official first season. XDefiant had previously been delayed last year after beta tests. The preseason will last six weeks before seasonal cadences begin. Ubisoft has already outlined plans for the first four seasons encompassing Year 1.
The preseason will include factions from Ubisoft franchises like Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, The Division, and Far Cry. Players will have access to 19 maps across various game modes such as Domination, Hot Shot, Occupy, and Escort. A ranked mode practice playlist will also be available, allowing 4v4 competitive warm-ups. All rewards from prior test periods will carry over. With content and modes becoming fully unlocked for free during this preseason period, players can begin familiarizing themselves with XDefiant's gameplay before its first seasonal update.
Google Objects to Epic’s Proposed Play Store Policy Changes
Google has filed objections in response to Epic Games' recent injunction proposal regarding Play Store policies following their legal battle last year. Epic is seeking to mandate allowing third-party app stores and cross-platform library transfers for six years, but Google argues this does not serve the public interest and is an overreach from Epic's trial victory. The company claims Epic's changes would significantly damage Google's ability to compete in mobile and benefit Epic alone by reducing consumer choice. Google also stated a separate state settlement deals with the same anticompetitive conduct issues presented in the trial.
Google listed over a dozen objections, including that Epic is pursuing remedies it is not entitled to. The company said Epic's injunction would effectively require ongoing court management of the complex app ecosystem and harm developers and device makers by reducing competition for their businesses. Google further argued the injunction could undermine user security and privacy on Android. A hearing on Epic's proposed injunction is scheduled for May 23rd to consider these objections from Google. The legal dispute originated from Fortnite bypassing Google's Play Store payment system.
In Other Gaming News…
Web3, Metaverse, and NFTs
EigenLayer Announces EIGEN Token and Stakedrop
The Eigen Foundation introduced the EIGEN token to complement ETH restaking and empower the EigenLayer ecosystem. In its initial phase, EIGEN will be non-transferable to cultivate social consensus around its novel design before full functionality.
Initially, the Eigen Foundation announced that 5% of the supply of EIGEN would be retroactivaly allocated and airdropped to restakers based on a March 15th snapshot, with 90% distributed now in Season 1 Phase 1, and 10% in Season 1 Phase 2.
However, after much community backlash due to geolocation restrictions, small allocations for restakers, non-transferability of the token, and investor and team vesting concerns, the Foundation released an update blog post. In it, they announced allocating an additional 100 EIGEN to over 280,000 users, increasing the minimum allocation to 110 EIGEN. Additionally, Season 2 participants in the window between March 15th and April 29th will also receive 100 EIGEN minimum. Further clarifications included that the one-year lock-up for investors and the team only starts after the token is transferable. New features are targeted for enabling transfers by September 30th, 2024.
Acknowledging feedback, the Foundation stated missed testnet user allocations will be addressed in Phase 2. It expressed gratitude for community support in growing the protocol and ecosystem together. The updates aim to promote decentralization and broader distribution as EigenLayer coordinates open innovation.
LayerZero Confirms Snapshot Date and Reveals Sybil Filtering Process
LayerZero, a blockchain interoperability protocol, recently revealed the date for their much-anticipated snapshot, confirming it was completed on May 1, 2024.
However, a separate post regarding their Sybil filtering process caused a temporary stir in the community. LayerZero's post on Sybil filtering, a process to prevent malicious actors from gaining undue influence, sparked concerns within the community.
Some users perceived the filtering methods as overly restrictive. Due to how it was communicated on their blog post, the community was under the impression that any user that transacted via protocols such as ‘Merkly’ would be flagged as a sybil.
LayerZero co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino later addressed community concerns, clarifying that they consider users that ONLY used ‘farming protocols’ such as Merkly to generate transactions would be considered sybils while real users should be safe.
Community uproar is understandable, especially as a LayerZero airdrop has been highly anticipated in the space and over 6 million wallets have interacted with the interoperability protocol.
Hong Kong’s Bitcoin and Ether ETFs Attract over $200M on Day 1
Hong Kong's newly launched spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs attracted over $200 million in total assets on their debut day of April 30th. Data showed the Bosera HashKey ETFs held $71.94 million across 964 BTC and 4,290 ETH. ChinaAMC's ETFs accumulated $123.61 million, making its Bitcoin ETF the 6th largest launch in Hong Kong in the past three years. Harvest Global's two ETFs saw $23 million in combined turnover as well.
However, this paled in comparison to US ETFs, which attracted nearly $4 billion in assets and $4.5 billion in volume on their first day. Analysts had warned expectations should be lowered for Hong Kong. While the totals were smaller, ChinaAMC's ETF breaking the top 20% of all Hong Kong ETF launches in just one day was still notable. Additionally, non-Hong Kong residents can invest if meeting local rules, and investors can subscribe using Bitcoin and Ether directly, unlike US ETFs.
A survey found 76.9% of crypto-knowledgeable Hong Kong residents planned to invest in the new ETFs, demonstrating growing acceptance of digital assets. The executive director of OSL commented this positions Hong Kong as the regional digital asset hub. However, the ETFs remain only accessible to Hong Kong's estimated 6.4 million adult residents for now, barring mainland Chinese investors without residency permits from participating. Overall, the debut showed localized demand despite more limited accessibility compared to US ETFs.
In Other Web3 & Metaverse News…
SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to our newsletter today and be the first to receive Sipher news, AtherXplorer weekly issues, and new AtherXperiment posts. Sign up now and get ahead of the game!