Happy Friday!
🎉Good news everyone! 🎉
This week the team at Axonista is delighted to have been shortlisted for Best interactive TV technology or application at the 19th Annual CSI Magazine Awards, for our work with environmental activism platform WaterBear! 💚 And - also this week the founder of WaterBear, the fabulous Ellen Windemuth is a guest on Fast Company Magazine's podcast!
Big news this week, in a rare un-Disney-like manner, Disney has slammed actor Scarlet Johansson who sued Disney for breach of contract, for its decision to stream the much awaited Black Widow on Disney+ on the same day as it was released in cinemas. Ms Johansson was not happy about her lack of potential earnings which were contractually tied to successful box office metrics - and not to streaming downloads. We think Ms Johansson has a valid point. Movie streaming services are going to need to revise contractual obligations in line with new distribution trends.
Also this week, the Metaverse takes centre stage. Coined in Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel, the term metaverse refers to 'a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet'. Think Fortnite or even the movie Ready Player One.
Lots of companies have been making moves towards a metaverse-like future. As featured in last week's edition of Rerun, Netflix's move into gaming may be interpreted as a first step towards its metaverse strategy. The Verge has a very in-depth interview with Mark Zuckerberg, who sees Facebook's future as less of a social network, and more of a metaverse company. And Digiday reports that Netflix's key hire for gaming was formerly VP of content at Facebook Reality Lab. If you're still confused as to what the metaverse is, Digiday also has a nice primer 'WTF is the Metaverse?' to get you started.
And last but not least, back on the web, Fashion Relief TV returns this evening at 7pm with another shoppable show chock-a-block with preloved summer essentials, all proceeds going to Oxfam Ireland.
Until next week!
Robot arranges 100,000 dominoes into a Super Mario Bros. mural in one day
And finally...
Engineer and YouTuber Mark Rober has created a robot named the Dominator that can arrange 100,000 dominoes into a Super Mario Bros. mural in just one day!
It would take a team of seven humans a week to achieve this, but the Dominator could to do this by putting down 300 dominoes at a time. What an impressive robot!