Operating System for XR
Highlights
Insights
1. A Digital Business Ecosystems is a collaborative
organizational model that leverages shared technologies, knowledge, and skills across industries to foster innovation, adaptability, and enhanced customer-focused outcomes.
2. AI, advanced sensors, and biotechnology are converging into a concept called “Living Intelligence,” revolutionizing industries with systems that sense, learn, and adapt.
News
1. OpenAI introduced Sora, Advanced Voice with video and Santa mode, and Projects.
2. Google unveiled Gemini 2.0, enhancing Project Astra for advanced AI assistance, and enabling Project Mariner for web navigation.
3. Google and Samsung unveiled Android XR, a new operating system integrating Gemini technology to enhance AR/VR headsets and smart glasses.
4. Google’s new quantum chip, Willow, achieves groundbreaking error correction and computational performance.
5. The new Llama 3.3 70B model demonstrates the growing strength of open AI models.
6. Scientists at Scripps Research have developed MovieNet, an AI model capable of interpreting moving scenes in real time.
Innovation Insights
1. Why people resist embracing AI (Harvard Business Review)
Despite AI’s potential and growing capabilities, many people resist adopting it because they perceive it as opaque, emotionless, inflexible, overly autonomous, and lacking the human qualities necessary for subjective tasks, with even minimal personalization or user control significantly increasing trust and engagement.
2. Paul Yacoubian on product-led growth in AI-native companies (McKinsey)
Paul Yacoubian emphasizes that product-led growth (PLG) in AI-native companies requires an obsessive focus on reducing friction to deliver customer value quickly, leveraging user feedback through tools like net promoter scores and qualitative insights, and balancing product scope to avoid being overly vertical or general, enabling scalable growth by addressing core use cases and expanding iteratively.
3. Achieving operational excellence through intelligent and interactive ecosystems (California Management Review)
The article highlights how Digital Business Ecosystems (DBEs), driven by AI, data, and collaboration, enable companies to achieve operational excellence and competitive advantage through key attributes like effective platforms, customer-centric designs, and value creation via cross-industry collaboration. Examples from Haier and Tesla demonstrate how DBEs foster innovation, improve customer focus, and expand markets by integrating technologies like IoT, AI, and machine learning.
4. Future Today Institute Annual Letter (FTI)
Three major technologies—AI, advanced sensors, and biotechnology—are converging into a concept called “Living Intelligence,” revolutionizing industries with systems that sense, learn, and adapt. Quantum computing and nuclear fusion are reaching practical inflection points, promising disruptions across energy, materials science, and beyond. Climate challenges are accelerating innovation in sustainable energy, biotech, and infrastructure. Meanwhile, breakthroughs in AI are reshaping business strategies with emerging Large Action Models (LAMs) and collaborative LLMs, signaling a future of autonomous systems integrated into daily life. Fusion energy, quantum biology, and advances in wearables and biotechnology hint at a transformative supercycle of innovation, offering profound societal and economic impacts.
5. 15 Times to use AI, and 5 Not to (One Useful Thing)
AI is most effective when used as a tool to amplify productivity, creativity, and expertise, but its application requires thoughtful judgment. It excels in tasks demanding quantity, variance, summarization, or translation, especially when the stakes are low or expertise allows users to assess outputs critically. AI shines in generating ideas, creating diverse perspectives, or acting as a co-founder in entrepreneurial contexts. However, it should be avoided in high-stakes scenarios, tasks requiring deep learning or synthesis, and when effort itself is essential to growth. The evolving nature of AI demands continuous adaptation, balancing its transformative potential with an awareness of its limitations and risks.
AI Innovations
1. OpenAI
OpenAI introduced video generator Sora, Advanced Voice with video and Santa mode, a ChatGPT organizing system called Projects, and Reinforcement Fine-Tuning Research Program while editing tool Canvas moved out of beta (OpenAI).
2. Apple
With iOS 18.2, Apple Intelligence introduces features like Image Playground, Genmoji, enhanced Writing Tools, seamless ChatGPT integration, and Visual Intelligence, alongside expanded localized English support, offering creative tools and advanced AI capabilities while prioritizing user privacy (Apple).
3. Alphabet
Google’s Gemini 2.0 introduces advanced “agentic” AI capabilities, enabling multimodal input processing, real-time actions, and task automation across applications. Google DeepMind’s Project Astra, powered by Gemini 2.0, introduces a groundbreaking multimodal “universal assistant” capable of integrating language, vision, and memory to perform diverse tasks seamlessly (MIT Tech Review). Google’s new web-browsing AI agent, Mariner, also powered by Gemini 2.0, introduces advanced reasoning, planning, and task execution capabilities, promising to redefine web-based workflows and user experiences (Forbes).
Google’s new quantum chip, Willow, achieves groundbreaking error correction and computational performance, demonstrating exponential error reduction and completing a task in minutes that would take a supercomputer 10 septillion years, marking a major step toward practical, large-scale quantum computing (Google).
YouTube has expanded its AI-powered auto-dubbing feature to knowledge-focused content channels, enabling creators to generate translated audio tracks in multiple languages, making content more accessible globally while continuing to refine accuracy and voice replication (TechCrunch).
Google and Samsung unveiled Android XR, a new operating system integrating Google’s AI-powered Gemini technology to enhance AR/VR headsets and smart glasses, marking a significant push in the wearable tech space despite uncertain consumer demand (Yahoo!).
4. xAI
xAI’s Aurora is an image-generation model incorporated into Grok 2 (Tom’s Guide).
5. Midjourney
Midjourney introduced “Patchwork,” a collaborative multiplayer tool for worldbuilding (VentureBeat).
6. Animal language
AI is being applied to decode animal communication, revealing unique vocal patterns, potential “names,” and cultural nuances among species like whales, elephants, and crows, offering insights into their minds, social structures, and the importance of conservation (Nature).
7. Meta
The new Llama 3.3 70B model demonstrates the growing strength of open AI models by outperforming proprietary systems like GPT-4o in key benchmarks, offering customizable capabilities, broader language support, and efficient performance on modest hardware (Tom’s Guide).
8. Scripps Research
Scientists at Scripps Research have developed MovieNet, a groundbreaking AI model inspired by the human brain, capable of interpreting moving scenes in real time with unprecedented accuracy and efficiency, offering transformative potential for fields like medical diagnostics and autonomous driving (MSN).
Other Innovations
1. Diagnostics
Personalized blood-test reference ranges, based on an individual’s unique setpoints rather than population averages, could enhance precision diagnostics by detecting subtle health changes, improving disease prediction, and refining clinical decision-making (Nature).
2. Battery
Sodium-ion batteries are emerging as a promising, cost-effective alternative to lithium-ion technology, offering lower costs, reduced fire risks, and sustainability advantages, with advancements like CATL’s second-generation model signaling their growing potential for mainstream adoption in EVs and energy storage (Ars Technica).
3. XR
The Vision Pro’s upgraded Mac Virtual Display in visionOS 2.2 introduces curved ultrawide and high-resolution display options, making it a near-killer app by transforming the headset into a viable, expansive workspace for productivity (The Verge).
