The Format #003

Happy Friday 😎. So much has happened in the last few weeks. Tech feels like it’s entering a new era whether it’s Reddit and its user generated shut down, or Apple introducing EyeSight (we’re still not sure if Apple actually thinks it invented eye sight or the whole thing is a parody), and the USA has basically given blockchain to the rest of the world due to the aggressive stance of the SEC, with players like A16Z coming to London…

Our quick round up of some of the more interesting things that we’ve found:

Breaking up with technology. It’s not me. It’s you.

Sarah’s post discusses how at OPENFORMAT, being the change that you want to see in the world isn’t easy. All good things take time and patience. Our ditching of (almost) all ‘big tech’ in order to align with our principles is a journey in itself.

From Thought to Text: AI Converts Silent Speech into Written Words

While not perfect, this AI system successfully captures the essence of a person’s thoughts half of the time!. While this is being initially targeted at people with the inability to speak (i.e. post stroke), there’s a few wider questions here around the looming “age of no secrets” (we can read your mind… right?). It leaves the question if this is a box that we can open, should we?

Is Bard Abetting ChatGPT’s Suicide?

The strategies between the Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are starting to take shape, with OpenAI working with external API’s and Plugins (Apple will sure enter the AI App Store marketplace soon?), while Google is playing catchup with its advancements under the hood. The thing that caught my eye in this article is “implicit code execution”. Essentially when Bard detects a computational prompt it literally writes “disposable code” to solve the problem… This is big - programs writing programs and then disappearing code - ephemeral code. This is a prime opportunity for blockchain to step in and create some accountability here… I feel a blog post coming on.

Indonesian government looks to NFTs to preserve cultural heritage

There seems to be a trend in cultural heritage taking advantage of blockchain technology on a large scale. Digitisation is one thing, but the delivery, rights management and the potential nested markets (royalties, resale, etc) have a lot of people very excited. The fundamental shift of putting the rules of commerce into the “asset” rather than the marketplace is shifting the mindset of owners of huge archives of content.

OPENFORMAT News

The last few weeks have been massive for us at OPENFORMAT, here’s just a glimpse:

OPENFORMAT and Fast Fashion, a (Web3) Love Story…

Our first public use case went live this week for a co-lab between startup UNTAGGED and Graduate Fashion Week in London, with this post written before the event. Another small post coming now that the event is over; for now we’ll just say that it was a big success, on the cat walk and the delivery of the digital fashion items as an NFT containing an AR filter, 3D Object, and Video.

Upcoming IRL Hack: Let’s Make Tiny Music Apps

So, we're back with another small hack event on Tuesday 27th of June, the format will be the same, with our focus on the music industry. What tiny apps can we build that work together to create an experience greater than the sum of its parts? For example, one team builds a streaming player that costs tokens to play, and another team allows fans to earn rewards that they can spend on streaming, another team builds an (NFT) music marketplace, etc

Prompt (Generated by AI): Imagine a bustling scene at the Pasar Triwindu, a famous antique market in Solo, Central Java. Stalls brim with antique Javanese wayang puppets, batik textiles, and vintage Dutch colonial furniture. The buzz of the market, and the mix of old and new, are alive. Capture this scene in the vivid, dynamic style of Katsushika Hokusai. --quality 2 --s 750