Get in the KNOW
on LA Startups & Tech
X
Image courtesy of Crypto Cannabis Club
Marijuana and the Metaverse: How LA Cannabis Startups Are Lighting Up the Virtual Realm
07:00 AM | May 17, 2022
With West Hollywood becoming a hub for cannabis consumption lounges and many Silicon Beach companies embracing virtual reality, it was only a matter of time before two of Los Angeles’ two burgeoning industries started mingling.
While many cannabis firms are still figuring out how to incorporate the metaverse and Web3 applications like NFTs, Canoga Park’s Saucey Farms & Extracts has become one of the first business to offer THC products in the metaverse as part of a dispensary in Cryptovoxels, a virtual platform build on the Ethereum blockchain. Local weed brand Califari, meanwhile, recently sold NFT artwork to support the cannabis-oriented criminal justice nonprofit The Last Prisoner Project. Then there’s groups like the Crypto Cannabis Club (CCC), an organization centered around 10,000 “NFTokers” that gives holders discounts on cannabis products and has hosted weed-themed meetups in the Decentraland metaverse.
According to Crypto Cannabis Club CEO Ryan Hunter, about 20% of the community is based in California, with the organization’s most active chapter located in Southern California. Hunter said that CCC uses different metaverses based on its needs; if the Club wants to host virtual 4/20 or 7/10 gatherings for all of its members, those would take place in Decentraland because it’s “more of a wide-open space,” while interactive gaming experience would be on The Sandbox platform, where noted weed entrepreneur Snoop Dogg has already staked a claim.
Hunter views the metaverse as a bridge between real-world cannabis enthusiasts and those who are passionate about virtual experiences.
“We’re trying to intentionally create a community of folks that are part of the cannabis community in the real world, and want to be a part of the cannabis community as it expands into the metaverse [and] these virtual communities that are developing,” he said.
In addition to cannabis ventures, artists are also exploring how the metaverse and Web3 can help them connect with new audiences. Reece Kinsbursky, art director of the The Artist Tree dispensary chain, told dot.LA that he has received interest from artists about showing their NFT artwork on the dispensary’s walls; one even explored marketing a piece for sale via a QR code that would be displayed in the dispensary. (While The Artist Tree does not currently display NFT art at its stores, Kinsbursky didn’t rule it out in the future.)
“It certainly has the capabilities to change a lot in how the ecommerce space functions,” he said of the overlap between NFTs and cannabis. “But it’s too soon to tell.”
Cannabis aside, the metaverse is blossoming into a major focus for tech companies in Los Angeles. From social media companies like Snap to entertainment giants like Disney, there are no shortage of players leveraging virtual reality to grow their businesses and expand how they interact with audiences.
Likewise, Hunter and other cannabis entrepreneurs hope that engaging with metaverse platforms can expand their brand awareness and ecommerce presence. In addition to launching a direct-to-consumer offering—featuring collectible NFTs—in partnership with delivery company CampNova, CCC is building a dispensary in Cryptovoxels to display products from partner brands. In time, Hunter wants the virtual dispensary experience to mirror the real one, complete with a cultivation space where visitors can learn about the growing process.
As for cannabis consumers who may doubt the metaverse’s potential, Hunter believes a little skepticism is healthy.“I think there’s every reason for them to be suspicious, and that’s a great way to approach it,” he said. “I’m not trying to convince anybody. We’re trying to create a community that earns its place—and hopefully we’ll find folks who are open-minded, and they’ll tell friends who are less open-minded and convince them.”
From Your Site Articles
- Snoop Dogg's Cannabis VC Firm Sparks Edible Brand - dot.LA ›
- LEUNE: a California Cannabis Company Backed by Star Power ... ›
- Payfoot and Cosmic Wire Team Up for Soccer Metaverse - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
A Day in LA With the Deepfake Artists Trying To Make the Digital World As Real as the Physical One
05:00 AM | September 01, 2022
Courtesy of America's Got Talent
The Palisades Village is a 125,000-square feet outdoor shopping center designed to look like a luxurious resort town in a Bond movie. The pathways are cobblestone. The lights are outfitted to look like gas lamps. Every restaurant serves Italian food.
Rick Caruso, L.A. mayoral candidate and the architect behind the project and myriad other “faux-Italian” shopping centers, is well known for this sort of architectural theme: Cloning the riviera for the American imagination. But Tom Graham, the CEO of Metaphysic, an artificial intelligence company creating synthetically generated versions of real people, is unimpressed.
“This place is weird,” he says, pointing to a patch of grass with a sign that says “Don’t Walk on the Grass.” “Why can’t you walk on the grass?”
Graham is temporarily in Los Angeles along with Chris Umé — a VFX artist and the founder of Metaphysic. They’re getting ready for “America’s Got Talent” semifinals. Last month they wowed the judges with their hyperreal Simon Cowell avatar who sang Chicago’s “You’re the Inspiration” live on air.
Colloquially this type of content is better known as deepfakes. But, Graham says, what they’re developing at Metaphysic, “is sort of beyond.” Take, for example, their work with Miles Fisher — the most famous deepfake actor the world has ever known. Fisher is a Tom Cruise impersonator and the face behind @deeptomcruise. By now, you’ve probably seen Fisher as Cruise jumping over Keegan-Michael Key. Realizing there’s bubblegum inside a lollipop. And putting his arms around Paris Hilton.
To achieve this hyperreal effect, Metaphysic uses a neural network that’s patterned after the human brain. In the simplest terms, their technology processes data via an adaptive computing system that improves continuously. In the case of @deeptomcruise, this network inputs every image of Tom Cruise to output his every expression. His every wrinkle. The way Cruise’s eyebrows furl when he talks.
Again, the concept of deepfakes is hardly a new one. But Ume’s fakes aren’t typical. When I first saw one, it took more than a few Google searches to convince my brain that the real Tom Cruise has never wrapped his arms around Paris Hilton. And that he’s not actually on TikTok.
@deeptomcruise
@deeptomcruise When jokes fly over your head 😂✌️@Keegan-Michael Key
With millions of views, an appearance on 60 Minutes and featured in every publication from Vice to Today, the ersatz Tom Cruise is the face of Metaphysic’s technological capabilities. The computational magic trick, however, is also just the tip of the iceberg.
Metaphysic’s ultimate vision is to create a metaverse “so real that if after a month you tried to distinguish between the memories you made in the digital world you wouldn’t be able to distinguish them from the physical one,” says Graham. In short, he adds, “we want to make the content more important than the format.”
But here at the frontier of artificial intelligence, there’s a shadow following the deep-learning robot. Most notoriously, is the issue of deepfake porn. Reddit has already had to ban two different synthetic media subreddits (the most recent ban was instituted this past June) according to Unite.AI because so many “People kept requesting deepfake porn.”
“I think the most fundamental problem of the misuse of AI-generated synthetic media is the erosion of the public's trust in all online media,” says Siwei Lyu, director of University of Buffalo’s Media Forensic Lab and the founding co-director of the university’s Center for Information Integrity (CII). “By creating illusions of an individual's presence and activities that did not occur in reality, deepfakes can cause actual harm when they are weaponized.”
For instance, Lyu says, “a fake video showing a politician engaged in inappropriate activity” could sway an election. Or, he adds, “a falsified audio recording of a high-level executive commenting on her company’s financial situation could send the stock market awry.”
As such, says Wael Abd-Almageed, a research director at USC’s Information Sciences Institute, “if we want to continue to use artificial intelligence to create synthetic content, which is a fact of life, at least we need to create a signature or watermark to identify that the data is fake.”
Graham says Metaphysic has every intention of “bringing awareness to these issues.” But, he adds, “the technology is moving forward either way.”
Graham insists, that the issues around hyperreal, AI-generated content is a concern held primarily by people 60 or older who find themselves inside their social media feedback loop.
“We’ve looked at this,” he says. “And people who use words like ‘fear,’ ‘scared,’ ‘future,’ are all older people who share news clips about deepfakes on Facebook. Most people under the age of 40 have a very different understanding of this stuff. Millennials and Gen Z can really see its potential.”
To be clear, so does Lyu.
“For instance, used in the movie and advertisement industry, these technologies can lead to a significant reduction in cost and improved flexibility,” he says. Or, he adds, “to create multilingual versions of the same video.”
Metaphysic is not making any money from their deepfake Tom Cruise videos, but the technology they’re developing is key to the soon-to-be $824 billion industry they’re a part of. For now, Umé says his interest in hyperreal AI-generated content goes beyond the financial. His roadmap for Metaphysic is, more than anything, penned to Metaphysic’s larger philosophy:
“If you perceive something to be real,” says Graham. “Is it any less real?”
On a patch of grass on the outskirts of the Palisades Village, TikToker Larsen Thompson begins teaching Fisher the moves for the early summer viral dance “Jiggle Jiggle.” This is the first of four @deepTom videos that the crew will shoot today. Later, Fisher will sample some ice cream. Then he’ll flirt with a Russian influencer before singing with pop-music singer-songwriter Dudley Alexander.
Of course, the version of each performance you’ll see will not feature Fisher at all. You’ll only see Tom Cruise.
Fisher, a natural performer, picks up the TikTok dance quickly. Umé begins filming the action with his iPhone. Meanwhile Graham is busy managing the interests of one of Metaphysic’s AI-generated avatars that’s scheduled to appear in “America’s Got Talent.”
The team makes it all look easy. But Umé and Graham insist that developing their hyperreal content takes a lot of work.
Applying Tom Cruise’s face onto Fisher’s, Umé says, “is more than just pushing a button.” To that end, Umé describes the technology the way a 19th-century pictorialist might have: weaving his AI-generated content from a scientific to an expressive medium.
According to Graham, this approach distinguishes Umé from the growing number of people working in synthetic media.
“Chris is a perfectionist,” Graham says, adding that although “there are nine or 10 companies in the synthetic media space, no one possesses the same level of attention to detail as Chris.”
Ironically then, it’s Umé’s human touch that separates his model from face-swapping apps like Reface. And web-based platforms for creating videos with AI avatars and voices like Synthesia.
Ultimately, Umé says, his goal is to create such an immersive experience that he’s personally able to sit at his kitchen table and have breakfast with his grandmother who lives halfway across the world and to really feel like she’s right there with him, in the room.
Adding, “I want to be able to save that memory and share it with my grandkids.”
Simon, Terry, and Howie Sing "Nessun Dorma" on Stage?! Metaphysic Will Stun You | AGT 2022
From Your Site Articles
- StoryFile Aims to Let Users Talk to the Dead, Digitally - dot.LA ›
- Flawless Launches to Use Deepfake Tech for Movie Dubbing - dot.LA ›
- Vocal Deepfakes Question Who You're Really Listening To - dot.LA ›
- Vocal Deepfakes Question Who You're Really Listening To - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read moreShow less
Andrew Fiouzi
Andrew Fiouzi is an editor at dot.LA. He was previously a features writer at MEL Magazine where he covered masculinity, tech and true crime. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Long Reads and Vice, among other publications.
Here's How To Get a Digital License Plate In California
03:49 PM | October 14, 2022
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
Thanks to a new bill passed on October 5, California drivers now have the choice to chuck their traditional metal license plates and replace them with digital ones.
The plates are referred to as “Rplate” and were developed by Sacramento-based Reviver. A news release on Reviver’s website that accompanied the bill’s passage states that there are “two device options enabling vehicle owners to connect their vehicle with a suite of services including in-app registration renewal, visual personalization, vehicle location services and security features such as easily reporting a vehicle as stolen.”
Reviver Auto Current and Future CapabilitiesFrom Youtube
There are wired (connected to and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system) and battery-powered options, and drivers can choose to pay for their plates monthly or annually. Four-year agreements for battery-powered plates begin at $19.95 a month or $215.40 yearly. Commercial vehicles will pay $275.40 each year for wired plates. A two-year agreement for wired plates costs $24.95 per month. Drivers can choose to install their plates, but on its website, Reviver offers professional installation for $150.
A pilot digital plate program was launched in 2018, and according to the Los Angeles Times, there were 175,000 participants. The new bill ensures all 27 million California drivers can elect to get a digital plate of their own.
California is the third state after Arizona and Michigan to offer digital plates to all drivers, while Texas currently only provides the digital option for commercial vehicles. In July 2022, Deseret News reported that Colorado might also offer the option. They have several advantages over the classic metal plates as well—as the L.A. Times notes, digital plates will streamline registration renewals and reduce time spent at the DMV. They also have light and dark modes, according to Reviver’s website. Thanks to an accompanying app, they act as additional vehicle security, alerting drivers to unexpected vehicle movements and providing a method to report stolen vehicles.
As part of the new digital plate program, Reviver touts its products’ connectivity, stating that in addition to Bluetooth capabilities, digital plates have “national 5G network connectivity and stability.” But don’t worry—the same plates purportedly protect owner privacy with cloud support and encrypted software updates.
5 Reasons to avoid the digital license plate | Ride TechFrom Youtube
After the Rplate pilot program was announced four years ago, some raised questions about just how good an idea digital plates might be. Reviver and others who support switching to digital emphasize personalization, efficient DMV operations and connectivity. However, a 2018 post published by Sophos’s Naked Security blog pointed out that “the plates could be as susceptible to hacking as other wireless and IoT technologies,” noting that everyday “objects – things like kettles, TVs, and baby monitors – are getting connected to the internet with elementary security flaws still in place.”
To that end, a May 2018 syndicated New York Times news service article about digital plates quoted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which warned that such a device could be a “‘honeypot of data,’ recording the drivers’ trips to the grocery store, or to a protest, or to an abortion clinic.”
For now, Rplates are another option in addition to old-fashioned metal, and many are likely to opt out due to cost alone. If you decide to go the digital route, however, it helps if you know what you could be getting yourself into.
From Your Site Articles
- 8 Alternatives to Uber and Lyft in California - dot.LA ›
- Automotus Will Monitor Santa Monica's New Drop-Off Zone - dot.LA ›
- Metropolis CEO Alex Israel on Parking's Future - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read moreShow less
Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
RELATEDTRENDING
LA TECH JOBS