Free Republic

The cheerful language with which tech companies describe their platforms is often in stark contrast to the dark possibilities lurking within them. Meta, for example, describes its virtual world, the metaverse, as “the next evolution in social connection and the successor to the mobile internet”, a place where “virtual reality lets you explore new worlds and shared experiences”. But for a young girl in the UK recently, that “shared experience” was an alleged gang rape. British police are investigating the sexual assault of the girl, identified only as being under the age of 16, in what is said to be...

It’s 2024 and we live in a world where the police investigates gang rapes in Metaverse. The rape may be fake, but the consequences are as real as it gets. LBC: Police are investigating an alleged rape in a virtual reality game after a child was attacked in the online “metaverse” – in what is thought to be the first time such a probe has been launched.

British police are investigating the alleged gang rape of a girl’s avatar in a virtual reality game, in what is believed to be the first probe of its kind involving the metaverse. The alleged victim, identified only as a girl under 16, was wearing a virtual reality headset in an immersive game when her avatar, an animated representation of her, was raped by those of several men, the Daily Mail first reported. Although the accuser did not sustain any physical injuries, she may have suffered trauma similar to someone who’d been raped in real life, police sources told the outlet....

Facebook boss has lost $88bn of his $125bn fortune since 2021 Meta has pumped more than $36 billion into its Metaverse venture since 2019, The effort has since resulted in a $30.7 billion operating loss over that same span Zuckerberg, 38, who famously founded the company's crowning jewel Facebook as an undergrad at Harvard in 2004, was worth $125 billion at the close of 2021 As of this weekend, he was worth a mere $37 billion, Bloomberg reported Mark Zuckerberg has funneled more than $36 billion into his failing Metaverse venture since 2019, new earnings reports show - and the...

VIDEOJim Cramer cried on TV because he shilled Meta stock which has been plunging. This brought a reply from Johnny Ray from the other side of the Metaverse.

Mark Zuckerberg has seen his wealth drop a further $11 billion, meaning his net worth has now plummeted more than $100 billion in a little over a year. Meta reported a decline in revenue for the second consecutive quarter this week. The company has struggled to come out on top after sinking $70 billion into the Metaverse, its immersive virtual world that has been mocked for containing never-ending empty rooms after failing to attract users. The quarter’s weak results raised fresh questions about Meta’s plans to pour more money - at least $10 billion a year - into the virtual...

After investing more than $300 to purchase the Meta Quest 2 (previously Oculus Quest 2) VR headset, creating an avatar as close as possible to my likeness, and dressing in my best virtual clothes, I went to church with just a few clicks.I visited the virtual campuses of several churches between Saturday and Sunday. The process was so easy, it was like picking a movie to watch on Netflix.I’m sharing my experience at three of these churches where I had some interaction or spent a meaningful amount of time. They are: Life.Church, Lakeland Community Church, and Faith Church. I accessed...

Seventy-one percent of global executives say that the metaverse will be good for businesses, according to a new survey. Several of the biggest names in both business and woke politics, including World Economic Forum and Disney, are rushing to stake their virtual claim in the metaverse. The globalist World Economic Forum (WEF) shared details from the Accenture survey on how some business executives see the future of the digital universe or "metaverse." An Accenture report identified four tech trends, one of which is the "the next version of the physical world—the programmable world." Accenture also conducted a survey showing that...

Channel 4's Dispatches uncovered evidence of Metaverse users boasting that they are attracted to 'little girls aged between the age of nine and 12' and joking about rape and racism in the virtual reality world. An investigation has revealed that sexually explicit comments and threatening behaviour were made minutes after a Channel 4 journalist went undercover into Mark Zuckerberg's 3D community. Yinka Bokinni posed as both a 22-year-old woman and a 13-year-old girl as part of a probe that will be broadcast tonight. Using the most popular VR headset, the Meta-owned Oculus Quest of which eight million have been sold,...

The start-up is working on a metaverse wristband to be used alongside a VR headset. The wristband aims to allow users to move around in the virtual world but feel sensations like pain and the weight of objects. It works by electrically stimulating a wearers arm muscles. A user is said to be able to feel sensations like their skin being pinched or a weight in their hands. Emi Tamaki, the CEO of H2L Technologies...told the FT: "Feeling pain enables us to turn the metaverse world into a real [world], with increased feelings of presence and immersion." Tamaki is a...

The state of the metaverse, says Forrester, is that there isn't one. Yet. In a report out now, the analyst house concluded hype, and corporate fears over being left out, are the only elements of the metaverse that have actually emerged. At the same time, Forrester also warned businesses to be ready just in case this thing takes off: "Technology vendors are racing to build the metaverse, and brands are looking to exploit it." The metaverse is a fairly nebulous concept. It's supposed to be a galaxy of connected 3D virtual-reality worlds in which people can communicate, work, and play:...

Governor Jeb Bush visit with our Optima Domi Team to share a few words in the metaverse.

We're not quite sure Meta understands the whole point of pivoting into the "metaverse" business means.That's because the artist formerly known as Facebook has officially dissolved its team developing a new augmented reality and virtual reality operating system, according to a report from The Information on Friday. There were more than 300 employees formerly working on the project, three people with knowledge of the situation said. Its intentions were to vertically integrate all of the necessities Meta would use to forge forward in the world of AR/VR. The company had been working on an operating system that it was developing...

VIDEOThe Virtual Russians Are Coming! The Virtual Russians Are Coming!Okay, technically the Russians are probably not coming for real but they are definitely coming in the Metaverse. Fortunately the State Department is now warning us about the Virtual Russians that are coming in the Metaverse.

The inventor of the PlayStation - one of the best and most widely known gaming consoles - doesn't think too much about VR or the metaverse.Ken Kutaragi, who is responsible for Sony's popular console, says that VR and AR "divide" the real and virtual realms, rather than unifying them, according to a new interview with Bloomberg. Kutaragi, who is now 71 years old, told Bloomberg: “Being in the real world is very important, but the metaverse is about making quasi-real in the virtual world, and I can’t see the point of doing it.”He continued: “You would rather be a polished...

Leftist mega-donor Mark Zuckerberg channeled hundreds of millions of dollars to the infamous Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) prior to the 2020 election through a major pass-through used almost exclusively by Bay Area billionaires, new filings reveal. The Mountain View, California-based Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) is one of the largest pass-through funders in the world, funneling over $2.6 billion to a variety of nonprofits last year, many of them on the professional left. While the group is ostensibly dedicated to helping local residents and causes in the San Francisco Bay Area—hence the name “community foundation”—recent reporting in...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks about election security in his state at a press conference.

RED ALERT: this is not a joke. Elon Musk sat down with Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, EIC Kyle Mann, and Creative Director Ethan Nicolle for an in-depth interview on wokeness, Elizabeth Warren, taxing the rich, the Metaverse, which superhero Elon would be, and how the left is killing comedy.

It may have seemed like an obscure United Nations conclave, but a meeting this week in Geneva was followed intently by experts in artificial intelligence, military strategy, disarmament and humanitarian law. The reason for the interest? Killer robots — drones, guns and bombs that decide on their own, with artificial brains, whether to attack and kill — and what should be done, if anything, to regulate or ban them. Once the domain of science fiction films like the “Terminator” series and “RoboCop,” killer robots, more technically known as Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, have been invented and tested at an accelerated...

In October, Thea-Mai Baumann, an Australian artist and technologist, found herself sitting on prime internet real estate. In 2012, she had started an Instagram account with the handle @metaverse, a name she used in her creative work. On the account, she documented her life in Brisbane, where she studied fine art, and her travels to Shanghai, where she built an augmented reality company called Metaverse Makeovers. She had fewer than 1,000 followers when Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, announced on Oct. 28 that it was changing its name. Henceforth, Facebook would be known as Meta, a reflection of its...