Tag Archives: Metaverse

Lifestyle, News

A New Metaverse Emerges, and it Comes from Fender

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If you do not know who Fender is, we must ask; which universe did you come from?

Fender is one of the biggest brands in the world, if not the biggest, in electric guitars. Their products are the stuff of legends in the modern musician’s world. Any guitar nerd should know Fender and their signature Stratocaster model. The Fender Stratocaster, if you have not known, is iconic enough that it is what the general public will think of then they talk electric guitars.

If a guitar nut were to go to Florida, United States of America (U.S.A), they would want to stay in the guitar shaped hotel that is the Hard Rock hotel there. Hard rock hotels are not particularly known to be budget friendly options when you travel though. So where does that leave guitar nuts who cannot afford the hotel? Metaverse!

Fender has announced a partnership with Meta to create a virtual world in the Horizons metaverse platform. What will the Fender metaverse look like? A guitar, of course!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dU5hu0Lc8I

The world revolves around a giant Stratocaster shaped floating island. They fittingly name the metaverse the Fender Stratoverse and the entire purpose of this metaverse is for users to just jam together with legless avatars.

They designed the entire thing like a game too. After sliding down the guitar’s neck, Stratoverse will put you in a scavenger hunt to find hidden guitar chords embedded in guitar picks scattered across the floating island. Once the hidden chords are found, you get transported into something called the “Riff Maker” where you can create your own jams and riffs. That, or just go play an air guitar.

Of course, you can expect more than just music making features and mini games from Fender. A true Fender fan must also sport the iconic simple T-shirt with Fender’s iconic branding on the shirt. Since Balenciaga, Prada, and Tom Brown has announced that they will be selling their products in Meta’s avatar store, there is no reason that Fender may not do the same too. For all you know they could sell proper virtual collector guitars, or some form of NFT related item exclusive to Fender.

Source: Gizmodo

Android, Mobile, News

HTC Teases a Comeback to Mobile

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HTC was one of the largest competitors in the smartphone space back in the 2010s, however, the company abruptly turned heels in 2018. Its last true, international flagship was the U11 which was released in 2017. That said, the company seems to be gearing up to release another flagship smartphone this June.

HTC Taiwan released a teaser on their Facebook and Twitter pages teasing a new smartphone coming on the 28th of June 2022. Of course, the company’s recent focus on VR and their Metaverse competitor, Viverse, isn’t left behind. It looks like the upcoming smartphone is going to play an integral part in the Viverse. The teaser comes as quite the surprise as the company’s MWC 2022 promises seemed to have hit a snag shortly after.

The teaser doesn’t reveal much, however. The poster just shows a rectangular outline with some perspective as other rectangles fade into the largest one. However, if you look close enough, you can see two indentations in the rectangle which many are suspecting might be an indication of some of the upcoming phone’s I/O features. There are two visible on the poster, one on the right side which looks like a side-mounted fingerprint reader and another up in the top right corner which could indicate a 3.5mm jack.

Other than this, there isn’t really much on the upcoming HTC phone. Given their focus on the Viverse, we wouldn’t be surprised if the smartphone is a true HTC flagship with top-of-the-line specifications. We are hoping that HTC brings a powerful, capable smartphone to give some competition internationally to companies like Samsung and Apple. We specify internationally because, as of last year, HTC has been releasing a few new smartphones within the Taiwan market.

We’ve seen some indication that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 could be powering the smartphone. However, there hasn’t been any confirmation from HTC themselves just yet. Guess we’ll just have to wait for 28th June 2022.