Georgia 🇬🇪 - Wine and crypto (?) country
...and boy is it beautiful!
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting Georgia.
Went there for nature, culture and history. Got that and almost some bitcoin too.
Tbilisi, the capital, is a city which has numerous architectural styles. I'm no expert, but some buildings seem to be medieval, some Art Nouveau, classic Stalinist represented of course and modern architecture as well. Quite an interesting mix.
The aspirations to join EU and NATO are seen everywhere, not just people's balconies. Speaking of people I found them very friendly.
Food, I love khinkali and khachapuri and I think you'll love them too! No gourmet restaurants on this trip though.
Unfortunately I didn't visit any museums. Would have loved to see paintings from the likes of Lado Gudiashvili. Oh well, next time.
Nature is nothing short of astonishing. Some of the places visited easily rank among the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Not my words, nor my photos do them justice.
Saw lots and lots of crypto ATMs all over Tbilisi. Not sure though if crypto really is a thing in Georgia because I only ever saw one being used; some youngsters who bought Tron. You go figure.
Even though these ATMs where everywhere stores weren't accepting crypto, or at least not the ones I visited. I should look into this a bit more.
Went to the legendary nightclub Bassiani. Had an amazing time. Great venue located below a football stadium. It's dark, it's dirty and it's amazing. You could probably discover new parts when visiting for the third time. Good crowd. No photo policy. 🙌
Music played was mostly techno. I especially enjoyed Kancheli who dropped progressive trance (!) and techno! God bless him! Will definitely be checking out more from him.
Tourism seems to be rampant, more so than I thought. You'll see people from all over the world at the popular tourist spots.
I highly recommend a visit to Georgia if you have the chance!
You know Alexandr Wang, the young guy who had the big puffer jacket in Davos? Not to be confused with the designer Alexander Wang mind you. Well he's the founder and CEO of Scale AI and Zuck might have called him. Smart move, Scale AI have numerous big tech and AI customers.
Some highlights from the article...
"The financing could exceed $10 billion in value, some of the people said, making it one of the largest private company funding events of all time."
"Scale AI, whose customers include Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI, provides data labeling services to help companies train machine-learning models and has become a key beneficiary of the generative AI boom."
"This would be Meta’s biggest ever external AI investment, and a rare move for the company. The social media giant has before now mostly depended on its in-house research, plus a more open development strategy, to make improvements in its AI technology."
"Scale plays a key role in making AI data available for companies. Because AI is only as good as the data that goes into it, Scale uses scads of contract workers to tidy up and tag images, text and other data that can then be used for AI training."
Source (paywall):
The Zuckster is doing it way big. Some highlights...
"The tech company has spoken with entertainment brands including Disney and A24, as well as smaller production companies, according to people familiar with the matter. It is offering millions of dollars for episodic and stand-alone immersive video based on well-known intellectual property"
"The new device, known internally as “Loma,” is more powerful than the Meta Quest VR headsets now available, with higher-fidelity video. The design is similar to a large pair of eyeglasses"
"Meta is planning to charge less than $1,000 for the device"
Source (Paywall):
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/meta-seeks-hollywood-deals-for-new-virtual-reality-headset-ef3db942
Some highlights...
"Using the ad tools Meta is developing, a brand could present an image of the product it wants to promote along with a budgetary goal, and AI would create the entire ad, including imagery, video and text."
"Meta also plans to enable advertisers to personalize ads using AI, so that users see different versions of the same ad in real time, based on factors such as geolocation, the people said."
Source (paywall):
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-aims-to-fully-automate-ad-creation-using-ai-7d82e249
