09/09/2022 Ford prepares to enter the Metaverse with virtual automobiles and NFTs

A trademark application covering its future efforts in the Metaverse and NFT space comes only a month after the company announced huge staff cuts.

Ford prepares to enter the Metaverse with virtual automobiles and NFTs

A trademark application covering its future efforts in the Metaverse and NFT space comes only a month after the company announced huge staff cuts.

American car manufacturer Ford Motor Company is the latest car brand prepping its entry into the world ofnonfungible tokens (NFTs)and the Metaverse— filing 19 trademark applications across its major car brands.

United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) licensed trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis revealed in a Wednesday tweet that the company had filed a total of 19 trademark applications covering its car brands including Mustang, Bronco, Lincoln, Explorer and F-150 Lightning, among others.

The trademark applications cover virtual cars, trucks, vans, SUVs and clothing for its brands and also cover a proposed online marketplace for NFTs.

According to USPTO documentsfiledby Ford on Sept. 2, the car manufacturer plans to create downloadable artwork, text, audio and video featuring its cars, SUVs, trucks and vans, which will be authenticated by NFTs.

The company also revealed plans for “downloadable virtual goods,” namely “computer programs” featuring vehicle parts and accessories and clothing for use in “online virtual worlds,” including online trade shows conducted in virtual reality and augmented reality.

There are also intentions to create a marketplace to promote the “digital artwork of others” through a website, along with “online retail store services featuring non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and digital collectibles.”

Ford’s decision toenter into the Web3 spacecomes less than a month after Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford and CEO Jim Farley announced massive staff cuts from its global workforce to reduce company expenditure.

Ford is not the first car company to make a move into the Metaverse space.

Automobile companies like Nissan, Toyota, and Hyundai have announced plans toexpand into the rapidly growing Metaverse space, while luxury car manufacturers such as Bentley and Lamborghini have already rolled out NFT collections.

Arts

https://cointelegraph.com/news/ford-prepares-to-enter-the-metaverse-with-virtual-automobiles-and-nfts

Interesting NFTs
Bored Ape Yacht Club #9361
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 10,000 unique Bored Ape NFTs— unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain. Your Bored Ape doubles as your Yacht Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits, the first of which is access to THE BATHROOM, a collaborative graffiti board. Future areas and perks can be unlocked by the community through roadmap activation.
My Other Half | Inspired by Minecraft: The Last Minecart (2011)
Almost every year, we capture ourselves in a way that no photo or video is capable of: with a photoscan. If you dig through our archives, you'll find many of them and can see exactly how we change over time. Sam Gorski, Creator | I wanted to find the oldest scan of myself and put him side-by-side with Sam from the present. While it is hard to look at it and not miss the years past, at the same time, this gives me hope for the future by embracing and cherishing the change in my life. How would I have gotten this far without him? About This Piece | Sam on the left was captured in 2014, while Sam on the right was captured last week (2021). This work represents the personal, creative, and emotional journey in all of us, and the hope that ourselves tomorrow may be better than ourselves today.
CAT#ROCK
*waves*! CAT#ROCK here. I'm here to enjoy taking selfies and grooming. When I'm not mocking dogs, I'm riding the bus! Let's get busy!
Parrot on a perch with two other ornamental birds
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) Parrot on a perch with two other ornamental birds 1797-1806 - Japan
Alex in Wonderland
A figure, Alex, stands mostly naked in the midst of a physical and psychological maelstrom. He is clad only in nostalgic 80’s era socks, on a tenuous island between active waters and a variety of shark denizens. Sharks on the right side of the image are all beached, including a shark with a quartz crystal snout, an orange shark wrapped in a life buoy, and a shark further in the distance wearing an 80’s style shirt with the number “88”. On the left side is the largest shark, wearing bright glossy red lipstick and brandishing prominent teeth with braces. She is cordoned off from the figure by a roped float divider, and within her thought bubble is a warning symbol. Behind the figure, hovering in the air, are Grey aliens emerging from the distance, out of a series of elliptical UFO shaped interdimensional membranes. The Greys take on the visual form of spermazoa ostensibly impregnating the interdimensional thresholds. As is typical, these Greys inhabit a zone just behind the unconscious topology of Alex’s dissociative mind. Though Alex’s bottom half is representative, his top half mutates into a psychological cornucopia. In a manner akin to “Auto-Erotic Sphinx”, a predecessor work, the figure has self suctioned—an act of sensual infatuation, enjoyment, and exploration. Upward exists the figure’s primary conscious eye, adorned with a revolutionary beret emblazoned with a Bitcoin badge. The figure’s summit features the nose of a fighter jet facing off against video game Bullet Bills, one of whom is marked by a communist North Korean star. A cropped section of a UFO observes the contest. Alex’s mind branches both left and right. To the left is more singular embodied consciousness, manifesting two eyes and a Ganesh trunk grasping crayons. The right branch dissociates upward diagonally, emerging into an array of eyes, faces, teeth, tail, a unicorn horn, and much more—all of which participate in expressing his unconscious being; a democracy of psychic factions representing thought impressions and associations. All illumination and darkness– fernal, infernal, high consciousness and corporeal underbelly–reside in this realm. In the distance are relatively languid, light clouds, and against the firmament hovers a colossal distant eye peering over the scene and far beyond. This painting possesses underlying genetic traits with previous works such as “Auto-Erotic Sphinx with Toys”, “Dionysus”, and “Fuku-Shiva”. The work serves also as a nod to an earlier period of art inspiration during late teens and early twenties— born out of the nakedness, vulnerability, curiosity, and wonder inherent to coming of age and all subsequent psychedelic revelation.