Controversial crypto project Worldcoin has rebranded to World and introduced a redesigned version of its eyeball-scanning equipment, Orb. Sam Altman, the co-founder of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, made the announcement on Thursday alongside Alex Blania, the Tools for Humanity CEO.
Besides rebranding, Worldcoin now has new features in its World App and World ID. Altman says the updates will improve user experience.
But why rebrand? Well, according to Blania, the term Worldcoin is ‘no longer working.’ He claims that the project has lost popularity, hence the need to rebrand to World.
Meanwhile, Altman says the upgraded iris-scanning Orb is faster than the previous one, performing multiple AI operations within seconds. The new Orb is powered by Jetson, a product of NVIDIA. It has the ability to conduct a thorough audit of its code, according to the OpenAI CEO.
The Worldcoin Project and Its Controversies
With millions of bots on the Internet, OpenAI and Tools for Humanity partnered to develop Worldcoin to allow people to prove their existence by having their eyeballs scanned using Orbs.
Worldcoin placed its first Orbs in Germany. Those who agreed to use the equipment received the WLD token. However, the crypto project did not sit well with some privacy advocates, who labeled it a surveillance tool.
The growing concerns over data privacy forced German authorities to open investigations into Worldcoin. By December 2023, six months after the project’s launch, several countries, including Kenya, had launched investigations.
Worldcoin Takes Several Measures to Address Data Privacy Concerns
Following data privacy concerns, Blania and Altman say they have implemented numerous measures to ensure Worldcoin complies with the law. For instance, the project’s code is now open-source to the public to scrutinize it. Moreover, the updated World ID will maintain user data using anonymized multi-party computation, thus boosting the security of the shared information.
Updates on the World App
As mentioned, the World App has new features. Head of Product at Tools for Humanity, Tiago Sada, says the app now supports multiple languages. Also, the supported cryptocurrencies have increased to 52. What’s more, World App users can access third-party apps and search for others by writing their usernames.
