Does the hype about a futuristic metaverse office have you preparing to set up a pixelated workstation? No? Well, you’re not alone.

A new report from research firm Forrester found that claims around the workplace potential of extended reality devices and metaverse applications are often exaggerated. Employees have shown little interest in using these devices for work, and a surge of interest in the technology brought on by the pandemic has since stalled, the research found.

Forrester’s research found that only 8% of the 10,000 employees surveyed used a VR headset for work on a weekly basis, while only 7% used an AR or mixed-reality device. Just 4% and 2% of those employees said they would prefer to use either of those devices, respectively, for work.

The findings are in contrast to recent fanfare around augmented reality and virtual worlds as workplace tools.

Keep reading here.—PK

Remember when your parents said playing video games would never pay off? Well, joke’s on them—you still have one day to invest in Virtuix and get a cool $780 off your own Omni One system for your efforts.

Virtuix’s omnidirectional VR gaming treadmill lets you walk, run, crouch, and jump in 360 degrees inside popular games and virtual worlds. Plus, you’ll be investing alongside legends like Mark Cuban and Scout Ventures.

Virtuix has raised over $35m thanks to their groundbreaking tech. They’ve sold over $16m worth of products to companies like Dave & Buster’s while building a community of 300k+ registered players.

Now they’re ready to scale massively, which means it’s the perfect opportunity for you to invest (but heads-up: you’ve got only 1 day left).

Check out their plans to bring the ultimate gaming experience to millions of homes worldwide and invest in Virtuix right here.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was in Washington on Tuesday to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his thoughts on how to regulate the artificial intelligence industry.

In a hearing that lasted just under three hours, Altman answered questions about AI’s impact on everything from jobs and advertising to elections, legal liability, and music.

And ultimately, he encouraged the government’s participation in helping to determine how AI is developed and used in the future, both in the US and abroad.

Tech was on the docket in Washington last week, too. Big Tech was once again in the hot seat on Capitol Hill as senators debated social media’s responsibility for taking down child pornography. Next door in the House, representatives sought more information from data brokers about what exactly they do with data and heard from crypto executives about regulation.

Here’s our dispatch from last week’s intersection of tech and politics.

Keep reading here.—MA

In late February 2020, weeks before the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, MIT professor David Simchi-Levi, in an article cowritten with Pierre Haren, predicted the closure of manufacturing plants that would lead to toilet paper shortages and supply chain chaos globally.

Simchi-Levi, who leads the MIT Data Science Lab, made those projections with the help of his “Risk Exposure Index,” a mathematical model that predicts the impact of disruptions (like pandemics or volcanic explosions) on a supply chain.

According to Simchi-Levi, streamlining manufacturing, which is, as the pandemic demonstrated, particularly susceptible to disruption, requires a shift in how companies think about risk: Rather than measuring the likelihood that a disruption will occur, the focus should be on building resilience—which he defines as the ability to respond quickly when and where shocks do occur—and which requires much more flexibility than most manufacturing processes have today.

So, how to implement a flexible, resilient approach and ensure products are on shelves to meet consumer demand, rain or shine? With an immense amount of data and a little help from AI.

Keep reading here.—MA

Stat: One out of three. That’s the number of major global regulators who have given their endorsement to Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority rejected the deal last month, and the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the merger last year, Axios noted.

Quote: “Our decision represents an important step in this direction, by bringing Activision’s popular games to many more devices and consumers than before thanks to cloud game streaming. The commitments offered by Microsoft will enable for the first time the streaming of such games in any cloud game streaming services, enhancing competition and opportunities for growth.”—Margrethe Vestager, EVP in charge of competition policy at the European Commission, on EU regulators’ blessing of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Read: What’s next for the Microsoft-Activision deal after receiving EU approval? (Quartz)

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Catch up on the top Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• Even amid a funding downturn, investors continue to find money to back AI startups
• Apple’s legal tussle over smartwatch tech is about more than hardware.
• A look back at an earlier AI hype wave