Category Archives: Virtual Reality

Perhaps they are the real inventors of the metaverse, that virtual reality space where users can interact with each other in a computer-generated environment.

Its a new word in my lexicon, but not to gamers and sci-fi readers. The word was coined by author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 book Snow Crash and described a reality where end users were treated as citizens in a dystopian corporate dictatorship.

It has since been adopted and customised by Silicon Valley. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rebranded the company as Meta in October 2020 and announced the company would be investing $10-billion in this new world. What on Earth?

Perhaps the metaverse is a place I can go and do battle with the greedy and avaricious who live in our parallel universe? In which case, Im Bayonetta, the bad-ass witch who can fire guns from her feet and turn her hair into giant fists and boots. Or maybe Lara Croft. But no, dealing with those scumbags is a battle for the real world, Im afraid.

This still doesnt answer the question of what the metaverse is or how it will become meaningful for us.

The idea sounds simple. Its a 3D, interactive, virtual representation of the internet a bunch of interconnected virtual spaces that become an extension of our physical world. Okay.

So do I really want to block out my vision with a pair of VR goggles to spend hours in a virtual bar talking to virtual people and drinking a virtual drink I cant enjoy? I doubt it. And Im pretty sure you wont either. Yet companies are investing billions into this world where the potential is almost beyond our imagination.

Microsoft has announced it will partner with Meta and plans to add augmented reality and virtual reality from its Microsoft Mesh platform into Teams; Epic Games has announced a $1-billion capital raise to support its long-term vision for the metaverse, while Nvidia, the leading designer of graphics processing units for the gaming and professional markets, has made Omniverse, its 3D design collaboration and virtual world simulation platform, available free to individual creators and artists.

It strikes me as a clever thing to do. When you dont know exactly where something is going, invest in the bottom-up, grassroots growth of the universe. And when something catches your eye buy it!

If our capitalistic society has taught us anything, companies will find ways of taking this world of gaming into products and services that are applicable to you and me, and we can be sure that they are in a race to be the first and only.

That does worry me slightly, though. Do we really want a company like Facebook, whose former mantra move fast and break things encouraged a culture that rewarded new ideas without careful consideration of the risks, to be the driver of the metaverse, whatever that may look like? Will it create an entirely new environment for Facebooks legacy problems to take root? Zuckerberg, of course, doesnt see it like that, saying, Every chapter brings new voices and new ideas but also new challenges, risks and disruption of established interests. Well need to work together, from the beginning, to bring the best possible version of this future to life.

At the moment, applications outside of gaming are pretty basic business meetings, concerts and tours. But the potential is vast. Footwear manufacturer Nike is preparing to sell its products in the metaverse and has filed trademark applications to establish itself in the virtual world.

Progressive engineering businesses are using the metaverse to create digital twins of their operations and products.

Again, the idea is not completely new. NASA used digital twin technology in 2010 to run simulations of space capsules. The benefit is that you can run tests and scenarios on the digital twin without affecting the physical original.

Im still getting my head around the possibilities, which, when it comes to things such as complex surgery, must be infinite.

As a two-bit investor, Id back the likes of Microsoft and Nvidia to make money out of this. As a cautious human, Im wary. As Zondo is making perfectly clear, our real world has enough despicable people in it. Yet the world of virtual reality is no different and already has a harassment problem even Roblox, a supposedly safe game for kids, has experienced problems with virtual orgies and Nazi role-playing.

The metaverse presents a whole world of possibilities and dangers, and Ive no doubt it is coming, but perhaps we should solve our real-world problems first. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for R25 at Pick n Pay, Woolworths, Exclusive Books and airport bookstores. For your nearest stockist, please clickhere.

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Going to battle in a virtual reality not a solution to... - Daily Maverick

Attendees at yesterdays (7 February) Leeds Apprenticeship Recruitment Fair were offered a thoroughly modern take on training, in the form of virtual reality construction activities.

Leeds College of Building invited people to don VR headsets and try their hand at skills including piloting drones for site surveying, simulating spray painting or wood machining, and working at height and with scaffolding.

The fair marked the start of the 15th annual National Apprenticeship Week (7-13 February).

Leeds College of Building has already helped more than 100 of its students since joining CONVERT (construction virtual environment resource training), a two-year UK-wide collaborative project led by the Construction Wales Innovation Centre.

Leeds College of Building is committed to be at the forefront of industry developments and adopting new technology to support and enhance our students learning experience, said Wayne Chappelow, construction crafts faculty director at the FE college.

Our staff have embraced VR, undertaking their own training to deliver this immersive and interactive mode of learning, which is especially engaging for younger students.

CONVERT stems from a 2 million investment by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), with the aim of more straightforwardly helping students acquire hard to teach, high-risk skills.

If we get it right, immersive learning has the potential to help revolutionise construction training, said Marcus Bennett, CITB head of analysis and forecasting. As a complement to traditional training, it can help more quickly and cost effectively produce work-ready employees, so reducing skills shortages and improving quality, safety, and efficiency.

For trainers it can create extra capacity, speed student assessment, and allow students to learn by repetition in a risk-free environment. It can be both stimulating and provide understanding impossible in a classroom setting so, in turn, can help positively influence perceptions of the industry and attract more young people into construction.

In related news: How can virtual reality help to bridge the medical education gap?

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Would-be apprentices scale new heights with virtual reality construction - Education Technology

Virtual RealityDefinition:Virtual reality has been notoriously difficult to define over theyears. Many people take "virtual" to mean fake or unreal, and "reality" to refer to the real world. This results in an oxymoron.The actual definition of virtual, however, is "to have the effect ofbeing such without actually being such". The definition of "reality" is "the property of being real", andone of the definitionsof "real" is "to have concrete existence". Using these definitions"virtual reality" means "to have the effect of concrete existencewithout actually having concrete existence", which is exactly theeffect achieved in a good virtual reality system. There is norequirement that the virtual environment match the real world.Inspired by these considerations, for the virtual windtunnel we adapt the following definition:Virtual reality is the use of computer technology to createthe effect of an interactive three-dimensional world in which theobjects have a sense of spatial presence.In this definition, "spatial presence" means that the objectsin the environment effectively have a location in three-dimensionalspace relative to and independent of your position. Note that this is an effect, not an illusion. The basic idea is to presentthe correct cues to your perceptual and cognitive system so that your brain interprets those cues as objects "out there" in thethree-dimensional world. These cues have been surprisingly simpleto provide using computer graphics: simply render a three-dimensional object (in stereo) from a pointof view which matches the positions of your eyes as you move about.If the objects in the environment interact with you then the effectof spatial presence is greatly heightened.Note also that we do not require that the virtual reality experiencebe "immersive". While for some applications the sense of immersionis highly desirable, we do not feel that it is required for virtual reality. The main point of virtual reality, and the primary difference between conventional three-dimensional computer graphicsand virtual reality is that in virtual reality you are working withThings as opposed to Pictures of Things.Requirements:The primary requirement of virtual reality is that the scenebe re-rendered from your current point of view as you move about.The frame rate at which the scene must be re-rendered depends on the application. For applications like the virtual windtunnel,it turns out that a minimum frame rate of 10 frames per second is enough to support the sense of spatial presence. While motionat this frame rate is clearly discontinuous, if properly done our cognitive systems will interpret the resulting imagesas three-dimensional objects "out there".

The other requirement is that interactive objects in the environmentcontinuously respond to your commands after only a small delay. Justhow long a delay can be tolerated depends on the application, but forapplications like the virtual windtunnel delays of up to about a tenth of a second can be allowed. Longer delays result in a significantlydegraded ability to control objects in the virtual environment.

We summarize the Virtual Reality Performance Requirements:

For more information on VR see the papers found on Steve Bryson's home page.

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Virtual Reality - NAS Home

Augmented Reality vs Virtual Reality

Difference between Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality is an interesting topic for anyone who is into the virtual experience. Augmented reality involves blending of computer generated features to the real world as experienced by a subject. On the other hand,virtual reality includes immersing the user fully in a virtual world while separating him from the real world. Virtual reality is hence much complicated than augmented reality and needs high cost and technology. In both systems, a computer system is used for processing of real-time data to render the programmed features.

Augmented reality is enhancing ones experience with the real world by using computer interfaces. In augmented reality, the subject directly or indirectly interact with the real world while computer simulated features are blended with the real world. A simple example can be a sports match shown on TV. Apart from the real match, additional information such as scores and statistics which are supplementary components are shown. Today the technology is more advanced, that now, it is possible to blend the supplementary components very smoothly with the real world.

To implement augmented reality, the needed hardware components include input devices, sensors, and processor and output devices. Via sensors such as accelerometers, GPS, magnetic and pressure sensors, supplementary information about the real world, which the user cannot directly perceive through his sense organs, are collected. Input devices let users give commands to the system interactively. The processor processes the data by executing software and the output devices are used to give the enhanced reality to the user. An output device can be a simple device such as a display, but more sophisticated and modern devices such as head-up-display, eye glasses, Virtual retinal display will blend augmented components with real world more smoothly. Apart from vision based outputs, it can include auditory and olfactory outputs as well.

Obviously, a smartphone contains the basic components necessary to provide an augmented reality. However,today , with the help of high technology equipment such as Google Glass, the blending can be done in a very live fashion. Augmented reality is heavily used in fields such as medicine, Architecture, Construction and education while, with the advancement of technology, it has been introduced to the everyday life as well.

Virtual reality is immersing the subject in a computer generated world. Here the user can interact with the virtual world and he is isolated from the real world. Since the user is separated from the real world , there is no much need of sensors to collect the information about the real world. However, input devices should be there to let the user interact with the virtual world. A processor with the help of software will render the virtual world based on the user input. Then with the use of sophisticated output devices, the user is immersed in the virtual world. Here simple devices such as a display will not be enough as then user will be able to see the difference between the real world and the virtual world. So advanced devices such as virtual reality helmets, goggles are preferred. A device called Oculus Rift, which is a virtual reality head-mounted display, is being currently developed and is expected to be released in 2015. Apart from sight, other senses such as taste, smell, sound, touch would be much preferred in order to give a live like experience.

Virtual reality is heavily used for computer gaming as inherently it should put the user into a virtual world. It is also used for therapeutic use for treating disorders such as phobias. For training purposes also this is a really important technology especially for areas such as air force. Currently, no system in the world can immerse the user 100% into a virtual world. Such systems are seen in science fiction while todays technology can immerse the user to a considerable amount to a virtual world but , yet the user can identify the real world with the virtual world.

In augmented reality, the user interacts with the real world, but in virtual reality, the user does not interact with the real world. He interacts with the virtual world only.

In augmented reality, user experiences supplementary components blended with the real world. However, in virtual reality, user is isolated from the real world and is fully immersed in the virtual word.

Virtual reality needs more advanced technology than augmented reality. To give a life-like feeling in a virtual world, virtual reality needs sophisticated technology.

Augmented reality systems need sensors to collect data from the real world. However, in virtual reality , systems such equipment are not heavily used as user is isolated from the real world.

The cost for implementing augmented reality is lesser than implementing virtual reality. Even a mobile phone has resources to implement an augmented reality, but for a virtual reality implementation, dedicated high-cost equipment is necessary.

Currently, augmented reality products are available. Google Glasses is a good example for a sophisticated augmented reality product. However, a virtual reality system that can completely immerse the user in a different world is not yet available.

More processing power and graphics processing is necessary for virtual reality than augmented reality.

The algorithms and software for virtual reality would be larger and complex than what is used for augmented reality.

Summary:

In Augmented reality, user experiences supplementary features to the real world with the help of a computer system. He can easily identify the difference between the real world and the added computer generated features. On the other hand, virtual reality isolates the user from the real world and immerses him in a separate virtual computer generated world. Achieving successful virtual reality is hence lot more complicated and costlier than implementing an augmented reality system. Augmented reality is used for providing a better experience in the field such as education, sports, architecture, construction and even day to day life. Virtual reality will be preferred for purposes like gaming, training and therapeutic use for psychological disorders.

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Difference Between Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality ...

Virtual reality (VR) is a rapidly growing industry, which currently holds a large share of all content produced worldwide, and VR headset shipments have also increased over the last two years.

VR also offers enterprise users and consumers immersive experiences for gameplay, learning new skills, collaboration, and remote productivity. If you are eager to know what is ahead for the thriving sector in 2022, here are the latest VR statistics and insights.

Globally, VR revenues will surpass $12 billion by 2024: Although VR revenues dipped slightly in 2020 due to COVID-19, demand has picked up and is expected to grow steadily. According to ARtillery Intelligences report, VR is expected to generate $6.7 billion in revenues.

HR is an important use case for VR in the enterprise, as per 92 percent of professionals: In a recent XR Association report, 92 percent of 250 human resource professionals surveyed viewed immersive technologies as a vital tool in the post-pandemic recovery phase.

Nearly 1 in 3 consumers own an AR/VR device, and 15 percent will buy such a device in 2022: As per a 2022 GroupM Annual Survey on Consumer Attitudes Towards Technology, 32 percent of respondents said they own an AR or VR device, and another 15 percent added they were looking to buy a device in this category in the next 12 months.

3.7 billion people globally are still offline and are locked out of VR adoption: Even as AR/VR goes mainstream, it is important to note that it remains inaccessible to many. The World Economic Forum found last year that 3.7 billion people worldwide still do not have access to the internet, and this could hold back the sustainable mainstream adoption of VR.

1 in 5 Meta employees now work on VR development: In 2021, social media giant Facebook pivoted towards VR and the metaverse by rebranding as Meta. According to a report from The Information, nearly 10,000 employees work in the companys Reality Labs division, which is nearly a fifth of the companys entire workforce.

VR will become the fastest-growing content segment from 2020 to 2025: Among all the traditional and digital content formats, VR is leading and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30 percent, followed by cinema (29 percent), and general data consumption (27 percent). Conversely, newspapers, magazines, traditional TV, and home video will shrink 1 percent, forecasts PwCs Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 20212025.

Facebook groups related to AR/VR have increased by 27 percent to 649 percent: Meta has launched a new quarterly series called Hello Future from Facebook IQ, which shows the number of Facebook groups related to AR/VR has increased exponentially year on year, with South Korea (649 percent) heading the list.

83 percent of industry leaders believe that the pace of investment in immersive technology will increase: According to a 2021 XR Industry Insider Survey of 164 professionals from across industries, the investment climate is bullish. It also found 83 percent said that the pace of investment will increase in 2022 and 37 percent expect a significantly higher pace of investment than in previous years.

More than 1 in 3 US consumers would rather buy AR/VR devices from Apple: Even though Apple is yet to launch a VR headset, it has a large number of loyalists. Roughly 33 percent of respondents to an said the preferred an Apple-provided headset as their first choice, followed by Google at 20 percent. Metas Quest is still the first choice for less than 10 percent of buyers.

Standalone VR headsets occupy 89.8 percent of global AR/VR headset shipments: In 2021, global shipments of AR/VR headsets grew by 348.4 percent as per an International Data Corporation (IDC) report. Standalone VR headsets held 89.8 percent of the market, which will continue to grow across the next few years, and headset shipments will also reach 15 million this year.

33 percent of UK customers and 29 percent of US customers do not know what the metaverse is: On one hand, companies are investing heavily in the metaverse an integrated VR space where users can communicate, collaborate, play and learn yet, market awareness has failed to reach the same momentum as nearly a third of consumers do not understand the metaverse. Another 36 percent in the UK and 27 percent in the US say they have no need for the metaverse, a 2021 Forrester survey found.

Social VR users spend over 3 hours a day in VR: According to a Social VR Lifestyle Survey 2021 survey, those engaging in social VR experiences spend over 3 hours a day in virtual reality. Interestingly, 75 percent said they maintain less physical distance between themselves and those they meet in VR than in real-world surroundings.

The mention of the word metaverse rose sharply in corporate earning calls, with the word being mentioned 73 times in Q2 2021: Morgan Stanley and other wealth management firms paid special attention to metaverse as an investment area in 2021. The companys June edition of AlphaCurrents report mentioned the word 73 times in Q2, 2021, up from less than 10 times in Q4 the previous year.

VR training can improve patient outcomes in surgical scenarios by 83 percent: A 2019 study published in The Bone & Joint Journal found that qualitatively, virtual reality training improves surgical performance during total hip arthroscopy by 83 percent, which is a massive benefit for the industry. This could allow healthcare to become among the top sectors gaining from VR in 2022.

The following were our top virtual reality statistics and survey insights set to influence the industry in 2022.

This year promises to become a big one for VR, with several announcements expected from Meta and others, and VR already making a splash at CES. XR fans can follow this space for more VR statistics as the year unfolds.

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Virtual Reality Statistics 2022 - XR Today

Virtual Virtual Reality 2 is an absurdist adventure through a metaverse out of control.

The dream, or nightmare, of the possibilities of metaverses seem to be everywhere at the start of 2022. A new VR game on the Oculus Quest 2 (and also Steam VR and Rift) explores these questions, and the unsolved problems of metaverses spun out of control. It's called Virtual Virtual Reality 2, but it's not even an online game: The metaverse is simulated and scripted as a dialogue-heavy absurdist experience.

Tender Claws, the game's developer, got a head start exploring the deeper questions surrounding VR, AR, and immersive AI. The developer's original game, Virtual Virtual Reality, toyed with the broken promises of simulation, and was one of the best experiences on the Oculus Go, Google's Daydream View and other early mobile VR headsets. Tender Claws also explored social spaces and live performance in its follow-up game, The Under Presents.

Virtual Virtual Reality 2 is a single-player experience, not a true online space. But it simulates the feeling of entering a social metaverse -- called "Scottsdale" -- which unravels after losing VC funding, shredding and rebooting a whole universe. Many questions on the nature of metaverses appear to be raised along the way. Some of them, like consciousness-uploading, are reminiscent of ideas wrestled with for years in science fiction.

The game's use of the metaverse was dreamed up well before Facebook's name change to Meta last year; the game's been in the works for years, and the timing has just become lucky. But as social worlds start emerging more rapidly, throwing the term metaverse around with increasing frequency, Virtual Virtual Reality 2 looks to be a commentary arriving at the right time.

Entertain your brain with the coolest news from streaming to superheroes, memes to video games.

Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro, Tender Claws' co-founders and creators of Virtual Virtual Reality 2, were inspired as much by previous abandoned virtual world metaverses like Disney's Club Penguin, and people's sense of abandonment after those worlds closed down. The game examines the existence of social spaces owned by big companies, and asks where our data goes when those spaces fade away.

Tender Claws' previous VR and AR games wrestled with what Cannizzarro identifies as a messy divide between utopian tech dreams and disappointing reality. Tender Claws' previous AR game, called Tendar, toyed with the way companies try to simulate sympathetic AI companions. The Under Presents explored ideas of what it means to have real living virtual social spaces, and it played with time, performance and identity.

Virtual Virtual Reality 2 also looks like a genre-hopping, reality-bending type of game, a toybox of weird ideas. In a world of VR that seems like a place full of copycat genres and ideas, maybe it's also the type of inspirational strangeness the still-not-quite-mainstream world of VR needs right now -- before big tech tries to lock it all down all over again.

Virtual Virtual Reality 2 arrives on Feb. 10. I'll be reviewing it before its release.

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A new VR game wants us to escape the metaverse - CNET

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Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market Overview | 2022 2028

The Global Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market covers explicit information regarding the development rate, market estimates, drivers, limitations, future based demand, and revenue during the forecast period. The Global Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market consists of data accumulated from numerous primary and secondary sources. This information has been verified and validated by the industry analysts, thus providing significant insights to the researchers, analysts, managers, and other industry professionals. This document further helps in understanding market trends, applications, specifications, and market challenges.

The report on the global Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market offers high-quality, proven, and wide-ranging research study to equip players with valuable data for making well-informed business decisions. The researchers and analysts have provided an in-depth analysis of the market segmentation based on the type, application, and geography. The report also sheds light on the vendor landscape, to inform the readers about the changing dynamics of the market.

Get a PDF Sample of this Report @ https://www.marketreportsinsights.com/sample/14507

Major Companies:Samsung, Google, Merge, Insignia, Lenovo, Homido, iLive, ReTrak, Indigi, Sumaclife

The global, regional, and other market statistics including CAGR, financial statements, volume, and market share mentioned in this report can be easily relied upon in light of their high precision and authenticity. The report also provides a study on the current and future demand of the Global Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market.

Major Types of the Market are:Regular VRCardboard

Major Applications of the Market are:Commercial UsePersonal Use

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Regional Analysis For Virtual Reality for SmartphoneMarket

North America(the United States, Canada, and Mexico)Europe(Germany, France, UK, Russia, and Italy)Asia-Pacific(China, Japan, Korea, India, and Southeast Asia)South America(Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, etc.)The Middle East and Africa(Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa)

Research Methodology

The report has been consolidated using three research methodologies. The first step centers around exhaustive primary and secondary researches, which includes an extensive collection of information on the Global Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market and the parent and peer market. The next step involves validating the market size, estimations, findings, and assumptions with further accurate information from industry experts. The report obtains a complete estimation of the market size with the help of bottom-up and top-down approaches. Finally, the report obtains the market estimation of all the segments and sub-segments using data triangulation and market breakup procedures.

Table of Contents

Report Overview:The report overview includes studying the market scope, leading players, market segments and sub-segments, market analysis by type, application, geography, and the remaining chapters that shed light on the overview of the market.

Executive :The report summarizes about Virtual Reality for Smartphone market trends and shares, market size analysis by region, and countries. Under market size analysis by region, analysis of market share, and growth rate by region is provided.

Profiles of International Players:This section also profiles some of the major players functioning in the Global Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market, based on various factors such as the company overview, revenue, product offering (s), key development (s), business strategies, Porters five forces analysis, and SWOT analysis.

Regional Study: The regions and countries mentioned in this research study have been studied based on the market size by application, product, key players, and market forecast.

Key Players:This section of the Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market report explains about the expansion plans of the leading players, investment analysis, funding, company establishment dates, revenues of manufacturers, and the regions served.

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Lastly, the Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market study provides essential information about the major challenges that are going to influence market growth. The report additionally provides overall details about the business opportunities to key stakeholders to expand their business and capture revenues in the precise verticals. The report will help the existing or upcoming companies in this market to examine the various aspects of this domain before investing or expanding their business in the Virtual Reality for Smartphone market.

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Virtual Reality for Smartphone Market 2022: Remarking Enormous Growth with Recent Trends & Demand Cleveland Sports Zone - Cleveland Sports Zone

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Several tech stocks have taken a beating this week, and no Silicon Valley giant has been hit harder than Meta. On the latest Pivot podcast, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss why Mark Zuckerbergs pivot to virtual reality doesnt seem to be resonating with investors.

Kara Swisher: There are Big Tech winners and losers in this weeks earnings, and Alphabet is making it look as easy as ABC. Oh, wow. Producers, thanks for that one. Googles parent company reported blowout earnings in the fourth quarter and beat analysts predictions. On Tuesday, Alphabet announced a 20-for-one stock split. But they werent popping corks all over the Valley. Shares of Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, fell more than 20 percent, in part due to the impact of Apples privacy changes. Also, issues around growth; also, the money theyve been spending on the Metaverse. That brought down the shares of other tech giants, including Twitter. Facebooks number of daily global users dropped for the first time ever, by one million. And again, the spending on Meta is insane they lost $10 billion on that division, the Reality Labs division. And 2022 could bring challenges for both Alphabet and Meta. The Senate is considering a bill that would force them to pay news publishers, similar to the Australian law that took effect. Zuckerberg blamed Apples anti-tracking feature for the losses, but the big thing was this $10 billion cost for the Metaverse investment. So what do you think about the situation?

Twice weekly, Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher host Pivot, a New York Magazine podcast about business, technology, and politics.

Scott Galloway: This is the quarter that Google disarticulates from Facebook, much less Pinterest and Snap. Search is its own form of communications and advertising that continues to just grow. But even at scale, the ad-supported model seems to be under pressure. Facebook, for the first time in 18 years, had a decline in daily active users. Its never registered that. So just some positives because Im always critical of Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg is a brilliant business person. Hes doing exactly what he should be doing, and that is, hes making a staggering investment in trying to pivot the Titanic and finding something big enough to replace what he sees as the sun passing midday on their core business model.

Swisher: Hes also bored with it, right? You can feel it.

Galloway: Hes doing exactly the right thing strategically. The problem is the tactics make no sense. The people in this universe are not impressed with the universe he envisions, and specifically the portal. One of my predictions in November of 2021, when I made 2022 predictions, was that the biggest failure in tech-product history might be the Oculus. The Reality Labs group grew from $1 billion to $2 billion, but to spend $10 billion to get to $2 billion If he pulls it off, itll be one of the most impressive feats in not even corporate renewal but vision around maintaining growth. I dont think theyre going to. I think this thing is already a giant flaming bag of shit.

Swisher: Well, hes got some pattern-matching when they move to mobile, so it feels like thats what hes thinking about. But he really is spending.

Galloway: You cant argue that the guy isnt bold and isnt a visionary. But the two words that are missing from the narrative, or your narrative around the problem and why they have hit a wall here the first word is Tik and the second is Tok.

Swisher: Thats another thing I left that out. They talked about TikTok, the audience issue.

Galloway: TikTok has learned from Facebook. The majority of the complaints I see about TikTok are creators upset that their content got taken down, so theyve pivoted the other way. I want to be clear, they have problems, but directionally, I think theyre more about joy and creativity, as opposed to arguing and calling other people out and teen depression and all this shit. So Im a big fan of TikTok. If it can disarticulate itself in a credible way from this fear that it could be weaponized on a moments notice by the CCP, it will probably be one of the ten most valuable companies in the world in the next 24 to 36 months.

But keep in mind what happened with Facebook when youre talking about numbers. In five minutes, after the release of the earnings and the missed numbers, Facebook shed the value of Pinterest, Twitter, BMW, and Mercedes. It lost $180 billion in market capitalization. And I think money is power in a capitalist society and a signal of their channel power, which is what Lina Khan says you should focus on.

Meta, when it reports bad earnings, loses the value of BMW, Mercedes, and all of social media, except for Facebook and Google. My point is, people dont recognize just how incredibly unhealthily, awfully powerful these companies are.

Swisher: I dont know which theyre worried about more. Is it TikTok, is it the Apple thing? Or the Metaverse? The one thing that it shows, and this is something Ive mentioned before, but Mark has always said they have competitors, and theyre not a monopoly. With TikTok doing so well, I think they actually have a very good argument in that regard. One thing that was interesting was his quote: Although our direction is clear, it seems our path ahead is not quite perfectly defined. So the direction is not clear, right? I wrote a column that said, Youd imagine $10 billion would buy a better map. So well see what happens with this company. Its very theres a lot going on here.

Galloway: The other problem they face is, when you go to work for Exxon or Altria, you make certain moral compromises. But heres the thing: Theyre great employers. They pay their people really well. They invest in their human capital. And thats what makes the trade-off a trade-off.

Swisher: But people are embarrassed to be working for Facebook. I know they are.

Galloway: But theyre willing to wash over that embarrassment with Benjamins. As long as the stock keeps going up and you have a four- or five-year vest and within six months of joining, youre like, Oh my gosh, I got a million dollars in stock. That means a quarter of a million a year in additional comp that Im vesting. But then you wake up two and a half years into yourfour-year vesting cycle and youre like, Oh, that 2 or 3 million dollars and options I had is now worth $700,000. You suddenly find that your moral compass begins to burn a little brighter. When its raining money, it blurs your vision. A lot of employees at Facebook are going to find new clarity and all of a sudden find their moral compass when the stock is down. I think theyre in for a rough year because I think youre going to start to get data back on the Oculus, or Quest, or whatever the fuck its called.

Swisher: You know, a lot of people like it. Im going to push back. I think a lot of people are excited by the Oculus.

Galloway: Name someone under the age of 25 who has been found with an Oculus.

Swisher: Thats a fair point. But Im saying its not a bad product. Like, I usually whack their products. Its not a bad product. Its a good product. I have one I was using, its great.

Galloway: For $10 billion?

Swisher: I agree, its an expensive good product, so well see. Its not AirPods. Ill tell you that. Theyd be lucky if it was AirPods, right? Thats an unqualified hit.

Galloway: The basis of biology is survival and propagation. And the reality is, we spend 90 percent of our attention and our evaluation of another person nonverbally through aesthetics. And 90 percent of that energy and evaluation goes to one region that is 7 percent of our person and that is our face. And so people are very particular: glasses that bring up the height of my cheekbones, which intimates that Im less prone to infection; a strong jawline, which means Im more violent and can protect your children; facial hair, which says that Im virile, whatever it might be. And this thing, when you put it on your head, it says youre into magic and drive a Mazda and dont have sex with me. And 40 percent of the people who put this on their head feel nauseous. So Meta has denied and ignored a basic instinct among people.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

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Metas Virtual-Reality Arm Is a Flaming Bag of Sh*t - New York Magazine

With the very descriptive name Personal Boundary, Metas Horizon Vice President, Vivek Sharma announced in a blog post a new feature that would protect users avatars from unwanted nearness and protect their personal space.

Personal Boundary feature prevents avatars from coming within a set distance of 1,2 meters of each other, it is activated by default and rolling out begins on February 5th everywhere inside of Horizon WorldsandHorizon Venues.

This means that avatars will not be able to invade each others personal space and if someone tries to do so, the system will halt their forward movement as they reach the boundary. Meta says that the halt will not be visible to the user as there is no haptic feedback.

In the announcement, Sharma adds that in the future, Meta will explore the possibility of adding in new controls and UI changes, like letting people customize the size of their Personal Boundary.

Note that because Personal Boundary is the default experience, youll need to extend your arms to be able to high-five or fist bump other peoples avatars in Horizon Worlds or in Horizon Venues.

There is of course no reference in the announcement, but the feature came only a few days after a 43-year-old British woman reported that she was groped in Metas Horizon Venues virtual world by a group of male avatars. The woman named Nina Jane Patel has even penned down her ordeal in a Medium post, where she has talked about being verbally and sexually harassed by three or four male avatars.

Research on both violent and non-violent games has found that players can (a) express guilt after committing violent acts, (b) report reflective and introspective emotional reactions during gameplay, and (c) debate the morality of their actions with others.

Regarding VR, studies have demonstrated that (a) witnessing physical violence in immersive spaces led participants to take the perspective of victims and better understand their emotional state and (b) controlled exposure to traumatic or violent events can be used for treatment. Broadly, studies into video games and VR demonstrate that the impact of actions in virtual worlds transfer into the physical worlds to influence (later) attitudes and behaviors. Thus, how these experiences may be potentially harnessed for social change is a compelling and open consideration, as are side-effects of such interventions on vulnerable groups.

The VR experiences differ from video gamesin that they often lack a specific goal as well as common video game mechanisms, such as points, badges, or leaderboards. Unlike video games, VR presents experiences that are meant to be lived rather than played.

VR contributes another layer of complexity in the user-media relationship by providing users with a highly interactive environment in which users become the agent of their own media experiences. Users have high agency in VR, controlling the field of view, manipulating objects, and locomoting through the mediated space at will, blurring the boundaries between content producer and consumer. Thus, virtual experiences are better able to mimic direct, firsthand experiences than traditional media. Individuals place greater weight on direct, rather than indirect, experiences when making decisions, and consequently, direct experiences tend to have stronger and longer lasting impact on attitude changes than indirect experiences.

Perhaps one of the most critical opportunities that VR provides for the primary prevention of violence is the fact that the impact of experiences in VR does not end when the user unplugs and leaves the virtual world; rather, the effects transfer into the physical world to shift the users attitudes and behaviors.

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Meta's Personal Boundary feature and the importance of violence in virtual reality - Moonshot News

PlutoSpheres logo. (Pluto VR Image)

Seattle startup Pluto VR has brought its virtual reality streaming platform PlutoSphere into Early Access, which gives interested players a chance to check out and influence a pre-release version of the software.

Initially announced in February 2021, PlutoSphere allows its users to stream VR applications to a headset without the need for a local computer, in order to dramatically reduce the cost of entry for virtual reality. Instead of building a new rig around VR compatibility, you can theoretically just get a headset, then run everything from every library you own via data streaming.

PlutoSphere is currently compatible with the Oculus Quest and Quest 2, with plans to support other headsets and mobile devices in the future. It also requires a 5 Ghz WiFi 6 Internet connection, 50 Mbps of bandwidth, a Steam account, and less than 100ms ping to an Amazon Web Services region.

In exchange, you get what Pluto VR advertises as a hardware-agnostic, open-ecosystem platform that lets you access VR apps from your Steam, Epic Games Store, and Oculus libraries, all in one place via data streaming.

The idea behind PlutoSphere, according to Pluto VR co-founder Forest Gibson, is to break down the walled garden that currently surrounds the virtual reality and spatial computing scenes. Pluto VR advertises PlutoSphere as a bridge between the open PC ecosystem and standalone VR hardware.

SideQuest is a more open platform that supports developers innovating in the XR ecosystem, Gibson said in a press release. Now VR users around the world can access PlutoSphere and gain the power of PC VR without having to buy a computer. Pluto has been working on PlutoSphere in a private alpha test for the last year, in conjunction with a group of early adopters and testers.

Oculus/Meta users can grab PlutoSphere via SideQuest as of Feb. 2. The platform is free to use in Early Access a funding model used for apps in pre-release stages for a limited period of time each day, although users can extend that period by purchasing Pluto tokens.

Pluto VR was started in 2015 by Gibson, Jared Cheshier, former Disney animation executive Jonathan Geibel, and PopCap co-founder John Vechey. Its other projects include an eponymous communication service for VR environments, and Metachromium, a spatial browser that lets you open web browser apps as an overlay running on top of any other VR game.

According to the NPD Group, sales of VR/AR gear more than doubled during the 2021 holiday season, with slightly lower overall growth in the market for the full year. Its still considered a niche in the wider video game industry, but with multiple companies now focusing on augmented/mixed reality applications, i.e. smart glasses, and the Metaverse, the VR market is growing much faster than anyone wouldve expected in 2020.

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Pluto VR debuts tech that lets you stream virtual reality to a headset without a computer - GeekWire