Live Blogging Philip Rosedale's "Revenge of Virtual Reality" High Fidelity Demo at SVVR

Philip Rosedale just finished giving his keynote talk at SVVR, and because my Typepad blog services was down at the time, I live-Tweeted the event. Here's my highlights:

"We have a 1987 article at the office about VR about to revolutionize computing" @philiprosedale jokes. This time it's coming.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

The traditional definition of VR is not accurate, argues @philiprosedale,

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

Here's Philip's definition of virtual reality:

Philip's def. of VR: "Sensory experience in which the results of our actions are consistent w/our past experiences."

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

We want things to work like the way we remember them or expect them to be says @philiprosedale. We need that in VR.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

Second Life is still the greatest version of virtual reality we have says @philiprosedale. But we have a long way to go.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

In demo, Ryan tries to build in SL - it's "incredibly difficult' notes @philiprosedale. Why only million in VR, not billions.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

Face-to-face experience in VR is absolutely riveting if it can be done well, but latency is a problem, says @philiprosedale.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

"100 milliseconds is a magic place" says @philiprosedale. Fortunately it only takes 100ms to reach Singapore.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

"We're pretty much in range of putting all 7 billion of us" in range of 100 millisecond latency.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

"There's plenty of room for virtual reality" says @philiprosedale. Computing power is now limitless.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

With that background in place, Philip moved on to his High Fidelity, helped by co-founder Ryan Downe and HF staffer Emily:

High Fidelity's Ryan Downe real time drumming from a VR-equipped virtual world. At @SVVRCon pic.twitter.com/kqFqfaVHnU

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

Audience Q: Will High Fidelity have a user marketplace like SL? Yes, says @philiprosedale & may even be connected to SL.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

"If Snowcrash was instruction manual for SL, Ready Player One is awfully inspiring" says @philiprosedale of @ErnestCline's book.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

Audience Q: Will SL merge with High Fidelity? @philiprosedale: My hope is to interoperate in SL anyway we can.

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) May 19, 2014

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Comments

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Philip always is a good speaker with plenty of ideas and even more hype. For example his assertion that '"We're pretty much in range of putting all 7 billion of us" in range of 100 millisecond latency' may be fine for those in parts of the world with access to high speed broadband. Most parts of the world's population have no access to the technology or have infrastructure plans to implement it, just look at the stats from the internet traffic report.

It is great what the High Fidelity team are doing, but you shouldn't keep promising the earth based on demos that stand no chance of being scalable. Or is this what start-ups have to do to attract and keep funding these days?

[melponeme_k]

Rosedale really is good at the tent revival, born again VR shtick.

[Account Deleted]

To give my 6 cents a part of this concerns me

"Virtual worlds of the future are going to look like Pandora in Avatar”
“We’re going to be arguing over the price of virtual real estate on Pandora” soon"

How is this going to happen if using everyone's computer or its on private servers
Are they really going to try ruin things by making the land a big part of the profit model.

You cannot even cash out in SL now without them requiring all your private info and reporting your little world to the IRS even if your not putting one penny in your bank account.

Their better be ways people can gamble and get away with other questionable things as a motive to play this new game as incentives and also many ways for people getting money out of the game without a central cashout (easy 3rd party's)
a new wild west with new big money making opportunities that has nothing to do with 3D modeling or being a land baron.

He needs to start showing or telling how much better the cybersex can be
with genital sensors and penetrating devices that offers remote Orgasmic Properties.

Just Say'n

[James OReilly]

How to become Resilient from Virtual World Vendors
http://ht.ly/w9Qvk

[Account Deleted]

@ Hitomi

That's right if you also look at it 80% of the world does not have access to clean drinkable water.

[James OReilly]

3d Holographic Technologies for Educators #3dholoedu http://ht.ly/x2UXD for MOOCs #3dholomooc http://ht.ly/x2UXE #vwbpe #vwbpe14

[zzpearlbottom]

"quote"
how much better the cybersex can be
with genital sensors and penetrating devices that offers remote Orgasmic Properties.
"unquote"
Right on the spot of the success or failure of HF.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

How long after will Mitch Kapor come along and tell all the users that they're just the disenfranchised and whacky pioneers as customers that they never really wanted?

Meanwhile, must get back to work with customers in RL that have absolutely no use for VR. You know, reality that isn't virtual. Like really real reality.

Remembering that Phil himself, in his own business dealings and failed ventures, never once used SL or VR himself. Nor do his board members. Or his colleagues. Or his investors.

I hear it does cure warts as well as grow hair though. If you're virtually bald with virtual warts.

[A.J.]

Hmmm, let's see.

It's just hard to turn a blind eye to all of the failure attached to these little sensors and pretend that this is gonna be something other than a big failure.

We have a history here of forces that seem to need a lot of resources of attention and money and then run away deaf, dumb, and blind when they fail to deliver the goods.

When I put the pieces together, all I really see here is paying $500.00 a month to stand alone in my room and jiggle my body parts in a virtual world that will still probably require that I purchase mesh prosthetic limbs to cover up my duck feet and tootsie roll fingers.

[melponeme_k]

@Dartagnan

Of course they don't use VR. Why drink the purple koolaid that you are cooking up in Jamestown VR?

What these shysters really salivate over is the free trade, no tax, no property rights hellhole portrayed in fiction about VR. The kind of world that forces people into VR to become peasants who work for rubber ducky, funny money which only amounts to a few cents in real money and absolutely worth nothing in a gold based monetary system.

What Philip and the rest have discovered in VR is that people will work for $0.000000000

[Metacam Oh]

I say zero chance High Fidelity will have anything to do with Second Life in the future. Let's see, he's trying to re-invent SL, but correctly, which would mean people would not be paying 295/mo for land presumably in High Fidelity since you would be allocating your own resources, so it would kill Second Life's business model. Maybe I am missing something from what High Fidelity actually is, but I just don't see it.

[James OReilly]

Convergence Culture Overview for Immersive Worlds
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151269374409201&l=7140b3b042

[Iggy]

"What these shysters really salivate over is the free trade, no tax, no property rights hellhole portrayed in fiction about VR."

My fear is that massively popular VR will do to RL community and the physical economy what MP3s did to the music industry (not that I had much sympathy for them).

We already have a nation (in the US) of addled Millennial addicts doing what a colleague calls "a plodding text-walk." The seeds are sewn for them to check out 24/7; Ready Player One indeed, or M.T. Anderson's Feed.