New World Notes

Neal Stephenson on Oculus Rift & His Metaverse Becoming an Actual Business Plan

Neal Stephenson, of course, is one of the many people I interviewed for my Wired article on this new generation of VR, but after many rigorous edits, his thoughts didn't make the final version. With the official consumer launch of the Rift this week, and Oculus' lead executives -- Palmer Luckey, Brendan Iribe, John Carmack, and Michael Abrash -- all expressing their plans to actually create the Metaverse from Stephenson's classic novel Snow Crash, I wanted to share them now:

"What do you think about the fact that the leaders of Oculus Rift are explicitly trying to create the Metaverse with their technology?" I asked him.

"'Metaverse' has turned into a sort of golem," Stephenson told me, "capable of wandering the earth on its own, out of the purview of its creator. So I am always surprised to see where it turns up and what it's doing. Ten years ago that wasn't the case. Anyone who wanted to use it in front of a normal audience would have had to say 'Metaverse, an idea from the novel Snow Crash.' Twenty years ago, they'd have had to add, 'a novel by Neal Stephenson.' Now apparently 'Metaverse' can stand up on its own three feet and lumber about, at least in the setting of tech blogs. That is the kind of event that many writers hope will happen at least once in their career. It is gratifying."

Indeed, last March when Abrash announced he'd been appointed Chief Scientist at Oculus, the company's post was entitled "The Path to the Metaverse". I asked Neal about that too:

SL Flickr of the Day: Beev Fallen's "Freedom of Choice"

Beev Fallen has a fantastic SL Flickr, which is no surprise, because he's the guy who made this excellent tutorial on simulating reflections. "Freedom of Choice" is my personal favorite of his from the last few months.

"I realized that 'choices' we have, in virtual world, or in real world, are very limited," Beev tells me. "In fact, people tend to separate themselves, or they may have some kind of outward conditions which bring them to creating small closed communities with limited activities, which they are comfortable with. I think there's nothing wrong with that, but I just got a clear understanding of that thing in my head." So he wanted to visualize all that "as a bunch of tiny separated cells, and having a choice which cell you can stay in."

But how did he create the actual image in Second Life? Surprisingly it was pretty simple:

Does NWN Now Stand for "Negative World Notes"?

Another era of VR hype, ridiculous hair - talking virtual reality at Robert Scoble's house in 2007

Reader "Catten" recently posted a comment on something I've been thinking about for quite awhile:

Wouldn't it be easier putting a big label on top of the page saying "I don't believe in VR" or "I predict VR won't be a big thing", that way every other post wouldn't have to be about how VR will fail and the blog can go back to being why SL will fail, or why Sansar will fail or why... :D I really enjoyed this blog but its become more and more of a letdown. From being about new technologies to bashing on new technologies.

Catten makes a fair point. Believe it or not, I do try to balance my skepticism with genuine enthusiasm for this tech, which I do think is cool and will lead to some worthwhile use cases and a substantial (if relatively niche) userbase. But I know NWN posts can sometimes get unbalanced to the negative side. For what it's worth (and it might not be much), here's why I do approach this with a more skeptical eye:

OpenSim Pioneer Wins Prestigious Open Source Award

Video via Joyce Bettencourt

Crista Videira Lopes, a longtime pioneer of OpenSimulator (the open source spinoff of Second Life), just won this year's Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest, awarded to developers of "open source software product of significant value to the nonprofit sector and movements for social change", and backed by the massive and prestigious Tides Foundation. Considering OpenSim's use by a small but dedicated group of educators and others, and Christa's talented contributions to it, it's a well-deserved.

"My department chair nominated me," Christa tells me. (She's a professor at UC Irvine, and "Diva Canto" in SL and on Twitter.) "He must have made a good case! OpenSim fits the spirit of that award."

Along with the award, she's winning a $10,000 prize, and for OpenSim users, there's good news there:

Virtual Real Time "Teleportation" Via Augmented Reality

OK, I've been a bit of a noodge about HoloLens' version of augmented reality, but this is seriously cool:

Unlike a lot of proposed AR/VR use cases, I can totally see this kind of "teleportation" becoming commonplace down the road:

SL Explorations: Ms. Tobias Visits Trace Too, Too

You saw Kate Bergdorf's visit to the Trace Too in SL, now here's Caitlin Tobias' wanderings through the same virtual beach.

This Will Soon Be Called "Rift Face" or "Oculus Rash"

Because LOL:

All of a sudden the Oculus logo makes a lot more sense pic.twitter.com/bMOadk2ndJ

— Steve Kim (@Fobwashed) March 28, 2016

Via /Oculus.

Insilico, Inaccessible: After Reported Permaban of Owner/Lead Creator, Second Life's Renowned Cyberpunk City Blocked from Public Access

Meeting Skills Hak in 2008

Insilico, Second Life's universally acclaimed and extremely popular cyberpunk city, currently seems to be blocked from general public access. This follows an announcement last weekend from the sim's owner and lead creator, "Skills Hak", who writes that she's been permabanned after committing some unspecified abuses:

I am still not sure what exactly caused my ban... In fact, some of the stuff I did was pretty fucking bad so honestly LL is in their full right to remove me from the game. Whatever Linden employee thought it would be a good idea to kill me, Thank You. I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually happened are absurdly low so i’ll just move on. I’d much rather be happy than right any day.

Skills seems more relieved than angry to be leaving, citing a long list of past dramas she and the sim have been involved with. Moderators for the Insilico community say they are working with Linden Lab to bring Insilico back to general access. This from "Abeus" on Insilico's web portal:

I'm not too sure if I am allowed to discuss the terms of the deal. To be on the safe side I won't get into it the fine details. Just suffice to say that we've been given a period of time to hopefully recoup the losses that this lock-out has incurred for the sims. Once the transfer of ownership documents are received and completed, the sims will be reopened again (they did mention this could take a day or two, so please just a little more patience).

Linden Lab is in a very touchy place here. There's always been a boatload of drama surrounding Insilico, an exhaustive and near-impossible-to-verify list of claims and counter-claims of abuse and worse. At the same time, Insilico is also one of Second Life's most beloved, admired, and active locations, a regular subject of official Linden Lab promotion. The company even sponsored this marketing video tribute to Insilico:

First Oculus Rift Reviews: Hardcore Gamers Enthuse, Non-Gamers Still Skeptical

Now that the embargo for the first consumer model of the Rift has been lifted, the Interwebs is being flooded with reviews. Roughly summarized: Reviewers who are (or were) hardcore gamers love it to the point of wild hyperbole; reviewers who are not, not so much.

To wit:

• "The Oculus Rift surely might be the most momentous product launch of the decade." (TechCrunch)
• "[As] as close to being a brain in a jar as humanly possible." (The Verge)
• "Prologue to a new reality" (UploadVR)

On the other side, The New York Times: "A Clunky Portal to a Promising Virtual Reality":

The first batch of apps and games added up to a confusing, disjointed virtual reality landscape. In my tests, my reaction was more often “Why would I want to be here?” or “Why is this in virtual reality?” rather than “Wow.”

Or even more dramatic, from the Wall Street Journal:

Top Five New World Notes Posts from Last Week!

• In Survey, New World Notes Readers Overwhelmingly Interested in Trying Project Sansar This Year
• "Waiting" - Second Life Screenshot Turned to Work of Art
• VR Industry Unsure Where to Place Sansar & High Fidelity
• Someone Recreates Virtual Version of Donald Trump's Mansion in Second Life, Complete With Virtual Wall
• Gamer Sexism Made VR Pioneer Jaron Lanier Less Utopian About Virtual Reality