New World Notes

Top 5 Posts Last Week, Including: What Carmack Leaving Oculus Means for VR & Migrating SLers to Sansar (Or Not)

• Nylon Pinkney Is Online: When Millenials Turn 80
• John Carmack, VR Pioneer Who Once Described Developing VR As A "Moral Imperative", No Longer Focused On Developing VR
• Roblox Version Of Second Life Sim Translates Well
• Apple's AR Plan Per The Information: Headset In 2022, Glasses In 2023
• How To Connect Second Life To Sansar: It's Not The Engine, It's The Community

Nylon Pinkney is Online: When Millenials Turn 80

Join Sinespace's 3rd Anniversary Party for Fun Live Events, Free Home Design Contest, Gold Giveaways & Much More!

Starting today, NWN partner Sinespace is launching an epic three year anniversary celebration. If you haven't visited the Unity-based virtual world recently, these next 5 days are a great time to join the party, while checking out all the features and updates that have been added.

Highlights include a Parade of Homes Competition, where you can customize and show off your free home region for a chance to win a prize during the Sinespace Anniversary Awards Ceremony. That ceremony happens next Tuesday at 2PM PST, where Sinespace founder Adam Frisby will give a keynote address on the state of the virtual world, and award prizes to the best Sinespace creators.

Go here for the whole schedule of fun, and be sure to join Sinespace's official Discord.

Cajsa's Flickr Pick: Tamary Takes Beautiful, Whimsical Slice of Virtual Life Pics

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

I thought I found a new slice of SLife artist in 3*3, but then I checked the blog link and discovered she is Tamary9, whom I featured in an interview in January 2018. However, it’s been almost two years, so why not a visit again this incomparably gifted Slicer of SLife. In 19112, we catch our subject heading out for the day. I imagine her off to school. It’s sunny now, but the forecast is for rain. She plans ahead! The use of sunlight is beautiful.

John Carmack, VR Pioneer Who Once Described Developing VR as a "Moral Imperative", No Longer Focused on Developing VR

Oculus CTO and VR pioneer John Carmack is stepping almost completely away from the company and virtual reality development in general to go in a totally different direction:

Starting this week, I’m moving to a "Consulting CTO” position with Oculus.

I will still have a voice in the development work, but it will only be consuming a modest slice of my time.

As for what I am going to be doing with the rest of my time: When I think back over everything I have done across games, aerospace, and VR, I have always felt that I had at least a vague “line of sight” to the solutions, even if they were unconventional or unproven. I have sometimes wondered how I would fare with a problem where the solution really isn’t in sight. I decided that I should give it a try before I get too old. I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI).

I'm not sure how many people in the VR industry grasp the significance of this move. The announcement comes only days after Carmack said this about the current state of VR:

"I'm often kind of grumpy around the office because I really haven't been satisfied with the pace of progress that we've been making. When I'm in VR I see the magic there, but my brain is always throwing up these giant 'to do' Post-It Notes on top of everything, reminding me of all the work that's yet to be done."

Putting the two statements together, it's hard to escape the conclusion that Carmack has decided that virtual reality won't or can't be improved, or sufficiently matured into a mass market product, within the span of his career. And so instead, he's devoting the rest of his work energies to developing AI.

The statements also stand in sharp contrast to how Carmack fairly recently described the importance of bringing VR to the masses -- as "a moral imperative".

As he explained to me for my Wired article back in 2016:

Roblox Version of Second Life Sim Translates Well (Comment of the Week)

Remember "1867", the Second Life roleplay community which moved to Sansar and then set up a presence in Roblox? Longtime reader and SLer Pulsar, who's familiar with both the original SL version and the Sansar variation, visited this new version in Roblox, and came away pretty impressed:

Very interesting. It even rains! 1867 was fascinating in SL, even if the traffic wasn't high. In Sansar it felt kind of bare to me.

With Roblox you can visit 1867 on your iPad too (or other mobile devices) and it works well. The Roblox version strongly reminds the previous iterations aesthetically. It's still a work in progress, but it looks like it's going to be fun and interactive.

Click here to visit yourself in Roblox. I know among virtual world fans, there's often an "it's just for kids" bias against Roblox (I can be guilty of it too). But as Pulsar adds, citing this analysis from HackerNoon, Roblox and to a certain extent Fortnite, are not just virtual worlds, but essential social spaces for a new generation as they come of age:

Watch: How to Use Black Dragon, the SL Viewer With Great Graphics Options But a Challenging User Interface

Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer, has a cult following among hardcore graphics fans, but many SLers complain that its user interface for everything besides graphics is, well, challenging.

"It’s worth noting that while I think Black Dragon is unbeatable for visuals in Second Life, it’s not as easy for just about anything else," as blogger Mericat Ireland notes. "Communicating, getting changed etc. is all a bit more difficult than with other viewers (although entirely possible)." That in mind, Mericat shot this tutorial/walkthrough above, and opened up her blog to questions from other Black Dragon users.

It should be noted that none of the SL viewers, including (especially?) the official Linden Lab-created viewer, are user friendly, which is a key reason why roughly 99.9% of new users quickly leave. So really, we're just talking about which set of complex commands you prefer to learn/tolerate.

As for whether it's worth learning how to use Black Dragon, here's a sample of what it looks like in action, in a machinima created by Black Dragon creator NiranV:

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pick: Insociable Shoots Stylish & Insouciant Screenshots

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Insociable’s photostream is fun and humorous with playful photos such as this one. He has more than one photo with a dog. This one brought to mind the phrase “a boy and his dog” with their mutual grins. I just love the grin and the insouciance of it all.

Apple's AR Plan Per The Information: Headset in 2022, Glasses in 2023

Insider tech industry news site The Information has a great scoop on Apple's plans for augmented reality (subscription required), and given The Information's consistently reliable track record, I'm inclined to believe it:

Apple is aiming to release an augmented-reality headset in 2022 and a sleeker pair of AR glasses by 2023, The Information has learned... Apple’s headset, code-named N301, will offer a hybrid of AR and VR capabilities, according to people familiar with the device. It resembles the Oculus Quest, a Facebook virtual reality headset released earlier this year, but with a sleeker design, these people said. Cameras will be mounted on the outside of the device, allowing people to see and interact with their physical surroundings, they said. Apple wants to make heavy use of fabrics and lightweight materials to ensure the device is comfortable to wear for extended periods of time, executives said in the presentation in October.

... In contrast, Apple’s AR glasses, code-named N421, present bigger technical challenges than the headset and are further from release. They are meant to be worn all day, and current prototypes look like high-priced sunglasses with thick frames that house the battery and chips, according to a person who has seen them.

This report contradicts earlier rumors that Apple's AR glasses were coming next year and would be third party (which seemed believable to me at the time). Then again, Apple pushing an AR/VR headset back to 2022 is a good idea, especially if Oculus Quest sales continue to disappoint in the short term; that gives Apple time to reschedule the release of their own headset, as needed.

Another tidbit from The Information addresses AR's "Glasshole" problem -- i.e., how do you project information onto glasses in a social situation without the user appearing to be a disconnected jerk ignoring everyone around them? Apple's apparent solution:

Cajsa's SL Flickr Pick: Kai Wirsing Creates Fantastic Action Roleplay Imagery

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Roleplay is a vital element of Second Life. I wonder how many sims are devoted to roleplay? What would SL be without all those alternate worlds, the historical, the fantastical, the otherworldy sims of roleplayers? Kai Wirsing’s photos are mostly in roleplay outfits for his blog Blue, action shots such as this exciting one with a rocket launcher in a bright and colorful urban setting. I like how it is canted about 20°, adding a sense of action and movement, even though he is still.