New World Notes

Majority of Facebook Employees Believe Policy Allowing Political Ads With False Claims May Change 2020 Election - Blind Survey

A majority of Facebook employees believe the company's policy of allowing false statements in political ads posted to the social network may change the outcome of the 2020 election. That's at least according to an anonymous survey launched last weekend by the development team of Blind, an anonymous messaging app for tech company staffers. 

The results are above, with 51% of Facebook employees who took the survey answering Yes to the question, "Do you think Facebook's policy to allow political ads with false claims may change the 2020 election?" Many more respondents from other major tech companies thought that election interference was  likely -- with 78% of Apple employees answering Yes, at the high end.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a widely-covered speech last week, defending this policy on free expression principles. However, according to this same Blind survey, his employees are almost evenly split on the matter:

Watch: Capture Real World Locations With Your Smartphone & Turn Them Into LEGO-Like Virtual Worlds With New SDK

Some cool videos from our creative teams building with https://t.co/Ob4co4nbsh. Who doesn't love turning a normal sidewalk into a lego land? #arcloud #mirrorworld #everythingisawesome pic.twitter.com/4Yhx6mtbt1

— 6D.ai (@6d_ai) October 14, 2019

Remember 6D.AI, the startup that's creating a 3D mirror world of real life from the input of standard smartphones? The company recently released its SDK, and it makes what you see above possible: Scan a real world location into a 1:1 scale 3D model... then turn into a LEGO-like virtual world.

"It’s all built on our SDK," 6D CEO Matt Miesnieks tells me. "Instead of mesh triangles we draw LEGO blocks." These blocks are the only texture available in the SDK, he adds, but users can create and add their own textures -- opening up incredible opportunities.

Modern 3D Game Worlds Look Better on Old School CRT Monitors Than LCD?

... at least that's the argument from Digital Foundry, and I'm totally intrigued. (Watch above.)

"For example," comments Clive Thompson, "because a CRT is a light gun painting a screen, the computer doesn't need to engage in as much processing to produce bigger image -- so you can lower the resolution in the game settings, still have a good-looking game, and enjoy the knock-on boost in game responsiveness."

Another reason:

Tim Sweeney Has an Epic Vision for an Open Metaverse -- But Unanswered Questions "Who Needs It?" & "Who Wants It?" Remain

Master VR podcaster Kent Bye has a valuable Twitter thread on a SIGGRAPH 2019 talk by Epic's Tim Sweeney, who just laid out his vision for an open metaverse. (No surprise Epic has plans to build one, as that was evident when the company rolled out user-creation tools for Fortnite last year.) In opposition to say, Facebook, Sweeney's metaverse is admirably open and not a walled garden: 

.@TimSweeneyEpic
What is the Metaverse?
Real-time social medium to share experiences & ceators need to be able to create their own stuff.
Needs to have an open economy that participants can participate & survive w free market economics without corporate dystopian control.

— Kent Bye VoicesOfVR (@kentbye) July 30, 2019

As with any other metaverse framework, however, two basic questions (far as I can tell) remain unaddressed:

Libra Has Promise, Says Virtual Currency Expert/Blockchain Skeptic Adam Frisby, But Faces Adoption, Trust & Storage Challenges

Everyone in tech is talking today about Libra, the new blockchain-related cryptocurrency initiative led by Facebook in association with many major companies and organizations. (Read this detailed summary from Josh Constine on TechCrunch.) Assuming it isn't regulated to death by concerned government officials, can it live up to the utopian promises made in its promotional video (see above), while becoming a functional alternative to existing currency system?

"Biggest hole is just whether or not people trust it," virtual currency expert Adam Frisby tells me, in a chat today. "I think some will. Honestly, if it was anyone but Facebook pitching this (even if their stake is a minority one), it'd be way more likely to succeed."

As longtime New World Notes readers know, Adam has been involved as an entrepreneur in virtual world economies for over 15 years, and recently wrote a much-shared VentureBeat essay detailing his skepticism for blockchain. Libra, however, has promise, because (in his words) "it [s]olves a lot of the issues with blockchain, by not really being one."

One interesting point he raises: The industries with the greatest incentive to use Libra now are on the edge of the mainstream economy -- for instance, gambling, online gaming, porn, and the burgeoning legal pot industry in some US states. In my view, their rapid embrace will likely turn Libra into "Vice Coin" -- a brand association which might hamper Libra's adoption by the wider mainstream. (Which is probably not what Facebook and its partners were going for.)

On a technical front, Adam me, the heavy storage requirements may prevent Libra from becoming decentralized. Other challenges remain. For more detail, here's our lightly edited transcript:

Monday Flashback: Slack Began as Work Platform for Making a Virtual World

When listening to my interview with Philip Rosedale, where he talks about creating a virtual world-meets-Slack for distributed work groups, here's a fun irony worth keeping in mind: Slack itself was originally created... in order to create a virtual world. Specifically, Stewart Butterfield's web-based world Glitch. As he told me back in 2011:

“[Glitch] is a game, and not a total open virtual world. There are some tools for creative expression now and more will be added, but anything which would count as ‘user-generated content’ will have to fit within the constraints of the game (without the constraints, there's no game left). So, much of that will be visual customizations (to avatars, houses, locations, etc.) and some of it will be ‘other’ stuff (the non-visual: collaborative music making, player-created games, etc.)”

His development team for Glitch was based around the globe, so they needed a unified communication channel where they could work together, and that's the seed of what eventually became Slack, after the small but much-loved world closed down:

Listen: Philip Rosedale on the Future of VR, the Metaverse, and Building a "Virtual World Meets Slack" Workspace - The New World Notes Interview

Interview starts at about :09 seconds in

UPDATE, 4:40pm: Bumped up for weekend listening/discussion!

Days after Philip Rosedale announced that his social VR company was laying off 25% of its staff and focusing on building Project Lilypad, a cross-platform virtual world for workgroups, I got on a Zoom call with him to talk about that news and related topics. Highlights include news that High Fidelity is coming to Oculus Quest, his thought on the fate of VRChat and other social VR worlds in the wake of this pivot -- and the final word on open work spaces, of which Rosedale was once a prominent advocate.

Timestamps and notes/quotes below:

00:30 Philip and the founding Second Life, my stint as an embedded journalist within it — and walking the virtual world.

01:54: Philip’s mission to build a massive virtual world through High Fidelity and VR headsets — and how the slow adoption of HMDs and their shortcomings for use in work contexts have made it difficult to launch a true Metaverse-type virtual world. Leading to High Fidelity’s pivot to create a cross-platform virtual world-based workspace for teams as a way of growing the market for an eventual Metaverse.

06:20: How High Fidelity’s pivot is like virtual worlds meet Zoom, or a virtual world meets Slack. The challenge of creating an online workspace in the face of open offices — and their opportunity for telecommuting workers, and as a solution to the rises costs of living in tech hubs like San Francisco and New York.  We also delve into the productivity problems inherent in open office spaces, which Philip once advocated. (“Let me go on record and say ‘I was wrong’.”)

12:28: The fate of High Fidelity’s consumer side, in terms of the virtual world and its blockchain-based commerce system. “I’m deeply committed to building the Metaverse… so I’m not spinning down any of that”. That includes plans to release High Fidelity of Oculus Quest soon-ish — date TBD “in the next couple quarters”.

Next: High Fidelity and PSVR, going multi-platform, and how to request early access to Project Lilypad.

Mozilla Adds 3D Creator to Hubs, Web-Based, VR-Ready Virtual Rooms

You can now create scenes for Hubs without leaving your browser!

Spoke is a 3D editor from @mozilla that lets you quickly build 3D environments and share them with your friends.

Check out the new and improved Spoke:https://t.co/5pFzFZJ7pq pic.twitter.com/a8BTQpRYfB

— Robert Long (@arobertlong) May 14, 2019

I haven't played around much with Hubs, Mozilla's web-based virtual room platform, but it's impressively responsive and user-friendly (if rudimentary). And now it comes with Spoke, Mozilla's 3D creator/room editor:

How to Run Minecraft on a Rasberry Pi from the Rays of the Sun - New Mixed Reality Human Wellness Project from Jeff "AM Radio" Berg

Behold, minecraft powered by the sun. Digital isn't just code. "We don't need a generation of coders. We need a generation of digital thinkers..." -Block Breaker @mraspinall pic.twitter.com/GH6PHhlnYX

— Jeff Berg (@parametricshape) April 16, 2019

This is a gloriously geeky project from artist/coder Jeff Berg, famed for many years as the virtual world innovator known only by his avatar, "AM Radio". It's also a virtual world project with a decided mixed reality twist: Running Minecraft purely from solar energy. This is possible with the Rasberry Pi, the single-board computer, which comes pre-installed with Minecraft, and some savvy hacker fu from Berg, who figured out how to do it for well under $200 (price list below).

While running Minecraft from the sun's rays is a cool project in itself, Berg's ultimate goal is to use Minecraft's display environment to indicate the health level of plants in the office, which in turn, will also suggest the wellness levels of the people in the office too. "Plants thrive in a good environment," as he puts, "People thrive in a good environment." (Which is why, in the video, you see sensors hooked up to a plant.)

"I suppose it would end up in charts, spreadsheets and databases," he allows. "With Minecraft however we have the chance to allow anyone at any skill level to explore data in 3D, in context of the spaces they occupy, in a simple and inviting interface for any age that promotes exploration, Design Thinking in spatial contexts, and scenario building." (More on that later in a follow-up post.)

Formerly a UX designer with IBM during his virtual world days, Berg is now digital skills leader for North America at Arup, an engineering and design consultancy. This side project of his is directly connected: "My AM Radio work in Second Life in large part was an exploration in this direction and is related," as puts it. "I have applied for a grant for this research, but will likely to continue on my own with or without funding."

Here's his full step-by-step parts breakdown, with an illustrated schematic:

Want to Play in Pillowfort? As Google+ Goes, Plurk Slumps, and Twitter/Facebook Remain Toxic, a New Social Network Emerges

Pillowfort is a new-ish social network with a charming name that gamers are starting to talk about, especially in the wake of Google+'s official death. (While it never caught on with the public, G+ had a strong fanbase of virtual world users.) Facebook and Twitter's problems with toxic users and bot manipulation remain epic, and Plurk, another social network with a cult following of virtual world fans, has been slumping in recent years. Will they prefer to help build a Pillowfort?

"It seems rather more locked down than Google," says Pillowfort fan, virtual world expert, and social media power user Patchouli. "It doesn't offer Google's +1 Likeish button, it doesn't do Events proper (though you can probably do blogposts listing events and tag them accordingly so that's a workaround), and it hasn't wound its tentacles throughout multiple services like G+ did. It's also lacking in anything resembling 'Social Search'.  You can only look for stuff within Pillowfort. The only connections you can forge with other social networks are direct HTML links in your posts.

"A lot of this is probably a function of how much more work needs to be done to bring Pillowfort close to the standards we're used to in our other socmedia toolset. That and the fact that many social media networks enable cross-network sharing only through mutual contracts (and when these break down, it more often than not turns acrimonious at best - remember when Instagram links suddenly degraded from TwitterCards to obscure HTML links after Facebook bought Instagram out?).

"So in short, G+ refugees will be faced with not having a lot of things, but Pillowfort has core functionality that matches up quite well to what any service without a direct tie-in to the Google ecosystem can probably manage."

So that's what Google+ users can expect. For folks from other social networks: