It's difficult to describe what's happening in this astounding Unity demo by game design student Matt Stark, but I'll go ahead and try: He's created an interactive world where the user can take a "Polaroid photo" of the surroundings -- and once taken, the photo becomes its own little interactive, manipulable, physics-enabled world.
As you might expect, Mark tells me he created this effect for a puzzle game he's working on. "I think the puzzles could be open-ended, allowing the player to approach them creatively," he tells me. "I'm at the stage of brainstorming level mechanics and trying to decide what the anatomy of a puzzle in the game should be."
As for achieving this effect, here's how he does it:
WT:Social is a new and much-needed social network led by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, which unlike Facebook, Twitter, and the other market leaders, won't make money on targeted (often intrusive or dishonest). Instead, like Wikipedia, it'll be run on donations. It's not however affiliated with the online encyclopedia. As Wales puts it to me: "This is just me having fun trying to invent something new."
You can go here to sign-up as Wales and his team scale up the system to take on more new users. "[We have] only 2 developers who are mainly scrambling to keep the site running," Wales explains. "I am hopeful that the waiting time will end in a few weeks time as we beef up our infrastructure (again!)"
While Facebook in particular has ongoing controversies with real name identities, and the company's insistence on them, Wales tells me WT:Social will have a more nuanced approach to that question. When I ask him, "What's WT Social's policy around anonymous/pseudonymous user identities, such as game handles?", here is his take in full:
The amazing thing is this was entirely a foreseeable reaction. Stadia is leading with action-oriented AAA games where split second reaction times are essential to gameplay. Which brings up the core problem with streaming services for that kind of content:
There is simply. No. Fricking. Way. To get past. The speed. Of goddamn light. I mean seriously. Dude:
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:
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.
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.
"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."
.@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.
"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:
“[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.)”
