New World Notes

Mandalorian Made on Massive LED Screens So Actors Reflect The Virtual Light

You probably know already that the visuals for the Disney streaming show The Mandalorian are created in the Unreal 3D engine, but this Vox explainer video shows you how those virtual spaces are integrated with the actual, physical cast: Not through green screen but via giant, curving LED displays, which effectively wrap the actors in a virtual world. Technically more efficient than green screen, another advantage of this approach is that the actors in these shots are illuminated by virtual light. So if the cast is, say, standing there watching a twin star sunset on Tatooine, the warm light on their faces really is cast by the virtual suns. (Also super important when an actor is already wearing a costume with reflective surfaces, as with Mando in the show that bears his name.)

New iPad App Uses Machine Learning to Capture Real World Objects & Convert Them Into Standard 3D Files

Caveat emptor and all that, but the iPad LIDAR Scanner just published in Beta seems seriously impressive, able to "capture" real world objects and convert them into imperfect but pretty usable 3D models. It works, says developer Laan Labs, by automatically extracting objects via machine learning (i.e. extrapolating data for unseen surfaces).

More info from iOS app page: 

Survey of Top Tech Company Staff: Facebook Not Doing Enough to Prevent Election Disinfo & Hate Speech -- But Most Facebook Staffers Insist Otherwise

With less than a month before the next U.S. Presidential election, here's new survey results from the development team of Blind, an anonymous messaging/virtual community app for company staffers that's especially popular at large tech firms.

This one asked a question that's been the subject of constant press coverage since the 2016 election: Is Facebook doing enough to prevent the spread of misinformation and hate speech on its platform related to the 2020 election?

With nearly 1600 responses, most from team members at major technology companies, here are the results (right):

By overwhelming numbers ranging in percentages from the mid 60s to the mid 80s, staff at Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, and other tech firms believe Facebook is not doing enough. Notably, staff at several of these companies -- LinkedIn, Google (thorough YouTube), and Amazon (through its customer reviews section) -- deal with preventing misinformation and hate speech on their own platform, and presumably have better than average knowledge to evaluable Facebook's efforts thus far.  

Contrast that with the response of Facebook staff themselves:

71% of respondents answered that the social network is doing enough to combat election period hate speech/misinformation. (Still, it is notable that nearly 1 in 3 of Facebook staff surveyed believe they could do more.)

Launched last week, the Blind survey ran until yesterday -- when as it happened, Facebook removed a post by Trump falsely claiming that the flu is more dangerous than COVID-19.

You can read more details on Blind's company blog -- including results on a related question: On whether (as has been reported by Bloomberg and other outlets) Facebook's policies and algorithms are designed to support Trump and other right wing political figures. Answer:

Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass Becomes Biggest Cloud Streaming Service by Far, Acquires Bethesda to Become Even Bigger

I'm pretty convinced cloud streaming is going to be the future of online games, especially virtual worlds, so today's acquisition by Microsoft of Skyrim developer Bethesda is worth keeping an eye on:

As the gaming industry transforms from a device-centric era to a player-centric era powered by new technology that provides the freedom to play with friends anywhere on any device, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) on Monday announced plans to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, one of the largest, privately held game developers and publishers in the world. Creators of critically acclaimed and best-selling gaming franchises including The Elder Scrolls and Fallout among many others, Bethesda brings an impressive portfolio of games, technology, talent, as well as a track record of blockbuster commercial success, to Xbox. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in cash.

The very announcement hints at streaming as the future: The end of buying expensive gaming PCs and consoles, and rather, using cloud streaming and edge competing to jump into virtual worlds from any device, even an old laptop or mobile phone. And with this purchase, Microsoft has a huge content advantage to add to its fast-growing subscriber base:

Survey: Most Facebook Employees Don't Believe Company is Responsible for Preventing Misinformation About US Election on Platform

A majority of Facebook employees do not believe the company is responsible for preventing misinformation about the US election on its platform. That's at least according to an anonymous survey launched last week by the development team of Blind, an anonymous messaging app for tech company staffers. With about 1500 replies registered by employees across many technology companies (100 from the social network), an overwhelming majority of 68% placed the responsibility on Facebook. But only 47% of Facebook employees placed the responsibility on their own company.

While the survey sample size is small, the response is consistent with recent reports that Facebook staff are largely not responsive to election interference on its platform unless it becomes a major PR issue:

Will The EU Protect Virtual Reality from Personal Data Scraping By Facebook?

News on the future VR from Germany to keep an eye on, albeit poorly translated via Google:

Oculus glasses: Facebook stops sales in Germany

The VR data from Oculus would add a new data dimension to the aforementioned super profiles - further problems with the cartel office and European data protection would be inevitable.

In addition, there is a coupling ban in Germany, which means that the use of one product must not be coupled with the use of another product from the same company if this is already dominant in the market. In the above-mentioned judgment of the BGH, the court also confirmed Facebook's dominant position in Germany. In this context, the German market for Facebook has a unique selling point in Europe.

This in contrast to the recent news that Facebook will soon require Facebook identity-based log-ins to use its VR devices, a sharp body blow to the future of virtual reality in general, not to mention extreme personal security concerns. But now, apparently, regulators in Germany (the European Union's wealthiest and most populous country) are putting the kibosh on that. 

If the EU as a whole follows suit, imposing similar protections on data usage on its half a billion citizens, I don't see how Oculus could sustain its Facebook log-in requirement. 

That might seem far-fetched, but have you noticed how, when you visit a website, you now have to click Accept to share your personal data? Even if you're in the United States, and even if it's a US-owned website? That's due to recently imposed EU regulations.

Tim Sweeney: More 3D Engines Means Multiple Metaverses -- But Interoperability Might Still Be Possible

Here's a really interesting "Economy of the Metaverse" conversation with Epic's Tim Sweeney and game exec Joseph Kim. A lot of its focus, of course, is on how Epic's Fortnite might be a future model for the metaverse. But much of it is actually about the current platform ecosystem (Apple's App Store, Google Play, Amazon, etc.), which Sweeney finds too closed and prohibitive to birth the metaverse:

I think the most plausible way the Metaverse is going to rise isn’t from one company even Epic building this thing and forcing everybody to use it. It’s going to be from more and more companies and brands connecting their products and services until you have a much, much more open thing that everybody participates in... I think interconnecting systems is a great way to to to move forward with this. I think, you know, a lot of the big game companies and even many of the ecosystem companies have come to the realization that they’re never going to be the one monopoly that dominates the whole thing. And so it’s in everybody’s interest to really interconnect and standardize over time. And to build this more connected world and to all benefit from it side by side with no one company dominating. 

Which is a great vision, but while reading this interview (actually a transcript, video the actual video below), I kept thinking about the biggest barrier to building THE Metaverse -- a coming competition between the 3D engines required to build it. Sweeney more or less alludes to this:

Real Life Video Rendered Into Beautiful Fractal-Like Art Via Multiple Programs

Filmmaker and animator Chadrick Scott (a fellow Linden Lab alum from back in the day) has been posting some seriously gorgeous computer animated clips like this to his Instagram. They began as real life video, but as Chadrick tells me, evolved into these fractal-like videos through some heavy post-processing via multiple programs.

"Starts with a [RL] model, but I use everything from After Effects to random apps. My favorite is Mirror Lab or Glitch Lab for the Android, but I don’t use that solely. Sometimes a piece of work will go through 5-6 programs before I put it up on Instagram."

His advice for achieving an affect along these lines:

Watch: Amazing Cyberpunk Scene Illustrates Democratization of 3D Graphics

Watch this single-take scene featuring a girl going down into the depths of a sprawling cyberpunk city for some take-out, then tell me: What do you think the budget to create it was?

Read on for the answer:

Starting Free Today: Attend BlockDown, the Sinespace-Based Virtual World Conference for Blockchain Users & Entrepreneurs

Click here to register for a free ticket to BlockDown, the blockchain-focused tech conference kicking off today that’s being hosted in Sinespace’s Breakroom (a media partner to this blog).

As VentureBeat reported recently, the first BlockDown in Sinespace (video above) brought in a pretty impressive number of attendees to network, hear talks, and of course, dance in the after-hours club:    

BlockDown is a direct response to the worldwide quarantine, which effectively canceled an April conference EAK Digital had been planning to host in Istanbul. CEO Erhan Korhaliller ... considered simply staging the event on a video conferencing system but found the options boring — especially at a time when most people are working at home and yearning for a colorful, engaging alternative to boost their spirits.

In April, Korhaliller held a pilot conference for BlockDown, attracting 1,000 people from around the world, who paid $25 each to hear talks and network online. The pilot event also had 10 paying sponsors, who set up 3D exhibit booths that automatically grab the details of visiting attendees.

This month’s BlockDown is free with an option to pay for premium upgrades -- plus some new features including a virtual world/LinkedIn contact exchange, and a giant party yacht. (Better than just watching a web video conference in your underwear.)