Virtual Musings

Google Aims to Make VR Hardware Irrelevant Before It Even Gets Going!

According to a new article in the MIT Technology Review, The implications for educational resourcing is enormous now that Smartphones have sidelined digital cameras and other special-purpose devices. Now Google thinks mobile phones will shove virtual-reality headsets like the Oculus Rift into the shadows, too, so with a cost per unit of under $10.00 each educational experiences via Do it Yourself (DIY) immersive Virtual Reality in the schools is now wide open!!

Description of Project:

For the Fall semester of 2015, at Arizona State’s Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts, I have proposed a Pilot Study of how to design, build and maintain a comprehensive Educational Center in Virtual Worlds as one of two capstones required for completion of an Individualized Focus BA Degree in Virtual Worlds Art, Education + Technology.  

I will be utilizing Open Sim and Second Life platforms in order to study the feasibility of creating a “One Stop Shop” of available resources for educators and researchers pursuing educational pedagogy of Virtual World Education. This small world, otherwise known as a simulator (SIM) will be designed as an organic structural repository (I.e. Inside a living tree) that links virtual educational resources for professional advancement, within the field of Virtual Education, via workshops, demos, and content distributions (store.)

Supervisory protocol includes:

Weekly one-page progress reports, once a week face-to-face meetings with my advisor, and a final paper documentary [visual & verbal]  reviewing outcomes.

My advisor for this capstone is Dr. Mary Stokrocki, Professor, School of Art,Katherine K. Herberger College of the Arts  

Assessments:

Pre Questionnaire / Post questionnaire / Public Suggestion Box / Blog /Visual Journal. The design aesthetic for Educational Repository Sim may be designed after a Rhizome plant as system of connections

Purpose of this Blog Series:

Technology and Methodology Behind "Lark in the Park," an original Virtual Charlie Chaplin Machinima

Flocking Demo (by HighFidelityio)

What is this strange cloud of colored dots? Believe it or not, you are seeing millions of points of light, or a "flock" of 3D Pixels as it is called in the lingo, all with individually attributable characteristics like gravity and mass, that are being tracked in real time as they simulate the result of some force playing upon them! This is something that has only been possible on the largest enterprise-class, super computers but will be available to the average user immersing themselves in a virtual World if Philip Rosedale's (co founder of Virtual World Second Life) Next-Gen Virtuality project, Highfidelity.io has as any say in the matter!

What you are seeing above seems to be a working demo of Voxel technology Rosedale and his intrepid band of ambitious computer engineers are tackling for real!  This is very exciting as the technology has been attempted and abandoned by much larger companies as being too ahead of its time. This noble attempt at creating near molecular digital building blocks for fully immersive networked virtual environments will take some momentous digital brainpower but as Highfidelity.io's moto goes; "If it doen't hurt to think about we don't want to do it!" 

Their plan to finally make Voxel rendering work this time relies heavily on the concept of "Distributed Rendering." In other words every one who logs in allows their computer to donate its unused processing power, running in the background, for rendering parts of the overall world. This scheme, should it prove successful, will help to greatly reduce latency, the lag caused by geographic distances between users, that is one of the greatest challenges to the illusion of reality, otherwise known in the lingo as "Immersion."

Momentous game changer for Social Networking and social media? Quite possibly. A helluva tease? Absolutely!

          The Google X project, normally quite secretive, has released a teaser video with a brief look at their vision of the future. The future, according to the video and a Computer World article, would include a hands-free "Heads Up display" enabled device capable off connecting  with friends via web-video conference, take pictures on the fly via voice command, post pictures immediately to an social networking "circle of friends," look at a store front and (utilizing a GPS feature) "Check in" automatically, track friend's locations relative to you, and much more. What this will mean for the seamless integration of social media is anyone's guess right now but Google is actively seeking user thoughts and impressions about it on Google+, according to a Slate Article.

         According to the posting on the Project Glass Google+ page, the team of developers' intentions are to create AR glasses that, "helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment [and are] sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input." A seemingly innocuous and hard to argue with proposition for a secret team working for a megalithic corporation beholden to share holders. However, as opening up things to public comment has wont to do, there will be opposition, backlash, and doomsday predictions aplenty, I'm sure.

        In fact, thanks to the forum the team has opened up, one can already view a Tom Scott's cautionary parody video decrying the possibility of unwanted spam in your face that you can't get rid and authoritarian intrusions. As an interesting side note one commenter tracked the video's hits as study on what he called "Viral-ness" which, as he points out, is interesting because most of the shares came directly from the Project Glass's original post which nobody had even heard of [mostly] as of yesterday. I think, as of this writing, the video is already at 4,200,000 hits (up 2,000,000 from when I started writing this blog!)

      "Ancestry.com has launched a new service called DNA Ancestry that looks to combine science with the company’s online database of family trees. The service allows users to submit a DNA sample to Ancnestry.com, who will then analyze and compare it to results in their genetic database. The hope is that this can lead to users discovering more relatives, or, once and for all proving that their crazy second cousin isn’t actually related."(Mashable.com)

     This new wrinkle of social media begs the question, "How far should we allow social media sites to go in using genetic information for the generation of new users through suggestions of connections to distant relatives?" Does this new service offered by Ancestry.com foretell a time in the not so distant future when the human genome is mined for genetic predispositions towards alcohol consumption? With that information, and access to a social media database like that available to advertisers of Facebook, it is not inconceivable to imagine a time when a corporation can target you and all your family, close and 12 steps removed,on a social network because of your genetic code.

     It is not far fetched an idea that an unsuspecting person could sign up for a seemingly innocuous taste test, sign on the dotted line, put down their Facebook name, and then find that their DNA has been used to target their whole family for a weight loss campaign aimed at people with the newly discovered "Fat" gene! And Ancestry.com wants people to do this of their own accord without even the slightest nod towards this Orwellian potential. It should give more pause than it is. Just because we can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea. Do you really want your potential loan officer or employer to know that you are a blood relative of an infamous bank robber at large?

     The South by Southwest Conference and Music Festival has kicked off in Austin, Tex., and the annual “Woodstock for geeks” comes with its normal dose of big, big buzz. Most, if not all the tech journals have, over the last few years, keep their ear to the ground in Austin to help prognosticate the new trends in Social Media. Case in point Twitter and Foursquare.

     The app that’s been flagged as the one to watch this year is Highlight, an iOS-only app that hooks into users’ Facebook accounts to let them find others who’ve installed the app. According to the developer Math Camp, the app is meant to give you a “sixth sense” about the world around you.

     Highlight runs in the background, but sends users’ push alerts when the app finds other users in their general area. You can click on the names of other Highlight users, and check out their public Facebook profiles, including basic information, photos as well as Twitter accounts. You can make the information public. Those who are worried about battery life should know that the app requires constant access to location data, which can be a serious drain on power.

Viewdle for Android Mashes Up Augmented Reality, Facial Recognition, and Social Networking [Video]

     The company Viewdle has hit upon an application with far reaching implications for connecting social Networking with the real world. This ap which is being developed as a hard-coded piece of software within the OS of a smart phone (Texas Instrument, Qualcom, and Blackberry are RnD partners) would allow a user to scan the face of people they come into contact with in the real world and compare them in real time to a data base of known faces. Upon matching a face with on in the data base information can be superimposed so as to hover about the person in the view finder.

     Because this app is being hard coded means it will require a certain level of background processing. Only the newest generation of smart phones can handle such a task. Therefore, a stand alone app would be preferable for users but is probably not soon to be forthcoming based upon the cost of start-up. This is why the developers of Viewdle are teaming up with such big industry heavy weights and why the source code will not be showing up on any open source networks any time soon.

     This new technology would allow instant tagging of friends in pictures straight to the social network via installed FB aps and the like. However even more far reaching are the possibilities of recognizing friends of friends when scanning a crowd and having stats and connections hover about them in "Minority Report"  fashion.  The  possibilities for greater human connections in real life are truly staggering.

     Taco Bell's augmented reality efforts follow similar efforts from other brands such as Ray-Ban, Nike and Volkswagen. Taco Bell, however, seems to be one of the trendsetters in connecting AR technology to live social media content. Long gone are the days when a demanding Hispanic chihuahua on TV is enough to hang a full PR campaign. Major corporations see the vital need for social media, as is the case with Taco Bell.

     As a sign of future things to come, literally, Twitter and Facebook have been  leveraged very heavily over the past couple of weeks in support of Taco Bell's latest promotion, the Doritos Loco Taco. Taco Bell has challenged Hundreds of Thousands of followers to tweet on its behalf, to download an Augmented Reality app to see motion graphics and play games using codes on boxes and cups, and to tweet in live time about experiences with the new taco in stores today.

     When a user downloads the AR app they can look through their smart phone at the box or cup and see virtual tweets appear in live time above the product container, as well as play a fight game apparently. The augmented reality aspect of the game gives a good indication that major advertisers are seeing the potential for AR game development in the cross promotional investment criteria the industry will need to move forward. Most, if not all, game developers of this sort need deep pockets to roll out even the most basic AR games, for now. So for this, I give Taco Bell Kudos.

MOBILE AUGMENTED REALITY TAKES BACK OUR PUBLIC SPACES FROM CORPORATIONS!

       Art from socially conscious, culture jamming Artists like Ron English, John Fekner, PosterBoy, Doctor D, and OX  has been used to filter out and replace certain outdoor advertisements (by viewing them through a special AR ap installed on an iPhone, Android phone, or iPad) through a juried new-media art show in cooperation with The Heavy Projects and the Public Ad Campaign who have completed an Augmented Reality channel.

      This audacious and novel use of new media technology strikes a blow for personal freedom in an ever encroaching corporate tsunami of advertising taking over our public places through digital technology. This brings up the very real possibility of Augmented Reality being a liberator rather than an oppressor as viewed by cautionary sci-fi films like "Minority Report." A very hopeful vision for the use of technology in an egalitarian Digital Culture of the future. As The Public Ad Campaign (NY) puts it:

While other media outlets such as television and the Internet have founds ways to provide users with the ability to filter their informational intake, public space remains the elusive frontier in which commercial interests govern the discourse...As an alternate vision, we imagine a city landscape where instead of commercial billboards, a digitally open environment where individuals can determine their own visual dialogue through the participation in and subscription to augmented reality able to reflect our nuanced private interests. No longer is there a consumptive monologue, but rather options in a filterable and user-defined space where private interests are no longer subordinate to commercial ends.

     The salient point, then, is technology must be met with technology, fire with fire, to protect what is valuable. Others may use technology to extract value from us against our wishes. We, however, have the power to use opposing technology to stop others from extracting value from us. In this case the value being extracted is our attention. At risk, in a deeper sense, is our very free will as to how we focus our consciousness.

                                          THE DIGITAL DIVIDE'S OTHER SIDE!

     A truly amazing video short showing the possibilities inherent in digital/physical union manifested in perfect  balance with motion and time!

       Fashion photographer and filmmaker Jacob Sutton put Artec pro snowboarder William Hughes in a completely self luminous LED suit, courtesy of designer and electronics whizz John Spatcher, and shot him in Red Epic Digital video skiing down the slopes of Tignes, in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France, at night in total pitch-black darkness. This is a truly daredevil stunt to make a big impression, one of the most important aspects of a viral video.

     Makes me wonder how long it will be before we see corporate logos scrolling across suits like this in similar viral videos? Regardless, It's a beautiful piece with wonderful allusions to personal privacy and freedom issues in the great dark void ( the internet perhaps?) Talk about suffering for your art!

"I was really drawn to the idea of a lone character made of light surfing through darkness," says Sutton of his costume choice. "I've always been excited by unusual ways of lighting things, so it seemed like an exciting idea to make the subject of the film the only light source." Sutton, who has created work for the likes of Hermès, Burberry and The New York Times, spent three nights on a skidoo with his trusty Red Epic camera at temperatures of -25C to snap Hughes carving effortlessly through the deep snow, even enlisting his own father to help maintain the temperamental suit throughout the demanding shoot. "Filming in the suit was the most surreal thing I've done in 20 years of snowboarding," says Hughes of the charged salopettes. "Luckily there was plenty of vin rouge to keep me warm, and Jacob's enthusiasm kept everyone going through the cold nights."