Category: Contextual & Theoretical Studies 1

I really didn’t have a ton of thoughts from this session. The only thing that really stood out was Steve Jobs presenting the IPhone for the first time. This was one of the biggest steps for touch screen technology and the crowd reflected that with their cheers. Actually something that interested me quite a lot was the unified optimism about this new tech. I think the reason for that was because the world hadn’t seen the dangers of a new tech like this. Nowadays if you presented a social tech that was meant to be widely used it would be met with a lot more hesitance and I think that’s good. Meta is working on AR glasses that are paired with a wrist controller. Based on how you move your hand you can control the AR display on your glasses. An example they showed is overlay of text messages that you can twist your wrist to browse through. I’m not sure how you would type a reply yet though. They also showed that you could take pictures by making a different hand gesture. I’m not sure how this will go down with privacy laws but its obvious Facebook has never cared about that.

Okay so I just went back to re-read the article and found this.

“The glasses will come with a “neural interface” band that allows the wearer to control the glasses through hand movements, such as swiping fingers on an imaginary D-pad.  Eventually, he said the band will let the wearer use a virtual keyboard and type at the same words per minute as what mobile phones allow.”

So there is the answer to how you would reply to messages.

Here is a link to this article, it’s very interesting and I highly recommend taking a look.

This is Meta’s AR/VR hardware roadmap for the next four years – The Verge

The article ends with

“Meta is planning to rely on its existing business model of advertising to help it make money off these future devices. Himel said the company thinks it can make a higher average revenue per user than what it makes currently in social media, thanks to a combination of selling virtual goods, optional add-on’s like cloud backups, and AR ads.

“We should be able to run a very good ads business,” he said. “I think it’s easy to imagine how ads would show up in space when you have AR glasses on. Our ability to track conversions, which is where there has been a lot of focus as a company, should also be close to 100 percent.”

“If we’re hitting anything near projections, it will be a tremendous business,” he said. “A business unlike anything we’ve seen on mobile phones before.””

This is really sad to me and I worry for the future of this tech. VR/AR have so much potential to better understand each other and further the connections humans share. But instead companies are looking at it as a tool of manipulation to encourage people to buy. Maybe this is just what you have to do as a big company to keep the investors happy but damn it is sad. Jaron Lanier talks about an alternative future that is far too complex to explain here. I just wanted state that as some think that this advertised manipulation is the only way, it is not. I will put my energy into tech for good and I hope someday I can make a lasting impact. It’s too bad UAL is such a waste of money and time. The people and content are so basic that I was beginning to think VR was basic as well. If it wasn’t for people like Margaret and Lauren, I would have given up on this field entirely. I worry for all future students that wont reach their full potential due to this class. Not everyone will get a chance to meet Lauren and Margaret.

David had another thought provoking lesson today that I really enjoyed. Half because the material was interesting but also because it was very interactive. A lot of the material provoked conversation and I always love discussing these things with my classmates. It’s really interesting to hear perspectives from people with AND without experience. I love to observe opinions about these topics and more specifically, how peoples experiences influenced them. A couple things that stood out to me from this lesson were:

1. Thomas A. Furness – I love to research the founders of VR to learn about their original vision for VR. Every time I have done this I find that their original vision offers a refreshing look at what the software could be used for. From what I’ve found, a lot of them would be disappointed with the current state/focus of VR. Terrance Mckenna, an American ethnobotanist, even said in an interview about VR that “ The moment is now come to bring in the playwrights, the artists, the designers, the architects have already been involved, but people in the arts need both to be informed that this is going on and they have to bring their insights into this community. Otherwise, as one of the other speakers said tonight, we’re in danger of seeing it just turn into 3 dimensional computer games.” This interview took place in 1991 at Cyberthon. (I think so at least, it was actually quite hard to find this info)
2. Mel Slater – I found this guy interesting because he has done a lot of extensive research into what actually makes VR work. I think some of his findings could be very important to keep in mind when I want to create something immersive
3. McKayla the AI influencer – This was interesting because it made me wonder if there will be a point where there are AI OnlyFans accounts. Then of course I started wondering about AI pornstars. I wonder if the future will host services where you pay for a subscription that allows you to generate your own porn. This would open a real can of worms. I hope this doesn’t catch on.
4. Proprioception (6th sense) – This was quite interesting and I don’t fully understand the concept yet. From what I took away from it, proprioception is the ability to know where your limbs are without actually seeing them. For instance, you know where your hands are when you are in complete darkness. I think it also ties into how you can navigate your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night as you are familiar with the space. David also mentioned a good point which is that it is easier to navigate your room when you are in complete darkness than when you are in virtual reality. I wonder if this is solely due to the fact that in VR you are distracted by visual things when in darkness you can focus completely. Not sure, either way it seems interesting to explore. I also think there is potential here to use it to my advantage when creating something immersive.

A couple weeks back I went to Otherworld with a couple of friends. This was the first VR experience I’ve been to. The building is meant to feel futuristic. The room was a long hall with pods on either side. A white table runs down the middle of the hall with an animated purple marble like texture projection mapped onto it. At the back of the hall is a bar.

When we first walked in we were unsure of where to go, very quickly we were met by a guy wearing white robes. He looked like he was part of some cult. Anyway, he gave us a brief rundown of how Otherworld works. He explained that we will all go into an individual pod where we will use controllers, a VR headset and a pair of headphones. He then used an iPad that was built into the table to explain how Otherworld worked, where to find games and what to do if you get lost. Soon enough we were in our own individual pod setting up our gear. One of the cult members helped us put it on though so it wasn’t bad at all. Once we were in, we were met with another intro video meant to familiarize us with VR and the controls. After finishing that, we moved through a portal and were dropped onto a mountain in the Otherworld. Instantly I heard my friends around me as they oriented themselves with the environment. How the map works is that there are different season zones, spring, summer, winter, etc. Each zone has a set of different games that you can choose to play. In order to play them, your whole team has to walk to the zone and all join one of the games. We already had a look at some of the games so we knew where we wanted to go. As we were all at the top of the mountain, we had to slide down a big ice slide in order to get to our destination. As we began to slide, I felt wind blowing past me. Once we were all at the bottom, we had to walk through a gate that had torches on either side. As we walked past the gate I felt heat from the torches. Once we made it to the game, we all tried to play. It turned out I was actually in the wrong game. Long story short we ended up having to press a “Help” button to call one of the “overseers” to help us. He loaded all of our characters into a game called Cook Out. The goal of this game is to work as a team to create unique sandwiches within a timeframe. We had a lot of fun playing this but eventually decided to give another game Hyperdash a try. Eventually our time was up and we had to leave. We all had a lot of fun but agreed that there were some flaws with Otherworld.

1. The biggest thing for me was that all of the games Otherworld had to offer, were not unique to Otherworld. All of them are public games that anyone with a VR headset can buy and play. We realized that Otherworld isn’t really about playing a game but more so about renting a VR headset. Because all of us already have VR headsets, it felt like a waste.
2. We got the cheapest time slot available and it still cost each of us 18 pounds for only 40 minutes. Some of my friends were 10 minutes late plus the additional 5 to get set up and say another 5 for the tutorial and actually navigating to the game. This left us with about 20 minutes of actual game play. A pound a minute is far too much to play VR with your friends. Back when I visited Amsterdam, I found that you could purchase sexual favors for this much. Sure this isn’t going to be the highest end lady of the night but it still proves my point that this is an expensive experience.
3. I mentioned it a bit before but getting into the same game was far too hard. I like the idea and I like how you have to first explore the Otherworld a bit but this function didn’t work great on such a short timeframe. I would also like to state that Cook Out didn’t have any wind or heat added into it, it was only hyperdash that had a bit of wind. I feel like Cook Out could’ve had something really good if they had heat flowing out from the pans that you are cooking on. It felt like only in the Otherworld could you actually experience what the pod was capable of.
4. The pod was just big enough so if you were standing in the middle in a T pose, your arms wouldn’t touch the walls. This was fine but anyone who plays VR knows you drift around. I kept finding myself hitting the walls with my arms and then immediately apologizing as I thought a worker had come in and I had hit him. Eventually I realized to ignore it and just keep playing but it definitely took me out of the moment a couple times.
5. Another thing I noticed near the end of the experience was the wire attached to my headset. I must’ve been turning in one direction more than the other because the wire got very twisted and tangled up in my hair. It also kept tapping my shoulder which of course made me take the headset off as I thought it was another cult member trying to get my attention.

Now I would like to note down a couple of things that I enjoyed about the experience.

1. If you do not already own a VR headset, you get to experience one for 20 pounds rather than 400 which is roughly what they cost new.
2. Because you have overseers monitoring everything, they can really help/get you what you need. If you all want to join a game, just say so and you can sit back while everything is worked out for you.
3. The wind and heat was a really cool addition. Specifically the wind though. Something about the wind really took me out of the stuffy pod and brought me into a bigger open space. It also really helped prevent motion sickness for some reason.
4. The headsets were comfortable and I wasn’t constantly adjusting it.
5. As you play, you earn points. You can use points to get discounts on real drinks at the bar. The points are also linked to your specific account meaning they transfer from location to location.

Here are a couple ideas on how they could improve the experience. Some of these are not financially possible but I still find it important to write down EVERYTHING as the tech is always improving and maybe in a few years they will be valid.

1. Make the space bigger and create an X-ray boundary that shows up when you are approaching the edge. The Quest 2 has this function and I find it super helpful in terms of reorienting myself. I would also prefer to be warned by a visual cue that I’m approaching the walls rather than just simply hitting them or running into them.
2. Create unique games that highly incorporate the immersive functions of the pods. This would cater to people who already have a VR headset as they wouldn’t be paying for something they could just get at home.
3. Have less focus on the Otherworld and more focus on the actual gameplay. Sure the whole experience of the world with the wind and heat was cool but it felt like a glorified lobby. With only 40 min to play, I had no time to actually enjoy the world as I was rushing to get to the game.
4. This is a completely new experience for maybe a different company but I was thinking it sure would be cool if there was some type of physical aspect to this stuff. Maybe at one point in VR, a pen shoots out from a wall and you actually have to grab it. (There would be a real pen shooting out at you in the same location). Then you use the pen as a stylist for whatever. I think this exists already but just to reiterate, it would be amazing if you are all in the same room that is roughly the same dimensions as the one in VR. Maybe there is a hologram couch that appears in the space that is actually already there so you can go and sit on it and it really feels like the hologram is real. There are endless number of things you could do with this and I really believe it would make spending the prostitute level of money worth it.

It’s rainy outside, looking like a good day to read. I’m reading a book about history which is hilarious to me because I always hated reading when I was younger and I especially had a hard time reading and retaining the information. Maybe it was the fact that I HAD to that made it so frustrating. Who knows, brains are weird. Anyways, I am just trying to write whatever I can here as David was sick again today so we are meant to stay home and work on our blogs. This actually works better for me because I have a lot of other work to get done by tomorrow and this saved me 1.5 hours of transport. However I do have to say I am pretty disappointed with this course so far. Sure seems like a lot of money for not a lot of real material. So far we just look at examples of VR/AR which I think is important for sure but it does hurt that after 9 weeks all I can think to mention is that Chris Milk is cool. I’m torn between knowing I should be patient as some of the other students might not be able to move as quickly but also not wanting to waste time and get right into the complicated side of things like, how exactly do VR headsets work. What technology do they really harness and what is holding them back. I feel like a lot of these questions and answers could really spark ideas in the class. I also found a couple VR/AR exhibits in London and I’m not sure why the whole class doesn’t regularly go out and do them. It would be way cooler than looking at videos of them from David’s laptop. I think it is pretty ridiculous that we are in a degree for Virtual Reality and the only time we have put the headsets on was once with Pierre. I feel like they should be on every day, or at least most. I want to get familiar with them.

Today David showed us how to use and format the blog. Unfortunately I caught a cold over the weekend and couldn’t make it into class but was still able to join from online. My blog posts from now on will be so organized and beautiful.