#difference between VR and AR

[digitaldetoxworld]

Difference Between Augmented Realtiy And Virutal Reality Comparing Two Revolutionary Technologies

Difference Between  Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are awesome immersive technologies that have captured the creativity of both the generation industry and clients. Though they proportion similarities in their capacity to modify how we perceive and interact with the sector, AR and VR are basically exceptional in their technique and use cases. This essay explores the center variations between AR and VR, focusing on their definitions, technological mechanisms, hardware necessities, person interplay, use cases, and destiny ability.

Definitions and Core Concepts

AR complements the person's notion of reality by way of including digital elements that interact with the physical environment. The key concept in the back of AR isn't always to replace the physical international but to enhance it, imparting a blend of virtual and actual-world experiences. Examples of AR can be visible in phone applications like Pokémon Go, wherein users can see digital creatures within the actual international through their smartphone cameras, or Snapchat filters, wherein virtual outcomes are applied to human faces.

Virtual Reality (VR), on the other hand, creates entirely immersive digital surroundings that replace the actual international. When the use of VR, customers are transported into a totally laptop-generated international that may simulate real-world environments or create entirely fantastical landscapes. This virtual environment is commonly experienced through VR headsets, which include the Oculus Rift or PlayStation VR, which block out external visual input and offer 360-diploma visuals of the virtual space. The number one purpose of VR is to immerse users so absolutely in a virtual environment that the distinction between the digital and actual worlds temporarily dissolves.

Technological Mechanisms

AR and VR rent distinct technological mechanisms to acquire their respective experiences. In Augmented Reality, the primary mission is to combine the actual international with digital elements in a manner that feels seamless and natural. This requires tracking the user’s function and orientation in the actual global, which is generally executed through the use of cameras, sensors, and accelerometers in smartphones or AR glasses. The AR software procedures the visual entry from the digital camera and superimposes virtual objects into the proper function in the actual international scene. The gadget also needs to make sure that these objects interact with real-world factors in plausible ways, such as having a virtual ball soar off an actual table or aligning a digital map on the floor. Real-time processing is important to keep the illusion that digital factors are a part of the actual world.

In contrast, Virtual Reality includes developing a totally immersive virtual global that absolutely replaces the user's actual-international surroundings. The VR device desires to render a three-D environment in real-time, imparting unique views because the person's actions their head or body. This is generally performed with the use of state-of-the-art image engines and powerful processors, which simulate lighting fixtures, textures, and physics to make the digital world as realistic as feasible. A VR headset affords stereoscopic shows (one for every eye) to provide the phantasm of depth, and movement-tracking sensors ensure that the user’s actions—including looking around or walking—are meditated appropriately within the virtual international. VR requires excessive constancy in visuals and coffee latency to save you from movement sickness and hold a sense of presence within the virtual international.

Hardware Requirements

The hardware necessities for AR and VR additionally differ notably. For AR, the hardware can be enormously minimal. Since AR overlays digital statistics onto the real world, devices like smartphones or drugs with built-in cameras and GPS capabilities are regularly enough for fundamental AR packages. More superior AR reviews and those related to 3-D holograms or complex interactions may require specialized AR headsets like Microsoft HoloLens or Magic Leap, with additional sensors for depth belief and environmental mapping.

In VR, the hardware setup is typically more concerned. In the middle of any VR reveal in is a headset, which provides the necessary presentations and motion tracking to create an immersive environment. High-give-up VR systems, such as those for gaming or expert simulations, may also require outside sensors, hand controllers, and occasionally even treadmills or haptic remarks devices to simulate physical movement and touch in the virtual global. The computing strength required to run VR applications is also drastically higher than AR, often demanding powerful portraits playing cards, and processors to render the three-D environments in real-time.

User Interaction

User interplay is another place wherein AR and VR vary extensively. In AR, user interaction typically occurs inside the real international, with digital elements appearing as extensions or improvements of actual-world gadgets. For example, a person may interact with a digital man or woman in AR by moving their phone around or the usage of hand gestures to control virtual gadgets. The interaction is often context-sensitive, relying on the person’s bodily surroundings as part of the experience. AR is regularly extra informal and reachable because it may be experienced with everyday gadgets like smartphones. In VR, the interaction is fully immersive and takes vicinity in the digital global. Users can interact with the digital surroundings with the use of specialized controllers or, in some instances, hand-monitoring sensors that map the person’s actions into the virtual space. For instance, in a VR game, the user might physically swing their arms to wield a sword or pass their frame to stay away from an attack. VR interplay tends to be extra excessive and calls for a higher degree of engagement for the reason that user is absolutely enveloped inside the digital surroundings. Use Cases

The use instances for AR and VR additionally highlight their fundamental variations. In industries like retail, AR allows customers to peer how products, along with furniture or clothing, could look of their very own houses or on their bodies before making a buy. AR is also famous in schooling and education, in which it is able to provide actual-time information or visible aids in a bodily surrounding. For instance, clinical students would possibly use AR to visualize a virtual anatomy overlay on a real human frame, improving their mastering experience.

VR, alternatively, is right for applications that require general immersion. In gaming, VR permits gamers to enjoy a heightened experience of presence in fantastical worlds, together with flying via area or preventing dragons. In schooling and simulation, VR is used in fields like aviation and the army, in which practical virtual environments can simulate excessive-threat eventualities without placing the user in actual threat. VR is also gaining traction in fields like structure and design, in which it lets designers and clients discover virtual fashions of homes and areas before they are constructed. Future Potential

The destiny capability of AR and VR is extensive, although each technology is in all likelihood to conform in distinct directions. AR is anticipated to end up extra pervasive as cell devices and wearables emerge as superior. The development of lightweight, low-priced AR glasses may want to make it a ubiquitous tool for ordinary obligations, together with navigation, communique, and data retrieval. AR may also revolutionize fields like healthcare, production, and logistics by supplying people with actual-time facts and guidance overlaid on their physical surroundings. VR is likely to persist increase in regions that advantage of immersive reports, such as leisure, training, and far-off collaboration. As VR headsets emerge as lower priced and wireless, the barriers to huge adoption may lessen, making VR a not unusual tool for each expert and personal use. In a long time, the traces between AR and VR may blur as combined truth (MR) technologies—inclusive of the ones being advanced with the aid of corporations like Meta (previously Facebook) and Microsoft—combine factors of both.

Conclusion

While AR and VR both provide immersive reports that adjust the way we perceive the sector, they do so in fundamentally one-of-a-kind approaches. AR enhances our interplay with the actual international by way of overlaying virtual content, whilst VR creates totally new virtual environments that update the real global. Their variations in technology, hardware, interplay, and use instances reflect the unique strengths of every, making them ideal for different applications. Both AR and VR hold extensive potential for the destiny, promising to reshape industries and ordinary lifestyles in ways we're simply beginning to discover.

[simulanissolutions]

Are you confused about the differences between Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR)? You’re not alone! These terms are often used interchangeably, but they represent distinct technologies that are shaping the way we interact with the world around us. At Simulanis Solutions, we’re excited to break it down for you!

[sunshinesmebdy]

Pluto in Aquarius: Brace for a Business Revolution (and How to Ride the Wave)

The Aquarian Revolution

Get ready, entrepreneurs and financiers, because a seismic shift is coming. Pluto, the planet of transformation and upheaval, has just entered the progressive sign of Aquarius, marking the beginning of a 20-year period that will reshape the very fabric of business and finance. Buckle up, for this is not just a ripple – it's a tsunami of change. Imagine a future where collaboration trumps competition, sustainability dictates success, and technology liberates rather than isolates. Aquarius, the sign of innovation and humanitarianism, envisions just that. Expect to see:

Rise of social impact businesses

Profits won't be the sole motive anymore. Companies driven by ethical practices, environmental consciousness, and social good will gain traction. Aquarius is intrinsically linked to collective well-being and social justice. Under its influence, individuals will value purpose-driven ventures that address crucial societal issues. Pluto urges us to connect with our deeper selves and find meaning beyond material gains. This motivates individuals to pursue ventures that resonate with their personal values and make a difference in the world.

Examples of Social Impact Businesses

Sustainable energy companies: Focused on creating renewable energy solutions while empowering local communities.

Fair-trade businesses: Ensuring ethical practices and fair wages for producers, often in developing countries.

Social impact ventures: Addressing issues like poverty, education, and healthcare through innovative, community-driven approaches.

B corporations: Certified businesses that meet rigorous social and environmental standards, balancing profit with purpose.

Navigating the Pluto in Aquarius Landscape

Align your business with social impact: Analyze your core values and find ways to integrate them into your business model.

Invest in sustainable practices: Prioritize environmental and social responsibility throughout your operations.

Empower your employees: Foster a collaborative environment where everyone feels valued and contributes to the social impact mission.

Build strong community partnerships: Collaborate with organizations and communities that share your goals for positive change.

Embrace innovation and technology: Utilize technology to scale your impact and reach a wider audience.

Pluto in Aquarius presents a thrilling opportunity to redefine the purpose of business, moving beyond shareholder value and towards societal well-being. By aligning with the Aquarian spirit of innovation and collective action, social impact businesses can thrive in this transformative era, leaving a lasting legacy of positive change in the world.

Tech-driven disruption

AI, automation, and blockchain will revolutionize industries, from finance to healthcare. Be ready to adapt or risk getting left behind. Expect a focus on developing Artificial Intelligence with ethical considerations and a humanitarian heart, tackling issues like healthcare, climate change, and poverty alleviation. Immersive technologies will blur the lines between the physical and digital realms, transforming education, communication, and entertainment. Automation will reshape the job market, but also create opportunities for new, human-centered roles focused on creativity, innovation, and social impact.

Examples of Tech-Driven Disruption:

Decentralized social media platforms: User-owned networks fueled by blockchain technology, prioritizing privacy and community over corporate profits.

AI-powered healthcare solutions: Personalized medicine, virtual assistants for diagnostics, and AI-driven drug discovery.

VR/AR for education and training: Immersive learning experiences that transport students to different corners of the world or historical periods.

Automation with a human touch: Collaborative robots assisting in tasks while freeing up human potential for creative and leadership roles.

Navigating the Technological Tsunami:

Stay informed and adaptable: Embrace lifelong learning and upskilling to stay relevant in the evolving tech landscape.

Support ethical and sustainable tech: Choose tech products and services aligned with your values and prioritize privacy and social responsibility.

Focus on your human advantage: Cultivate creativity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence to thrive in a world increasingly reliant on technology.

Advocate for responsible AI development: Join the conversation about ethical AI guidelines and ensure technology serves humanity's best interests.

Connect with your community: Collaborate with others to harness technology for positive change and address the potential challenges that come with rapid technological advancements.

Pluto in Aquarius represents a critical juncture in our relationship with technology. By embracing its disruptive potential and focusing on ethical development and collective benefit, we can unlock a future where technology empowers humanity and creates a more equitable and sustainable world. Remember, the choice is ours – will we be swept away by the technological tsunami or ride its wave towards a brighter future?

Decentralization and democratization

Power structures will shift, with employees demanding more autonomy and consumers seeking ownership through blockchain-based solutions. Traditional institutions, corporations, and even governments will face challenges as power shifts towards distributed networks and grassroots movements. Individuals will demand active involvement in decision-making processes, leading to increased transparency and accountability in all spheres. Property and resources will be seen as shared assets, managed sustainably and equitably within communities. This transition won't be without its bumps. We'll need to adapt existing legal frameworks, address digital divides, and foster collaboration to ensure everyone benefits from decentralization.

Examples of Decentralization and Democratization

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs): Self-governing online communities managing shared resources and projects through blockchain technology.

Community-owned renewable energy initiatives: Local cooperatives generating and distributing clean energy, empowering communities and reducing reliance on centralized grids.

Participatory budgeting platforms: Citizens directly allocate local government funds, ensuring public resources are used in line with community needs.

Decentralized finance (DeFi): Peer-to-peer lending and borrowing platforms, bypassing traditional banks and offering greater financial autonomy for individuals.

Harnessing the Power of the Tide:

Embrace collaborative models: Participate in co-ops, community projects, and initiatives that empower collective ownership and decision-making.

Support ethical technology: Advocate for blockchain platforms and applications that prioritize user privacy, security, and equitable access.

Develop your tech skills: Learn about blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and other decentralized technologies to navigate the future landscape.

Engage in your community: Participate in local decision-making processes, champion sustainable solutions, and build solidarity with others.

Stay informed and adaptable: Embrace lifelong learning and critical thinking to navigate the evolving social and economic landscape.

Pluto in Aquarius presents a unique opportunity to reimagine power structures, ownership models, and how we interact with each other. By embracing decentralization and democratization, we can create a future where individuals and communities thrive, fostering a more equitable and sustainable world for all. Remember, the power lies within our collective hands – let's use it wisely to shape a brighter future built on shared ownership, collaboration, and empowered communities.

Focus on collective prosperity

Universal basic income, resource sharing, and collaborative economic models may gain momentum. Aquarius prioritizes the good of the collective, advocating for equitable distribution of resources and opportunities. Expect a rise in social safety nets, universal basic income initiatives, and policies aimed at closing the wealth gap. Environmental health is intrinsically linked to collective prosperity. We'll see a focus on sustainable practices, green economies, and resource sharing to ensure a thriving planet for generations to come. Communities will come together to address social challenges like poverty, homelessness, and healthcare disparities, recognizing that individual success is interwoven with collective well-being. Collaborative consumption, resource sharing, and community-owned assets will gain traction, challenging traditional notions of ownership and fostering a sense of shared abundance.

Examples of Collective Prosperity in Action

Community-owned renewable energy projects: Sharing the benefits of clean energy production within communities, democratizing access and fostering environmental sustainability.

Cooperatives and worker-owned businesses: Sharing profits and decision-making within companies, leading to greater employee satisfaction and productivity.

Universal basic income initiatives: Providing individuals with a basic safety net, enabling them to pursue their passions and contribute to society in meaningful ways.

Resource sharing platforms: Platforms like carsharing or tool libraries minimizing individual ownership and maximizing resource utilization, fostering a sense of interconnectedness.

Navigating the Shift

Support social impact businesses: Choose businesses that prioritize ethical practices, environmental sustainability, and positive social impact.

Contribute to your community: Volunteer your time, skills, and resources to address local challenges and empower others.

Embrace collaboration: Seek opportunities to work together with others to create solutions for shared problems.

Redefine your own path to prosperity: Focus on activities that bring you personal fulfillment and contribute to the collective good.

Advocate for systemic change: Support policies and initiatives that promote social justice, environmental protection, and equitable distribution of resources.

Pluto in Aquarius offers a unique opportunity to reshape our definition of prosperity and build a future where everyone thrives. By embracing collective well-being, collaboration, and sustainable practices, we can create a world where abundance flows freely, enriching not just individuals, but the entire fabric of society. Remember, true prosperity lies not in what we hoard, but in what we share, and by working together, we can cultivate a future where everyone has the opportunity to flourish.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The (open) web is good, actually

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library tonight (Monday, November 13) at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

The great irony of the platformization of the internet is that platforms are intermediaries, and the original promise of the internet that got so many of us excited about it was disintermediation – getting rid of the middlemen that act as gatekeepers between community members, creators and audiences, buyers and sellers, etc.

The platformized internet is ripe for rent seeking: where the platform captures an ever-larger share of the value generated by its users, making the service worst for both, while lock-in stops people from looking elsewhere. Every sector of the modern economy is less competitive, thanks to monopolistic tactics like mergers and acquisitions and predatory pricing. But with tech, the options for making things worse are infinitely divisible, thanks to the flexibility of digital systems, which means that product managers can keep subdividing the Jenga blocks they pulling out of the services we rely on. Combine platforms with monopolies with digital flexibility and you get enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

An enshittified, platformized internet is bad for lots of reasons – it concentrates decisions about who may speak and what may be said into just a few hands; it creates a rich-get-richer dynamic that creates a new oligarchy, with all the corruption and instability that comes with elite capture; it makes life materially worse for workers, users, and communities.

But there are many other ways in which the enshitternet is worse than the old good internet. Today, I want to talk about how the enshitternet affects openness and all that entails. An open internet is one whose workings are transparent (think of "open source"), but it's also an internet founded on access – the ability to know what has gone before, to recall what has been said, and to revisit the context in which it was said.

At last week's Museum Computer Network conference, Aaron Straup Cope gave a talk on museums and technology called "Wishful Thinking – A critical discussion of 'extended reality' technologies in the cultural heritage sector" that beautifully addressed these questions of recall and revisiting:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2023/11/11/therapy/#wishful

Cope is a museums technologist who's worked on lots of critical digital projects over the years, and in this talk, he addresses himself to the difference between the excitement of the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector over the possibilities of the web, and why he doesn't feel the same excitement over the metaverse, and its various guises – XR, VR, MR and AR.

The biggest reason to be excited about the web was – and is – the openness of disintermediation. The internet was inspired by the end-to-end principle, the idea that the network's first duty was to transmit data from willing senders to willing receivers, as efficiently and reliably as possible. That principle made it possible for whole swathes of people to connect with one another. As Cope writes, openness "was not, and has never been, a guarantee of a receptive audience or even any audience at all." But because it was "easy and cheap enough to put something on the web," you could "leave it there long enough for others to find it."

That dynamic nurtured an environment where people could have "time to warm up to ideas." This is in sharp contrast to the social media world, where "[anything] not immediately successful or viral … was a waste of time and effort… not worth doing." The social media bias towards a river of content that can't be easily reversed is one in which the only ideas that get to spread are those the algorithm boosts.

This is an important way to understand the role of algorithms in the context of the spread of ideas – that without recall or revisiting, we just don't see stuff, including stuff that might challenge our thinking and change our minds. This is a much more materialistic and grounded way to talk about algorithms and ideas than the idea that Big Data and AI make algorithms so persuasive that they can control our minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

As bad as this is in the social media context, it's even worse in the context of apps, which can't be linked into, bookmarked, or archived. All of this made apps an ominous sign right from the beginning:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Apps interact with law in precisely the way that web-pages don't. "An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

Apps are "closed" in every sense. You can't see what's on an app without installing the app and "agreeing" to its terms of service. You can't reverse-engineer an app (to add a privacy blocker, or to change how it presents information) without risking criminal and civil liability. You can't bookmark anything the app won't let you bookmark, and you can't preserve anything the app won't let you preserve.

Despite being built on the same underlying open frameworks – HTTP, HTML, etc – as the web, apps have the opposite technological viewpoint to the web. Apps' technopolitics are at war with the web's technopolitics. The web is built around recall – the ability to see things, go back to things, save things. The web has the technopolitics of a museum:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2014/09/11/brand/#dconstruct

By comparison, apps have the politics of a product, and most often, that product is a rent-seeking, lock-in-hunting product that wants to take you hostage by holding something you love hostage – your data, perhaps, or your friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

When Anil Dash described "The Web We Lost" in 2012, he was describing a web with the technopolitics of a museum:

where tagging was combined with permissive licenses to make it easy for people to find and reuse each others' stuff;

where it was easy to find out who linked to you in realtime even though most of us were posting to our own sites, which they controlled;

where a link from one site to another meant one person found another person's contribution worthy;

where privacy-invasive bids to capture the web were greeted with outright hostility;

where every service that helped you post things that mattered to you was expected to make it easy for you take that data back if you changed services;

where inlining or referencing material from someone else's site meant following a technical standard, not inking a business-development deal;

https://www.anildash.com/2012/12/13/the_web_we_lost/

Ten years later, Dash's "broken tech/content culture cycle" described the web we live on now:

https://www.anildash.com/2022/02/09/the-stupid-tech-content-culture-cycle/

found your platform by promising to facilitate your users' growth;

order your technologists and designers to prioritize growth above all other factors and fire anyone who doesn't deliver;

grow without regard to the norms of your platform's users;

plaster over the growth-driven influx of abusive and vile material by assigning it to your "most marginalized, least resourced team";

deliver a half-assed moderation scheme that drives good users off the service and leaves no one behind but griefers, edgelords and trolls;

steadfastly refuse to contemplate why the marginalized users who made your platform attractive before being chased away have all left;

flail about in a panic over illegal content, do deals with large media brands, seize control over your most popular users' output;

"surface great content" by algorithmically promoting things that look like whatever's successful, guaranteeing that nothing new will take hold;

overpay your top performers for exclusivity deals, utterly neglect any pipeline for nurturing new performers;

abuse your creators the same ways that big media companies have for decades, but insist that it's different because you're a tech company;

ignore workers who warn that your product is a danger to society, dismiss them as "millennials" (defined as "anyone born after 1970 or who has a student loan")

when your platform is (inevitably) implicated in a murder, have a "town hall" overseen by a crisis communications firm;

pay the creator who inspired the murder to go exclusive on your platform;

dismiss the murder and fascist rhetoric as "growing pains";

when truly ghastly stuff happens on your platform, give your Trust and Safety team a 5% budget increase;

chase growth based on "emotionally engaging content" without specifying whether the emotions should be positive;

respond to ex-employees' call-outs with transient feelings of guilt followed by dismissals of "cancel culture":

fund your platforms' most toxic users and call it "free speech";

whenever anyone disagrees with any of your decisions, dismiss them as being "anti-free speech";

start increasing how much your platform takes out of your creators' paychecks;

force out internal dissenters, dismiss external critics as being in conspiracy with your corporate rivals;

once regulation becomes inevitable, form a cartel with the other large firms in your sector and insist that the problem is a "bad algorithm";

"claim full victim status," and quit your job, complaining about the toll that running a big platform took on your mental wellbeing.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/18/broken-records/#dashes

The web wasn't inevitable – indeed, it was wildly improbable. Tim Berners Lee's decision to make a new platform that was patent-free, open and transparent was a complete opposite approach to the strategy of the media companies of the day. They were building walled gardens and silos – the dialup equivalent to apps – organized as "branded communities." The way I experienced it, the web succeeded because it was so antithetical to the dominant vision for the future of the internet that the big companies couldn't even be bothered to try to kill it until it was too late.

Companies have been trying to correct that mistake ever since. After three or four attempts to replace the web with various garbage systems all called "MSN," Microsoft moved on to trying to lock the internet inside a proprietary browser. Years later, Facebook had far more success in an attempt to kill HTML with React. And of course, apps have gobbled up so much of the old, good internet.

Which brings us to Cope's views on museums and the metaverse. There's nothing intrinsically proprietary about virtual worlds and all their permutations. VRML is a quarter of a century old – just five years younger than Snow Crash:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML

But the current enthusiasm for virtual worlds isn't merely a function of the interesting, cool and fun experiences you can have in them. Rather, it's a bid to kill off whatever is left of the old, good web and put everything inside a walled garden. Facebook's metaverse "is more of the same but with a technical footprint so expensive and so demanding that it all but ensures it will only be within the means of a very few companies to operate."

Facebook's VR headsets have forward-facing cameras, turning every users into a walking surveillance camera. Facebook put those cameras there for "pass through" – so they can paint the screens inside the headset with the scene around you – but "who here believes that Facebook doesn't have other motives for enabling an always-on camera capturing the world around you?"

Apple's VisionPro VR headset is "a near-perfect surveillance device," and "the only thing to save this device is the trust that Apple has marketed its brand on over the last few years." Cope notes that "a brand promise is about as fleeting a guarantee as you can get." I'll go further: Apple is already a surveillance company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The technopolitics of the metaverse are the opposite of the technopolitics of the museum – even moreso than apps. Museums that shift their scarce technology budgets to virtual worlds stand a good chance of making something no one wants to use, and that's the best case scenario. The worst case is that museums make a successful project inside a walled garden, one where recall is subject to corporate whim, and help lure their patrons away from the recall-friendly internet to the captured, intermediated metaverse.

It's true that the early web benefited from a lot of hype, just as the metaverse is enjoying today. But the similarity ends there: the metaverse is designed for enclosure, the web for openness. Recall is a historical force for "the right to assembly… access to basic literacy… a public library." The web was "an unexpected gift with the ability to change the order of things; a gift that merits being protected, preserved and promoted both internally and externally." Museums were right to jump on the web bandwagon, because of its technopolitics. The metaverse, with its very different technopolitics, is hostile to the very idea of museums.

In joining forces with metaverse companies, museums strike a Faustian bargain, "because we believe that these places are where our audiences have gone."

The GLAM sector is devoted to access, to recall, and to revisiting. Unlike the self-style free speech warriors whom Dash calls out for self-serving neglect of their communities, the GLAM sector is about preservation and access, the true heart of free expression. When a handful of giant companies organize all our discourse, the ability to be heard is contingent on pleasing the ever-shifting tastes of the algorithm. This is the problem with the idea that "freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach" – if a platform won't let people who want to hear from you see what you have to say, they are indeed compromising freedom of speech:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Likewise, "censorship" is not limited to "things that governments do." As Ada Palmer so wonderfully describes it in her brilliant "Why We Censor: from the Inquisition to the Internet" speech, censorship is like arsenic, with trace elements of it all around us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMJb3AxA0s

A community's decision to ban certain offensive conduct or words on pain of expulsion or sanction is censorship – but not to the same degree that, say, a government ban on expressing certain points of view is. However, there are many kinds of private censorship that rise to the same level as state censorship in their impact on public discourse (think of Moms For Liberty and their book-bannings).

It's not a coincidence that Palmer – a historian – would have views on censorship and free speech that intersect with Cope, a museum worker. One of the most brilliant moments in Palmer's speech is where she describes how censorship under the Inquistion was not state censorship – the Inquisition was a multinational, nongovernmental body that was often in conflict with state power.

Not all intermediaries are bad for speech or access. The "disintermediation" that excited early web boosters was about escaping from otherwise inescapable middlemen – the people who figured out how to control and charge for the things we did with one another.

When I was a kid, I loved the writing of Crad Kilodney, a short story writer who sold his own self-published books on Toronto street-corners while wearing a sign that said "VERY FAMOUS CANADIAN AUTHOR, BUY MY BOOKS" (he also had a sign that read, simply, "MARGARET ATWOOD"). Kilodney was a force of nature, who wrote, edited, typeset, printed, bound, and sold his own books:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-late-street-poet-and-publishing-scourge-crad-kilodney-left-behind-a/

But there are plenty of writers out there that I want to hear from who lack the skill or the will to do all of that. Editors, publishers, distributors, booksellers – all the intermediaries who sit between a writer and their readers – are not bad. They're good, actually. The problem isn't intermediation – it's capture.

For generations, hucksters have conned would-be writers by telling them that publishing won't buy their books because "the gatekeepers" lack the discernment to publish "quality" work. Friends of mine in publishing laughed at the idea that they would deliberately sideline a book they could figure out how to sell – that's just not how it worked.

But today, monopolized film studios are literally annihilating beloved, high-priced, commercially viable works because they are worth slightly more as tax writeoffs than they are as movies:

https://deadline.com/2023/11/coyote-vs-acme-shelved-warner-bros-discovery-writeoff-david-zaslav-1235598676/

There's four giant studios and five giant publishers. Maybe "five" is the magic number and publishing isn't concentrated enough to drop whole novels down the memory hole for a tax deduction, but even so, publishing is trying like hell to shrink to four:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/07/random-penguins/#if-you-wanted-to-get-there-i-wouldnt-start-from-here

Even as the entertainment sector is working to both literally and figuratively destroy our libraries, the cultural heritage sector is grappling with preserving these libraries, with shrinking budgets and increased legal threats:

https://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/

I keep meeting artists of all description who have been conditioned to be suspicious of anything with the word "open" in its name. One colleague has repeatedly told me that fighting for the "open internet" is a self-defeating rhetorical move that will scare off artists who hear "open" and think "Big Tech ripoff."

But "openness" is a necessary precondition for preservation and access, which are the necessary preconditions for recall and revisiting. Here on the last, melting fragment of the open internet, as tech- and entertainment-barons are seizing control over our attention and charging rent on our ability to talk and think together, openness is our best hope of a new, good internet. T

he cultural heritage sector wants to save our creative works. The entertainment and tech industry want to delete them and take a tax writeoff.

As a working artist, I know which side I'm on.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/13/this-is-for-everyone/#revisiting

Image: Diego Delso (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museo_Mimara,_Zagreb,_Croacia,_2014-04-20,_DD_01.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

[amphiptere-art]

I just kind of realize something. Eclipse is the one using the Glow feature. Sun and Moon both in their ruined forms aren't using the glow. But it just automatically turns on for eclipse.

I know technically the glow feature is always there just turned off. But sun and moon still don't utilize it. While in the main game it might have just been a missing feature. They were definitely planning on using it for ruin but didn't have it activate until the eclipse activated. Which is interesting. A nice little patch to a missing game element.

Could I find interesting that they did choose eclipse for it. They could have done anything with the glow. Had a return in the others some way. But instead it is eclipse. Perhaps the glow is locked? It is my personal theory that Sun and Moon were once one and then separated due to virus. Two acts made into characters. So perhaps these two 'characters' didn't have access to the glow. But eclipse did.

I also once believed that they always had the eclipse coloring between the two different ruined versions. They just didn't have the glow. But they actually do have different colors. Sun more importantly has the entirety of this sunny pants. Moon honestly looks more like eclipse than sun does. Which strengthens one of my theories that moon was first. But that's another thing. But sun being the AR component. It does make sense that he would think of himself as complete. And not the half mess that moon is. Although sun still has the hat. Which is interesting.

Also minor inconvenience of AR. AR is basically magic and it's really hard to look at it for any sort of proof. But it is cool and annoying that the eyes of the characters change. Moon has his right eye and no left. And sun has the opposite. Eclipse combines both. My biggest irritation is that it doesn't make sense for moon to have no eye, And yet ruin magically manifests one? The only explanation I can think of is that it's some sort of disappearance VR magic. Which is sort of sad.

Oh and just an interesting observation. Eclipse is quite split down the middle with Sun and Moon's colors. Most noticeable in their arms. Moon has this sort of blue fade going up there forearm. Sun does not. It simply cuts at the shoulder. And looking at Eclipse. His right arm has a strange fade on it, and his left arm has a very clear cut. Plus moons darker color is on the right and suns yellow is on the left. I just wanted to point that out for design sake.

Anyways that's the rambles.

[omegaphilosophia]

Mental Objects vs. Virtual Objects

Both mental objects (thoughts, concepts, and imaginations) and virtual objects (digital artifacts, AI-generated entities, and simulated environments) challenge traditional notions of existence. While they share some similarities, they also have distinct differences in how they originate, function, and interact with the world.

1. Similarities Between Mental and Virtual Objects

1.1. Non-Physical Existence

Both exist without a direct material form.

A mental object (e.g., the idea of a unicorn) exists in the mind.

A virtual object (e.g., a character in a video game) exists in a digital space.

1.2. Dependence on a Substrate

Mental objects depend on biological cognition (the brain).

Virtual objects depend on computational processing (hardware/software).

Neither exists as standalone physical entities but requires a medium to be instantiated.

1.3. Ephemeral and Modifiable

Both can be created, changed, or erased at will.

A thought can be reimagined, just as a digital object can be edited or deleted.

They are not fixed like physical objects but dynamic in nature.

1.4. Representation-Based Existence

Both exist as representations rather than tangible things.

A mental image of a tree represents a tree but is not an actual tree.

A 3D-rendered tree in a virtual world represents a tree but is not physically real.

2. Differences Between Mental and Virtual Objects

2.1. Origin and Creation

Mental objects arise from individual cognition (thought, memory, imagination).

Virtual objects are created through external computation (coding, rendering, algorithms).

2.2. Subjectivity vs. Objectivity

Mental objects are subjective—they exist uniquely for the thinker.

Virtual objects are inter-subjective—they exist digitally and can be experienced by multiple people.

2.3. Interaction and Persistence

Mental objects are internal and exist only within the thinker’s mind.

Virtual objects exist externally in a digital system and can be interacted with by multiple users.

2.4. Stability Over Time

Mental objects are fleeting and can be forgotten or altered by an individual.

Virtual objects have greater persistence (e.g., stored in a database, backed up, retrievable).

2.5. Causality and Impact on the World

Mental objects influence individual perception and behavior but do not directly alter external reality.

Virtual objects can have real-world consequences (e.g., digital currencies, online identities, NFTs).

3. The Blurring Boundary: Where Do They Overlap?

AI-generated art is a virtual object that mimics mental creativity.

VR and AR technologies blend mental perception with digital objects.

Philosophical questions arise: Are virtual worlds just externalized thought spaces?

Conclusion

Mental objects and virtual objects are both non-physical, dynamic, and representation-based, but they differ in origin, persistence, and external impact. The digital age continues to blur the lines between thought and simulation, raising deeper questions about what it means for something to exist.

[teachbright]

Today in Science Education

Current science teachers in K-12 are struggling with the differences between wanting to add more kinesthetic projects and the requirement to add technology and standardization into their classes. Several questions can be addressed here, and response is encouraged.

What technologies are we bringing to the classroom that may help add context to lessons? Does AR/VR have a place in science classes? Does AI?

What websites enhance learning within the standards that your district/state/country has?

Those that are more kinesthetically comfortable, do you feel that your students could benefit from computers and technology more than hands-on projects in this current and future trend of incorporating technology into technical classes?

Those who use mostly technology, how are you confirming real-time that your students understand how scientific concepts work without using standardized testing?

If there are other questions along this same vein, feel free to ask, along with answering any or all of the questions posited above!

[springtrappd]

Ok new 120 / 6 hours of total work time Fred’s fine dining establishment. Ok so the mimic

(The crowd throws tomatoes and various rotten vegetables at me)

Ok how did the mimic even get into the vr game to begin with??? Did it get destroyed or deactivated in a old location after the events if the books then got scanned into vr game with other old circuit boards and decided that this guys oc fursona character was really cool and decided to go back to terrorizing people with new branding? Or like is glitchtrap a different entity from the mimic and they are related in some way like 2 copies maybe? Or maybe they were just bros and went to sports bars idk. Also like did Vanessa even know glitchtrap may not have been the mimic like is burntrap just the mimic with terrible drip idk. If burntrap isn’t canon and the mimic is glitch trap where did they get the sick ass endo body from we see in ruin ??? Is the mimic a William afton kinnrie?

Also the highlighted text has no meaning I just found out I could color text

god okay so confession: i have yet to read tftp because the fnaf anthology novels cause me genuine psychic damage and i have not needed six hours to burn doing something i hate for a while now (i read the charlie trilogy + frights while my house was getting renovated & i was bouncing between an active construction zone and my grandparent's spare room). which is great for me because it means i haven't been in survival mode (any more than i am usually)(which is... a lot) but sucks for y'all because i refuse to make any definitive statements on them until i've. well. Done That. and i trust the popular fandom reading of them about as much as i trust the fandom with anything at all -- which is none!

so! just working from (what i remember of; this isn't fact-checked, lmao) what's in the games: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

hw1 states that glitchtrap spawned from old circuit boards that they (the third party contractors working on the game in-universe) were told to scan so they could use the "performance routines" on 'em as a programming shortcut. this seemingly connects to the ar emails, where it's heavily implied that some other third party was diverting fazent's shipments and replacing them with their own -- hence the strange behaviour of the animatronics in the special delivery service. notably when an employee at the shipping company tried to investigate this he gets replaced almost immediately, heavily implying that either the company or the third party killed him -- and considering we later see vanessa impersonate a member of fazbear's IT department (in both the emails & the gamejolt arg promo for sb), i don't think it's unreasonable to suspect her (or someone aligned with her) of doing it. and THAT is a whole can of worms in and of itself

if they're not retconning this, then the best explanation i can see is: Third Party finds Mimic in fazbunker -> Third Party salvages some Mimic parts -> Third Party gives Mimic parts to contractors (possibly unintentionally at first) -> Mimic is scanned into VR, becomes Glitchtrap -> Glitchtrap converts Vanessa -> Vanessa uses social engineering + pizzaplex virus* to get into contractor systems -> Mimic takes over network -> Vanny goes to Pizzaplex to ???restore body??? -> Gregory frees Vanessa -> they seal the Mimic's body away???? -> MXES is in all this? somehow??? maybe as the original virus????

and if they're retconning all of this then there's no point thinking about it because, well, it didn't happen the way it was presented to us/didn't happen at all. atm everything (but especially sb and its endings) is simultaneously canon and not canon, making it impossible to judge... literally anything. fun!

as for why the mimic or the third party or whatever wants to do all of this/had the idea to do all this/etc.......... again: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ there's nothing in the games (AS OF TODAY, 19TH OF JANUARY 2025) to indicate the mimic has ever interacted with afton or has reason to follow in his footsteps. i'm gonna take a wild guess and say that the upcoming game titled Secret of the Mimic might have to do with that secret thing about the mimic. not sure though!

[*] the user that sends the virus she uses to get into the contractor's system is called pizzaplex; she uses the virus as justification to trick the contractors into letting her into their system, at which point she then takes control of it. this is where the ambiguity around vanessa = vanny originally came from -- since she opened the virus email first, was her identity stolen by the entity? except... luis mentions talking with her about how the security back-end works, so it's probably her. or at least her body. God fuck this franchise

[hypnofantasma-asks-and-doodles]

couple kraizen related questions - did they have anything similar to tv's? i think we saw something like that in the "other side of paradise" animatic but i was wondering if you can explain more on this - since they were actors did they have movie theaters? - did they have anything similar to broadway?

1) Yep!! they had everything from normal screens, to giant ones, to various sorts of VR and AR screens. They often preferred to use a mix of crystal and plasma technology for them!

they sold screens at many different sizes, to cater to the vast size differences between individuals. Often, just like with everything else, you'd have to custom order a screen to be sized for a certain distance + peripheral size in mind.

2) They had film, games, plays, and even a few sorts of plays where you'd be allowed to participate yourself! And for every different sort of media, they had special facilities; film theaters, live stages, game "theaters", AR games and sports, and a special sort of VR catered facility that they refer to as a Dreamland.

3) Yep! their form of it would be more like special districts that are SOLELY for plays, dance, and music. They're where you'd find the highest quality shows of that city!

[fazbear-entertainment-logs]

In-Universe FNAF Books Hypothesis Part 1

This is my hypothesis on explaining on whether or not the Fazbear Frights or Tales From The Pizzaplex are canon.

So let's get things start, I think the FNAF Books are books that exist within the universe of the FNAF games. Think like Journal 3, The Book Of Bill, Marcy's Journal, Gerald Robotnik's Diary, or Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide. In fact FNAF series already has a book like this called Five Nights At Freddy's: Survival Logbook, a book written by Fazbear Entertainment and written in by Michael Afton, Cassidy, and possibly the Crying Child. So I believe these books exist in-universe.

So in Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach one can find many arcade Cabinets. On one is Glitchtrap which is is an well the thing that possesses Gregory and Vanessa, and can be found in the in universe VR game. Fazbear Entertainment is probably aware of this anomaly and the model was made by one of their employees so they decide to use it as just another mascot. In addition characters like Frostbear and Melted Chocolate Bonnie are variant mascots created in-universe by Fazbear Entertainment for their delivery service. So it would make sense for them to reuse them for arcade cabinets. So why do I bring this up? Well in universe these cabinets also depict characters like Fetch and the Plushtrap Chaser which originate from the books. Put a pin in this for later.

So as we know the original Fazbear Entertainment was dissolved by Henry and replaced by a new version. So as we know they hired an in universe indie developer to create in universe FNAF games that make light of events of the previous games, and are intended to spread misinformation. Btw these are not the original games we played, they don't even include all of those games. So I as a way to further discredit these events of the original games they had published Fazbear Frights and Tales From The Pizzaplex. Filling them with incorrect information, fragmented bits they either misunderstood, alongside absurd and outlandish things such as Fazgoo, Sea Bonnies, Kids At Play Signs, and Fleshtrap

This would explain things that are similar to the games but are different from the games, all probably based on bits of information like hearsay. For example, there being 6 MCI victims is probably them getting the facts mixed up and lumping Charlie with the 5 MCI victims. Eleanor being Scrapbaby and her abilities being based on the incident where Michael rose back up after collapsing. The Stitchwraith being based on Ennard and the 2 spirits based on misunderstanding Ennard arguing amongst themself. Even the staining being the molten remnant. Jake being a misunderstanding of the Crying Child whose father talked to him through walkie talkie in a Fredbear plush, and who ended up in the hospital. The Mimic being very different between the games and books in regards to intelligence. The mistakes in The Horror Attraction. GGY have true elements in it. The Help Wanted Story seeming to have truth mixed in with fiction. The Man In Room 1280 misinterpreting Ultimate Custom Night. Or Michael roaming about in You're The Band.

This would explain why Fazbear Frights references these book characters and uses them as mascots like they do with Freddy Frostbear. Because they created them for these books. It also explains why the FNAF AR Funtime Freddy quotes Count The Ways in spite of the fact the books contradict the games. Speaking of which.... Part 2

[digitaldetoxworld]

How 5g Technology Change The World

The world is getting ready to a technological revolution, and on the coronary heart of this alteration is 5G era. As the 5th generation of mobile networks, 5G guarantees extremely-speedy speeds, low latency, and extraordinary connectivity. This advancement is ready to reshape industries, improve every day existence, and create new opportunities across more than one sectors. From healthcare and transportation to entertainment and clever towns, 5G isn't always simply an upgrade; it's miles a catalyst for a brand new virtual generation.

what is 5g and how it works 

The Fundamentals of 5G Technology

5G era is designed to provide extensively faster information speeds than its predecessor, 4G LTE. It operates on three special spectrum bands:

Low-band spectrum – Provides broad coverage however with highly slower speeds.

Mid-band spectrum – Offers a balance between pace and insurance.

High-band spectrum (millimeter-wave) – Delivers extremely fast speeds but has confined range.

With information speeds attaining up to 10 Gbps, 5G networks will enable seamless connectivity, permitting gadgets to communicate in actual-time with minimum delay (latency as little as one millisecond). This bounce in community functionality will pave the manner for improvements that had been previously impossible.

Transforming Industries

1. Healthcare

5G technology is revolutionizing the healthcare industry through allowing faraway surgical procedures, telemedicine, and real-time affected person tracking. With ultra-low latency and high-speed connectivity, surgeons can perform robotic surgical procedures from different elements of the world, expanding get admission to to existence-saving techniques. Additionally, 5G allows for stepped forward records transfer between clinical devices, ensuring timely prognosis and higher affected person care.

2. Smart Cities and Infrastructure

5G is a key aspect inside the improvement of smart towns. By connecting billions of gadgets through the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G lets in for efficient visitors management, smart lighting, and waste management structures. Autonomous motors will gain from actual-time verbal exchange with traffic indicators and different cars, reducing injuries and improving traffic waft. Cities will become more sustainable, energy-green, and safer for citizens.

Three. Manufacturing and Automation

The manufacturing quarter is undergoing a transformation with the appearance of 5G. Smart factories prepared with AI-powered robots and IoT gadgets will operate with minimum human intervention. Predictive renovation powered by means of real-time records will reduce downtime and decorate productiveness. Augmented fact (AR) and virtual reality (VR) packages will streamline employee education and improve efficiency on manufacturing unit flooring.

4. Entertainment and Media

The enjoyment industry is also experiencing a shift with 5G generation. High-definition streaming, cloud gaming, and immersive AR/VR reviews becomes the norm. With minimal buffering and high-speed connectivity, customers can enjoy seamless content intake. Additionally, 5G allows real-time interaction in stay events and esports, offering a more engaging experience for audiences worldwide.

5. Education and Remote Work

5G is gambling a crucial function inside the evolution of schooling and far off work. Virtual lecture rooms, interactive gaining knowledge of modules, and terrific video conferencing are becoming greater accessible. Students in faraway regions can advantage from advanced internet connectivity, bridging the virtual divide. Businesses, however, can put into effect flexible paintings models with uninterrupted video calls and faster cloud get entry to, boosting productivity and performance.

The Impact of 5G on Everyday Life

Beyond industries, 5G will significantly enhance normal reviews. Smart houses prepared with 5G-enabled IoT devices will provide better safety, energy management, and comfort. Personal assistants, consisting of AI-powered voice assistants, will become extra responsive and intuitive. Augmented fact packages will remodel purchasing experiences with the aid of allowing consumers to visualise products earlier than buying.

Moreover, the gaming industry will see a shift in the direction of cloud gaming platforms, wherein high-cease gaming reports are handy with out the need for steeply-priced hardware. With decreased latency, multiplayer gaming will become smoother, allowing gamers to compete in real time with minimal disruptions.

Challenges and Concerns

While the advantages of 5G are plain, there also are demanding situations that need to be addressed. Some of the key concerns consist of:

Infrastructure Development – The deployment of 5G calls for a big funding in new infrastructure, including small cell towers and fiber-optic networks.

Security and Privacy – With accelerated connectivity comes the hazard of cyber threats. Ensuring sturdy safety features is essential to shield user statistics and prevent cyberattacks.

Health Concerns – There have been debates regarding the capability fitness risks associated with 5G radiation. However, clinical research have now not observed conclusive proof linking 5G to health troubles.

Digital Divide – While urban areas may enjoy fast 5G adoption, rural and underserved areas may additionally face delays in deployment, probably widening the virtual divide.

The Future of 5G

The destiny of 5G era seems promising as countries and agencies continue to invest in its improvement. With advancements in artificial intelligence, side computing, and quantum computing, 5G will release even more opportunities. The transition to 6G in the coming years will in addition push the limits of connectivity, making futuristic concepts consisting of holographic verbal exchange and brain-computer interfaces a fact.

Affordable smartphones with best camera reviews

[canmom]

observations of virtual reality: movement and touch and cameras

So. Since I’ve got this job the last few weeks I’ve been getting a very rapid introduction to VR games. I’m coming in after a good few years and several generations of VR games, so by this point, tracking is very good, and new tech like AR passthrough and hand tracking is starting to become more commmon.

Predictably, it’s been absolute fascinating! On the surface VR games should be able to do everything that “flat screen” games can do and more, with the added bonus of head tracking and binocular vision. You are adding, not removing. And in some ways this is true. Moving through a VR space is incredibly intuitive, it’s very much like moving in a real physical space. If you want to get a close look at something, you stick your face up close to it. Compared to controlling an orbiting camera with an analogue stick it’s night and day. You never have to ‘fight’ the camera.

But... there’s many exceptions to that ‘same but more’. The weight of the headset is one. Especially with standalone headsets, where you’re essentially strapping a smartphone to your face. VR games often ask for a lot of physical movement and this is sweaty; the foam pad around the headset always gets very damp when you’re done.

But most of all, when you’re designing these things, you’re fighting the devil called ‘motion sickness’. This imposes a hard limit on performance: you cannot afford to drop frames, 72fps is a hard minimum. It also has big implications for game design.

(below: a little tour of design considerations in VR games: movement, interaction and camera mechanics)

One of the most fundamental verbs of videogames is movement. Nearly every genre of 3D game has you moving a character, or at least a camera, through its space. And while motion sickness certainly does affect players, it’s relatively rare, at least among my generation who grew up playing these games. We have, it seems, been able to train ourselves to feel comfortable behind a first or third-person character controller - at least when we’re the ones holding the mouse so the brain can calibrate expectations. (It’s different when watching a stream for many people.) Perhaps, even when you’re not paying attention to it, the presence of a stationary world outside the screen helps anchor the brain’s perception so it doesn’t find a clash between eyes saying ‘movement’ and inner ear saying ‘not movement’.

In VR, though, it’s a puzzle. The most natural way to move through a virtual space would be to physically walk around it, but most players don’t have a play area the size of a typical game level. And very very few people in the world could afford to own an omnidirectional treadmill!

So you have to in some way apply movement that is ‘unphysical’, moving the character without moving the player’s physical body (or equivalently, moving the world around the character). The obvious way to do this would be to use the same analogue sticks as in typical character controller, but in practice this is disfavoured because it’s very, very likely to cause motion sickness.

Instead, game designers have to adapt their own games. The usual solution is to give players a means to teleport. For some reason the brain is a lot more comfortable with instant teleportation. In Superhot for example, the game teleports you through a series of preset positions; Half Life: Alyx has a variety of movement options but the default is a targeted teleport. A whole lot of other games have you standing in one place while objects come towards you; more recently there are AR games which superimpose vritual objects into your space.

What’s strange is there are some odd exceptions to that motion sickness rule. While moving along the ground seems prone to motion sickness, flying often seems to be a lot more comfortable, at least if the flight is relatively smooth and slow. There’s a whole category of flying games available on the store. Perhaps this is because in these circumstances you wouldn’t expect a very strong acceleration signal from the inner ear, so it’s easier to get over the lack of signal.

There’s one game I tried a bit of, called Echo Arena, which is a multiplayer zero-g football-like game where you have to get a disc to a goal. The game includes a variety of movement mechanics: you can thrust in the direction you’re looking, you can use your hands to apply smaller thrusts, and you can push off solid surfaces. Despite the fact that I was standing on a solid floor (my legs got a bit tired!), the zero-g effect was quite compelling; it was easier to suspend disbelief than I thought it might be.

I imagine you could do some incredibly cool movement tech once you got used to it. Compared to other zero-g games I’ve played like Shattered Horizon, it felt a lot more intuitive to actually be immersed in the 3D space. However, it also had some limitations: making small turns was easy, but to make larger turns you either had to physically turn around on the floor (which feels unintuitive when you’re floating around in a zero-g world!) or use the analogue stick to turn in abrupt 12.5-degree increments. This is a lot fiddlier than mouse-look.

I have a pretty robust stomach against motion sickness, so I don’t know if the average player of Echo Arena would find it too much. But I found it surprising how something I thought would be a route to motion sickness - floating around at fairly high speeds - actually didn’t prove problematic at all. I think it’s perhaps that the majority of the time, movement in Echo Arena is purely inertial with no acceleration. You accelerate in brief boosts. By contrast, if you could constantly move with the analogue sticks, your acceleration would be a lot more variable.

I do wonder how it compares to really floating around in a spacesuit in zero-g. There’s probably a single digit number of people who would be able to make the comparison!

Another surprising exception is the game Holoception, made by my new employer a few years before I joined the company. This game’s really cute, it’s like the ultimate form of Newgrounds stick figure fighting games. You control a third-person character, viewing the level from above. Your hands control the character’s hands, so you can swing weapons physically, and you can make them walk around with the analogue stick. As strange as it sounds on the surface (a blend of traditional control schemes and VR), it works startlingly well. I found I got used to controlling the little puppet very quickly; the only problems I had were more to do with occasional physics jank. And, oddly, moving with the analogue stick works just fine and does not cause motion sickness when you’re a floating eye in the sky.

The brain is a weird thing.

Anyway, a disproportionate number of VR players seem to be kids, at least going off the voices of people who talk aloud in VC. I don’t know if that’s just because kids find it easier to acclimate to a new way of relating to 3D space, or if it’s just the demographics of videogame players at large, or just the time of day I was playing when most adults would be at work, or maybe it’s just that kids find it easier to stand up for long periods to play games lmao. [Accessibility for people who can’t stand for long periods is a big problem for the current generation of VR games.] In any case, I wonder if it might be the case that if VR ends up getting popular enough, the next generation might find VR movement as intuitive as I find movement in an FPS. (My dad, by contrast, finds it extremely hard to get used to movement in 3D games. He tried Portal once and found it completely overwhelming.)

For any cyberpunk worldbuilders out there, perhaps one day we’ll get inner ear implants that override the sense of acceleration when in VR. Then maybe we get some Ghost in the Shell type scenario where you can hack someone’s cochlear implant and give them severe motion sickness. Or, perhaps we’ll get as comfortable disregarding our inner ear in VR as we do when playing an FPS...

The other interesting challenge of VR is touching solid surfaces. The amount of haptic feedback on most platforms is: you can make the controller vibrate. That’s it. For a game like Beat Saber, that’s enough: the controller gives a little jolt every time you hit a block, which is enough confirmation.

My employer has a line of games based around hand tracking, in the form of Hand Physics Lab and Surgineer. HPL is a collection of small puzzles designed around hand tracking, and the way it works is quite interesting. Essentially you have a virtual hand that is attached to your real hand by springs. The virtual hand will try to follow the position of your real hand as closely as possible, but it is a physics-simulated object and it will collide with the environment. So, for example, you can grasp an object by closing your hand around it. The springs will pull your virtual fingers onto the object. (There is also a grab assist which will glue an object to your hand when it detects a grab motion).

Your fingers will feel the pressure of closing against your hand, and even though you don’t feel the weight and texture of the virtual object, it works well enough to sell the suspension of disbelief.

It is, inevitably with this hardware, a bit jank and fiddly. The hand tracking has its limits, and sometimes your virtual hand will get caught on something or bent in a funny way. Amusingly, a lot of the minigames are toys we give to babies: it is like we are relearning how to move, just as we did when we were fresh new brains awash with sense-data. But despite that, it works way better than you’d expect it to. You build an intuitive sense of how your ‘ghost hand’ relates to your real hand, and how to get it to do certain things. It doesn’t feel like really interacting with solid objects, but you can interact with objects with a great deal more dexterity than you can in a regular 3D physics-manipulation game (Garry’s Mod or something).

The VR controller is a small and fairly light piece of plastic. The hand tracking is literally an empty hand. In games, it can become all sorts of things. Most often it’s a hand, or else a weapon like a sword or a gun. The player can swing their hand or controller around freely, so how do you communicate a sense of weight? Well, proprioception - your body’s sense of where your limbs are - isn’t actually that precise. If you push against a heavy object, even if your real hands go straight through it, if your virtual hands strain to get it moving then your brain will override the proprioception with what it’s seeing, and it will still feel like you’re pushing something heavy.

Surgineer builds on HPL’s hand tracking concept to have you play the role of a surgeon, picking up tools to cut a patient’s skin and bones. It’s deliberately quite silly - the surgeries you’re performing quickly escalate to things like brain transplants, and you have some pretty magical tools - but it is a game of fairly fine manipulation. I found this one tended to work a lot better with controllers (the controller buttons are used to determine the positions of your fingers, with the trigger and grip button causing your virtual hand to close), and I was able to complete most of the game, if not with very high scores. It’s a funny game, though quite difficult! I think it would be great for streams.

Now, the final level has you manipulating a robot arm with a joystick. This is where it kind of fell apart for me - a real joystick has resistance against being pushed, which the controller, held freely in your hand, doesn’t, so it’s difficult to rotate the virtual joystick without pulling your hand out of position. There were just too many layers of slippage in between me and the robot arm - real hand position to virtual hand position to virtual joystick position to robot arm position - and it was too hard to predict how the robot would move.

But that’s interesting in itself, for showing the limits of these methods. If you attached the controller to a pivot on your desk, it would probably feel a lot easier to manipulate the virtual joystick, since the physics of the real and virtual object would be similar.

Current VR systems track your hands and head, and that’s it. So if the player is playing as a human, the question is what you do with the rest of the body. If the player is visible to others, or you want them to look down and see their own body, you have to simulate it somehow - a combination of an animation system with IK to match the head and hand positions.

And that adds its own design considerations. If it’s a combat game, is their body a target? Most games seem to elect to make the head the only point of vulnerability. For example in Beat Saber, it doesn’t matter if you’re standing in an obstacle as long as your head is clear. I’m not entirely sure if your body can get hit in Superhot. In Echo Arena, you have to hit other players on the head.

I’m not sure if anyone’s made a VR fencing game that’s any good. It seems like a very natural fit - a fencing piste is a limited area, and controllers map to swords very nicely. But also it would have a bunch of problems: if your sword gets parried, it will detach from your hand position, which will get very confusing very quickly. If you’re hit, you won’t feel it. I’ll have to look into that, it must have been done...

Another thing you lose out in VR is the matter of framing. VR films do exist, I watched a few, but they have a big problem: the camera frame is so vitally important to how regular film communicates a story. Think of Sergei Eisenstein and montage theory; the language of film is the cut, the shot length, the angle.

Videogames already have the problem that you can’t rely on the player looking in a particular direction. They solve this with clever level design (e.g. you walk out of a tunnel into a wide open vista) or by seizing control of the camera in a cutscene. But mostly, they define the ways the camera can move. Indeed, many of the genres of game are defined in large part by their camera mechanics - a side-scrolling shmup versus a 2D platformer versus a third person shooter.

So if you think about games that make heavy use of the camera, such as NieR - how would this translate to VR? All the narrative VR games that I’ve played tend to be fully ‘immersive’ in the manner of Half-Life - you never leave the POV of your character. Perhaps a cutscene is possible, but you still have to accept that the player can move their POV around. A VR cutscene is more akin to a moving diorama than a film.

Before I started playing around in VR, I imagined that we’d have to find ways to realistically simulate the sensations of touch, and VR would never really feel ‘real’ without an incredibly fancy haptic feedback suit, omnidirectional treadmill, etc. The reality is in a way more interesting: videogames have always been about approximations and abstractions, and the same is just as true with VR. We are trying to find suitable representations to communicate what is intuitive in 3D space, give the brain enough hooks that it can adapt itself to a new form of interaction with the world. And brains are plastic! Look how well we’ve all adapted to becoming computer touchers.

Roger (my new boss ^^) compared current VR to the first generation of 3D games, when they were still figuring out what mechanics and control schemes would make sense. (Nowadays nearly every 3D game controls the same; it’s essentially a solved problem.) That’s where VR is, there’s a lot of experiments and some standard patterns but a lot of room for experimentation still. So, even if mostly my role is in visuals at the moment, it’s exciting to be part of a new medium being born.

VR definitely isn’t going to replace flatscreen games. There are many genres of game that simply do not have any reason to be in VR at all outside of a gimmick. While VR motion tracking is now very good, and you can use the controllers as laser pointers (which is how most menus in VR work), they do not have the precision of a mouse. Serving information to the player is another tricky problem; text in VR games tends to be big and has a specific 3D location, it’s hard to match the density of information you can get on a screen, and I’m told that information hovering around your peripheral vision does not feel good in VR.

That means, for example, complicated strategy games are not a good fit. On the other hand, first-person shooting is very good in VR, you’re physically aiming your gun. It’s less accurate than mouse-driven first-person shooting where you’re always perfectly aligned with your sights, but the manipulation of the gun feels more satisfying, it’s good at selling the fantasy. (Though you do lose out on the whole medium of first person gun-interaction animations!)

It’s funny - something like Superhot is in many ways an evolution of the light gun games from the PS2 era. They’re having a moment once again.

So we’re working out a new set of genres for a new medium. In some years, probably design patterns will settle down, we’ll work out what feels good, and games will start to mature as they did on PC and consoles. A lot of VR games now are built around one specific high concept or mechanic, in contrast to games on other consoles where the mechanics are for the most part well-established and it’s more about fleshing them out with a cohesive package of stories and visuals. In a way, the majority of VR games feel a lot more like indie games than AAA games.

Will there be a THRUST//DOLL VR version one day? No promises, and the game will always be flatscreen first, but it’s going to be fun to see if it would work at all.

[bsetec]

What is the future of Metaverse in Online Gaming Industry

As we enter a new digital era, the concept of the Metaverse is becoming a cornerstone of innovation within the online gaming industry. Nearly hundreds of millions of virtual reality products are expected to be in use in the next 5 years and almost 154 were counted in the first quarter of this year. Let's explore the future of the Metaverse and highlight software company's groundbreaking contributions to this dynamic landscape.

What is Metaverse in the gaming industry?

 A virtual universe where players can engage, create, and socialize, the Metaverse offers limitless possibilities for both gamers and developers. Many companies contribute to this evolution, one among them is BSEtec - A leading blockchain software development company whose vision and technology are shaping the future of online gaming.

Is it a New Era of Digital Interaction? Yes, The Metaverse makes digital interactions which promises to redefine how players interact with digital worlds and one another. Through virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI), the gaming experience is becoming more immersive and interconnected than ever before recognize the importance of these technologies in creating a vibrant Metaverse, committing itself to harnessing these advancements to enhance user experience.

How does BSEtec make its technological Innovation?

 BSEtec is at the forefront of integrating advanced technologies into the gaming experience. has built applications using VR and AR, and they have been customized when required to create environments that feel alive and interactive. Players can expect stunning graphics, realistic physics, and seamless experiences that blur the lines between reality and digital existence. 

The future of the Metaverse will likely see an increased focus on interconnectivity between different games and platforms. The player will be able to traverse various games and worlds seamlessly. This cross-platform functionality will allow characters, assets, and achievements to be used across multiple games, creating a cohesive ecosystem that enhances player engagement and retention which can be developed as a web and mobile app.

Enhancing Social Interactions is a central pillar of the Metaverse. aims to improve this aspect by developing social gaming platforms facilitating seamless communication and collaboration among players. Enabling dynamic in-game interactions and fostering communal events, ensures that social experiences are rich and meaningful. Gamers will not only connect with friends but also forge monetization with ad-mob as well as onboarding into many influencers as entrepreneurs, which in other terms as Play-to-Earn Models invokes Economic Opportunities.

BSEtec is actively exploring the integration of cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into its gaming platforms namely mint trades, allowing players to earn real-world value from their in-game activities. This transition enables a new economic framework within the Metaverse, incentivizing players to engage, compete, and collaborate. Overall, The future of the Metaverse in the online gaming industry is bright and filled with exhilarating possibilities that will redefine how we play, connect, and create. BSEtec as one of the leading companies looks up a charge in this transformative journey, contributing innovative technologies, getting connected with their blockchain engineers, and embracing Metaverse, it can look forward to an enriched gaming experience that transcends boundaries and brings players together like never before.

[fotonvr]

Are you an EdTech enthusiast? 🌟

Dive into our latest blog where we describe the difference between Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)! Discover how these cutting-edge technologies are revolutionizing industries by providing unique experience.

👉 Click the link to read more and expand your tech knowledge: https://fotonvr.com/ar-vs-vr/

#EdTech #ARvsVR #Technology #Education #Innovation

[itsyashrazz]

The Metaverse: Unleashing the Future of DigitalConnectivity

The Metaverse: Unleashing the Future of Digital Connectivity

Introduction The metaverse, a term coined from Neal Stephenson's science fiction novel "Snow Crash," has captured the imagination of tech enthusiasts and industry leaders alike. It represents a vision of a fully immersive digital realm that seamlessly integrates virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and other immersive technologies with the physical world. As Facebook's rebranding into Meta and the investments made by major tech giants highlight, the metaverse holds tremendous potential for transforming how we live, work, and interact. In this comprehensive article, we will explore the concept of the metaverse, its current state, potential applications, and the societal impact it can have. We will delve into the technological advancements driving its development, examine its implications across various industries, and discuss the challenges and opportunities it presents. Let's dive into the metaverse and discover the possibilities that lie ahead. The Metaverse: A Vision of Digital Convergence The metaverse represents a new frontier in digital connectivity, where the boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds blur. It is a fully immersive and interactive digital space that allows users to transcend the limitations of traditional online experiences. By combining VR, AR, and other immersive technologies, users can enter a virtual realm where they can interact with computer-generated environments, objects, and other users in real-time. The Evolution of the Metaverse Concept While the term "metaverse" may be relatively new, the idea of a virtual shared space has been explored for decades. Early manifestations of the metaverse can be seen in online gaming platforms like Pokémon GO and PlayStation Home. However, recent advancements in technology have brought us closer to realizing the full potential of the metaverse. The Building Blocks of the Metaverse The metaverse relies on a range of technologies to create a seamless and immersive user experience. VR headsets, AR glasses, and haptic devices enable users to perceive and interact with the virtual world. Additionally, advancements in graphics processing, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) algorithms contribute to creating realistic and dynamic virtual environments. The Potential Applications of the Metaverse The metaverse holds the promise of transforming various sectors, from entertainment and gaming to education, healthcare, and beyond. Let's explore some of the potential applications and their impact on different aspects of our lives.

Entertainment and Gaming The metaverse has the potential to revolutionize the entertainment industry by offering immersive and interactive experiences. Virtual concerts, movies, and gaming experiences can transport users into fantastical worlds, providing a new level of engagement and enjoyment.

Education and Learning In the metaverse, learning can transcend the boundaries of traditional classrooms. Immersive educational experiences can enable students to explore historical events, conduct virtual experiments, and collaborate with peers from around the world. This has the potential to enhance engagement and improve learning outcomes.

Healthcare and Medicine Virtual reality simulations can offer healthcare professionals the opportunity to practice complex surgical procedures in a risk-free environment. Additionally, VR can be used for pain management, therapy, and rehabilitation, providing new avenues for improving patient care.

Workplace Collaboration and Productivity The metaverse can redefine the way we work by enabling remote collaboration and virtual meetings. Teams can come together in immersive virtual environments, enhancing communication, creativity, and productivity. Virtual workspaces can also provide new opportunities for remote workers to connect and collaborate seamlessly.

Commerce and E-Commerce The metaverse presents new possibilities for e-commerce, allowing users to browse virtual stores, try on virtual products, and make purchases within the virtual realm. Additionally, virtual economies can emerge, where users can earn and spend virtual currencies, creating new opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs.

Social Connection and Interaction Socializing in the metaverse can transcend physical limitations, enabling people from different corners of the world to connect and interact in virtual spaces. Virtual avatars can represent individuals, fostering social connections and creating communities based on shared interests. The Metaverse: Technological Advancements and Challenges Technological Advancements Driving the Metaverse The development of the metaverse relies on continuous advancements in various fields. Let's explore the key technological drivers that are propelling the evolution of the metaverse.

Virtual Reality (VR) Virtual reality technologies, such as VR headsets and haptic devices, provide users with an immersive and interactive experience in the virtual world. The evolution of VR hardware and software has significantly enhanced the level of realism and immersion, bringing us closer to the metaverse vision.

Augmented Reality (AR) Augmented reality overlays digital information onto the real world, enhancing our perception and interaction with the environment. AR glasses and mobile AR applications have paved the way for integrating digital content seamlessly into our physical surroundings.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) AI and ML algorithms contribute to creating intelligent and dynamic virtual environments within the metaverse. These technologies enable realistic simulations, natural language processing, and personalized experiences, enhancing the overall user engagement.

Blockchain and Decentralized Systems Blockchain technology plays a crucial role in the metaverse by enabling secure and decentralized transactions, ownership of virtual assets, and the creation of virtual economies. Smart contracts and digital tokens provide the foundation for seamless interactions within the metaverse. Challenges and Considerations in Building the Metaverse While the metaverse holds immense potential, it also presents several challenges and considerations that need to be addressed for its successful development and adoption. Let's explore some of the key challenges:

Interoperability and Standards The metaverse's true potential lies in its interoperability, allowing users to seamlessly navigate between different virtual worlds and platforms. Establishing common standards and protocols is crucial to ensure compatibility and a cohesive user experience.

Privacy and Security As users immerse themselves in the metaverse, privacy and security become paramount. Safeguarding personal data, protecting against cyber threats, and ensuring user consent and control are essential considerations in building a trustworthy metaverse.

Accessibility and Inclusivity To unleash the full potential of the metaverse, it must be accessible and inclusive for all individuals, regardless of their abilities or circumstances. Considerations such as accessibility features, multi-language support, and addressing the digital divide are essential in creating an equitable metaverse.

Ethical and Social Implications The metaverse raises ethical and social questions that must be carefully addressed. Issues such as addiction, virtual identity, digital rights, and the impact on mental and emotional well-being require thoughtful consideration to ensure a responsible and sustainable metaverse. Conclusion: Embracing the Metaverse's Potential The metaverse represents a transformative vision of digital connectivity, where the boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds dissolve. With advancements in immersive technologies and the growing interest from industry leaders, the metaverse is poised to reshape various sectors and revolutionize the way we live, work, and interact. As we venture into the metaverse, it is crucial to prioritize inclusivity, privacy, security, and ethical considerations to create a metaverse that benefits all individuals. By embracing the potential of the metaverse and addressing its challenges, we can unlock a future where virtual and physical realities intertwine, enabling us to explore, learn, connect, and create in unprecedented ways. The metaverse is no longer a distant concept; it is rapidly becoming a tangible reality. Let us embark on this journey together and shape a metaverse that reflects our collective values and aspirations. The possibilities are limitless, and the future is waiting to be discovered in the metaverse. Additional Information: The article should include relevant statistics, case studies, and expert quotes to support key points and provide a well-rounded perspective on the metaverse's implications.