Spatial News™ #010
This week we're all about the metaverse, Blockchain games, a Blockchain-less Web3 (pt 2), and the don'ts of XR.
Oh snap, double digits! While 10 can be seen as symbolic of completion, we’re not even close to done. ¡Pa’lante! (“Forward!” in Spanish) This week’s w.o.w.: “I never sleep, ‘cause sleep is the cousin of death”. This famous rap lyric from Nas on his track “N.Y. State of Mind” translates to mean that getting caught sleeping or not paying attention to one’s surroundings (like the Queensbridge neighbourhood of Nas’ youth) could result in death or, less severely, in defeat.
8 Don'ts for XR
Professor Bob is at it again! (Actually, it was written on the cusp of a new epoch, that is, 2020.) He created a guideline of 8 ‘don’ts’ when creating and selling VR, AR and MR experiences, services, and products.
“(1) Do not ignore the requirements (and knowledge, skills and attitudes) and "context of use" of the target user population(s), together with the needs of the organisational sponsor.”
There are seven more where that came from, forged in the fires of serious experience. (I was going to do a whole Lord of the Rings thing here but just pretend that I did, that it didn’t offend anyone, and that it worked.)
Web3 doesn’t need Blockchain (Part 2)
Last week I asked my friend Tiago Sampaio, a Blockchain and Web3 spelunker, to give us his take on what he found in the deep, dark caverns. Here is the continuation. (Read here for Part 1.)
“Web3 was already happening even before Bitcoin was mainstream.
I could argue that Web3 was created when Amazon started digitizing books in… ’96, I believe. They were really ahead of the curve.
Most of these old school internet companies don’t consider Blockchain as a real thing because they know… [that] all of these technologies have been around already, so there’s no innovation. It is disruptive, but it’s nothing new.
It’s really like having a paid public database storage, which doesn’t make much sense, honestly. It’s really weird. We have been authenticating files for so long using hashes - credit cards, any kind of numbers and validations - and it’s still anonymized and [one still has] ownership.
When you look at everything from this perspective [of being] just a compilation of things that been around for so long, Blockchain just feels like a hype technology. Now [that it has] monetary value on top [is] why there is such a fuss. It’s not going to be the thing that’s going to make you grow, and it’s definitely not a requirement for Web3.
(Thanks for sharing, T.S.!) There’s a lot to unpack in Tiago’s statement. For me, it hearkens back to two questions that I’ve had in previous newsletters.
In Spatial News™ #007 I asked, “Will blockchain really be the backbone of Web3 or the metaverse?” While in Spatial News™ #008, I asked, “Does decentralization require blockchain?”
Tiago’s statement provides the beginnings of answers to those questions.
That being said, although it needs to continue to be tried and tested, if and when Blockchain technology can be used to solve problems, business or otherwise, then there is value. In the same spirit of experimentation, learning, and application if there is a way to achieve decentralization and trustlessness that is sustainable, scaleable and feasible sooner rather than later without having to utilize Blockchain tech, then this should be sought after as well.
How to Play Blockchain Games
Speaking of Blockchain and because I promote experimenting with new (and fun) technologies when possible, check out this excellent primer on Blockchain games and how to play them by David Fox, Founder of Double Coconut, a mobile and web game development agency.
“I also started off skeptical. But then I played ‘em. And played more. And while I still have tons of criticisms I also can assure you there’s something very special going on. Overall, I’m ROI-positive in terms of money sunk – I have indeed played and earned. But that alone isn’t the appeal. More importantly, I feel ROI-positive in terms of my sunk time.”
Read more to find out why.
It’s not all fun and games, Pippin and Merry. We’re still on a mission.
Digital Safety in the Metaverse
The World Economic Forum provides a decent overview of what the current and potential challenges of keeping the vulnerable (which really is all of us) safe in the coming metaverse (whenever it will arrive, in whatever form it will take, and whatever it will be eventually be called).
“VR and AR platforms need specific terms of service for immersive environments, based in how this technology interacts with our brains. We cannot simply apply rules from existing social media to the Metaverse,” says technology and human rights expert Brittan Heller. “This is important,” Heller stresses, “because platform governance in digital worlds must regulate behavior, in addition to content.”
Who watches the watchmen?
The Metaverse is for Everyone
In his “Metaverse Manifesto”, Alan Smithson, Co-Founder at MetaVRse, writes,
“As long as we never forget this one quintessential principle [above] and act with respect and kindness, the future is ours to create knowing that we are building the best Metaverse we possibly can.”
Don’t sleep.
Composite image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4151 Credit: NASA
The Spatial News™ newsletter is a way for me (in particular, since Teemu, my co-founder at Spatial8, thinks he knows all of this emerging technology stuff already) to learn, think through, share, and learn some more with people that are on a similar journey. Thanks for reading, and, remember, you are spatial!
P.S. Don’t forget to take our Future Technologies Usage Survey 2021 for a chance to get some random NFTs!