Spatial News™ #027
This week we're going to look at experiments in AR, metaverse, virtual offices, virtual beings, NFTs & IoT, government in virtual worlds, deepfake AI, Spatial News™ in the Nordics and more!
Spatial News™ is a particular brand of spatial journalism that isn’t visualized in any kind of X-Reality (at least, not for now) and is more akin to journalissimo than to journalism. Welcome to the 27th edition, Spatialists! "If A Machine, A Terminator, Can Learn The Value Of Human Life, Maybe We Can, Too.” -Sarah Connor, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Metaverse, Metaverse, Metaverse:
(Saying ‘Virtual Worlds’ three times like Candy Man or Jan Brady [study your pop culture lore, younglings] doesn’t really roll off the tongue.)
Created and shared by Alvin Wang Graylin
Following numbers seven and ten, here’s my myth:
The Metaverse is a multiverse.
What more can you add? Comment in the comment section.
“Omnireality” is the New Business Strategy in the Metaverse
Fadi Chehimi, PhD, Accenture’s Metaverse and 3D Commerce co-Lead for Europe writes,
“When defining your business strategy in the Metaverse ensure you look at its diverse spectrum holistically through an Omnireality lens. Consider how your brand messaging or brand experience will traverse across the different virtual worlds and back to the physical reality. Target people and their avatars equally in your segmentation. Go beyond this universe in your imagination of immersive content, do not let the laws of physics impede your march.”
Follow the link and read more about the strategy.
Omnireality strategy continuum for realities and Identities on the Metaverse
To my homeboy Kerry Murphy, I recently commented, “I don't understand why people keep building realistic buildings on virtual land. Where's the avant garde?” He replied, “I like this one,” and sent me this.
BIG designs virtual office in the metaverse for Vice Media Group
This is what I'm talking about. I'm hoping to see even wilder designs soon.
To go even further, though, why does one even need a shelter in a virtual world? Avatars don’t get hypothermia; there are no pests or predatory animals or mold or mildew. Plus, all of the digital trinkets that one might own that would normally fill one’s virtual domicile have no actual mass or weight. Sure, there are ne'er-do-wells, but that’s what invisible force fields and lava moats are for. How about a pocket dimension masquerading as a pocket sewn onto some digital denim floating in the ether? Make it happen, Zoan or The Fabricant!
Merging Emerging Technologies:
Virtual Beings: A New Internet-Native Medium for Shared Storytelling
“In short, virtual beings are entities or characters that exist entirely in the digital domain, crossing over to our world via social media interaction, shared mediums like games and Internet-native spaces, and hologram technology. They range in scope from human-controlled avatars manipulated with motion capture technology to fully-sentient anthropomorphic AI.
Virtual beings exist at the intersection of multiple technological trends (e.g. VR/AR, artificial intelligence, high-fidelity CGI, gaming, social media) and human social psychology (e.g. parasocial relationships, desire for companionship, cultural animism, anthropomorphic design).
Web3 has the potential [or not - Joh] to further accelerate the emergence of these digital consciousnesses through new creator revenue models, Internet-native organizational structures, and crypto-enabled digital ownership.”
(Thanks for sharing, Susan Cummings.)
NFTs and the IoT: More Than A Meme
In SN #020 we talked about the intersection of Blockchain and IoT. This week we have Blockchain’s collar-flipping, shades-in-doors wearing offspring becoming buddy buddy with IoT, making it cool by association.
“In truth, the future use cases for NFTs beggar the imagination. An NFT could use real-world ‘trackers’ to prove to a smart contract that you were at a specific place in the real world at a specific time. The smart contract could then trigger something to happen in the digital world, including minting a new NFT that uses real-world data, owned exclusively by the device holder, as proof.
This ‘proof of presence’ scenario is one proposed by IoTex, a company working to secure the IoT. Their Pebble Tracker device is able to capture and cryptographically sign real-world data such as location, climate, motion and light using a built-in secure element similar to the ones used in smartphones for FaceID and in cryptocurrency hardware wallets for private keys.
The ‘proof of presence’ concept quickly becomes ‘proof of anything’, which can include secure, provable health data from wearables or automotive data from vehicles, all tied to insurance-related smart contracts.”
(Thanks for sharing, Prasanna Lohar.)
The aforementioned quote gave me a flashback of SN #012 where I shared Dan Olson’s The Problem with NFTs YouTube video. There he commented that,
“[NFT tokens could act as] the mother of all cookies[…] ensuring a continuity of tracking across all web activity.”
So with NFTs one can track a netizen’s activity all across the Internet, and through the conjunction of NFTs and IoT one can also “use real-world ‘trackers’ to prove to a smart contract that you were at a specific place in the real world at a specific time.” Game, set, match, little brother.
Government in virtual worlds
Before we move to the next section, I’d like to end off with something more light and whimsical.
Kazbek Bektursunov, angel investor and Executive Board Member of the Metaverse Fashion Council, shares an excerpt from 2022 book
Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by philosopher David J. Chalmers
"Who should have ultimate authority about what happens in a virtual world? Should there be laws in a virtual world, and if so, what should they be? How can a virtual world be a truly fair and just place for its inhabitants? These questions mirror some of the central questions of political philosophy. How should society be run? There have been any number of answers. The simplest answer is anarchy".
"...What form of government is most apt for a virtual world? All of the forms just outlined are available. Some video games are effectively dictatorships run by an all-powerful designer. The most important rules are built into the software, and users are happy to enter the social contract that the game designer imposes. These days most virtual worlds are corporatocracies, run by corporations that own them".
"But if our world transitions to one with VR and AI at the center, we can reasonably expect the transition to restructure society. This will certainly lead to political upheaval, and perhaps to political revolution".
Let’s goooooooooo! I’m ready. I never trusted robots or digital models anyway.
And now…AR
Showcasing 27 Published Experiments in AR Storytelling
“The New York Times produces world-class augmented reality journalism. Spatial data, real-scale explainers, interactive visual stories, 3D art, and immersive environments can enhance our readers’ understanding of the world. Since 2020, R&D has experimented with dozens of these stories in collaboration with the newsroom using Instagram’s Spark AR platform.
We tell stories from the sports desk to the climate beat using a range of approaches from detailed photogrammetry reconstructions to cutting-edge motion capture techniques.”
“Spatial journalism”. Pfft
(Thanks for sharing, Tom Emrich.)
Spatial News™ from the Nordics:
Enter The Brook Metaverse
“To commemorate what would have been Biggie’s 50th birthday, BURST Live, in partnership with the Notorious B.I.G. Estate, HYPERREAL® and SURREAL Events is creating a gamified virtual metaverse, ‘The Brook’, that takes users back to old school Brooklyn of the 1990s.”
First thing that came into my head: “Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, when I was dead broke, man, I couldn’t picture this…” -Biggie Smalls, “Juicy”
In a recent LI post about The Brook, Tom Ffiske, Editor at the Immersive Wire writes,
“I'm not sure how I feel about companies bringing back late celebrities - such as Notorious B.I.G. - to incorporate into a virtual world[…]
On the one hand, it is a creative way for fans to be immersed with their favourite celebrities, as an event that brings people together[…]
But on the other hand, I am not sure how I feel about someone's likeness being used post-mortem. Though this may be a sub-issue as Biggie's estate gave permission for the work, and is working with Burst Live and Surreal Events to bring it to life.
What do you think?”
I'm glad Tom brought this up. I think it needs to be discussed. For me, if Big's mom and estate okay this, and it is done 'respectfully', I'm okay with it. It gives fans the opportunity to experience the legend again, in a different way. At the same time, how many fans are going to be able or willing to buy NFT land to experience it? Mainstream adoption isn’t around the block any time soon.
On the other, other hand, going back to use of the likeness of the deceased,
Does Kendrick Lamar Run Afoul of Copyright Law by Using Deepfakes in “The Heart Part 5”?
“In the clip, the rapper wields the controversial technology to transform into Will Smith, Jussie Smollett, O.J. Simpson, Kobe Bryant and Nipsey Hussle [the latter two which are deceased]. It’s unlikely the celebrities [or their estates] consented to being in the video, raising the question of whether Lamar and production house pgLang are legally in the clear for using their likenesses.”
How do Kobe’s and Nipsey’s families (and estates) feel about this?
(Thanks for sharing, Rafael Brown.)
Nordic Breakfast Meetup at AWE
On June 2, 2022, the Nordic Breakfast Meetup at AWE is hosted by Nordic Innovation House - Silicon Valley in conjunction with Spatial8 and Silicon Vikings at the Ericsson Studio in Santa Clara, California. If you're in town for AWE US come and meet global companies across the XR industry!
AWE Nite Northern XR: Focus on Finland
It's been a little over two years since the very first AWE Nite Northern XR (then, AWE Nite Helsinki). Now, we're back in Helsinki to celebrate!
If you’re in town, welcome to AWE Nite Northern XR: Focus on Finland! It will take place from 18:00-20:00 EEST (Helsinki time) at Arcade5 (on the Maria01 campus) and will be live streamed.
Huge thanks to the meet up’s sponsors Glue & Helsinki Games Capital (& us - Spatial8)!
The agenda will include:
⭐ Words from the new MD of Helsinki Games Capital!
⭐ Spatial News™ newscast live!
⭐ Presentations from Glue about VR collaboration and the future of work! &
⭐ NonFun Agency about their “Happy Finns” NFT project!
⭐ A panel discussion about how the Finnish XR has progressed over the past 2 years, and where it's going!
⭐ demos, networking, food & beverages!
Seats are limited so sign up today!
Thanks for joining us on our mission to save the future, Spatialists!
Joh of Spatial8, the Zahn Connor of the Metaverse
Join the 700+ Spatialists exploring XR, Blockchain, and other emerging tech, their applications, their potential, and their possible consequences
P.S. Don’t forget to take our Future Technologies Usage Survey 2022 for a chance to get some random NFTs!