While in the US... it was impossible to resist a demo of the Apple Vision Pro! The resolution is outstanding. I probably wouldn't read a book through the cameras, but it's close. This made the 3D and immersive movie clips designed for the headset extremely good.
However, cut off from the main ecosystem of #VR apps, I felt it was a bit like going to the iMAX: impressive but lacking long-term use. I might feel different if most VR apps released an #AVP version that fully utilised its resolution.
I’ve bought a cheerful lime green basket for my exercise bike, so I can drop my #VR controllers into it when cycling through the virtual worlds of holofit! It also takes my phone which is handy, as I often listen to an audiobook at the same time, lose track and have to hit the 30s rewind button 😅 (Also, yes, much entertainment is needed to get me onto a bike with any regularity…!)
Tried out Dungeons of Eternity tonight in #VR where you fight off legions of the undead 🧟 I will say a lot less fun on your own (i.e. creepy AF) but a good laugh with friends! You’re only allowed a group of three though, which means we have to wait for one of our usual four to be away/deathly ill/with better friends/fed up of our shenanigans.
Tried out “Demeo” tonight: a multiplayer adventure board game that you can play in #VR or #AR. It was well done, and fun to see the pieces animate and move! Also easier to learn the rules than for a regular board game as you weren’t able to make an invalid move, and aspects such as the cards were dealt automatically!
If you are interested in the use of virtual spaces for online events, do check out this event next week!
Organised by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), this #astrophotography gallery is hosted in spatial: a 3D virtual space you can explore via a regular web browser or #VR Meta headset.
I love virtual spaces for feeling I've "gone somewhere", and the audio falloff means you can chat to people you meet... or run off and ignore their babble while you cruise the #astronomy art.
New Review Essay on @lmesseri tremendous new book, ethnography & tech, social hopes, & false dreams of tech solutionism. Also discussing work of Andrew Brock, Zeynep Tufekci & Kelsie Nabben on Black Twitter, Twitter & ethnographies of DAOs.
The International Astronomical Union (#IAU) are hosting an #astrophotography gallery in #VR! The event is on May 27 from 11am - 12:30pm UTC and May 28 from 8pm - 9:30pm UTC, and showcases astronomical photographs captured with a smartphone 📱🌌
The event is being held in spatial.io, which is accessible from a VR headset (Quest), or just from your computer browser (i.e. no headset needed).
#EPSC (Europlanet Science Congress) is being held hybrid this year, and has an exciting program that includes a session on using new tools such as #VR in planetary science outreach.
But... it's 50 Euro per abstract submission, with no guarantee of acceptance. That's a fairly big punch when the Japanese yen is super weak.
A quick box model this morning in #blender3d! Anyone recognise the shape?
It needs to be as low poly as possible (for #VR), and the circles do look a bit blocky. I was thinking of creating a high resolution version, baking the normals, and using these for the blocky version.
Is it cake? One of these has an actual mesh (I think on the right here), while the other is in truth a solid cylinder with a texture. The better results were from creating the texture myself, rather than baking it on. It doesn't look quite as good in the #VR scene in #unity3d as in #blender3d: the lighting doesn't work quite the same way, and you can tell it's a texture when you stand close-up. But it's also over a factor of 100 less polygons, which is needed for a big room design.
Spent most of the day creating a highly pretty railing in #Blender3D that... is probably too poly-heavy for #VR!
May have to either intersperse the Solar System railings with plain ones (which might look quite good...) or perhaps try using an alpha texture, if I can create a normal map from the actual 3D model 🤔 (i.e. fake it with a picture)
Apple’s Vision Pro is a bad product with an even worse vision for the future of computation.
New sales numbers prove it’s a failure, but more than that it shows the idea of tech’s inevitability is a myth. We have the collective power to stop tech that doesn’t serve us.
Meta lost $3.85 billion on the metaverse in the first quarter of 2024 alone. You know, that thing we all laughed about a couple years ago and next to no one actually uses.
It’s burned $45 billion on the metaverse since the end of 2020.
Apple is cutting Vision Pro production as it fails to meet sales targets.
Analysts expected it to sell 700-800k units in 2024, but it could now be as low as 400k. A lower cost model could now be pushed beyond 2025, if it ever arrives.
It's kind of upsetting that Apple called their #VR headset, oh wait excuse me, their "spatial computer" (🙄) the Vision Pro when Apple Eyephone was, like, RIGHT THERE.
Our Communication Hall on the JAXA Sagamihara Campus has got a cool new exhibit! Step inside this dome and you’ll see a video of the #Hayabusa2 spacecraft touching down on asteroid Ryugu! You have a choice of 4 buttons that lets you change your view, and in June, there’ll be controls to let you try your own landing! It’s been designed with #VSP (Virtual Space Program) who are a group in Japan who develop really outstanding #VR content.
The dome experience allows people to easily walk in and out and operate the four buttons without the need for any assistance. It’s much more immersive than a flat screen, although still quite far from the sense of “being there” you get in a #VR headset. However, the ease of use is a big plus for a visitor centre.
Tried out shadow.tech for cloud PC & PCVR gaming while I'm travelling.
It worked reasonably well playing #NMS (No Man's Sky) in #VR, but I wasn't able to multiplayer Age of Mythology across our home LAN network. To first order, this is because the cloud PC isn't on our LAN, but I connected it to our other computer via "tailscale" which should have mimicked them being on the same network. I remain rather baffled as to why that didn't work... 🤔