Lifeboat Foundation

What is the metaverse? It’s Philip Rosedale’s second crack at playing god—at least in the virtual sense. Rosedale created his first virtual world, Second Life, in 2002. Now, he and his new company, High Fidelity, are building another world in silica—and this time, they’re thinking on planetary scales.

Speaking at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality (SVVR) conference this week, Rosedale said that by harnessing the shared power of home PCs, “We could collectively create a space whose literal scale is comparable to the landmass of the planet Earth.” Sound ambitious? It is, and it isn’t. Read more

“So perhaps we’re not that close to a true simulation singularity after all. But as far as simply confusing the human senses about what’s real and what’s not, Fawkes reckons that’s not far off at all. Indeed, you don’t necessarily need perfect graphics to induce suspension of disbelief in the human brain anyway: Just think about how your mind can get carried away watching a film or reading a book. “ Read more

Since the first Oculus Rift virtual reality headset prototype, people have breathlessly asked, “When will a consumer version be ready?” Oculus played coy and stuck to its guns. When we think it’s ready, they said.

Well, evidently, it’s ready. Read more

by Emil Venere-Purdue — Futurity
Simulator sickness—which often induces vertigo and even nausea—often afflicts players of virtual reality games, but inserting a “virtual nose” into the picture may be a way to lessen the queasiness.

Various physiological systems govern the onset of simulator sickness: an overall sense of touch and position, or the somatosensory system; liquid-filled tubes in the ear called the vestibular system; and the oculumotor system, or muscles that control eye movements.

“Simulator sickness is very common,” says David Whittinghill, assistant professor in the computer graphics technology department at Purdue University. “The problem is your perceptual system does not like it when the motion of your body and your visual system are out of synch. Read more

Laura Bliss — City Lab

Immersive virtual reality and its ground-shaking potential was the belle of the ball at South by Southwest’s “Interactive” portion, which wrapped up Tuesday. Virtual reality (VR) headsets like the Oculus Rift fascinated and delighted festival-goers, with promises of changing the very landscapes of film, travel, journalism, and of course gaming—where VR’s journey into mainstream discourse began with the Oculus’ 2012 Kickstarter.

But there’s another area that the Oculus Rift—or whatever immersive VR headset gets commercialized first—is likely to enter: The courtroom. (And no, we don’t mean the current patent lawsuit against the Oculus Rift’s makers.) It might not sound sexy, but the implications could be pretty big.

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By Rachel Metz — MIT Technology Review
I’m sitting in a desk chair in an office in Mountain View, California. But with a virtual-reality headset strapped to my head and headphones over my ears, it looks and sounds like I’m standing in the belly of a blimp, flying high above silent city blocks dotted with billboards for a Despicable Me theme-park ride.

The blimp ride is part of a demo built by MediaSpike, a startup that’s making ads for virtual reality. Even the blimp itself is an ad: before boarding it, I can see its exterior is covered with a larger-than-life version of one of the film’s short, yellow characters.

For now, augmented reality and virtual reality are not widely used. But as new headsets hit the market, advertisers will surely try to stake out virtual ground.

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By NICK WINGFIELD — The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Few technologies have generated more attention than virtual reality, which promises to immerse people in 3-D games and video.

Yet for the last couple of years, the companies building virtual reality headsets have begged for patience from content creators and the public. The companies’ biggest concern: that unpolished virtual reality products could make people physically sick.

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Quoted: “Once you really solve a problem like direct brain-computer interface … when brains and computers can interact directly, to take just one example, that’s it, that’s the end of history, that’s the end of biology as we know it. Nobody has a clue what will happen once you solve this. If life can basically break out of the organic realm into the vastness of the inorganic realm, you cannot even begin to imagine what the consequences will be, because your imagination at present is organic. So if there is a point of Singularity, as it’s often referred to, by definition, we have no way of even starting to imagine what’s happening beyond that.”

Read the article here > http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/silicon-valley-mordor/