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Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already.

Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis.

Continue reading “David Chalmers — Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy” »

Computer engineers at Duke University have developed virtual eyes that simulate how humans look at the world accurately enough for companies to train virtual reality and augmented reality programs. Called EyeSyn for short, the program will help developers create applications for the rapidly expanding metaverse while protecting user data.

The results have been accepted and will be presented at the International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), May 4–6, 2022, a leading annual forum on research in networked sensing and control.

“If you’re interested in detecting whether a person is reading a comic book or advanced literature by looking at their eyes alone, you can do that,” said Maria Gorlatova, the Nortel Networks Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke.

Townscaper is a clever little town-building experience that gained notoriety back when it first launched on Steam Early Access in 2020. Now developer Oskar Stålberg has taken interest in VR design, showing a prototype of the pint-sized town creator running in VR.

Stålberg took to Twitter today to ask some design advice from the VR developer community, offering a glimpse at Townscaper’s quaint little models being plopped down and manipulated in VR.

Looking at basic VR design. Current idea is to use a point on a stick for interaction (rather than a raycast) so that you can build in the air. Those points also serve as grabbig points for grab-navigation. Feels tactile. pic.twitter.com/QvqoJzkn9y

HP appears to be strengthening its position as a provider of XR software for enterprise companies. Today it announced the release of a mobile device management (MDM) solution that’s designed to make deploying and managing large-scale VR easier.

Called HP ExtendXR, the software as a service (SaaS) was built in collaboration with ArborXR, an AR/VR device management company that came out of the VR arcade space in 2016.

HP says its collaboration with ArborXR is targeting companies who want to more easily scale their VR deployments, but also take advantage of HP’s global support and HP Horizon secure cloud infrastructure.

Former teacher turned tech entrepreneur, Kai Fraizer, creates virtual field trips for children through the use of virtual reality.

Half-Life: Alyx (2020) has been in the wild for a little under two years now, and modders have been busy using it to make cool stuff—just like they did with the original Half-Life (1998). Enter ‘Gunman Contracts’, a multi-chapter mod that scores some serious style points while smartly leveraging Valve’s Source 2 for some John Wick-style action.

Gunman Contracts is set of free mods for Half-Life: Alyx created by Germany-based graphics designer ‘ANB_Seth’.

Continue reading “This ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ Mod is the John Wick VR Game We Always Wanted” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LcmAlpIp3oM

It’s hard to find a single event with a bigger audience than the Super Bowl, which has made it one of the hottest pieces of advertising real estate anywhere. Meta went big this year with a 60 second ad spot that served to both promote VR to a national audience and solidify its rebranding from Oculus Quest 2 to Meta Quest 2.

If you were watching the Rams and Bengals duke it out during Super Bowl 56 on Sunday, you will also have been introduced to ‘Questy’s’ in an ad during the first quarter. The 60 second spot, which centered around a personified animatronic band that once played at a restaurant called Questy’s, was likely the single most expensive VR-related ad ever shown on TV to date.

Will we find a way to escape our reality by immersing ourselves in virtual reality?