Connecting the dots: VR, AR, BCI and space

These past few weeks were remarkable: Facebook-people talking about Full Augmented Reality Glasses and Elon Musk about his Neuralink company, which wants to develop implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs). The goal is not just to treat brain diseases but to enhance the human being so that it can compete with AI-powered robots…. Continue reading

Full AR Glasses will augment the homo sapiens

This is a fascinating presentation by Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Oculus/Facebook, during the F8 conference. It’s about nothing less than augmenting the capabilities of the homo sapiens. He advocates full AR glasses and boy, they go far beyond Pokemon Go on your smartphone. Abrash refers to J.C.R. Licklider’s famous… Continue reading

Facebook Spaces – in search of applications

Facebook launches the social virtual reality thing Facebook Spaces. It seems to include Messenger (friends who don’t have an expensive Oculus Rift) can join through “windows”), 360 degrees video, real life pictures and Snapchat-like filters. Very mixed reality, but of course there are some challenges here: – It’s based on… Continue reading

Don’t say “augmented reality”, say “paint the world”

Snapchat introduces World Lenses, cute 3D objects which can fit in about everywhere. In the meantime Facebook announced during its F8 Developer Conference that augmented reality is ready to go mainstream. One obvious point to note is that Facebook is just following Snapchat here. The other: the clever guys at… Continue reading

Yuval Noah Harari asks tough ethical questions

I’m reading the book Homo Deus these days, written by Yuval Noah Harari, the author of another bestselling book,Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Homo Deus is about “a brief history of tomorrow”, it goes back to the hunter-gatherers and leaps into a largely unknown future of a possible successor… Continue reading

Big tech in love with VR and AR, so we update our mindmap

Crazy times for virtual reality, or so it seems. ‘It’s the future’, people at Facebook say. Users will not only be able to experience immersive Facebook-experiences, but will also create them, Eric David posts on SiliconAngle. ‘Users’ means not just developer-types, but the average user. However, it is totally unclear… Continue reading

Oculus/Facebook wants to track your fingers and environment

In case you still have any doubts: virtual reality is hot. News from the Digits blog (The Wall Street Journal) by Timothy Hay: Oculus/Facebook bought two start-ups: Nimble VR, which was formerly known as 3Gear Systems (San Francisco), they are specialized in skeletal hand-tracking using tiny cameras, and Swedish start-up 13th Lab which… Continue reading

How one gets tired of virtual worlds

Reacting on my previous post about Second Life veterans uniting, draxfiles asked on this site and on Facebook: Interesting how some folks get “tired” of a world unlimited in its creative possibilities, a world that is continuously mind-boggling in the sense that folks make awesome things and yes: a LOT… Continue reading