HTC brings physical objects into a virtual world

Physical reality, virtual reality and mixed reality: it’s a matter of gradations, not of hard oppositions. The Wall Street Journal shows this from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona – a tracking system by HTC Vive allowing to incorporate physical objects into a virtual environment: Then again, I don’t mean… Continue reading

Philip Rosedale and Fred Ehrsam discuss blockchain in a virtual salon

It seems the virtual world High Fidelity is hosting interesting events, like this salon about blockchain with Philip Rosedale (High Fideltiy, founding father of Second Life) and  Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam. I think it’s a good idea to organize these salons, they remind me of the Metanomics series in Second… Continue reading

One million headsets – success or failure?

How much is about one million headsets? Consumers purchased 915,000 PlayStation VR headsets as of Feb. 19, roughly four months after it went on sale, so The New York Times reports. This is in line with Sony’s goal of one million by April. But how does this result, which seems… Continue reading

Philip Rosedale wants to improve upon the real world

The Financial Times runs an intriguing portrait of Philip Rosedale, the founding father of Linden Lab and Second Life and these days building a VR-compatible virtual world called High Fidelity. The article not only focuses on the virtual world ambitions of Rosedale but also on his renovation and building projects… Continue reading

Virtual Reality Games as a Metaphor

“Virtual” is often used as a metaphor for “almost nothing” – like in “it’s only virtual, it’s not real”. I encountered an interesting example of that language usage by a well-known historian – actually what he referred to was more “mixed reality” than “virtual reality”, but his logic was the… Continue reading

The disappearing headset

Google makes headsets “disappear” or at least show the face of the VR-user. The Google Research Blog had all the details about “headset removal for virtual and mixed reality“. their definition of Mixed Reality is a bit limited I think: a related medium that shares the virtual context of a… Continue reading

Blockchain for avatars

Even though I’m sceptical about the appeal of open-ended, user-created virtual worlds for a mainstream audience, I still follow people who are very active in that field because they tend to be highly creative out of the box thinkers. One of them is Philip Rosedale, the founding father of Linden… Continue reading

Facebook as the Mixed Reality which really matters

This blog remained silent for more than a year. I continued writing my column Legrand Inconnu for my newspaper De Tijd – about the impact of technology on society and the economy. Part of my writing is about Virtual Reality, Virtual Worlds and Augmented Reality. I’m still fascinated by VR and… Continue reading

New Media experts: 3 steps to get ready for Virtual Reality

You’re a new media expert, specializing in video, social media, liveblogging or infograhics? Get ready for the final breakthrough in virtual reality, which is starting to impact sectors such as education and even the newspaper industry. As a columnist about new media for the business newspaper De Tijd in Belgium,… Continue reading