I wanted to mention a little bit about my opinion on the current state of XR. As I see it, eXtended Reality is reaching critical mass. I know a lot of people have been saying this. But when someone like me can see where things are heading, you can place bets that this is a sure thing. Because I never speculate this far ahead without being seriously wrong in the end.
Consider the gaming industry as it stands currently. While companies are still offering single player titles, The majority of titles are MMOs. Zombies and war titles abound. And when you get tired of shooting and bombing the undead, you can always run them over with stolen vehicles. But when even that becomes tedious, you can now go to your favorite in-game casino and kick back and win some moola to buy more stuff to run more people over. Cool, huh?
Switching gears, no pun intended, now I ask you to consider the loosely termed "social" world games, such as Sansar, VRChat, and the like. You can kick back after a long day in the default world, and visit with your friends from around the globe and do anything from shopping to intimate cuddling. I don't need to explain much here.
Tying most of these experiences together is a VR headset for immersion. Anyone in the default world that bleeds pixels will own one (or more) by now. But a vast majority, myself included, are still waiting for prices to drop. Which is why companies like High Fidelity have had to change direction to stay afloat.
Augmented Reality has its own unique position as well, and which is one that will explode once Apple releases an AR head mounted device. Anyone that would know on that is Robert Scoble. He is part of a group of tech watchers that live and breathe AR. And if Mr. Scoble says that Apple will release an HMD, it's simply a question of when. I personally get frustrated that the entire industry is in a holding pattern to see what Apple does.
Another thing that has been taking place is the parallel development of blockchain tech. There are dozens and dozens of indie developers that have latched onto the potential of cutting the ties to the industry giants, and taking the metaverse to the next level. Cryptocurrencies are a wildcard right now, giving default world governments ulcers as they all try to figure out how the hell to milk them for taxes. That's all I'll say on that.
And one more item to complete this exercise, is Artificial Intelligence. The Amazon Echo and the Google Assistant are neck and neck in voice interfaces. Microsoft, like High Fidelity, have seen the battle, and have taken Cortana in another direction around it, and are putting her in business boardrooms. The "Holy Grail" will be AGI, if you will indulge me. It's so close now, there aren't many big thinkers that dismiss it out of hand. I'm going to gingerly sidestep "sentience". That's for the theologians to determine.
I think you can see where I'm going here. We're living in an eXtended Reality universe already. It's been seeping into our lives for years. One bit of innocent tech at a time. When Neal Stephenson wrote about The Street, he wasn't too far off from whats in existence today. There's just a heck of a lot more teleporters. People hate walking.
Consider the gaming industry as it stands currently. While companies are still offering single player titles, The majority of titles are MMOs. Zombies and war titles abound. And when you get tired of shooting and bombing the undead, you can always run them over with stolen vehicles. But when even that becomes tedious, you can now go to your favorite in-game casino and kick back and win some moola to buy more stuff to run more people over. Cool, huh?
Switching gears, no pun intended, now I ask you to consider the loosely termed "social" world games, such as Sansar, VRChat, and the like. You can kick back after a long day in the default world, and visit with your friends from around the globe and do anything from shopping to intimate cuddling. I don't need to explain much here.
Tying most of these experiences together is a VR headset for immersion. Anyone in the default world that bleeds pixels will own one (or more) by now. But a vast majority, myself included, are still waiting for prices to drop. Which is why companies like High Fidelity have had to change direction to stay afloat.
Augmented Reality has its own unique position as well, and which is one that will explode once Apple releases an AR head mounted device. Anyone that would know on that is Robert Scoble. He is part of a group of tech watchers that live and breathe AR. And if Mr. Scoble says that Apple will release an HMD, it's simply a question of when. I personally get frustrated that the entire industry is in a holding pattern to see what Apple does.
Another thing that has been taking place is the parallel development of blockchain tech. There are dozens and dozens of indie developers that have latched onto the potential of cutting the ties to the industry giants, and taking the metaverse to the next level. Cryptocurrencies are a wildcard right now, giving default world governments ulcers as they all try to figure out how the hell to milk them for taxes. That's all I'll say on that.
And one more item to complete this exercise, is Artificial Intelligence. The Amazon Echo and the Google Assistant are neck and neck in voice interfaces. Microsoft, like High Fidelity, have seen the battle, and have taken Cortana in another direction around it, and are putting her in business boardrooms. The "Holy Grail" will be AGI, if you will indulge me. It's so close now, there aren't many big thinkers that dismiss it out of hand. I'm going to gingerly sidestep "sentience". That's for the theologians to determine.
I think you can see where I'm going here. We're living in an eXtended Reality universe already. It's been seeping into our lives for years. One bit of innocent tech at a time. When Neal Stephenson wrote about The Street, he wasn't too far off from whats in existence today. There's just a heck of a lot more teleporters. People hate walking.
