Metaverse One

Augmented World Event 2017 There are not many event series I can say I have attended since day one but the Augmented World Expo , formerly the Augmented Reality Event, is one I can put in that category. This was the 8th annual event and no doubt it sure has come a long way since that first event I visited in 2010 . AWE is the largest event focused on the commercial side of AR, VR, and includes wearables. “AR and VR are bringing superpowers to the people and this year we are on a mission to highlight how to use these Superpowers to Change the World. This year’s conference and expo will showcase speakers, startups and organizations who are using AR & VR to drive economic growth, encourage empathy and collaboration, democratize healthcare and education, and promote sustainability in the world.” - event website This year was the best year for AWE in my opinion and their biggest ever. The event brought in 4,700 attendees, 351 speakers, and 212 exhibitors from all ov...

Since starting the first VR & AR hackathon in San Francisco back in 2014, I have assisted various teams and communities organizing immersive tech (VR,AR, etc.) focused hackathons. Our VR Hackathon ( www.vrhackathon.com ) community went international this year and 2017 will see more events planned in Europe, Asia, and Africa. While keeping things under one umbrella is a great way to keep the global immersive tech community connected, I have happily assisted others planning these types of hackathons to help grow the community and the industry. One team I was honored to  assist is the team behind MIT's Reality, Virtually, Hackathon.  This hackathon is by far the largest one dedicated to these technologies and brought people from several different countries to the MIT campus. From their website, "The Reality, Virtually, Hackathon brings together interdisciplinary minds to explore the application of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies for building new...

  Over my career I have had the chance to meet all kinds of people doing amazing work with cutting edge technology. On my list of kick-ass innovators are a couple of guys I have known for several years now at Capitola , a Dutch digital creative agency based in Amsterdam. David, Simon, and team have been designing and building cool digital experiences using tech like virtual reality and augmented reality for years. Some of their projects include: Pokemon Go HoloLens version  See a full interview with David about the HoloLens Pokemon Go project here . Virtual Reality DuckHunt Ford VR Experience And this one at their previous firm: Pretty cool projects huh? More of their work can be seen at their website and I highly recommend giving it a visit. For those that are looking for a digital creative agency that really knows how to make immersive technologies shine, give Simon and David a call. A great group of guys doing cutting edge work that definitely deserves a ...

  The FireFox folks on the MozVR team released this month the first version of A-Frame: an open source framework for creating WebVR experiences with very simple markup. For those that are unfamiliar with WebVR, it is the term used to describe virtual reality experiences that are accessible via a Web browser (opposed to VR experiences that are downloaded executables). Currently WebVR only works in the developer builds of Google's  Chromium  browser and Mozilla's  FireFox Nightly build. There are a few options for WebVR including  X3DOM , the standards based framework I use for my WebVR scenes. A-Frame is simply another Javascript framework for WebVR and since it leverages WebGL, the demos and scenes are viewable in any updated browser.   "A-Frame makes it easy for web developers to create virtual reality experiences that work across desktop, iPhone (Android support coming soon), and the Oculus Rift. We created A-Frame to make it...

It has finally happened, virtual reality is getting religion! It started yesterday when I read a post on UploadVR (a great resource for VR and related news) about a Bible app for Google Cardboard called Bible VRX . Bible VRX, developed by Derek Ham, puts users in different scenes from the Bible with, "a mission to use advanced technology to communicate the stories of the Bible, stories of faith, hope, and love”. One can see in the video below some of the scenes it is possible to visit. According to the article this app is just a prototype that Derek hopes to build out with other scenes that have music, narration, and animated effects.     So this got me thinking. Religion is such a integral part of humanity and this is probably the first virtual reality application I have heard of anyone doing. There were plenty of digital religious experiences back in the heyday of virtual worlds so surely this cannot be the case I thought. To Google I went to find othe...

Epic Games , the company behind the Unreal game engine, recently showed off a new tech demo at Oculus Connect that uses the Oculus Touch dual-handed motion controllers. Named Bullet Train, the mini-game is an awesome virtual reality first person shooter. Like with the Sixense Stem hand controllers, the Oculus Touch takes the VR experience to a whole new level. Beyond using the controllers to grab, aim, and shoot weapons, players can teleport around the game level and use a slow motion feature to dodge or even grab bullets (that can be thrown back at enemies). I love the folks over at Epic and I got the chance to have my own personal demo of Bullet Train when I visited their Seattle office earlier this week. Here is my colleague Greg Howes that went before me giving Bullet Train his all.

Second Life creator Linden Lab has announced that it has begun inviting creative people to test its new virtual reality world, code-named Project Sansar . Project Sansar is scheduled to open to the public in 2016, and its aim is to democratize virtual reality. Much like Second Life, the platform aims to empower people to easily create, share, and monetize their own multi-user, interactive virtual experiences, without requiring engineering resources. Linden Lab said the platform will enable professional-level quality and performance with “exceptional visual fidelity, 3D audio, and physics simulation.” Project Sansar will be optimized for VR headsets, but also accessible via PCs and mobile devices. “We want to lower the barrier of entry for VR experience creation,” said Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg in a statement. “Project Sansar will do for virtual experiences what WordPress has done for the web: empower a broad range of people to create with professional quality and reach globa...

 TIME magazine just released its latest cover featuring Palmer Lucky , the creator of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, in probably one of the dumbest poses imaginable. Sure those in a headset can feel like a rock star, but they look like a dork in the process and this cover definitely doesn't help this image. Of course it did not take long for the Internet to respond accordingly. Thanks TIME! *sigh #facepalmer

The AEC Hackathon 2.3 in Southern California was this past weekend in Los Angeles. Held at UCLA's Department of Architecture and Urban Design, the weekend long event brought together technology developers with professionals from the built environment to create technology solutions to industry problems. This AEC Hackathon set new records. While we always have folks at the events from all around the country and in some cases the world, 70% of the people in attendance were not from the SoCal area. A decent amount of us came down from the SF/Bay area and some from as far as the East Coast. We also had the highest ratio of tech engineer to industry personal with over 75% of the folks there having a technical background.  To be expected, the teams developed some pretty amazing hacks. Watch the team presentations in the video below. Winners Best Overall Project:  Team Rhumbix Best Open Source:  Team Holy Donut Best Use of Experimental Tech:  ...

I just had an unforgettable day of VR here in the Seattle area. It started off at Envelop VR's office to discuss an upcoming VR event they organize called SEA VR  and then my buddy Greg and I got to visit both Unity and Epic's local offices. I can't thank Nick and Pete enough for letting us see their VR rigs and try out their VR demos.   I had a great chat with Pete at Unity's office where I got a chance to see their setup and try out the HTC Vive  unit. So far, this headset is by far my favorite HMD. Next up was a visit to Epic Games' office just a few blocks away. While I am not a game developer, I am a big Epic fan. Epic's Unreal Engine is responsible for a variety of games I have loved playing over the years so this was a fan boy dream come true. I also got a chance to see the Oculus Rift Crescent Bay demos that I never stand in line at conferences to see. First up was the super cool demo 'Showdown' that takes the user on slow moti...