Metaverse One

con·nec·tion (kəˈnekSH(ə)n/) noun - a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else A major component to my work over the years has been creating connections. Connections between various industries and immersive technologies, the flat web with 3D, and connections between people. In retrospect I know this was a major variable for why when the opportunity to organize a web developer conference for Samsung came up earlier this year I jumped on the chance. Given this realization came later, I’m labeling it reason # 3 for why I had to participate in making a web developer conference happen. So let’s warp right past light speed and look at some exciting things happening on the web right now. E-commerce, a major use of web traffic, now makes up 11.9% of all retail sales and will be responsible for about $2.4 trillion in B2C sales globally this year. Yet even with its growth, a majority of shopping carts are abandoned du...

  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 been great to see the influx of fresh faces and new energy into the web3D space thanks to the popularity of virtual reality. In the Bay Area alone there are several meetup groups around the topic of VR and it was at the San Francisco VR Meetup that I met Cris Miranda.  Cris is the host of Enter VR , a podcast with some pretty amazing interviews with industry leaders about virtual reality at the intersection of gaming, technology, business and society. I recently sat down with Cris to chat about VR in an interview he named, ' Discussing the Internet of Things, Connected Cities, and Virtual Reality with Damon Hernandez '.  Thanks again to Cris for the fun opportunity and make sure to check out the Enter VR blog with his other podcast interviews. I am off now to listen to ' Rehabilitating the Mind with Virtual Reality, Using Big Data in VR and more with Dr. Mike Aratow '. Like the name says, Enter VR is a great resource for those that want to know the la...

So a few days ago I posted the following about an online hands free home configurator developed from a partnership between IDEAbuilder Homes and SpiralConcepts. Here is the original post  and the repost  by sci-fi author Bruce Sterling on the Wired Blog. When out in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley tech scene it is not the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) industry I hear about leading the charge in technical innovation. It is the chatter of the millions given and insane evaluations of those either in the cloud, selling user data, social, gaming, or insert buzz word here. Yet more and more construction companies are incorporating technology to improve various areas of the building process. I observe all around SOMA how construction companies like Swinerton  and  Webcor  are using data from the BIM (Building Information Modeling) process to build better. I applaud Skanska 's  use of tablets  and  experiments with augmen...

Web3DStudents is a collaboration between students and professionals in the outreach, education, and development of the 3D web, web3D applications, and the mixed reality Metaverse. Our work is funded by various web3D projects we do for corporate and private clients. This money keeps us living and the computers running while we teach, learn, promote, develop, and help others in their migration to the 3D web. 2009 marks an important year for us as we start a series of Web3D Industry sponsored student projects with some of the biggest names around. These projects are 3D web mash-ups and mixed reality applications that will showcase the power of the web3D open standard, be available for all to use, and documented so other web3D students can learn the how-to for their own projects. To show our commitment to world change beyond those affiliated with the 3D web, Web3DStudents members are pledging that a decent portion of all our private work contracts this year will go toward humanitarian aid...

So surfing around the 3D web I came across a pleasant surprise. Media giant Warner Bros. is among the early adopters that has migrated over to the emerging 3D web. Using a browser plug-in that supports the 3D web open standard, I experienced this great precedent for virtual movie theaters. The scene itself loads fast, is graphically impressive, very spacious, and easy to navigate around. The categories of movies offered is simple to identify and requires nothing more than walking into that genre's theater room. Once inside the room, which is a nice recreation of an actual theater, one can select a movie to browse using a search menu from a friendly user interface with a variety of different options. Click to activate, watch the curtains draw, and enjoy what is shown. I have to comment on the interactive movie posters that when clicked, play the movie's trailer and offer options for purchasing the movie on DVD or from Itunes. With the total experience I am very impressed, all a...