Metaverse One

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...

This is a cool project I came across from MIT's Media Lab. T(ether) is an experimental app that combines gestural interfaces, computer vision, and collaboration into an experience straight our of a sci-fi movie.  Creators Matthew Blackshaw, Dávid Lakatos, Hiroshi Ishii, and Ken Perlin call T(ether) "a tool for spatial expression" that "acts as a window affording users a perspective view of three-dimensional data through tracking of head position and orientation." So what this means is you can use the iPad to view a shared virtual space where you can manipulate objects with the other hand using a special glove. You can draw 3D shapes, rotate, pinch, zoom, and examine them in a multi-user environment. Two people looking through their iPads at a grid of virtual cubes can both reach in independently and manipulate them at the same time.    A cool concept that illustrates another way to do collaborative design in a virtual space.