Tag: VR

What To Make Of XR

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to struggle with the idea that there is any real-world use cause for Virtual Reality. But some combination of AI and Augmented Reality makes a lot of sense.

Just imagine how AI and AR could fix simple social issues like remembering someone’s name at a dinner party. And Apple’s Vision Pro is the first XR headset that actually looks somewhat sexxy.

Now, this is the point where I wonder where my Mindcap is. We’re rushing towards having the technology to read our minds digitally. It would be pretty cool if we could just shave our heads, put on a Mindcap full of electrodes and totally skip having to wear any sort of goggles of visors in the first place.

But that’s a ways down the road, I’m afraid.

It definitely seems as though XR in the guise of AI and AR could really, really revolutionize our lives in a pretty profound manner. Too bad we’re going to probably have to make the existential choice of autocracy or civil war / revolution first starting in late 2024, early 2025 before the cool stuff like XR is widely adopted.

If Anyone Can Get People Into AR / VR Headsets, It’s Apple

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about the tragic early demise of Steve Jobs is we never got a “real” smart TV from Apple and of the people who could convince millions of people to wear VR / AR goggles in public — he was it. So, finally, Apple apparently may be on the cusp of releasing it’s on AR / VR goggles.

All things being equal, Apple should begin to work on transitioning its entire user base to using such goggles instead having an iPhone combined with a laptop / desktop. Everything SHOULD go through the googles to the point that your entire life would revolve around them, especially the AR part of it all.

And, yet.

People still just aren’t prepared to walk around in public wearing AR / VR goggles because they would fear they looked like idiots. But, again, the only company I can imagine that might be able to pull such a feat off is Apple. They have a sense of style that all the other computer companies lack.

What’s even more interesting is we could one day soon see not just AR / VR goggles…but AI powered AR / VR goggles. Now THAT would be pretty cool, I have to say. Convincing millions of people to wear such goggles would be the basis of a few trillion dollar service industry.

Jesus Christ Is Hollywood A Mess


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Hollywood is currently so out of fumes that it makes you wonder if we’re finally at the end of the post-9/11 Era, at least when it comes to the arts. Hollywood has squeezed ever penny it could possibly get out of the MCU and all of the major franchises are in various stages of clusteruckery.

It’s possible that the last big Avengers movie might be it. That might mark the end of about 20 years of Hollywood history. The question, of course, is what happens next.

As I’ve said before, I think the 2020 election is going to decide what happens. Given that something truly astonishing would have to happen for House Trump not to end the Republic by winning the election, I would lean on the side of Hollywood entering its late Weimar Republic stage. As House Trump strangles freedom after freedom in quick succession, it seems as though it is only a matter of time before it comes after Hollywood.

Hollywood is going to face an existentialist choice.

Does it allow itself to be enveloped by House Trump or does it bounce? Given the fast majority of major Hollywood producers are “Germany Industrialists” in their politics, I think we all know the answer to that question. But I guess it’s somewhat possible that some of Hollywood might decamp to somewhere like Australia…maybe Perth? because of the weather and land requirements it needs. Though, honestly, given how much is done on a soundstage with CGI, some of the coming Hollywood diaspora might endup in Great Britain.

But, on a broader level, it makes you wonder if we do manage to have some semblance of normal life in the next four years, what will it look like? I can’t think of a single major Hollywood franchise that has not either been played out or driven into the ground. Right now, both Star Wars AND Star Trek are dead in the water for various reasons.

As such, it would seem to make sense that given how art abhors a vacuum, that something completely new might pop out pretty soon. Or, if you really wanted to be depressing — given how everything sucks — you could say that the economics of Hollywood has changed so drastically that we just going to tread water until AR / VR (MX) finally matures enough that mainstream storytelling goes in that direction, with some sort of fusion with the video game industry occurring.

Given how dark things are right now, I don’t have much hope. And, yet, history has shown that someone, somewhere may very well do SOMETHING original that is both a creative and financial success for Hollywood. But it could be that “woke” Hollywood is the future of things and we’ll have to wait, like, 40 years until the founding of a Second Republic for everything to get sorted out.

Ugh.

Creative Destruction: Hollywood Must Buy Up Empty Malls For The Coming Immersive Media Era

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

You’re supposed to put your stick where the puck is going to be, not where it is, then I have a suggestion for Hollywood — buy up empty shopping malls now.

I say this because despite what is proposed in Ready Player: One, young human people still need the entertainment industry to facilitate dating rituals. So, even if we all have an economic VR – treadmill setup in our homes, 13 year old boys will still need to go through the rite of passage of asking his cute crush in homeroom out on a date.

Right now, “Netflix and chill” is not very practical for that kid. But going to a movie is definitely doable. As such, even in the age of “immersive media” little boys are still going to need an excuse to leave the house and hang out with their crush (reasonably) unsupervised for a few hours. So, it would make a lot of sense for them to not use a home VR – treadmill setup, but instead go to a revamped mall where there’s a massive immersive movie being played.

No one listens to me, but lulz. I had to get that off my chest.

America 2029: Immersive Media & The Death Of The Film Industry

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m not going to get into the economic, political or environmental dystopia I believe the United States will be in by 2029 unless some very drastic, very radical things change, like, now. So let’s take a walk down what the online media world might look come January 2029.

First, let’s start with a little speculative anecdote.

You’re in your self-driving car, watching the local news as you head home from your 1 day of physically being in the office. (Immersive media has rendered physically going into work nothing more than a cultural chore of habit.) You notice that Gone With The Wind has been released and using a combination of eye movement and non-audible voice commands, you “subscribe” to the “experience” so you and your wife can “play” the immersive movie when you get home.

Your car parks itself and out of middle-aged habit, you check your snail mail. Your neighbor walks by with his dog. The two of you are Facebook friends and as such you barely have a traditional conversation. You eye what’s floating around each other and interact with the immersive Facebook quickly and silently. You might interject a word or two simply because something you interact with is interesting, but in general the event is simply a pause that ends as quickly as it begins.

Walking into your home, you sync up with the home’s IOT environment and as such learn what may or may not have happened in the house while you were busy at work. You always have the option to do this via MX at work, but it’s frowned upon. Your wife comes up and and you hug and see that your young child continues to grow quickly and in a cute fashion. The baby is asleep in her crib, but you see via MX some of the cuter moments of the day. Your wife is on leave because of the baby and will soon return to work. The two of you go to the Ready Player One-type tread mills and proceed to “play” within the Gone With The Wind environment. Thousands of other people have approximately hours to roam around the environment and get to not only see, but interact with, AI actors playing the different parts of the original movie, only now you have photo realistic Vr instead of the passive nature of film. All of this will be produced not by a film studio, but by a gaming studio.

It seems to me that the movie industry in 10 years will be where the newspaper industry is now — contracting in what seems like a moment-by-moment basis, leaving a lot of people looking at each other and wondering, “Why does it still exist?” Leaving out the possibility of a vinyl record-type revival at some point, it’s likely that the video game industry will battle and defeat the movie industry with the rise of immersive media.

I say this because the movie industry — like the newspaper industry — is slow to change and based on a business model that makes some assumptions that will soon enough no longer be true. With the newspaper industry it’s that people are willing to wait as long as 24 hours to read the news, while with the movie industry it will be that people will want to passively watch a story being told in the dark with a group of loud, often rude people. Don’t get me wrong, I love, love, love movies. I love everything about them. I love how they’re made. I love the rise and fall of stars and I love the sparkly nature of showbiz itself.

But, alas, I love newspapers, too, and in 10 years time, I doubt very many of them will exist.

So, what will replace the movie industry? I suspect it will be the video game industry hyped up on the technological advancements of immersive media. By “immersive media,” I mean what some people refer to as MX (AR/VR). Any media where you are assumed to interact with the media in some way. So once social media becomes integrated with AR, then some basic assumptions we have about the fate of Facebook and Twitter may fall by the waist-side. Meanwhile, the entire movie industry, I fear, simply won’t exist as we know it in 2029. Or, if it does, it will be a fraction of its size or own entirely by different gaming companies.

While in some ways, this is kind of old news, I think from a practical economic and social stand point, we’ve barely scratched the surface of trying to understand how immersive media will change every day life.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He is working on his first novel. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.