Posts about Metaverse (RSS, JSON)

10AM — Tanya Basu, MIT Technology Review:

Smalls—whose real name was Christopher Wallace—was in fine form on Meta’s Horizon Worlds metaverse platform on Friday: heaving between stanzas, pumping his fist rhythmically, and seeming very much alive. The performance can be seen here but may require logging into Facebook.

The allure of old music—and art, generally—is that it can’t be recreated if its creators aren’t around anymore. You can paint a picture that looks like a van Gogh, except it isn’t; you can create a digital avatar of the Notorious B.I.G. or John Lennon, but it’s not the person. As much as I’d love to attend a B.I.G. concert or see the Beatles play, an avatar performing playback to a recorded track isn’t the same as seeing the actual person doing their thing. I don’t get the appeal of cover bands or the tenth special remastered edition of an album that happens to be released just before Christmas. Not even the Glastonbury recordings the BBC broadcasts every year. It’s the original recording or the actual musicians on stage.

If we can digitally reproduce everything, what’s the point of venturing out of our homes to see art where it is performed? What’s the point of theatres, concerts and museums if I can just sit at home with a pair of huge goggles over my eyes? In these places—theatres, music venues, and museums—you experience art differently, unmediated. You go to a theatre because a great movie hits differently on a big screen with great sound. You go to a gig to feel artists’ emotions when they play their music on stage; you can hear the sound of their voices before a sound engineer adjusts the controller. And you visit a museum because a painting looks different standing in front of it; when you can see how the paint has been applied to the canvas.

11AM — Nick Herr commenting on the announcement of the new Meta Quest Pro:

This is clearly an area Zuckerberg is passionate about to a truly painful degree. So far, though, the best use case — the best use case — for even the more credulous believers is meetings. I cannot imagine buying dedicated expensive hardware for meetings, but I am probably not in the right market; two-and-a-half years into working from home and I still have not bought a ring light. Regardless, that sounds pretty dull. Are businesses champing at the bit to have staff sit in a virtual board room instead of just on a call? Is this solving a meaningful problem for them?

It is not. But enough people will believe it is. Over the last couple of years, when remote work became more mainstream, people perceived the lack of gadgets as the reason remote work is difficult.

Three months into the pandemic, LinkedIn was full of posts of people showing off the latest crap they bought. When remote work sucks, it’s because the images are pixelated, the lighting is terrible, and our voices aren’t clear enough. And so we use our prime memberships to buy gadgets: a better webcam, a ring light, and a radio-grade microphone.

None of this will make you communicate better. Not a webcam, not a microphone or better lighting. And certainly not a digital representation of yourself in a virtual world.

Nevertheless, VR will play a role in the future of remote work. Not that it solves an actual problem, but because it’s inevitable. Managers in suits will see this and think, ‘maybe that will sort out the disconnect we’re feeling.’