Ideas

386 episodes

#991: Critiquing Facebook’s Responsible Innovation Principles & Project Aria through the lens of Anthropology & Tech Ethics

by kentbyeApril 30, 2021

Facebook's Project Aria announcement in September at Facebook Connect raised a number of different ethical questions with anthropologists and technological ethicists. Journalist Lawrence Dodds described it on Twitter by saying, 'Facebook will send...

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#989: Former Magic Leap Employees Give Retrospective on “No BS Realities” Clubhouse Chat

by kentbyeApril 27, 2021

On April 22, 2020, Magic Leap announced layoffs of somewhere between 600 to 1000 employees, which amounted to around 1/3 to 1/2 of their total staff. On December 2019, The Information reported that Magic Leap had only sold 6,000 AR headsets against...

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#988: Defining “Biometric Psychography” to Fill Gaps in Privacy Law to Cover XR Data: Brittan Heller’s Human Rights Perspectives

by kentbyeApril 8, 2021

Brittan Heller is a human rights lawyer who recently published a paper pointing out that there are some significant gaps in privacy laws that do not cover the types of physiological and biometric data that will be available from virtual and...

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#981: Worldbuilding with the Guild of Future Architects’ Futurist Writer’s Room: “Traveling the Interstitium with Octavia Butler”

by kentbyeFebruary 23, 2021

One of my favorite pieces at Sundance New Frontier 2021 this year was a series of four open web experiences created as a part of the piece Traveling the Interstitium with Octavia Butler. Born out of The Guild of Future Architects' Futurist Writer...

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#980: Designing Community Worldbuilding Conversations with “Beyond the Breakdown”

by kentbyeFebruary 18, 2021

Worldbuilding and speculative design was a big theme at Sundance New Frontier 2021, and I had a chance to participate in an experience that facilitated a collaborative & deliberative process of worldbuilding that was called Beyond the Breakdown...

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#977: “The Changing Same:” Volumetric Storytelling Innovations, Connecting the Past to the Present with the Cycles of Racial Terror

by kentbyeFebruary 18, 2021

The Changing Same is one of the most ambitious pieces of volumetric filmmaking yet since it combines all sorts of volumetric capture techniques with Scatter's new Depthkit Studio multi-depth sensor set up, photogrammetry, and a fusion of rigged...

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#976: XR Ethics White Paper Invitation from Launch of the IEEE Global Initiative of the Ethics of Extended Reality

by kentbyeFebruary 8, 2021

I've been an executive committee member of the IEEE Global Initiative of the Ethics of Extended Reality for the past six months, and we had our official kickoff meeting on Friday, February 5th. The goal of this effort is to produce a white paper...

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#975: Critic’s Roundtable for Sundance New Frontier 2021

by kentbyeFebruary 3, 2021

After watching the 14 immersive experiences at Sundance New Frontier 2021, I invited three other immersive critics for a roundtable discussion unpacking each of the experiences inlucing CNET's Joan Solsman, Forbes contributor Jesse Damiani, and...

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#974: VR Industry Defector Reflects on Google, Owlchemy Labs, Game Dev Culture, Stagnation of Innovation, & Toxic Positivity

by kentbyeJanuary 23, 2021

On January 14, 2021, VR developer Fox Buchele announced on Twitter that he was fired by Owlchemy Labs in 2020, and 'I'm sharing this now because I'm done with this industry. And I don't see myself coming back.' He described being a VR developer as...

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#973: Sundance New Frontier 2021 Sneak Peak + Virtual Film Parties & Gatherings

by kentbyeJanuary 19, 2021

Sundance New Frontier 2021 features 14 immersive experiences that will be accessible via the $25 Sundance Explorer pass starting on Friday, January 29th until Wednesday, February 3, 2021. The New Frontier site will also be hosting virtual premiere...

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#971: Mark Pesce’s Book “Augmented Reality” Contextualizes AR with History of HCI & Future of Localized Metadata

by kentbyeJanuary 13, 2021

Mark Pesce's new book Augmented Reality: Unboxing Tech's Next Big Thing was released on Friday, January 8th, 2021. It's a lucidly-written look at the past, present, and future of augmented reality. He contextualizes AR within the history of...

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#965: Primer on Whitehead’s Process Philosophy as a Paradigm Shift & Foundation for Experiential Design

by kentbyeDecember 10, 2020

Virtual reality has the potential catalyze a paradigm shift around our concepts about the nature of reality, and one of the most influential philosophers on my thinking has been Alfred North Whitehead. His Process Philosophy emphases unfolding...

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#964: Allegations of Facebook Blocking & Cloning Fitness Tracker YUR Fit by a Former Co-Founder Cix Liv

by kentbyeDecember 3, 2020

On October 4th, YUR Fit co-founder Cix Liv spoke out on social media about his frustrations in collaborating with Facebook as an independent developer by saying, 'they will block you from the store without reason, break your application, try to...

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#960: How Burning Man’s 10 Principles Got Translated into VR & AltSpace with Athena Demos

by kentbyeNovember 17, 2020

Athena Demos is the Chief Cultural & Community Officer for Black Rock Creative and Black Rock City VR (BRCvr). I previously covered BRCvr's officially-sanctioned multiverse world in AltSpaceVR for Burning Man 2020 with my conversation with lead...

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#959: Networked Tribalism: Filter Bubbles + AI Algorithms + Political Polarization

by kentbyeNovember 8, 2020

John Robb has a concept of Networked Tribalism, which is a result of the combination of filter bubbles, AI algorithms, and political polarization. Robb is a military analyst who looks at the impact of technology on culture, and he started his Global...

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#958: A Candid Conversation with Facebook’s AR/VR Privacy Policy Manager: New Potentials for Community Feedback

by kentbyeOctober 30, 2020

There is a lot of sensitive data that will captured by virtual reality devices that present a wide range of ethical and moral dilemmas that I've been covering on The Voices of VR podcast since 2016. During Facebook Connect, Facebook released their...

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#956: Sneak Peak of Raindance Immersive’s 50 hours of VR selections from Oct 28 to Nov 7

by kentbyeOctober 28, 2020

Mária Rakušanová got her start in the VR industry in 2014 when she was a product marketer for the Gear VR at Samsung. Her job meant that she would watch a lot of immersive content that she would use to market this stand-alone, mobile VR headset. In...

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#955: Voice Worldbuilding with “Starship Commander” Cinematic Arcade Adventure + Indie VR Documentary

by kentbyeOctober 24, 2020

Human Interact's Alexander Mejia has a hard time describing what exactly Starship Commander: Arcade is. For movie lovers, he says it's a choose-your-adventure narrative where your the main character of your own movie. For gamers, he calls it a...

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#954: Stanford Study Shows Motion-Tracked VR Data Can Be Identifiable

by kentbyeOctober 15, 2020

Stanford University has just published an important research paper that hows how motion tracked data in VR can be identifiable of specific users. The paper titled Personal identifiability of user tracking data during observation of 360-degree VR...

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#953: Brennan Spiegel’s “VRx” Book Surveys Virtual Therapeutics as a Whole New Field of Medicine

by kentbyeOctober 14, 2020

On October 6, 2020, Dr. Brennan Spiegel released his book titled 'VRx: How Virtual Therapeutics Will Revolutionize Medicine,' which is an amazing survey of different applications of what could be called virtual medicine, experiential medicine...

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#952: XR Association Industry Survey & Lobbying Congress on XR Policy

by kentbyeOctober 13, 2020

The XR Association is a non-profit 501(c)(6) trade association with members including Facebook/Oculus, Google, Microsoft, Sony, & HTC. They're focused on general awareness and education, lobbying Congress on XR policy issues, and promoting research...

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#951: Privacy Primer: A History of U.S. Consumer Privacy, U.S. Federal Privacy Debates, & XR Privacy Implications with Joseph Jerome

by kentbyeOctober 7, 2020

Virtual and Augmented Reality pose unique privacy challenges, and so it's worth going back to look at the evolution of privacy laws in the United States to see how we got to this point today. There's also a lot of current discussions for the need...

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#949: My Wife & I Can’t Stop Talking About “Gnomes & Goblins”

by kentbyeOctober 1, 2020

My wife, Wonder Bright, has absolutely fallen in love with the VR experience Gnomes & Goblins. Her mindset and approach to the game was almost totally opposite from my own. While I focused trying to solve the scavenger hunt puzzles within their core...

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#948: Exquisite Worldbuilding in “Gnomes & Goblins” & Design Challenges of Onboarding New Users & Satisfying Hardcore VR Gamers

by kentbyeOctober 1, 2020

The full release of Gnomes & Goblins was released on September 23, 2020, and it has some of the most sophisticated worldbuilding that I've seen in VR so far. Hollywood director Jon Favreau started to collaborate with Wevr's Jake Rowell and Neville...

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#945: Unpacking the Facebook Connect AR Announcements with Doug North Cook

by kentbyeSeptember 25, 2020

Oculus Connect has been rebranded Facebook Connect, and what would have been Oculus Connect 7 is now Facebook Connect 1. Facebook Connect happened on September 16, 2020, and I talked with Doug North Cook on the following day. North Cook is the...

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#944: Guy Godin on Getting Cloned by Facebook & Virtual Desktop’s Forbidden Wireless Streaming Features

by kentbyeSeptember 21, 2020

On June 11, 2019, Guy Godin announced on Reddit and on Twitter that 'Oculus doesn't want the SteamVR streaming feature in their store' and that he had been asked by Oculus to remove this wireless streaming feature that he had recently added to his...

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#943: Oculus Quest 2 Impressions with Road to VR’s Ben Lang + Unanswered Privacy Concerns

by kentbyeSeptember 16, 2020

The Oculus Quest 2 was announced at Facebook Connect today, and I was able to get early access to it last week to try it out. I wanted to invite Road to VR co-founder Ben Lang to share his impressions, and to unpack some of my experiences as well...

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#942: The Facebook vs Apple XR Battle – The Information’s Alex Heath on Facebook’s XR Hardware Bets

by kentbyeSeptember 15, 2020

Alex Heath reports on Facebook and their competitors for the subscription-only site The Information, and he's been able to get some exclusive interviews and do some in-depth reporting on some of Facebook's VR and AR hardware initiatives. As we're on...

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#941: Critics Roundtable on Venice VR Expanded 2020 with Pola Weiß & Kathryn Yu

by kentbyeSeptember 12, 2020

I'm joined by Pola Weiß (Founder, VR Stories / VR Geschichten) & Kathryn Yu (Executive Editor, No Proscenium) to talk about nearly all of the 44 experiences that were a part of the Venice VR Expanded 2020 edition running from September 2 to 12. We...

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#939: Valve News Network on Valve, Their Relationship with Oculus, & Half-Life: Alyx Investigations

by kentbyeAugust 29, 2020

Valve is a critical player in the modern resurgence of VR. They are known for their friendly competitions and cooperation they had with Oculus in the early days of virtual reality spanning from July 2012 to March 20113. Blake Harris' History of the...

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#938: F Reality Podcast Roundtable Discussion on Facebook & Privacy

by kentbyeAugust 25, 2020

I was invited to join the F Reality Podcast over the weekend with VR Oasis's Mike, Nathie, Rowdy Guy, and Zimtok5 to be able to talk about this past week's news about Facebook's new requirement that all new VR users and hardware will be required to...

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#937: Facebook’s Desire to Own the Metaverse Conflicts with Cultivating a Developer Ecosystem: BigScreenVR’s Grievances

by kentbyeAugust 22, 2020

BigScreenVR is in direct competition with some of the same services that Facebook wants to fully control, and their CEO Darshan Shankar has had to resort to posting an thread on Twitter expressing his frustrations in trying to negotiate with...

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#936: Indie Dev Anton Hand on Resisting the Facebook Panopticon

by kentbyeAugust 21, 2020

Anton Hand is an indie VR developer with RUST LTD, who is the project lead for Hotdogs, Horseshoes, & Hand Grenades. Hand made the decision sometime in 2016 to not explicitly support any Facebook APIs or hardware for his indie VR project beyond what...

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#935: Oculus Quest Enthusiasm vs the Skepticism of Bootstrapping VR with Surveillance Capitalism

by kentbyeAugust 20, 2020

The Oculus Quest launched on May 21, 2019. Nine days later I was at Augmented World Expo doing interviews and preparing a main stage talk about The Ethical & Moral Dilemmas of Mixed Reality.

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#933: Ethical Design in Immersive Media Panel Discussion for Design Week Portland 2020

by kentbyeAugust 18, 2020

On August 7, 2020, I participated in a panel discussion about Ethical Design in Immersive Media organized by the University of Oregon as a part of Design Week Portland. The panel featured Stanford University Virtual Human Interaction Lab's Jeremy...

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#932: Medical VR Insights into the Ethics of Experiential Design with Howard Rose

by kentbyeAugust 14, 2020

Howard Rose has been working in medical VR for over 20 years now, and he's the co-founder and CEO of Firsthand Technology. He reached out to me after listening to the XR for Change panel on Ethics in order to talk about some of the specific ethical...

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#931: IEEE’s Ethically-Aligned Design on Autonomous & Intelligent Systems & Extended Reality

by kentbyeAugust 6, 2020

On March 25, 2019, the IEEE Standards Association published Ethically-Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Well-being with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (PDF) covering the ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence embedded into...

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#930: XR for Change Panel on Ethics in XR

by kentbyeJuly 30, 2020

Ethics in XR is a vast topic, and I had a chance to moderate a panel discussion for Games for Change / XR for Change Talk and Play salon with four people including Tom Ffiske (Editor of VirtualPerceptions.com), Galit Ariel (TechnoFuturist), Kavya...

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#929: Ethics & Privacy in Mixed Reality Panel for IEEE VR Academics & Researchers

by kentbyeJuly 25, 2020

The IEEE VR 2020 Conference brought together the academic XR community to share their latest research, and to talk about topics that are of interest to the wider immersive technology industry. I participated on a panel discussion on Ethics and...

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#927: Erica Southgate’s Book on VR Pedagogy & Teaching Higher-Order Metacognition Skills

by kentbyeJuly 15, 2020

Erica Southgate released a book titled Virtual Reality in Curriculum and Pedagogy: Evidence from Secondary on Classrooms May 19, 2020, which covers the theory and practice of using VR in classrooms. Southgate is an Associate Professor of Emerging...

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#926: Invoking Double Consciousness with VR & Psychedelics + Navigating the New Screen Deal

by kentbyeJuly 11, 2020

Carl H Smith's work is at the intersection of VR, psychedelics, and esoteric contemplative practices. He's the director of the Learning Technology Research Center at the Ravensbourne University London, co-founder of The Cyberdelic Society, co...

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#925: Cannes XR/Kaleidoscope Development Showcase + Online Exhibitions of Immersive Stories with Tribeca, VeeR, & Positron

by kentbyeJuly 8, 2020

Cannes XR is a part of the Cannes Marché du Film, which is the business side of the Cannes Film Festival. For the past two years, they've collaborated with Kaleidoscope VR to curate a development showcase featuring the creators of immersive stories...

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#921: Highlights from CannesXR Showcases by Tribeca, Kaleidoscope Development, VeeR 360, & Positron with Pola Weiss

by kentbyeJuly 1, 2020

The CannesXR Showcase features over 50 different immersive narrative experiences in the Museum of Other Realities from June 24 to July 3rd, with showcases featuring 12 experiences from Tribeca Film Festival, 12 360 video curated by VeeR, 6...

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#920: Tetris Effect VR: Experiential Design for Flow States in a Classic Puzzle Game

by kentbyeJune 21, 2020

Tetris Effect is one of the most surprising VR games I've played in so far. It's taken a classic 2D puzzler, and re-imagined it into a multi-modal experience in VR with dynamic difficulty synchronized to music, three layers of haptics, and immersive...

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#919: Equality and Equity in Emerging Media: Kamal Sinclair’s Making a New Reality Research

by kentbyeJune 6, 2020

The Ford Foundation’s JustFilms program with supplemental support from the Sundance Institute commissioned Kamal Sinclair to do an intensive research project called 'Making a New Reality.' She looked at a number of questions including: 'What is...

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#918: Philosopher Lewis Gordon on Racism, Moral vs Political Responsibility, and Relational Metaphysics

by kentbyeJune 5, 2020

I had a conversation with philosopher Lewis Gordon at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Meeting in January 2019 that really stuck with me. He writes about the philosophy of racism, and takes a very holistic and systemic approach in...

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#912: Virtual Conference Lessons Learned from IEEE VR 2020 + Experiential Design Tradeoffs

by kentbyeMay 9, 2020

On March 6th, 2020, the IEEE VR announced a venue change on their website from Atlanta, Georgia to online in virtual reality for the academic conference set to happen between 22-26 March, 2020. The organizers of the IEEE VR conference had two weeks...

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#911: VTubers & Bridging Japan with France with Akihiko Shirai

by kentbyeMay 1, 2020

Akihiko Shirai has been doing research and development in VR live entertainment since 1995, and he's been a key liaison between the XR communities in Japan and France going back to 2004. Since June 2018 he's been researching vTuber (Virtual...

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#910: VR for Open Innovation with Pioneer of the French XR industry David Nahon

by kentbyeMay 1, 2020

David Nahon is a pioneer of the French XR industry who is currently working at Dassault Systèmes' 3D Experience Lab. I had a chance to talk with Nahon at Laval Virtual 2019 where we talk about how he's using VR for Open Innovation to include more...

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#909: Laval Virtual’s AR/VR Business Intelligence with Marie Leblanc

by kentbyeMay 1, 2020

Laval Virtual has a AR/VR Business Intelligence division that tracks the use cases and evolution of XR applications, and produces a number of VR/AR newsfeed email lists and reports (like this free magazine on Health Applications of XR). I had a...

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