News
The First Metaverse Property Appraiser Is Paving The Way For Fairer Virtual Real Estate Prices // ARPost
When there is no system in place for evaluating the value of something people can spend lots of money on speculation, but it's not a sustainable way of understanding what something is worth. Enter appraisers and a standard for determining an approximate market value for virtual real estate. We still feel the person who spent $450,000 USD to be Snoop Dogg's virtual neighbor got it right, though.
OpenXR Wants to Standardize Advanced Haptics for VR and AR // Virtual Reality Times
OpenXR (mentioned way back in issue 38) has ushered in an era of development that is not platform specific, meaning that your experience can run on multiple VR headsets without needing to target specific hardware libraries. This freed teams to get a broader audience, and saves both time and money. OpenXR's open standards are now being considered for haptic feedback devices, which we think is long overdue.
Bob Iger’s first stop post Disney: The Metaverse // Morning Brew
The former Disney CEO has joined the board of avatar company Genies (mentioned back in issue 60). The company already has ties to major music labels and integrations to allow custom avatars to be dressed and engage with NFTs, making this a very lucrative company getting a very successful person joining its board.
Experiences
Always On: Billie Eilish at Governors Ball // Oculus
We're a bit late in sharing this, but you can still see Billie Eilish on stage at the Governors Ball (New York City) music festival within Horizon Venues. This will only be available until 11:59PM of March 31st, 20222, so if you're a fan and haven't seen this it is a nice performance of songs from her latest album, “Happier Than Ever.”
On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World)
On January 13th, 2018 an alert was issued to the 1.4 million citizens of Hawaii that a ballistic missile was header for the island. There was no missile, it was a mistake. This virtual experience places you in the lives of people on the island that day, posing the question of how you would spend your time if you knew you only had moments left to live.
Reading
Re-thinking Streaming: Why Virtual Avatars? // QuarkWorks
Withing virtual worlds and online platforms the use of an avatar to stand in for our physical presence is pretty common. But why are we not using them at work or in other venues? Bandwidth savings over using video aside, there are some pretty good thoughts on this that may make you a convert to going virtual on your next Zoom/Teams meeting.
People To Watch
Legacy Peabody Interactive and Digital Awards // The Peabody Awards
Last year the Peabody Awards announced their expansion into digital and interactive storytelling, and this year we see the first examples of award wining work but applied to historical projects and stories. This sets a great baseline for the kinds of experiences the comities feel are worthy of being celebrated
Commentary
Standards are not the most exciting thing, unless you're a developer and having to potentially support a few different platforms. Or looking to purchase something and want a standard for how the price was evaluated. AR and VR are still pretty new, and the rush toward the Metaverse is only accelerating things. So some of the links we're sharing this week are themed around bringing us closer to a place of normalizing more aspects of the Metaverse. Other links are just fun and things we want to share before they become unavailable.
Hopefully you'll find something that piques your interest.
Thank you for reading and subscribing, and we'll see you next week!
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