Experiences
Wolves in the Walls on Oculus Quest | Oculus
Basing an experience on work from Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean book starts it out with great story and art direction, but what Fable Studios brought this to life to tell a story that makes the fear and uncertainty of youth quite relatable. It's no surprise that it was awarded a Primetime Emmy for outstanding innovation in interactive media.
Event
Virtual Beings Summit
The Virtual Beings Summit is a yearly event that brings together the startups, researchers, investors, and innovators driving the rise of the virtual talent and influencers. To get a sense of the topics covered you can check out last year's content, but this year there will surely be even more to cover as the tech has only gotten better and the followings of virtual talent has reached over 40 million across the more popular accounts. This year's summit takes place Wednesday, July 14, 202, and can be joined virtually on Zoom, Roblox, Fortnite, and Clubhouse.
Business
Virtual Beings Summit: Artificial people startups have raised more than $320 million so far
This article from 2020 talk about the Virtual Being Summit and the more than $320 million raised to date by companies and AI talent. The speakers will appeared only as virtual beings in the conference, specifically as avatars from Fortnite or Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This article adds a bit more depth to the actual value of these companies, making it far more than just a gathering of talent and tech demonstration.
Research
Resources - ENGAGE - Virtual Communications Made Real
If you're like us a collection of published research papers around the beneficial impact of VR on the brain, learning, and education is worth being highlighted. The paper regarding the safety of VR on young adults is new and not one that we'd encountered before and will be one we cite when discussing how to extend experiences to a younger audience.
People To Watch
FABLE - The Future of Storytelling
The Wizard Engine is at the heart of the award winning Wolves in the Walls and curating virtual being performances. You can sign up to meet a virtual being
Learning
ENGAGE Virtual Reality Education & Corporate Training
The ability to bring a shared learning experience into VR that feels like the best parts of a seminar is no easy task. ENGAGE provides a platform for anyone to host or join a training, class, or meeting from a variety of devices. Allowing computers, smart phones, and headsets makes anything offered accessible to a wider audience than other platforms.
How to write immersive content successfully? - Laval Virtual
This interview with the author of the ebook “Writing immersive contents" talk about motivations behind why it's imperative for immersive storytelling to be the focus for any experience. All experiences provide a narrative that, when approached properly, is the defining trait between something magnificent or mediocre.
One More Thing
Virtual Humans — AliExpress
If actors can have talent agents, why not virtual beings? MALIVAR helps creation, management, and iteration of virtual beings and content with their MALIVAR studio platform that employs neural networks in automating lots of content creation and adjustment tasks. We're not alone in expecting this to shake up fashion, incluencer, and immersive markets within the next few years.
Commentary
Virtual beings have made a splash online as virtual influencers, but this is only the start of this evolution of brand presentation and product iteration as a digital first offering. In this issue we highlight some of the existing companies, trends, and a yearly summit you should consider attending if this is an area that you are curious.
In other news, this week we are excited to be launching the website for our upcoming Other Realities Podcast. This will be a twice monthly show where we can talk more about topics and speak with creators and innovators changing the VR/AR/MR landscape. You'll still be receiving the newsletter, and nothing will change there. But if you do read this online there will be a new domain you'll need to bookmark.
As always, thank you for subscribing or reading this online. We really enjoy sharing what we are already investigating ourselves, and hopefully getting to engage more with all the communities who collectively make up the Metaverse. As always, if you want to recommend anything to us tweet your links. Our directory of companies, experiences, gear, and more is growing so visit our directory to find resources that also may not be getting major press.
Other Realities