Virtual Reality

One of the most asked questions in Earth2 related conversations is if roads are needed in Earth2 and why didn’t developers pave roads before releasing E2 to the Public. Roads are shown as a big selling point by Megacities in E2. Roads are shown as a critical success factor for megacities when comparing with cities, where users bought land with no planning. So we will do a deep dive into this topic today so that you can clearly understand whats the use of roads and do we really need it.

Before we dive into roads in E2, it’s better to start with an understanding of why roads are there in our world.

1. Paved roads are needed for vehicle transport: In the initial stages of human evolution, everyone used to walk around. Then came horses, horse carts, and then motor vehicles to make traveling from A to B faster. And to travel paved roads were necessary, so towns and countries started paving the paths and it became roads as we know now.
2. People don’t want strangers on your land: When living somewhere, you need some privacy and would prefer if strangers don’t walk around your property. Stangers on land definitely will lead to some stealing/theft at some point.
3. No Teleporting: As you, all know there is no ability for humans to fly or to teleport from one place to another (You know where I’m going with this)

1. Paved roads: May not be needed unless we bring in cars or transport into the picture. Even if there are cars in E2, it’s doubtful that people would really use it as a primary mode of transportation.
2. Stangers on your land: In this factor, E2 will be the exact opposite of how it happens in the world. you would be thrilled to have more strangers pass through your land, to have more footfalls and advertisement revenues.
3. Teleporting: Yes, it is going to be there in E2. So why would someone walk from the Empire state building to Times square when they can teleport there in a second.

So all the top 3 factors which make roads a necessity in our world, is not applicable in Earth2.

When it becomes really crowded: When it becomes crowded it would be easier if you have a road and property is next to it. Definitely not a case for a couple of years, and when combining it with fact that many people are buying land as an investment, this would not come to play for a long long time.

When you have really bad neighbors: When you have neighbors who build big walls around you or have build skyscrapers without leaving an inch of property around you, it would become hard for you to attract people to your property. Having a roadside property will help you here.

When someone bought land around you, to force you to sell: This is one tactic used by big construction companies to force you to sell your plot, by cutting access to your property. If (and only if) your plot is next to a road, you will still have access on one side, and would be able to hold to land or get a better bargain for the same.

Devs wanted it as an open world where anyone can build anything without having to worry about restrictions on Earth. They wanted communities to come up in cities/places in E2 so that communities as a whole can decide what’s better for the community.

So Conclusion from all this is that roads might not be a success factor in Earth2. Some may wish they are next to a road because of some nasty neighbors, but for an avatar who wants to roam around in E2, roads might not be of any use. (Unless we can do NFS in E2!, wait… is NFS coming to E2?!!)

Son yıllarda teknoloji inanılmaz gelişme içerisine girdi. Bunula beraber bir çok alanda bir çok yenilikler ortaya çıktı. Ayrıca dev şirketler AR-GE çalışmaları için kaynaklarından milyonlarca hatta milyarlarca dolar aktarmaktadırlar. Bu çalışmaları hem ülkeler hem de firmalar yapmaktadırlar. 2000’li yılların başından itibaren teknolojide büyük bir ivme kazanıldı. Mobil telefonlar, tabletler, ultra kameralar ve sanal gerçeklikler. Sanal gerçeklikler aslında terim olarak en fazla on beş yıldır yaygın olarak bilinmektedir. Fikir olarak çok eskiye dayansa da pratik karşılığı olarak son on — on beş yıldır popülerdir. Bu yeni ve taze teknoloji hakkında öğrenilmesi gereken tüm bilgileri bu makalede topladık. Öncelikle sanal gerçeklik nedir ona bakmamız lazım.

Sanal gerçeklik , özel gereçlerle kullanıcıların algılarını yönlendirerek belirli bir deneyim içerisindeymiş gibi hissetmelerini sağlayan ve amaçlayan bütün bir sistem için kullanılır. Diğer bir anlamda, sanal gerçeklik, yazılım tabanlı bir dünyada var olan bir gerçek yanılsamasıdır. 5 duyu organımızın sanal bir evrenin içerisinde gerçekten yer alıyormuşsunuz gibi duyumsamanıza imkan sağlayan dijital gereçlerin bütününe sanal gerçeklik denir. Günümüzde sanal gerçeklik teknolojisinde büyük bir hızla gelişme gözükmektedir. Sanal gerçekliğin en temel kullanılan materyali sanal gerçeklik gözlükleri ve kaskıdır. Sanal gerçeklik gözlükleri sayesinde üç boyutlu hazırlanmış bir evrenin içerisinde dilediğiniz gibi hareket edebilir, istediğiniz tarafa bakabilir, istediğiniz gibi dolaşabilirsiniz. Teknik olarak açıklamak gerekirse; sanal gerçeklik kişilerin orda olma hissiyatına kapıldığı pc destekli 3D yerler sayesinde kullanılmaktadır. Aynı zamanda sanal gerçeklik uygulamasında farklı gereçler sayesinde sanal mekanlara katılabiliyor.(en yaygın kullanılan kasklar sayesinde) Bununla beraber kullanıcılar sanal gerçekliğe katıldığı andan itibaren gerçek dünya ile bağlantısı kesiliyor ve bütünüyle sanal gerçekliğin oluşturulduğu ortamlarda etkileşim içerisine giriyor; görüyor, işitiyor, dokunabiliyor.

Kullanıcılar, herhangi bir sanal gerçeklik sistemine bağlandığında etrafını dolaşmak için kafasını 360 derecelik açılarla her tarafa hareket ettirebilir. Bazı sanal gerçeklik ortamları, kullanıcıların sanki sanal objelerle etkileşime geçecekmiş gibi hissetmelerini amaçlayan mobil araçlar ve özel zeminler uygulanır. Bazı farklı sanal gerçeklik system türleri vardır; Kısmen bir bölümü mevcut mobil telefonunuzu ya da pc’nizi kullanır fakat diğerlerinin işe yaraması için bir oyun konsoluna bağlı olması sağlanmalıdır. Kullanıcı, kendisini direct olarak cihaza bağlayan ve başa takılan bir ekran takarak film izleyebilir, video oyunları oynayabilir, fantezi dünyalarını yada gerçek yaşamdaki yerleri keşfedebilir, zor ve riski yüksek sporlar yapabilir, uçakla seyahat etmeyi öğrenebilir ya da ameliyat yapabilir. Artırılmış gerçeklik, devasa farkla farklı bir sanal gerçeklik biçimidir: Sanal gerçeklik gibi tüm etkileşimi sanallaştırmak yerine, gerçek objelerin üstüne sanal öğeler koyar.

Sanal gerçeklikte hedef bir deneyim similasyonu yaratmak ve “varoluş hissi” uyandırmaktır. Bunu yapmak görme, duyma, dokunma ya da diğer duyulara benzer özellikleri taşıyan herhangi bir sayıda araç kullanılmasını sağlamak lazım. Sanal mekanı taklit etmek için yapılan birincil araç erkandır. Bu, belirli yerlere yerleştirilmiş monitörlerin ya da sıradan bir televizyonun kullanılması yardımıyla yapılabilir. Fakat genelde iki gözü de kapatan ve başa takılan bir gözlük yardımıyla gerçekleştirilir. Bu yolla sanal gerçeklik sistemi üzerinden beslenen şey dışında tüm görme açıları kapanır. Gerçek dünyada yer alan odalarda bulunan diğer dikkat dağıtıcıların bütünü engellendiği için, kullanıcı filme ve ya video oyunun içineymiş gibi hissedebilir. Kullanıcı sağa -sola veya aşağı yukarı baktığı zaman, sanal gerçeklik yazılımının imkan sağladığı gökü ve ya yeri görür. Bir çok sanal gerçeklik başlığının, gerçek dünyada deneyimlediğimiz gibi surround ses yapan yerleşik kulaklıklar yer alır. Mesela, sanal gerçeklik sahnesinde herhangi bir ses sağdan geldiğinde, kullanıcı sesi sağ kulaklıktan işitir. Sanal gerçelik yazılımı sayesinde özel nesne ya da eldivenler de, haptik geri bildirim yaratmak için uygulanabilir. Bu sayede kullanıcı sanal gerçeklik evreninde herhangi bir şeye dokunduğu zaman, gerçek dünyada da eline bir şey almış gibi hissedebilir.

Her ne kadar sanal gerçeklik genel olarak bilinen yalnızca kapsamlı oyun deneyimleri yaratmanın ya da yapay bir sinema ortamında pasif bir şekilde film izliyormuş gibi görülse de, aslına bakılırsa bir çok sanal gerçeklik uygulaması mevcuttu. Sanal gerçeklik uygulamaları bir çok alanda kullanılmaktadır bazıları ise:

– Oyun

-Teknoloji

– Eğitim ve Öğretim

– Pazarlama

– Mühendislik ve Tasarım

Özellikle mimarlık alanında sanal gerçekliğin inanılmaz önemli katkıları var. Herhangi bir mühendis ve ya mimar bir bina, köprü, ev vs. tasarlarken sanal gerçeklik sayesinde bütün projeyi istediği gibi çevirebilir, 360 derece ile görüntüyü yakalayıp inceleyebilir ve daha hızlı daha iyi hizmet sunar.

On Feb 9, the world woke to the news that a piece of virtual land (9 adjacent blocks) on blockchain marketplace and gaming platform Axie Infinity has just sold for a record-breaking sum of 888.25 ether, roughly $1.5 million dollars at the time. The sale that happened on 23:00 UTC on Feb 8, 2021, was done by a user ‘Flying Falcon’ who explained his purchase via Twitter.

“We’re witnessing a historic moment; the rise of digital nations with their own systems of clearly delineated, irrevocable property rights. Axie land has entertainment value, social value, and economic value in the form of future resource flows.”

And this is not an outlier, 2 years back, in Decentraland, a virtual reality platform an estate (plot of adjacent land was sold for 210,762.80$ and just one plot of land (16*16 meter) was sold for 176,958.14$. There are countless other examples like this.

There are many Virtual Worlds surrounding us without us being aware of them, when you’re walking down the street or even looking out of the window they exist and are evolving all the time. Since the arrival of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, many companies came forward to building virtual worlds that are or can be visible through compatible devices such as computers, mobile phones, or even suitable headsets. Below are major players in space and how much people had to spend to date trying to buy a piece of it (Data source: Nonfungible.com).

Decentraland — A virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain) had a total of 116943 sales of lands done, with transactions totaling $40,814,664.61 USD. The average price of land in Decentraland currently stands at around $1,061.73 USD

Axie Infinity — (A digital pet community centered around collecting, training, raising, and battling fantasy creatures called Axie) had a total of sales of 291838 done, with transactions totaling $10,074,756.22 USD. The average price of land in Decentraland currently stands at around $376.04 USD

Sandbox (A community-driven UGC-voxel platform where users own their land and host their creative magic) had a total of sales of 78166 done, with transactions totaling $6,955,569.16 USD. The average price of land in Sandbox currently stands at around $704.5 USD

Earth2 (A virtual, digital world on a 1:1 scale with the earth where people can buy lands where real-world monuments like the Tajmahal and Statue of Liberty reside), is just 4 months old and doesn’t have sale data available yet. But Earth2 environment also has seen larger purchases of up to $41,250 done for small land parcels. Some early buyers of land in the Earth2 platform have made up to 100K dollars in profits in just a few weeks of time.

1. New asset class: Digital real estate has become a legitimate asset class. It is appreciating exponentially in terms of value, making it worthy of investor consideration. It also appears likely to become a viable store of wealth, almost like real-world art and real-world real estate.
2. FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out): One of the powerful motivators for people to buy good reals or virtual, is a bad feeling that they might miss out on something awesome. Many people missed opportunities of buying bitcoin when it was very cheap and this has made them look into alternate products like Virtual lands.
3. Exponential Returns: Virtual lands are capable of delivering outsized returns due to their alignment with the rapidly growing crypto-investment universe. The ease of flipping the land (like how they do real lands) and a constant bull market have helped many earn thousands of dollars in a very short time.
4. Additional possibilities of earning: Virtual lands also bring in additional possibilities of what can be done using the land in the future, like building art studios, doing advertisements, or just renting it out for others to build on it and get some revenues. There are users who build casino’s on their virtual land. Big retailers are also exploring possibilities to open shops in virtual land.
5. Easier than buying real land: Digital real estate also doesn’t have the major pain points related to real-world sales like the huge paper works to be done, maintenance of land, and taxes to be paid. Blockchain implementation also makes land purchases more secure and traceable.
6. Low entry barrier: Land prices around the world are sky-high, but the virtual ones come with similar benefits at less than 1% of costs. So buying real land might be out of reach for many whereas virtual ones can be bought with a lesser impact on the bank balance.
7. Fit in / Portray an image: People want others to perceive them in a certain way like technology enthusiasts or financial gurus. Having a novel product like virtual lands does help some in satisfying this need.

When it comes to Virtual lands (or even cryptocurrencies or NFT), it doesn’t take long for profits to overshadow its transparency and underlying technology. After the coronavirus crisis emerged, many newcomers to this ecosystem are discovering a new way to make some money and some are just trying to park huge money they made from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, so these factors are definitely contributing to the current bull run for virtual lands.

All kinds of assets are perceived as tradable assets mostly forgetting the usefulness of the asset in question. But this isn’t stopping people from making insane profits flipping the assets. The real question we need to ask ourselves is if were are getting to a point where speculation is making people forget the real value of things or are these assets really undervalued (like land in the 18th to 19th century).

Spatial will be adding special new features that will require upgrading to Pro

🎤🖖 HOST TOOLS: Room creators will now have greater control over the room and its participants with the abilities to mute users, remove participants, enable feature specific permissions, & revert the room to its last save.

📱LiDAR Scanning: With Spatial’s mobile app on an iPhone 12 or iPad Pro use your LiDAR and TrueDepth cameras to create point clouds & meshes you can add directly into Spatial.

👂Spatial Audio: Turn on Spatial Audio & the farther you are from someone the harder it becomes to hear them. Cocktail parties & breakout sessions here you come! 💃

🎥 Moveable Spectator Camera: Control the view of those watching from the web app. Show them what you’re talking about, give them a tour, & look right at them.

🤳🏾 Selfie Stick: Take pictures in Spatial, of yourself, of a friend, of your co-workers, or any of the content in the room!

Duplicate Content: Easily create a copy of any piece of content in the room.

📚Content menu: Curate your content from the web app, click the x to hide any content you don’t want to appear in headset. From the web app you can now also add this recent content to the room.

• Scribble color and brush size customization
• Change your Team’s name
• We added a loop button to videos
• Bulk invite emails to rooms from the web app
• PointCloud .PCD File Support
• upload GLTF models from Mobile
• Webcams & Screenshares can be duplicated

• Email/Password Login Flow for Mobile
• Improved Mobile AR Mode Calibration UI
• Improved CloudSpectator feed quality
• Videos play automatically when re-entering the room if saved video was playing previously
• Disable hotspot if there’s a person already in the spots
• Speakers are visualized with a radial effect in the Participant Bar
• When clicking 1:1 button, align object horizontally
• Added loading indicator to Mobile Quicklook
• Added Haptic feedback to Quest and Mobile interactions
• Improved Fist Bump responsiveness
• Spawn content from various integrations immediately without delay

• 3D Scribble on a downscaled object would result in really thin lines
• RTC feeds flicker back and forth between each other
• Camera on Mobile can end up below the floor in the Auditorium environment
• Some elements on the main wall overlap
• When a reconnect is triggered, the highlight and menu colors aren’t updated to the new user color
• Crash caused by GLTF Load error
• Exception in ContentBrowser.ContentBrowserMediator.HandleDockModeChanged
• Exception in UserIntegrationsService.UpdateIntegrationsPeriodically
• Exception when Slack user doesn’t exist in message/thread
• Exception caused when destroying an object that had a scribble attached

According to the latest report from Statista, the global augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) markets are rapidly growing and are forecast to reach a total of $72.8 billion by 2024, a five-year CAGR increase of 54%.

Given the rapid growth of the AR/VR industry and the accelerated adaptation of AR/VR technologies in almost every major business sectors (think retail, healthcare, education, travel, fashion, entertainment, real estate, workplace, sports, law enforcement, and more), the stock market is now betting BIG on AR/VR, demonstrating faith in many public companies operating in the space. Here are just some of the tech stocks many are looking at right now (in no particular order):

For the people who brought you the Hololens 2, probably the most sophisticated pair of mixed reality smart glasses out there to date. Microsoft’s smart glasses are now used as an enterprise solution by many companies around the world.

As we previously detailed in depth, Apple has been discreetly working on a number of AR/VR products for several years now and is planning to release its own AR smart glass and AR/VR hybrid headset. Apple has acquired a number of companies in this space throughout the years, including Metaio, Flyby Media, Vrvana, Akonia Holographics, NextVR, and Camerai. It is clear that Apple working diligently to become a big player in the AR/VR space.

Apple is also the owner of ARKit, a developer tool used by iOS developers to build mobile AR apps and games for iPhones, iPads, and other Apple devices. Apple also prides itself by the fact that all its latest devices, such as the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max are AR-compatible and incorporate a LiDAR scanner.

1. Ways to Get Your Business into VR

2. How Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) can transform Education

3. 2021 — the year of AR glasses?

4. How Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are Revolutionizing Healthcare

Facebook is the owners of Oculus Quest, the current gold standard when it comes to VR headsets. In its recent Facebook Connect event (which the echoAR team covered here) Facebook made a number announcements that cement its place as a leader in the AR/VR space. In addition to releasing Oculus Quest 2, Facebook spent $150 million on content for the device (to bring you VR games from brands like Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell, Star Wars, Jurassic World, and Medal of Honor). Facebook also officially reveled that they have partnered with eyewear manufacturers Ray-Ban and Luxottica to create their own apir of AR glasses. Facebook also showcased Facebook Horizons, its growing social VR world which is gaining more and more users each day.

Facebook is also the owner of Spark AR, a creator studio that allows creators to build face filters and AR experiences for Facebook and Instagram.

Google Glass wasn’t the consumer wearable revolution about which Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was dreaming. But it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a big step for AR smart glasses. The Google Glass Enterprise Edition, aimed at businesses and enterprise-level clients, is now used by many manufacturing and logistics companies around the world. Last year, Google also acquired North, an AR smart glass manufactures.

Google has incorporated AR/VR technology in many of its offerings, including adding a VR mode in YouTube and an AR mode in Google Map, and has made sure that its Google Pixel smartphones are all AR-compatible and include Google Lens functionality. Google also offers ARCore, a developer tool for Android, iOS, Unreal, and Unity which help integrate AR elements into the real environment.