Category: News-Opinion

Talking castAR and High Fidelity

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Silicon Valley VR (SVVR) Meet-up at the end of March featured a series of presentations from people within the VR field, including those by Brian Bruning, VP of Business Development and Marketing at Technical Illusions (castAR) and Philip Rosedale of High Fidelity.

The full video of the presentations is provided below, and I’ve included notes on each of these two presentations in particular. When reading, please be aware that these are notes, and not a full transcript.

Brain Bruning – castAR

Brian Bruning’s presentation commences at the 0:05:48 mark.

Image courtesy of Technical Illusions
Image courtesy of Technical Illusions

I’ve covered the early work on castAR in the past, some of which is touched upon at various points in the presentation, so I don’t want to repeat things here. What is interesting is that the system’s development has been following a similar route to that of the Oculus Rift: Technical Illusions have been out attending technology shows, conferences, exhibitions, etc., to gain visibility for the product , they ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for castAR which raised $1,052,110 of a $400,000 target.

[07;10] castAR has three modes of operation:

  • Projected augmented reality (AR), which presents a 3D hologram image projected onto a retro-reflective surface in front of you. allowing you to interact with it via a “wand”
  • Augmented reality of a similar nature to that of Google Glass
  • Virtual reality of the kind seen with the Oculus Rift.
castAR projected AR gaming with the castAR wand (image via Technabob)

The emphasis is that the headset is natural, comfortable-looking (a pair of glasses) which has three product features built-in. As a result of the Kickstarter, the company has now grown to 10 people, and the technical specifications for the system have been decided:

Glasses

  • Less than 100 grams in weight
  • Fits over most prescription glasses
  • Ultra flexible micro coax cable
  • Active shutters with 50% duty cycle
 Projectors

  • 1280 x 720 resolution per eye
  • 120hz refresh rate per eye 24 bits of color per pixel
  • 65 degree horizontal field of view 93% fill factor
Tracking System

  • 110 degree FOV
  • 120hz update rate
  • 8.3ms response time
  • 6 degrees of freedom
  • Absolute positioning Over 200 unique tracking points
  • 0.07mm accuracy at 1.5m
 AR & VR Clip-On

  • 90 degree horizontal FOV
  • Very low distortion freeform optics
  • 5mm by 8mm eye box
  • Removable flip-up shutter for AR mode

[11:20] castAR has its roots within the gaming environment and has been developed with the games market in mind (again, as had pretty much been the case with Oculus Rift), although they had recognised the potential for wider applications – they just hadn’t anticipated that someone like Facebook would step into the VR / AR arena and potentially add impetus to the wider applications for VR / AR.

[11:45] One of the benefits seen with a combined approach to VR / AR is that there are situations in work, in education, in research / medical fields where a completely occluded view of the real world  – as required by head-mounted displays (HMDs) such as the Oculus Rift – are simply not appropriate (Mr. Bruning jokes that there are even some activities associated with gaming where a HMD is inappropriate – such as simply trying to eat a snack or take a drink without interrupting the game flow!). In these situations, the projected AR or the Google Glass-like” AR are seen as more beneficial, and hence the drive to address all three modes of operation.

[13:20] Technical Illusions believe that many of the challenges faced by AR and VR content creators are similar in nature – such as dealing with UI issues, both seeing UI elements and interacting with those UI elements, or dealing with physical objects which my be places within a VR / AR scene. As such, Technical Illusions are focused on educating content creators to the needs of immersive / augmented environments and are producing dev kits to assist content creators in developing suitable environments / games / activities which take such issues into account.

[14:57] Current planning is for Technical Illusions to have their dev kits and the Kickstarter sets shipped in summer 2014, and to have the consumer version ready to ship by the fourth quarter of 2014, and it is indicated that price-point for consumer kits (glasses, tracking components, retro-reflective surface and input wand) will be “sub $300”.

The castAR update is an interesting, fast-paced piece, primarily focused on the projected AR capabilities of the glasses. Little or nothing was said reading the ability of the system to be used as a VR system, and no disclosure was given on the VR clip-on system.

This is apparently a deliberate decision on the part of the company, in that they are allowing VR HMD focused companies promote the potential use of VR, While Technical Illusions focus on the potential of projected AR capabilities.  While an interesting approach to take, I can’t help but feel that (assuming the VR clip-on is at a “feature complete” status) promoting all capabilities in castAR  wouldn’t be better, as they help present the product as a more versatile tool.

Continue reading “Talking castAR and High Fidelity” →

The Drax Files Radio Hour 13: terms and conditions

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Drax Files Radio Hour 13 features Richard Goldberg, artist, creator, member of MadPea Productions (and a personal friend, I’ll say that up front 🙂 ), talking about the Linden Lab Terms of Service. As just about everyone is aware, these were changed in August of 2013, only to cause considerable upset and furore once the specifics of the changes – notably section 2.3 – became apparent.

Ahead of Richard, however, the show features a follow-up chat (3:30 into the show) with Dennis Harper, Senior Product Manager at OnLive, discussing OnLive’s revised pricing structure for their SL Go service (alongside a huge expansion of the number of countries in which the service is available). While pointing out that the service has met with an overwhelming thumbs-up in terms of the added accessibility it brings to Second life for those on the move, he frankly admits that it was clear pricing was an issue.

SL Go: pricing restructure discussed
SL Go: pricing restructure discussed

The company actually moved rapidly in this regard as well. While we were asked not to make any public statements at the time, those of us involved in the preview programme (and, I assume those in the closed beta), were asked to complete a survey and provide feedback and thoughts pricing options and points. There were also some direct exchanges with a number of us on the matter as well.

From Dennis’ feedback, it seems those who did respond to the survey may have been indicating roughly the same amount for a monthly subscription (I suggested $15.00-$20.00 in the survey, with the lower figure being comparable to the company’s CloudLift monthly subscription), with the result that the company opted to go even lower, with the $9.95 charge, while retaining the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) option (which again, I personally felt was important and offered the greatest flexibility of appeal if offered alongside a subscription plan), which has also been dropped to a flat rate of $1.00 per hour.

An important point of note with the subscription mechanism is that it commitment-free. If you sign-up to the subscription service and find that you’re not using the service less than 10 hours a month, you can switch-over to the PAYG model. Similarly, if you start-out on the PAYG model, you can swap to the subscription model if you find it more cost-effective – then swap back, if your usage time then decreases; any unused hours you have under the PAYG plan will be “banked” for you until you switch back.

I’d actually asked OnLive about the status of SL Go for the iOS platform, but Dennis covers that topic in the interview ahead of my getting feedback from OnLive, saying that is it coming, but is still a little way down the road. He also manages to get-in a plug for the OnLive CloudLift service, which also launched at the same time as SL Go.

Richard A. Goldberg
Richard A. Goldberg

Richard’s interview comes at around the 21:30 mark, starting with Drax reading from Section 2.3 of the August 2013 Linden Lab Terms of Service, and specifically Section 2(.3).

Richard and I have been, and without going into specifics, very closely involved in matters relating to the Terms of Service since the changes were made. As such, I’ve come to respect his position and viewpoint – which admittedly, has been pretty closely aligned to my own. As such, this is an interview I’ve been looking forward to hearing since Drax indicated he’d be talking to Richard some three weeks ago.

Richard makes a very strong case as to why the ToS as we have it today goes too far. In essence, this can be defined in a single term: lack of limitations. There might actually reasons why the Lab may wish to extend their existing ToS – such as to offer content creators additional routes to market within the Lab’s stable of properties (such as through Desura), should creators wish to do so, or to make services like SL Go (whose servers must be able to cache data, much as the viewer does, on your behalf).

However, there appears to be no reason why, even allowing for these situations, the Terms of Service need to have a perpetual, unlimited scope or purpose. As Richard states – and the handful of IP and Copyright lawyers I’ve spoken to agree with him – it should be a relatively straightforward matter to sit down look at the ToS wording and revise it in such a way that allows the Lab to meet all reasonable goals and expectations required of their services and platforms and provide a comforting degree of limitation for content creators and artists  with regards to the licences assigned to the Lab (and their sub-licensees) in terms of the scope, purpose and duration of said licences.

Beyond the immediate issue of the ToS situation, Richard paints a very good picture of the broader issues of rights and copyright and the increasingly uphill battle artists and creators face. In this regard, I would recommend anyone wanting to better understand matters listen to this entire interview and consider listening to the views of Agenda Faroment and Tim Faith as recorded in these pages through my transcripts of the October 2013 ToS discussion panel on the ToS, and the SLBA March 2014 Copyright & Fair Use presentation.

Outside of these two items, there’s the inevitable mention of VR headsets, plus pointers to the various links on the web page itself. In reference to one of these – the Petrovsky Flux – I’d also point to my article on the subject and also Ziki Questi’s update, both of which should provide further information on matters.

Poetry and the art of understanding LSL

Posted on by Inara Pey
The llParticleSystem haiku, with particle creation from Catharsis, by Tyrehl Byk
The llParticleSystem haiku, with particle creation from Catharsis, by Tyrehl Byk

Ciaran Laval alerted me to a project which, having been announced on April 1st, might have been considered a joke; it seems, however, that it isn’t.

Posting over on SLU (twice, it seems),  LSL Portal editor and scripter Strife Onizuka, who is spearheading the project, describes matters thus:

Long have we struggled with how to make the documentation more accessible. One of the most common complaints is that is simply too technical and we are hearing this more often than you would believe from one of SL’s more traditional content creators: descriptive writers. So I am proud to announce that after many sleepless nights we have come up with a way to address this. As the core problem is that the documentation relies upon very specific, technical language we have come up with a way to bring more mundane verbiage into the documentation.

To achieve this end we are announcing the LSL Portal Poetry Project! The goal of the LPPP (or LP³ as I like to think of it), is to provide poetry for every LSL Event, Function and Constant. More specifically, the form of poetry we have chosen is Haiku. Screen real estate being at a premium haiku requires the minimum amount of space while packing the greatest metaphorical punch.

It appears that the essential element of the haiku – the five-seven-five syllable arrangement – is key to any submitted verse; the traditional invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons being not quite so important, as with this example for llSetTorque:

Spinning, all a blur…
Small moment of inertia.
They say torque is cheap.

There have already been a number of LSL articles which have gained their own haiku, and people from across SLU (and SL) are being invited to consider putting forward suitable pieces for those articles still lacking a verse.

While haiku is the preferred medium, other forms of poetry are not ruled out. Strike admits the limerick ran the haiku a close second for choice of verse form, and it may be that some LSL functions may be better suited to the limerick or other forms of verse. For example, lSetLinkPrimitiveParamsFast leant itself to this limerick Atasha Toshihiko:

I once had a hair full of scripts,
When I wore it, Estate Owners had fits.
The creator, at long last
Learned llSetLinkPrimParametersFast
Now I can wear hair without getting kicked!

Strife also says of the project:

Programming is a part of life. It doesn’t have a holiday. People don’t think to write songs or poems about it except in jest. We treat it as a second class citizen, something utilitarian to be used and ignored. But culture has to come from somewhere, it can’t all be about, love and dancing and taking selfies. Eventually someone has to write a song about cloth-driers and warm socks (Who doesn’t like warm socks fresh out of the dryer?) …

There is nothing about LSL that will sustain it past SL’s death, except maybe some obscure poetry. How many programming languages after all encourage their users to write poetry? It will tell future anthropologist just who we were. Not just about our preference for indentation.

So, you may not be a coder, but if you have an inner poet, and feel you’d like to help enshrine LSL in words of verse, now is your opportunity to do so!

OnLive and LL announce new pricing structure for SL Go

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL go logoImportant note: The SL Go service is to be shut down on April 30th, 2015. For more information, please read this report.

In March 2014, Linden Lab and OnLive, the games streaming service, announced the open beta of OnLive’s new SL Go service, a means by which SL users could access Second Life via tablets and mobile devices using a full viewer streamed directly to the user’s device.

At the time of the launch, I was one of a number of people who were able to provide a review of the service, having been offered access to it ahead of the launch.

One area of upset with the service which quickly became apparent was the payment plan, which was based on a pay-as-you-go approach, with an hour of use costing $3.00, three hours $8.00 and ten hours $25.00. In response to criticism of the model, OnLive sought to make it clear through various mediums – notably Designing Worlds and Drax Files Radio Hour – that the plan was only an initial step, a means to gain data and feedback, and that options such as subscription plans had not been ruled out. The service also came in for criticism that it was only available in the USA, UK and Canada.

SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet - but the initial pricing model caused upset
SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet – but the initial pricing model caused upset

On Thursday April 3rd, OnLive followed-up on these comments by announcing they are both introducing a revised payment plan and extending the service to more regions.  Linden Lab also followed-up with a post of their own. The OnLive announcement reads in part:

Since launching the beta of SL Go about a month ago, OnLive reports they’ve seen a very positive response to the Second Life® Viewer for Android™ that allows users to access Second Life over wifi or 4G LTE on tablets and laptops. Today, OnLive has updated the SL Go beta with new pricing:
  • Monthly unlimited-use subscription for $9.95 (USD) / £6.95 (GBP). No contract and no commitment
  • Reduced hourly rate: $1 / £0.70 per hour.
The previously available offer of a 20-minute free trial still stands.

In addition, and with the announcement, SLGo is now available in 36 countries worldwide, including Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Luxembourg, Scandinavia – even the Vatican City! The full list of supported countries can be found in the OnLive blog post.

SL Go on my Nexus 7 HD + keyboard
SL Go on my Nexus 7 HD + keyboard

Commenting on the move, OnLive’s Vice President of Product and Marketing, Rick Sanchez, said:

We’re grateful for the opportunity to support the Second Life community, and pleased to be working with such a passionate and creative group.  We look forward to further developing SL Go with their feedback and suggestions.

How popular this makes the service, remains to be seen. But for those on low-end computer systems who would like to have access to Second Life in all its glory, $9.95 might not be considered too much to pay per month until such time as they upgrade their systems.

Certainly, the $9.95 price-tag for the monthly is lower than the figure I had been anticipating following post-launch activities by OnLive; I’d been expecting the price to perhaps be on a par with their CloudLift service ($14.95 a month), which launched at the same time as SL Go. Similarly, dropping the pay-as-you-go rate to flat $1.00 per hour should make the occasional access via tablet or mobile device even more attractive you those who might need it. For those who are interested, and following-up from my initial review, I also have an article about running SL Go on a Nexus 2013 HD.

Lab formally announces SL Share 2 project viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn Tuesday April 1st, I previewed the new SL Share 2 project viewer, which has options to share messages and photos with your Twitter account, and upload photos to your Flickr account. The viewer also includes updated photo capabilities for Facebook sharing (as well as a new Facebook Friends tab).

On Wednesday April 2nd, the Lab officially announced the launch of the project viewer with a blog post which reads in part:

This SLShare update will allow you to share your Second Life experiences beyond Facebook. Twitter and Flickr sharing is just as quick and easy, complete with specific options relevant to each social network.

For Flickr, you will be able to name and add a description to your image. We have tagging capabilities so you can ensure other users can find the images you want to share. Maturity settings are a requirement for Flickr, so we’ve made it easy for you to set this right from the Viewer.

As noted in my preview, the viewer includes new photo processing capabilities, which the blog post describes thus:

This update will also introduce a set of post-processing filters that you can run your pictures through to create cool one-of-a-kind images! The new filters were inspired by the images posted to Flickr by Second Life Residents. With more than a million uploads, most of them enhanced by some post-processing, we thought it would be great to include this feature right in SLShare. These filters will work regardless of which social network you choose to share your Second Life pictures to.

But it doesn’t stop there. For those more technically savvy, we designed this feature to be modifiable by our users. If you’d like to create your own filters, check out the wiki page on this for more information.

The Twitter floater and preview pane, showing one of the preset photo filters applied - users can also customise the filters
The Twitter floater and preview pane, showing one of the preset photo filters applied – users can also create their own filters for inclusion in the floaters (Twitter, Facebook and Flickr)

As noted in my preview, the project viewer can be obtained from the release notes page, which includes download links to the Windows, Mac and Linux versions (as does the viewer’s entry in the Alternate Viewers wiki page). or by following the link in the Lab’s own blog post.

 

Lab issues SL Share 2 project viewer: Flickr and Twitter

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update April 3rd: As per this LL blog post, the Facebook photo upload has been re-enabled by Facebook.

Update April 2nd: The lab have now officially announced this project viewer – see my blog post here. I’ve also included the filters wiki page link below, now it is publicly accessible

On Tuesday April 1st, Linden Lab introduced the SL Share 2 project viewer, version 3.7.5.288424, which incorporates support for both Flickr and Twitter.

These options are designed to work alongside the existing SL Share to Facebook feature, and provide the means to link your SL account with your Twitter and / or Flickr accounts and then send tweets (and photos) or upload photos.

The new options have their own dedicated toolbar buttons (Flickr and Twitter) and can also be accessed through the Communicate menu.

The SL Share 2 Twitter Floater tabs
The SL Share 2 Twitter Floater tabs. note the filter drop-down list displayed in the Photo tab

The two floaters are similar, in that they include a tab for connecting to your Flickr or Twitter accounts, and a tab for uploading messages / snapshots.

The account connection options will open floaters allowing you to log-in to Flickr or Twitter and authorise the linking of your SL account to them. Once linked, the Twitter floater allows you to send Tweets either with or without snapshots attached. Both of the floaters allow you to include your current in-world location as a part of a Tweet / with a snapshot.

The Share 2 Flickr floater tabs
The Share 2 Flickr floater tabs

Insofar as snapshots are concerned, both capabilities provide the following options:

  • A refresh button
  • An image size drop-down
  • A filter options drop-down (users and developers can design their own filtering scripts if they so wish using the filter documentation in the wiki
  • A preview button for checking how shots will look prior to upload.

Additionally, the Flickr floater includes the ability to provide snaps with a title, description, and Flickr tags.

facebook-photo
The updated SL Share to Facebook floater, with the location option removed, and the filter options added

Finally, the SL Share to Facebook floater has also been updated with this viewer:

  • The photo floater includes the same filter options, etc., as the Twitter and Flickr options, although there is no longer an option to include a SLurl, as per Facebook’s requirements (see right)
  • There is a new Friends tab, which I assume lists all your Facebook friends when you SL account is linked to your Facebook account. I have no idea if any additional functionality is available in the tab, as I don’t use Facebook and so cannot check.

At the time of writing, it is unclear whether or not the Facebook photo upload block has been lifted by Facebook or not. As I reported in my week 13 SL projects updates, LL believe they have updated both the viewer and the back-end intermediate process linking to Facebook in order to comply with Facebook’s requirements. However, any official lifting of the block by Facebook as yet to be confirmed by the Lab.

Currently, the new SL Share 2 features are only available in the project viewer, and will not be available in the release viewer until they progress to a release status.

In the meantime, details on the new project viewer can be obtained from the release notes page, which includes download links to the Windows, Mac and Linux versions (as does the viewer’s entry in the Alternate Viewers wiki page).

Related links