Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
about
Category: Virtual Reality
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NeosVR, an impressive indie social VR metaverse project backed by Patreon funders (featured previously here) continues to impress. In the latest update, lead developer Frooxius shows off its latest feature: the ability to import files and share them with other users. And rather than accomplish this with a 2D pop-up menu (the obvious solution), Frooxius makes…
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"How avatars change who we are" is my new article for Samsung NEXT's Component magazine, exploring some fascinating examples of how avatars (both in VR and on flatscreens) seem to influence the user, as much as the other way around. I talk with several top academics in the field who've been studying this under-appreciated phenomenon…
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While the Oculus Quest now comes with a mandatory Facebook log-in requirement, researchers have reportedly been able to jailbreak the VR product line — read the announcement here from project lead Kavya Pearlman, an award-winning cybersecurity expert. While this project almost certainly violates Oculus Quest’s terms of service, Cory Doctorow, author and longtime Special Advisor…
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With Oculus’ Mandatory Facebook Policy, It May Be Up to Congress or the EFF to Save the Future of VR
Image via Upload VR Surprising nearly no one, Oculus recently added injury to the insult of requiring Facebook log-in to use the Oculus Quest. Not only will VR users need to log in via Facebook, they are now required to keep using Facebook on pain of losing their Oculus content: If you’ve linked your Oculus…
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Attention AOC and other Among Us fans: There's a new community-fan, playable version of the hit deception and backstabbing game in VRChat: Click here to play. (No, not the horror-themed fan version of Among Us I mentioned the other week, that's another project still in development.) While this VRChat version of Among Us is faithful…
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If anyone is interested, we are working on a VR Chat map based on #AmongUs Come check it out and join our discord! We would love to know what everyone thinks of it! https://t.co/cCfMGjaLSl#VRChat #VR #amongusfanart #AmongUsMeme pic.twitter.com/lGPtsyE3BN — Shoobly (@Shooobly) September 25, 2020 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Among Us, the wacky sci-fi party hit game of deception…
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Will we ever really reach a VR experience where the headset is the size and weight of sunglasses — you know, the Holy Grail form factor envisioned by Neal Stephenson in Snowcrash decades ago? I explore this topic in my new article for Samsung NEXT's Component magazine, where some experts argue that edge computing will…
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Admittedly I haven't been following the unveiling of Oculus Quest 2 and all of Facebook's other VR/AR-related announcements this week as closely as I once did. (Owing to, you know, their sheer and total Facebook-itude.) But I should note this interesting point CEO Mark Zuckerberg made in an interview with The Verge's Casey Newton: Casey…
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Half-life Alyx running on #ProjectNorthstar, Lots of improvements to do with the steamVR driver itself, but it's so cool seeing it progress this far. pic.twitter.com/BP9QtFxLSq — Bryan Chris Brown 🚀 (@BryanChrisBrown) September 12, 2020 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js One moment you're in your apartment, and then the next, boom, your reality gets merged with City 17. This clever…
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"The Conversation Around Content" is a new blog post from Linden Lab veteran Jim "Babbage" Purbrick, who recently left a leadership role at Oculus to spend more time supporting XR, along with many other personal pursuits. Lucky for us, he's also publishing a series of blog posts that crystalize what he's learned over the last…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 