Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Author, strategist, virtual world reporter

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  • Meta Now Collecting “Anonymized” Data of Quest Users Including Eye Tracking & Facial Expressions — But Anonymized Isn’t Actually Anonymous

    Meta Quest data tracking anonymized

    Longtime virtual world/VR developer Tim "Flipper PA" Allen just got a somewhat unwelcome email from Meta (above), announcing that the company will start collecting "anonymized data" from Quest 2/Quest Pro users. Going to Meta's privacy page, he noticed that what Meta's collecting is pretty deeply personal aspects of who you are as an individual:

    If you choose to enable eye tracking in Meta Quest Pro, we process abstracted gaze data to improve your image quality, help you interact with virtual content in an app, and to animate your avatar’s eye and facial movements. Raw image data of your eyes is processed on your device…

    If you choose to enable Natural Facial Expressions in Meta Quest Pro, we process abstracted facial expressions data so that your avatar's expressions look more natural. Raw image data of your face is processed on your device.

    Meta is collecting this data, the company explains, for "for things like [emph. mine] building better experiences and improving Meta Quest products for everyone."

    But Tim isn't reassured. 'One look at Meta's record with data over the years show promises of anonymization are rarely kept," as he puts it.

    Also, saying "like" in this context implies there will be other usages of this data beyond QA. Also, the policy page mentions "third parties" who will also be able to access this data.

    And "anonymized" doesn't mean fully anonymous:

    "Even though they can re-identify you from your data trails, they don't even need to," as XR pioneer Avi Bar-Zeev puts it to me.  'Targeted advertising doesn't need to know your name — just your behaviors, triggers, and emotions."

    Avi sketched out one such scenario in Making a Metaverse That Matters:

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  • Today’s Flickr Pick: Stupendous SL Locations Photographed by Ayden Huntsman

    After the Rain

    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    Ayden Huntsman creates a mix of striking self-portraits and gorgeous landscapes such as this one “After the Rain.” I love the faint halo on the left and, if you look closely, the flock of birds in the distance. I am glad that the birds are so small. It conveys the feeling of distance so well. I also love the faint glimmer on the edge of the rocks and the boat where the sunlight hits them. I think he was wise to make this a duotone because fine details like the light on the edge of the rocks would be less noticeable in color. 

    For more gorgeous landscapes, click here:

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  • Top 5 Posts Including a Mirror Effect Tutorial for SL, Genuine AI-Based Art, and a Study on Emotion & Agency in Virtual Experiences

    VR study Emotion agency more important than realism University Bath

  • SL Fashion Friday: Modern Male Avatar Looks from Jako Rizzo

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    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    The World That I Would is Jako Rizzo’s gorgeous blog.

    Post No. 3549, with this featured pic, made me laugh in part because his avatar so perfectly embodies the “Damn, I just missed my train” look. Those dropped shoulders and the stoic long-distance stare say it all.

    I also love how, despite his tuxedo jacket, this guy looks like he’s dressed for adventure. This character does not live a quiet life. 

    Here's what he's wearing:

    "Natural Glow" Denis (EvoX)@Man Cave ends March 11th 

    f u o e y .Ryder Hairbase@Man Cave

    //Ascend// Danial Straight Fit Pants@Man Cave

    //Ascend// Charlie Tuxedo Jacket@Man Cave

    For more of Jako’s creative Second Life male fashion style, click here:

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  • Meet SL Grid Memes, One of Instagram’s Top Second Life-Themed Instagram Accounts — And Among the Funniest

    If you’re on Instagram, @slgridmemes is definitely a fun follow — like the account name suggests, it’s a near-daily cascade of chuckle-worthy memes only active Second Life users are likely to find funny. (I.E, IYKYK)

    Created and run by Ryan Johnson in his spare time, now with nearly 9000 followers, Ryan joined the virtual world in 2007 and sporadically played from time to time. But he became much more active through a curious comparison:

    “One of my friends from Yahoo Chat told me I should check Second Life out,” Ryan tells me, “[because] it reminded them of Grand Theft Auto.”

    That analogy might seem surprising to some, but a large portion of Second Life activity is now devoted to luxe GTA Online-esque city life roleplay in fashion, cars, and clubbing.

    “I think if you look at Grand Theft Auto now and how they purchased FiveM, then it’s basically just like Second Life,” as Ryan puts it. (He’s referring to Rockstar’s acquisition of FiveM, a mod for GTA the company once banned.)

    “I know a few people who mesh and build on FiveM servers. The only difference is you have to teleport to certain regions versus GTA having a big world connected in a way. Unless the sims are connected on SL, then you could probably do the same, I guess. But it’s pretty much the same.” (Indeed, I interviewed SL/GTA YouTuber Meela Vanderbuilt on this topic a couple years ago.)

    Inspired by another Instagram account creating IMVU-themed memes, Ryan started creating SL memes on Facebook, but then jumped to Instagram when he noticed more activity there. 

    Here’s his most popular meme so far:

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  • What Happened When NBC’s The Office Came to Second Life — Excerpt, Making a Metaverse That Matters

    Second Life Office Episode

    Excerpt, Making a Metaverse That Matters:

    Floundering with little user growth after its official launch in June 2003, Second Life finally hit escape velocity when it explicitly adopted an essential facet of the Metaverse: Integration with the real world economy. 

    Around the start of 2004, the company announced that the virtual world’s currency, Linden Dollars, could be bought and sold on the open market for real cash. And [Linden Lab CTO Cory] Ondrejka drove the effort to implement what was a revolutionary concept at the time: Enabling users to own the underlying intellectual property rights to anything they created with Second Life’s building tools.

    “That was me on the phone with lawyers getting laughed at and the lawyers saying. ‘You can't do that.’" But Linden Lab did eventually do that, formulating a IP rights policy that YouTube and other user generated content platforms would come to adopt.

    From this point onward, Second Life users could, and quickly did, create small businesses from their virtual world content. This in turn grew the world of Second Life in a way that greatly amplified Linden Lab’s own work on the platform. 

    “[A]t the point that we had like, 100,000 people [playing] and we kind of computed that,” Cory Ondrejka remembers. “Ten percent of the people were actually doing awesome things in the world. That'd be like having a 10,000 person company. Because when you're a 150 person company,  a 10,000 person company is unimaginably large.”

    Major press coverage of Second Life, often by tech reporters who were fans of Snow Crash themselves, began to take on gathering momentum into 2006, culminating in a feature story on the cover of BusinessWeek. Which only catapulted into even further coverage. Strikingly, most of this overwhelmingly positive media attention was organic, generated by reporters and media outlets themselves. 

    Next — NBC's top TV show comes calling:

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  • This Artist Repurposes Avatar Fashion Items Into Utterly Original Studies in Second Life Surrealism

    ｈｏｔ ｔｏａｓｔ

    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    Zaque Hexem’s surreal art might make you ask, “But is it Second Life?” 

    He answers in the most Second Life way possible; he provides SL content credits. “Hot Toast” (above) is wildly inventive. Seriously, who thinks, “I have this beautifully engraved skeleton, I think I’ll  make some toast.”  Zaque, obviously, but who else?  

    Skeletons always prompt questions such as how do they hang together without connective tissue or wires? This beautifully engraved skeleton inspires more questions. Does it hurt to get your bones engraved when you’re already dead, or dead-adjacent? Why do you need tongs if you have no skin or nerve endings to burn? How do you burn toast before you toast it? 

    Anyway, for more wild SL pics, click here:


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  • Second Life Tutorial: How to Create a Mirror Effect With the New PBR Upgrade

    With PBR graphics launched in Second Life a couple months ago, we're starting to see it appear as a feature in commercial products available in the virtual world economy.  One of the first I happened to notice was the Physically Based Rendering-based mirror effect in this bathroom sink vanity from longtime sponsoring partner Dutchie Design.   

    For SL content creators, here's a tutorial for adding the mirror effect to your own content, with a YouTube walkthrough from Feorie Frimon (above) and some tips from Dutchie:

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  • Study Suggests Emotion & Player Agency More Important Than High-End Graphics in Virtual Experience

    This is a pretty important study from the University of Bath adding some academic weight to what we see in the marketplace: When it comes to virtual experiences, player emotion and agency (i.e. the ability to meaningfully interact in the world) is more important than graphical realism or immersion (field of view):

    Field of view and visual realism – achieved through cutting-edge graphics and usually powered by high-end headsets – can be relatively unimportant in creating a believable VR experience. Far more important is the way a user is made to feel (e.g. happy or scared) within the virtual environment, the study found. Dr Crescent Jicol, principal investigator of the study, said: “A lot of money goes into making headsets and screens better and into rendering virtual worlds more realistic, but more effort needs to be centered on improving the user’s emotional experience.”

    This specific study was conducted in VR with over 300 volunteers, but the results probably apply to flatscreen 3D experiences just as neatly. And again, we already know that immersive graphical realism per se does not in itself translate to the most popular games/virtual worlds:

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  • Today’s Second Life Flickr Pick: N͟e͟k͟z͟a͟ K͟a͟n Captures Emotion in Her Expressive Avatar Photos

    Disobedience

    Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

    N͟e͟k͟z͟a͟ K͟a͟n caught my eye with that gorgeous look of disdain in this picture, “Disobedience.” So often our avatars are either expressionless or smiling. But Nezka doesn’t mind showing that she can be perturbed. Obviously, someone walked by without complimenting her look. After all, she put in the effort to do her eyebrows and hair in white, put that heavy headdress on and surround herself with flowers. The least we can do is mention how absolutely gorgeous she looks. 

    For more of Nezka, click here:

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