High Fidelity Relaunches as a 2D Space with 3D Spatialized Audio

Credit Wagner James Au of the long-running virtual world blog New World Notes for the scoop: High Fidelity’s next step after their failed social VR platform essentially closed up shop on January 15th, 2020::

After months or more of relative secrecy and silence, High Fidelity founder Philip Rosedale just unveiled Limited Early-Access invites to a 3D audio version of his virtual world platform, writing on his Facebook wall:

“We now have a way to bring people together using 3D Audio. It’s a lot easier to try than to explain, but the basic idea is you can get in with one click on any computer or phone, no download. You can move around in a big space where all the audio is High Fidelity (haha but very true) and in 3D. So everyone can talk together at the same time and you hear them all, or you can break off into discussion groups, or use different areas for different purposes.

This work is part of a larger project to build a whole new huge virtual world that is accessible from any device, but COVID made us decide to release what we had working. You can use it for things like performing live DJ/Music, events, family gathering, all-hands meetings, or whatever you can think up. The experience is very warm and connected – and very different than video conferencing.”

And, as Wagner writes, you can now request early access to this new virtual world via the revamped High Fidelity website (just click the “Spin Up a Server” button and enter your particulars). If you decide to fill out the form, you will get the following flashy message back:

And if you want a brief demo of HiFi’s near-field, spatialized audio in action, here is a YouTube video from March 2018:

Thanks to Wagner James Au for the heads up!

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