VenusSX, one of the participants, sent me a press release about this series showcasing the state of the art in VR, taking place on the sidelines of the actual SXSW 2024 conference taking place in Austin, Texas this week and weekend (I will assume that this series is not part of the official SXSW event). According to the press release:
The organizers of the VR conference IMMERSIVE X, together with Innovation Bridge Europe, are presenting a five-part series of events called “X-HOUR” from March 7th to 11th on the sidelines of SXSW 2024 in Austin, Texas. The series will showcase outstanding and award-winning VR projects from around the world. The hour-long sessions can be experienced Onsite in Austin, in Virtual Reality and via Livestream. Registration is available at https://immersive-x.de/x-hour.
While the Metaverse is often presented as a vision of the distant future, its many possibilities can be experienced even today. This is possible thanks to a creative scene of pioneers around the world who have set out to explore this space and bring it to life with groundbreaking ideas and bold initiatives. The lineup includes the award-winning experiences “Dragon Magic: Freedom Giants” by Juliana Loh and Mada de Leeuw and “Nymphs” by ShuShuVR and Niko Lang, as well as a live DJ set by XR pioneer Celeste Lear, will demonstrate how Virtual Reality enables the expression of cultural creativity. The session “VR for Social Change” will showcase the Africa VR Campus and Center to demonstrate how immersive technologies can promote social empowerment.
IMMERSIVE X and Innovation Bridge Europe have teamed up to present some of the most cutting-edge projects at this year’s tech festival in Austin. The selection of presenters is designed to give a vivid sense of the disruptive energy that Virtual Reality has in store for social and cultural spheres. “Immersive technologies will fundamentally change the way we experience content and interact with each other in the future”, says Thomas Zorbach, managing director of vm-people and initiator of IMMERSIVE X. ”As we enter the age of digital relationships, the Metaverse offers new modes of creative expression and interactivity, and we are revealing the empowerment of somatic experiential learning in a virtual environment.”, adds VenusSX, Virtual Sensory Designer and presenter of the X-Hour session “Unlock Our Potential: PlayroomSX and the VR Somatic Experience”.
There are three different ways to attend the X-HOUR sessions:
Onsite via a rental VR headset in the following location: Innovation Bridge Europe House at the Thompson Hotel, 4th floor rooftop, 506 San Jacinto Blvd, Austin, TX 78701, USA.
Virtual Reality via your own VR headset: If you have your own VR glasses, such as Quest 2, 3 & Pro, Pico Neo 2, or HTC Vive Focus, you can join our sessions from a remote location.
Livestream via YouTube: If you are not in Austin and do not have a VR headset, you can watch the X-HOUR sessions via livestream. Location: https://www.youtube.com/@vmpeople
While the constant capitalization of the word metaverse in this press release makes my right eye twitch, I did sign up for the in-VR sessions, and registration was free. For more details on this series, and to register yourself, please see the X-HOUR website.
I follow a number of Second Life YouTubers using Feedbin (a handy tool which I wrote about here; what I like about it is that I can organize my viewing, and not have to deal with YouTube’s notorious recommendation algorithm).
Last night, I watched a video from a Second Life user who announced that they were stepping away from SL, and why. In the description of the video was a link to an anonymous article which had been published on Medium on Feb. 24th, 2024, and updated Feb, 29th, which makes some very serious and disturbing allegations against several Second Life users and companies, and some people employed by Linden Lab, the company who makes and runs Second Life.
Confirmed: Linden Lab Investigating Serious Allegations Recently Posted to Social Media, Say Sources
In recent days the Second Life user community has been roiled by serious but unconfirmed allegations posted on various social media channels regarding Linden Lab operations.
I can now confirm through at least two highly credible sources that the company is indeed investigating these claims — both the accusations themselves and whether they have defamatory intent.
That’s really all that can be reported at the moment.
Wagner links to a discussion on the matter over on the r/secondlife subreddit on Reddit here. In both Wagner’s blog post and the Reddit thread, unlike the Second Life YouTube video which first led me down this rabbit hole, there is no link to the original Medium article, and I will not be sharing it here, because although the allegations made in the article are highly troubling, they are not proven, they are potentially defamatory, and the author of the article appears to be hiding behind an anonymous name and picture. (Medium has flagged the article with the warning “The following content was reported as a potential violation of Medium’s rules and is under investigation,” and the article may indeed be pulled completely from the website.)
However, the ripple effects of that Medium article are already spreading. It would appear that some Second Life users (like the content creator who first alerted me to this situation via their YouTube video) have decided that the allegations are serious enough that they will be leaving the platform, even if only temporarily.
And this morning, I noticed that one of the Second Life stores I regularly shop at, has announced via their store group:
Hello, we changed the vendor system and old gift cards will not work with the new vendors. To get a new gift card for the new vendors, I need you SEND ME A NOTECARD (only notecards) with this:
YOUR USERNAME (no display name) NAME OF THE GIFT CARD YOU HAVE AND ITS CREDIT
I will be replacing, but it’s a lot of gift cards to do, so please be patient. I will be doing it ONLY until MARCH 31st.
I will now be checking the group notices of various SL store groups I belong to, to see if any other stores are taking similar action. This has the potential to become a serious mess (as if it weren’t already). It was at this point that I realized that I was not going to be able to ignore the issue, and I would have to write about it today, since the controversy does have the potential to significantly impact Second Life users, communities, and businesses.
And, like Wagner, that’s really all that I can report on for now. It would appear that Linden Lab is already investigating the allegations, and we will simply have to wait and see what happens, and what they have to say about all this. I hope and pray that this will not become a witch hunt, and I do not want to have to update my historical list of Second Life controversies and scandals. And I am feeling just absolutely sick at heart today.
UPDATE March 5th, 2024: Well, I just checked this evening before bed (almost exactly 48 hours after I first read it), and the anonymous article has been taken down from Medium, now giving the following error message:
Error 410: This post is under investigation or was found to be in violation of the Medium rules.
Please note that I had briefly linked to (and quoted from) another well-known Second Life blogger who had posted two lengthy blogposts about this whole kerfuffle, but then I realized that they had actually linked to the article on Medium, so I quickly removed the link to (and quote from) their blog from this post! In their opinion (and they had a LOT to say), this was a smear campaign against the people and businesses named, but I also removed the link to their blog posts because they actually named the people and companies who were being discussed in the article, and I did not feel comfortable doing that. (You’ll also note that I very carefully did not identify, or link to, the person who created YouTube video I previously mentioned, that led me down this dark and twisted rabbit hole in the first place.)
In fact, I am now second-guessing myself, wondering if I made the right call to write about this at all. There’s also been a lot of back-and-forth on the subject on the Second Life subreddit post I linked to up top, where the moderators have done an excellent job to not allow any discussion of the dark, indelicate details of this particular incident, while still talking about the issues in a more general, non-specific way (much as I have tried to do, although I’m not 100% certain that I was successful).
This is not the first time when the lines between a hobbyist blogger and a journalist get awfully blurred. I have learned in the past that things I write here on my blog have consequences, and sometimes those consequences are painful, both for me and for the people, places, and companies I write about. At the same time, this is a blog about (as the tagline states) “news and views” in social VR, virtual worlds, and the metaverse, and it could be argued that this is news (albeit very depressing news, regarding a subject that is clearly illegal and punishable by law, if it is found to be true).
And that’s the whole point of this: IF this is true. At this point, all we have are allegations, which (because of people like the YouTube creator who I won’t name, Wagner James Au, myself, and the other blogger who I won’t name), have played a part in disseminating information about this situation (if not the specific details themselves). Where do you draw the line?
Where do you draw the line when reporting on potentially immoral and/or illegal behaviour? (photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash)
UPDATE March 20th, 2024: This afternoon, Linden Lab’s Executive Chairman, Bad Oberwager, released the following official statement, which I am reproducing in full below:
I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to the Second Life community. Thank you for being part of this wonderful world and giving us the time to carefully assess our situation after we became the subject of a blog post that has the potential to cause harm to our dedicated community members and the virtual world platform that so many people call “home.”
The post contains a complex mix of accusations regarding Second Life, and it questions our strong dedication to maintaining a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for all members of the Second Life community.
Our Response to the Allegations
At the heart of the blog post were unsettling accusations about sexualized, virtual avatar ageplay, including alleged violations of our community guidelines. I want to be clear: we have a zero-tolerance policy against sexualized ageplay. The safety and integrity of the Second Life platform are paramount to us, especially concerning the protection of minors.
We will continue to enforce our existing governance policies and community standards and we are proud of our collaboration with law enforcement and organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to combat child exploitation. These efforts underscore our commitment to a safe online environment.
With that said, I want to acknowledge that we can do better; this has been a harsh wake-up call for us that we need to take tangible actions to improve Second Life’s governance policies and protective features that benefit the entire community.
Our Actions Moving Forward
I promise you that we are taking this very seriously. Very. Full stop.
I promise we hear you. We know you’re angry and you’re confused. We are working to do our best to resolve your concerns and restore your trust in us. These are complicated issues and we want to do things right. We will make mistakes along the way. I wish I could say we will not, but we will.
As owner of Linden Lab, I have initiated a thorough investigation, both internally and with external partners, to review whether or not there have been any violations of our company and community policies by employees, contractors, or community members. While early preliminary internal investigations suggest that some of the accusations are unfounded, I want to make sure that we get additional investigative support externally to ensure that the process is fair and thorough.
One of our top priorities has been to ensure the safety of our residents, moles, employees, and families. There are real people behind the avatars, and it has been important to confirm that nobody was in actual physical danger.
Additionally, I am taking proactive steps to review and revamp many of our policies, including a comprehensive review of our Community Standards, Content Guidelines, and Ageplay Policy. Any violation detected will be met with swift enforcement actions to protect our community. We’ll be sharing these revised policies in the coming weeks and, critically, we are turning to the community to help us shape the future of how governance operates within Second Life.
Our Commitment to You
Second Life remains a vibrant platform for expression, creativity, and connection. I and the Second Life team are deeply committed to protecting our community and ensuring that Second Life continues to be a safe, inclusive, and welcoming space for everyone. Your trust is our priority, and we pledge to work tirelessly to maintain and enhance the integrity of our virtual world.
I appreciate the patience and support of our community as we navigate this challenge. Together, we will emerge stronger and more united in our mission to build the best possible virtual world experience.
Brad Oberwager Linden Lab Executive Chairman
Please note: I haven’t had time to fully read and absorb everything in this official statement, but I did want to share it as an update to my original blogpost.
HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: I first started writing this blogpost in November 2023, but I haven’t had a chance to finish it until now! It is one of a huge backlog (over thirty) of half-finished blog posts, which I hope to complete and publish soon. So please stay tuned!
Also, with this blogpost, I have created a new blog post category called Review, which I will now be using to mark any hardware and software reviews I write from now on, here on the RyanSchultz.com blog.
As a librarian at my university, I am a member of the faculty union, along with the professors and instructors. One of the benefits we receive is a certain sum of money every year, travel and expense (T&E) funds, to be used to pay for our professional memberships, registration for and travel to and from conferences, books and journal subscriptions—and computer equipment! And so it was, that I used part of my T&E funds this year to purchase Meta’s latest wireless VR headset, the Meta Quest 3, which was just announced Sept. 27th, 2023 at the Meta Connect event (which I wrote about on my blog here).
Now, while I absolutely reserve the right to snark about some aspects of the Meta Connect event itself (Snoop Dogg and Paris Hilton as AI chatbots?Really?!??), I still do believe that Meta makes great virtual reality hardware! And so I ordered a Meta Quest 3 (512 GB model), plus an Elite Strap with Battery, and a carrying case to lug it all around in.
This will be a test unit, which I will evaluate to see how well it would fit into the selection of hardware which will form part of a virtual reality lab for my university library system (more info here), of which I am a member of the committee helping to steer the project.
My first impression: Wow, these boxes are getting smaller and lighter every time! And: Wow, those hand controllers look tiny. Anyway, wasting no time, I started unboxing.
Inside the Meta Quest 3 box (with the default strap)
I scanned the QR code on the inside of the Meta Quest 2 box, and this is the first thing it showed me on my iPhone:
Regular readers of my blog will remember my distaste for Meta’s level of consumer surveillance, so I immediately hit the Don’t Share button! I think Meta is already vacuuming up an alarming amount of my personal data as it is!
Since I already had the Oculus app installed on my work iPhone from when I set up my Meta Quest 2, the QR code didn’t really do much of anything. I was somewhat irritated that there wasn’t a paper set of step-by-step instructions to set up the Quest 3, so I did a little searching and found this webpage, which gave me a helpful video and some tips on how to get started.
The head strap that comes with the Meta Quest 3, while serviceable, really doesn’t help to redistribute the front-heavy headset (the Quest 3 weighs about the same as the Quest 2, although it is noticeably thinner). So one of the first things I did was unpack the Elite Strap with Battery, and replace the default strap. In addition to prolonging the use of the Quest 3 for another couple of hours, the rigid strap design reduces pressure on the face, and evenly distributes the total weight for a more comfortable fit (which also contributes to longer use).
The Elite Strap has a knob at the back to adjust to fit your head, and you can also use it to make it more compact to fit into the solid-feeling carrying case:
You can use the knob at the back of the Elite Strap with Battery to make the Meta Quest 3 headset small enough to fit into the carrying case, which makes it easier to take it with you!
One thing I was less than happy with is the charging cable, which is incredibly short! Meta, would it have killed you to include a longer charging cable? Don’t be so cheap!
The charging cable is waaay too short!
While at first I thought the hand controllers on the Quest 3 were much smaller than its predecessor, in fact they are approximately the same size. They’re only missing the “loop” at the top, which has been replaced by improvements to the tracking system overall. (I have enabled, but not yet tested out, hand tracking, that is, using hand gestures instead of the hand controllers.)
The hand controllers on the Meta Quest 3 (right) seem smaller than the Meta Quest 2, but that’s only because the top “loop” has been removed.
UPDATE March 2nd, 2024: I must confess that I haven’t had as much of an opportunity recently to put the Meta Quest 3 through its paces, but I did pack it into my carry-on bag when I flew to Alberta to spend last Christmas with the rest of my family, and I did give several family members a taste of virtual reality using this device, putting them into a loft apartment world in VRChat. (My usual go-to for giving people their first VR experience, a favourite tropical beach world in VRChat, called Deep Blue, unfortunately only works with a high-end tethered PVCR headset like the Valve Index of Vive Pro 2.) The Meta Quest 3 is, in my opinion, the perfect portable device for giving people an introduction to the world of virtual reality!
Also, you can use a fibre-optic Quest Link Cable (available for purchase through the Meta website for CA$109.99) to turn the standalone Meta Quest 3 into a PCVR headset, by attaching it to a high-end Windows PC with a good graphics card.
I did want to comment on what an improvement the visuals are in the Meta Quest 3 compared to its predecessor, the Meta Quest 2. The so-called “screendoor” effect (where it’s possible to determine the gaps between pixels in your headset view) has been greatly reduced, and it really improves graphics, and makes things like reading text much easier. But where there’s really a noticeable improvement between the Quest 2 and 3 is in the full-colour pass-through! According to Meta:
With full-color Passthrough, Quest 3 and Quest Pro provide you with a more perceptually comfortable, high-fidelity, real-time representation of the physical world around you. These advancements in Passthrough aren’t just to improve the VR experience you currently know, but is also fundamental to new and upcoming features that allow you to interact directly with the physical world while in-VR. Activities supported by full-color Passthrough include:
Using mixed reality apps that combine and use items from both your physical and virtual world.
Using a physical keyboard and other objects on your physical desk.
Interacting with other people in the same room as a part of a collaborative experience, like having a meeting in [Meta Horizon] Workrooms.
I look forward to spending more time in my Meta Quest 3 over the next few months, exploring various apps and platforms, and I will report back more often on how things are going!
Yesterday, as a first step in pruning my long-neglected list of metaverse platforms, I decided to cut off a whole branch. I deleted the entire subsection on those virtual worlds and social VR platforms which incorporated blockchain, cryptocurrencies, or Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). In this editorial blogpost, I will explain why, moving forward, I will no longer write about any blockchain-based metaverse platforms on the RyanSchultz.com blog. (The original blogposts are still there and searchable.)
As a metaverse blogger, my introduction to blockchain came via the first few blockchain-based worlds which caught my attention, notably three early entries which actually launched a world where you could create an avatar and pay a visit: first Decentraland in February 2018, then Somnium Space in May of that same year, then Cryptovoxels (now called just Voxels) in July. In April of 2018, I started writing regularly about NeosVR, a non-blockchain-based social VR platform which had an associated cryptocurrency (although it was not really integrated in any way).
At that time, blockchain was a novelty, and I reported on the news and events happening on these platforms much as I did for Second Life and other metaverse platforms I covered (often from a highly skeptical and sarcastic perspective). Aside from some NCR (Neos Credits, Neos’ cryptocurrency), a monthly “reward” which I had earned as a Patreon supporter of the project, I did not buy or use any crypto.
I do remember being somewhat excited in 2021 when NCR rose to the giddy heights of almost US$9 per coin, buoyed by cryptospeculators who had little to no interest in the metaverse, even briefly indulging in the fantasy that I could sell at the top of the market and buy myself a new desktop PC with that “money” (I just checked right now, and today, 1 NCR coin is worth a whopping seven cents U.S.).
After the inevitable crash, all I lost was perhaps several months’ worth of a Patreon subscription I had upgraded to “earn” more NCR, perhaps about $20 in total, but I do know people who lost $1,000 and more. It was an instructive lesson in just how much of a gamble crypto could be.
In fact, a little over a year ago, I wrote on this blog that I would henceforth restrict my reporting on blockchain-based metaverse platforms to those which supported virtual reality (which, at that time, narrowed it down to just three worlds on my list: NeosVR, Sensorium Galaxy, and Somnium Space).
I have also decided that I will no longer be writing about any blockchain-based metaverse platform unless it incorporates virtual reality…
[T]hose platforms which had the great good fortune to launch well before the current crypto carnage, are possibly still entangled in the web of interconnected crypto companies lending and borrowing from each other, in highly speculative cryptocurrencies whose actual value is based only on what the next greater fool is willing to pay for them. In particular, those who purchased overpriced NFT-based real estate on such platforms as The Sandbox, Somnium Space, and yes, even pioneering Decentraland, are going to find it very difficult, if not impossible, to make any sort of profit off their investments.
And one only has to observe the travails which NeosVR has gone through, after a cyncial pump-and-dump instigated by cryptobros, to see how a social VR project with such technical promise can be hamstrung by attaching a cryptocurrency to it. There has, to my knowledge, been no active development on the platform in over a year, and it is unclear what 2023 holds for NeosVR. It breaks my heart and it angers me.
While I will continue to follow the current crypto winter shenanigans as an interested (and bemused) observer, I have decided that I will no longer be writing about any blockchain metaverse unless it has launched, and it supports virtual reality. In particular, I will no longer waste my time (and your patience) writing about all the blockchain metaverse projects which consist of little more than an .io website, a Telegram or Discord channel, and a white paper long on hand-waving, but short on actual technical details. Enough with the bafflegab and bullshit.
Over time, from 2018 to 2024, my initial bemusement about crypto, NFTs, and blockchain has hardened into something closer to revulsion. I started following cryptoskeptics like Molly Brown and David Gerard, and hanging out in the r/Buttcoin subreddit, which provided a reliable stream of cryptosnark. More recently, I have been reading some well-written books critical of crypto, notably Zeke Faux’s Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, and Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, by Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman (both of which I can very highly recommend).
And I have finally reached the conclusion that, even though there might still be blockchain-based social VR platforms out there, which are actual, delivered products and NOT scams or rug pulls (for example, Somnium Space), I am so sick and tired of the overall crypto space in general, that I am no longer going to write about any of them anymore. I have finally had enough of this nonsense, after six years, and I am done.
