The choices we make today shape our world tomorrow.
Author mpescePosted on Atlassian’s ‘work futurist’ Dom Price and resilience expert Sally Dominguez guide us through a new world of work, post-pandemic. Then we speak with two leaders at the coalface, both finding unique paths to help their staff thrive in a world of work that looks nothing like what any of us have ever known.
Brought to you by Oracle.
Read the paper in Nature that explores how videoconferencing wrecks group creativity.
Author mpescePosted on In the 2010s, VR roared back into life with Oculus, Vive, WebGL and Hololens. Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite gave millions a deep drink of the potential of the Metaverse. Facebook – renamed Meta – bet the house on the Metaverse. Where is the Metaverse headed? We hear insights from forty years of experts.
Watch “3 Dreams of Black”, the amazing interactive music video, created in WebGL. (Requires Google Chrome.)
Read “Nonny de la Peña and the power of Immersive Storytelling”
Is Meta Horizons a success? Many recent reports indicate otherwise.
Here’s Tony’s closing poem, “The Mirror”.
Tony and Mark – supported by a global community of technologists, enthusiasts and dreamers – brought 3D to the brand-new Web with VRML. This episode features Owen Rowley, Neil Redding, Linda Jacobson, Brian Behlendorf, John McCrea, Coco Conn — and Neal Stephenson.
Read the interview with Jaron Lanier in MONDO 2000 issue 2 that changed Mark’s life.
“Homebrew VR“, written by Linda Jacobson, in WIRED magazine, issue 1.
Use Windows? Have a play with ‘Labyrinth’, the world’s first 3D Web browser, here. You can explore the ‘Cyberbanana’ – and ‘Daniel’s Room’, the first public demonstration of VRML, for SIGKIDS 1994.
“Coco’s Channel” a WIRED article about Coco Conn’s work creating SIGKIDS. Read it here.
Read ‘Cyberspace’, the paper describing VRML that Mark presented at the First International Conference on the World Wide Web.
Read the VRML 1.0 spec here.
A gallery of wonderful images from VERGE (thanks to Linda Jacobson for these!)
At the end of the episode, Neal Stephenson recounts the story of a panel he sat through – which inspired him to write Snow Crash. Read it here…
NEW SERIES! In episode one, Mark and co-host Tony Parisi travel back more than a century to uncover the roots of the Metaverse. From pioneers Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer, creators of “Habitat”, the first massively multiplayer online environment, we learn the Metaverse has never been about technology – but always about people.
Have a read through Tony Parisi’s “The Seven Rules of the Metaverse” here.
Read E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” here.
Listen to William Gibson reading an abridged version of Neuromancer here.
Wondering what Lucasfilm’s Habitat looked like? Watch the promo video here.
Read Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer’s amazing, prescient paper, “The Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat” here.
Want to play Habitat? You can – in your web browser. Just go here.
Big thanks to the wonderful folks who voiced those historical evocations of Metaverse: Genevieve Bell, Mark Jeffrey, Paul Godwin and David Baxter.
Author mpescePosted on A clever bit of AI software transforms my voice into a silky-smooth ‘Lisa’ – almost an archetypal radio host. In the near future we’ll be able to make ourselves sound – and look – like anyone else. How will we know if we’re being fooled?
Big thanks to Twitter user @nearcyan – who offered me a demo of https://koe.ai – have a play with it yourself!
In this live interview with Oculus and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey – joined by Anduril Chief Engineer Shane Arnott – we look at the future of defense, geopolitics, and Australia’s future in a transformed Indo-Pacific region. Have we shifted toward a defense-driven future? Recorded at the ArtHouse Hotel, Sydney, 18 August 2022. (Photo credit: Mr Snow)
Author mpescePosted on Three big transformations – one that’s has already happened (the Web), one happening now (augmented reality), and one about to happen – illuminate the path (and pitfalls) for those anyone who wants to articulate the future. Listen, and learn how to be your own futurist!
Big thanks to the folks at Quantium for allowing me to share this in-house talk I gave to staffers in August 2022.
Author mpescePosted on If you own cryptocurrency, where do you keep it safe? Who’s responsible for the contents of your ‘wallet’? Both ‘custodial’ and ‘personal’ wallets have strengths and weaknesses – which is right for your needs?
Author mpescePosted on Ethereum marries money to code, creating ‘smart money’ that can think for itself, invest for itself, and earn a profit for itself. Ethereum was the future – five years ago. But with big problems to solve, can it remain top dog much longer?
Author mpescePosted on How does Bitcoin work? Is it really worth anything, or could its value fall to zero? Why would ‘value investor’ Warren Buffet refuse a deal to buy all the Bitcoin in the world – for just $25?
Watch Warren Buffet’s full argument against Bitcoin here.
Author mpescePosted on Since 2019 Service NSW has provided a Digital Drivers Licence (DDL) Today we learned it’s extremely easy to counterfeit by anyone with modest technical skills. That’s a huge security risk – for businesses and ourselves!
Author mpescePosted on A recent experiment showed that any AI can be ‘turned to the dark side’ simply by reframing its goals. It’s surprisingly easy – and that points to a big problem.
If you’d like to read the paper – published in Nature – click here.
You must be logged in to post a comment.