3 ms·

I want to find this exciting but I can't help feel a little jaded when I hear Matrix's PR spin this as "the missing link" when we've already have countless atte

by laumars 10y ago

I want to find this exciting but I can't help feel a little jaded when I hear Matrix's PR spin this as "the missing link" when we've already have countless attempts at creating 3D worlds like this but which all have since faded into obscurity. Heck, I even wrote my own "3D website" in the 90s using a long defunct web markup language called VRML. It will be interesting if/when we finally get there but I don't expect this will be the breakthrough product. Though personally I think the real evolution of this tech will be more along the lines of augmenting reality with web tech rather than emulating virtual reality to behave like our physical world.

throwanem 10y ago
Everyone's VR PR posits that they're unique and precious and indispensable. Unicorns in goggles.
- Arathorn 10y ago
  I'm not sure this is entirely fair, given the blog post clearly tries to mention the other folks who are working in this space. Specifically for the "missing communications/data layer" for VR, the only other options I personally know of are High Fidelity (decentralised, but not yet trying for an open standard or to use the open web), OpenCroquet/Cobalt (seems fairly dead since 2010), OpenSimulator (not decentralised, afaik), and there have been some talk of JanusVR + IPFS hybrids. Empirically, there certainly is a missing layer here, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to propose Matrix as a possible solution :) In terms of "this will happen organically, rather than as a whole new virtual universe appearing out of nowhere"... we see AR and VR as entirely the same problem from a comms/data interoperability perspective. Both of them need somewhere to store the data. The choice is simply whether you store it in a decentralised DB like Matrix, IPFS, a blockchain(!) or whatever... or if you store it in a silo like a typical VRML or WebVR app, or something like Google/Facebook. I don't blame everyone for being cynical though - this is the holy grail after all :D

by laumars 10y ago

throwanem 10y ago

Everyone's VR PR posits that they're unique and precious and indispensable. Unicorns in goggles.

Arathorn 10y ago
I'm not sure this is entirely fair, given the blog post clearly tries to mention the other folks who are working in this space. Specifically for the "missing communications/data layer" for VR, the only other options I personally know of are High Fidelity (decentralised, but not yet trying for an open standard or to use the open web), OpenCroquet/Cobalt (seems fairly dead since 2010), OpenSimulator (not decentralised, afaik), and there have been some talk of JanusVR + IPFS hybrids. Empirically, there certainly is a missing layer here, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to propose Matrix as a possible solution :) In terms of "this will happen organically, rather than as a whole new virtual universe appearing out of nowhere"... we see AR and VR as entirely the same problem from a comms/data interoperability perspective. Both of them need somewhere to store the data. The choice is simply whether you store it in a decentralised DB like Matrix, IPFS, a blockchain(!) or whatever... or if you store it in a silo like a typical VRML or WebVR app, or something like Google/Facebook. I don't blame everyone for being cynical though - this is the holy grail after all :D