what are
virtual
gatherings?
Gatherings are an exchange of space, time, presence, knowledge. Taking away the physical aspect of gatherings, it becomes an abstract of that communication that gets split into levels of privacy and transparency. Your participation and presence is recorded in the internet.
what will
virtual gatherings be like in the future?
This chapter looks at current key technologies in development in 2020 that we feel will shape the future of virtual gatherings.
Based on these developmenets and the findings from the report, we point out predictions we have for the future, and speculate on 3 spaces namely the home, the city and the workplace.
Spatial audio
Spatial Audio is any audio which gives you a sense of space beyond conventional stereo, allowing the user to pinpoint where sound is coming from, whether this is above, below, or a full 360 degrees around you. Stereo allows you to hear things in front left and right, but you can’t get a sense of surround, height or sounds from below you. With the introduction of the 3rd dimension, you have a sense of the exact location of sound sources from all around.
What is happening?
Mainstream social VR
Social Virtual Reality is a web-based social interaction paradigm, mediated by immersive technologies and taking place in predesigned three-dimensional virtual worlds where individuals, represented by an avatar, may engage in real-time interpersonal conversation and shared activities.
Spatialised augmented services
Spatial Augmented Reality augments the genuine things along with existing man-made materials or objects. Such a device could help us perform everyday tasks better — like finding your keys, navigating a new city, or capturing a moment; but it could also open up an entirely new way of moving through the world.
Tactile responsive virtual interactions
Full-body AR/VR suit and software suite accelerates the improvement of movement, reflexes and instincts, allowing faster, better improvement of the human mind and body.
True sensation of movement in VR
Infinadeck revolutionizes the Virtual Reality experience by allowing users to naturally walk in any direction, allowing immersion within the VR environment.
Tactile responsive hologram
Dexmo is the most easy-to-use force feedback glove, designed for both researchers, enterprises and consumers. Its natural and intuitive interaction enables everyone to seamlessly touch a truly immersive VR world.
Decentralised persistent virtual worlds
Decentraland will be a completely open, virtual world controlled by the people who use it. Running on the currency MANA (which runs on Ethereum), a limited amount of land is initially up for grabs, which, once occupied, will then be the basis for this virtual society and economy. With all ownership being logged on the blockchain ledger underpinning it, it will be a trusted landscape of interaction that cannot be co-opted by corporate powers. Meaning, this online virtual world will be a truly free space.
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True ownership of virtual goods
“Using blockchain to create digital representation of a real tradable asset can provide greater accessibility to assets that cannot be easily exchanged or require a high minimum investment. For example, tokenization of illiquid assets such as real estate gives many people the opportunity to invest small sums of money in a particular piece of land and then sell the tokens on the secondary market. The same principle can apply for virtual assets. This process of asset tokenization is democratizing investments.”
Lifetime virtual companions and assistants
Artificial human companions may be any kind of hardware or software creation designed to give companionship to a person. Virtual companions can be used as a form of entertainment, or they can be medical or functional, to assist the elderly in maintaining an acceptable standard of life.
Open-source, low cost DIY VR/AR hardware
Relativty is not a consumer product. We made Relativty in my bedroom with a soldering iron and a 3D printer and we expect you to do the same: build it yourself.
- Max Coutte
decentralisation
choice between centralized vs decentralized platforms
gatherings
gatherings will involve both humans and virtual companions
ideology
fragmented reality;
less sharing reality. perception of reality being reformed by the algorithm
digital appartus
enslavement by multiple devices, platforms, realities
centralisation
consolidation of a few, centralised platforms with mainstream adoption and use
connections
normalization of social perception and ability to forge new connections with people virtually
identity
reformed by the media;
erosion of anonymity
surveillance
global persistent surveillance capitalism
telepresence
remote telepresence of human and nonhuman entities, places
communication
reformed into more visual, interactive, full dimensional content, less descriptive
privacy
private virtual gatherings become more trustworthy sources of information
social distance
invisible barriers by devices, technology, and digital reality
spatial typology
hybrid spatial typologies, with aesthetic sensibilities and design languages that break physical architectonic norms
equality
virtual content discrimination, spatialised paywalls
commodification
spatial advertisements augmented
Our predictions
Future speculations
Home
The concept of the home as a private space will be increasingly challenged
The accumulation of authenticated user attributes is of paramount importance to platforms that subsist on an ad-based revenue model. This accumulation happens so proprietary behavioral surplus can be packaged into behavioral models and sold to third parties for the purpose of advertising products and ideas. This means that who we are on these platforms is constantly monitored and our experiences commodified.
As XR technology continues to develop, the physical home of the future will be transformed to be the site of most social virtual gatherings. Speculating on future mainstream ownership of XR devices of headsets, the interior of the home will take on a more flexible role - hosting people from remote physical locations for all kinds of social gatherings between humans and non humans.
Headsets and devices in the future will be able to scan their environments, turning every piece of furniture in the home into carefully calibrated points of data that are used for location-mapped services, AI training and recommendation systems. Spatialised augmented advertisements and 'virtual assistants' will start to permeate the home and increasingly challenge the concept of the home as a private space.
City
In the future a big part of social gathering will be happening inside virtual worlds
Control
Centralised platforms can restrict users
virtual experience
Identity
Centralised platforms require actual identity
Identity
Decentralised
platforms does do not require
actual identity
Recommendation
User-rated places
Navigation
Augmented location wayfinding services
Avatars
Centralised platforms control avatar choices
Avatars
Decentralised platforms allow for freedom of expression
Intereopability
Users will be able to move between different virtual platforms
Facebook will be the first company to make social VR mainstream, followed by companies such as Google and Microsoft.
A lot of investment will be put in those virtual worlds, making them very well constructed and accessible. To make those platforms safer, verification will be essential, leading to issues of privacy, security and censorship.
This will drive the creation of new decentralised worlds based on blockchain. Users will decide what to build on those platforms and will be in charge of creating rules. But because there are less resources than large corporations, those platforms will be behind the centralised ones.
Each user will have a choice of centralised and decentralised platforms with an instant transition between those.
Work
Hybrid ways of working, the physical presence of the 'office' has been extended throughout the city, the suburb and globally with advanced 5G technology, thus creating a workspace where located anywhere with the VR/XR equipment.
The "office", on the other hand, became more of a place for social and cultural space for each firm, that presenting the core features of each firm, creating a collective bond between members. No more fixed workplace, meeting room. The space would be more open, immersive, and high adaptive to multiple uses.
Going through one of the remote physical screens in London, diving into a colleague's home in Tokyo, where he had set a corner for recording working space for working purpose, scheduling a virtual meeting with his client on their communal virtual space. His client, Matilda, who is sitting at a bench by SOHO Manhattan, which is widely built to adapt the emerging number of a remote working trend, on the phone talking to her colleague working with his VR headset on the lawn, and other at XR cafe, which has been trendy.
The camera going through screens and screens, projection and projections, overlapping each other forming a mixed reality space of working, and a hybrid spatial composition to these layers. Low resolution and network become a protection of privacy in the hybrid space, where you can be reached 24/7 as long as you are connected to the server.