No Mainstream Metaverse Soon

 

Recent improvements and cost reductions in virtual reality headsets have led many people to believe that everyone will soon be wearing headsets every day and meeting up with their friends and coworkers in a virtual metaverse. I think that is highly unlikely for the following reasons:

Multi-tasking

Most people like to multi-task, particularly if they are participating in a meeting from home. It can be hard to participate in any way offline when fully immersed in a virtual reality experience. 

Mobility

This is closely related to the previous point. Almost all current video conferencing apps can be accessed on computers, tablets or phones. This allows people to use them anywhere. Driving to an appointment in a virtual reality headset would be the worst form of distracted driving.

Facial Expressions

The primary reason we prefer video calls over voice calls is the ability to see the faces and facial expressions of the people we are talking to. Conversing with a coworker's avatar is unlikely to be as rich of an experience.

Network Effects

Before it can go mainstream, any new communication tool must be adapted by a large percentage of the population. In 2019 and 2020, we were able to pivot from in-person meetings to virtual meetings quickly because the platforms worked using microphones and cameras in the computers and phones that we already owned. With the metaverse, a significant investment in new hardware will be required for every user. 

People will be reluctant to schedule metaverse meetings unless everyone invited has the hardware. People will be reluctant to buy the hardware until they start getting invitations to metaverse meetings. It is a cycle that is difficult to break.

What do you think? How soon do you think the metaverse will go mainstream?

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Looking Forward

Note: This is the last regularly scheduled post for a while.

Nature is a Grand Material Engineer

 

Artist, Designer and Engineer, Neri Oxman by Noah Kalina

"Nature is a grand material engineer, we already know that it can generate abalone shells which are twice as strong as our high-tech ceramics and silk that is five times stronger than Steel."                                                                                Neri Oxman

MIT Media Lab Professor, Neri Oxman, and her students are committed to learning and applying the processes of nature to address the architectural challenges of the modern world. Their studies have included silk worms, bees, and plants to gain understanding in how nature grows structures. 

In addition to their structural relevance, the projects Oxman and her team have created are also beautiful works of art. Her work is part of the permanent collections a number of museums in the United States and Europe including the Museum of Modern Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Pnuema 2 by Neri Oxman, Photo by John Cummings

In 2016, the group published a paper on a 3D Printed Multimaterial Microfluid Valve which provides better control in printing using fluid materials including molten glass. While it had been possible before to 3D print with glass by binding glass powder and subsequently sintering the powders, the results were not fully transparent. The MIT process provides structural control and full transparency.

3D Printed Glass by Neri Oxman

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Heroes on the Russian Border

Vytautas Landsbergis (in the middle) on 11 March 1990, after the promulgation of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania.

Photographer Paulius Lileikis. Lithuanian Central State Archives

Last weekend, my wife an I attended the True/False documentary film festival in Columbia, Missouri. We have been attending True/False annually since 2011 and it is always the most enlightening event of our year. This year we saw eight full length films and ten shorts. Several were the first public showings of new films.

After each film, I turned my phone back on to check on the news from Ukraine. It is amazing that the Ukrainian people have been able to hold out this long against the Russian invasion and I believe that everyone who supports democracy and self determination admires the courage of the Ukrainian citizens and their president Volodymr Zelenskyy.

The four hour film we saw on Sunday morning was a reminder that Zelenskyy wasn't the first leader to show great courage on the borders of Russia. Mr. Landsbergis features Vytautas Landsbergis, the man who led the declaration of independence of Lithuania from the Soviet Union in March of 1990. The Soviet Union responded to the declaration with an economic blockade that failed. 

On January 11-13, 1991, the Soviet Union sent troops and tanks into the city of Vilnius to intimidate the Lithuanians into submission. The city was mostly defended by unarmed civilians, men and women, who stood up to the invasion. In some cases the tanks ran over civilians and the troops fired in the crowds. It was painful to watch knowing that the same thing was happening again in Ukraine while we were watching the film.

Unarmed Lithuanian citizen standing against a Soviet tank. Photographer Andrius Petrulevičius.

Fortunately, in 1991, the revulsion of the rest of the world led Soviet President Gorbachev to withdraw the troops from Lithuania and a treaty signed by the new Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin and Landsbergis formally recognized the independence of Lithuania. Let's hope something similar happens in Ukraine.

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Clarity on Freedom of Speech

Constitution of the United States - U.S. National Archives

Last week, Russia's communications regulation agency announced that it would block websites that refer to the war in Ukraine as an "attack, invasion, or declaration of war." They are also targeting publications that mention the shelling of Ukrainian cities or civilian casualties. This is not surprising. Authoritarian regimes always tightly control the media to prevent their citizens from learning the truth. 

Freedom of the speech is one of the most important protections of a democratic society which is why it comes first in the United States Bill of rights. However, since the beginning of last year, there has been significant whining by people who should know better about violations of their right to free speech. Even people who have sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution have apparently not actually read it. I believe it is helpful to clarify a few points about the First Amendment. 

Limits Only Governmental Action

The text of the First Amendment reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 

This wording clearly limits only the power of the US Congress to limit free expression. However, subsequent Supreme Court cases, including Gitlow vs. New York in 1925, have incorporated the the language of the Fourteenth Amendment ("No state shall...deprive and person of life, liberty or property without due process of law") to apply the First Amendment restrictions to governments at the state and local levels.

Newspaper, book publishers, websites and social media platforms are not government agencies so they are not limited by the first amendment. When Twitter, Facebook and other site removed the accounts of the former President for violating their content rules, they were not violating his free speech rights.  In fact, they were exercising their own First Amendment right to edit their content responsibly.

Josh Hawley encouraging the protesters about to attack the Capital

Similarly, when Simon & Schuster decided not to publish Missouri Senator Josh Hawley's The Tyranny of Big Tech, they were not infringing his rights. They were simply making their free choice not to be associated with a repugnant individual. Hawley could and did find a different publisher with lower standards. 

Inciting or Producing Imminent Lawless Action

Others trying to misinterpret the U.S. Constitution are the members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys organizations that planned the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capital. Supporters of these groups have claimed that what happened in Washington that day was "legitimate political discourse" protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court is unlikely to agree.

In Brandenburg vs. Ohio, in 1969, the Supreme Court ruled that "A state may not forbid speech advocating the use of force or unlawful conduct unless this advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and likely to incite or produce such action." Since the encouragement of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and probably Trump and Hawley, produced imminent lawless action, it falls clearly outside of the First Amendment protections.

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