Predictive policing has exposed a new group of future criminals: MEPs.
A new testing systems has spotlighted five EU politicians as “at risk” of committing future crimes. Luckily for them, it’s not a tool that’s used by law enforcement, but one designed to highlight the dangers of such systems.
The project is the brainchild of Fair Trials, a criminal justice watchdog. The NGO is campaigning for a ban on predicting policing, which uses data analytics to forecast when and where crimes are likely to happen — and who may commit them.
Proponents argue that the approach can be more accurate, objective, and effective than traditional policing. But critics warn that it hardwires historic biases, disproportionately targets marginalised groups, amplifies structural discrimination, and infringes on civil rights.
“It might seem unbelievable that law enforcement and criminal justice authorities are making predictions about criminality based on people’s backgrounds, class, ethnicity and associations, but that is the reality of what is happening in the EU,” said Griff Ferris, Senior Legal and Policy Officer at Fair Trials.
Indeed, the technology is increasingly popular in Europe. In Italy, for instance, a tool known as Dalia has analysed ethnicity data to profile and predict future criminality. In the Netherlands, meanwhile, the so-called Top 600 list has been used to forecast which young people will commit high-impact crime. One in three people on the list – many of whom have reported being harassed by police – were found to be of Moroccan descent.
To illustrate the impacts, Fair Trials developed a mock assessment of future criminal behaviour.
Unlike many of the real systems used by the police, the analysis has been made entirely transparent. The test uses a questionnaire to profile each user. The more “Yes” answers they give, the higher their risk outcome. You can try it out for yourself here.
Politicians from the Socialists & Democrats, Renew, Greens/EFA, and the Left Group were invited to test the tool. After completing the quiz, MEPs Karen Melchior, Cornelia Ernst, Tiemo Wölken, Petar Vitanov, and Patrick Breyer were all identified as at “medium risk” of committing future crime.
“There should be no place in the EU for such systems — they are unreliable, biased, and unfair.
The gang will face no consequences for their potential offences. In real-life, however, such systems could put them on police databases and subject them to close monitoring, random questioning, or stop and search. Their risk scores may also be shared with schools, employers, immigration agencies, and child protection services. Algorithms have even led people to be jailed with scant evidence.
“I grew up in a low-income neighbourhood, in a poor Eastern European country, and the algorithm profiled me as a potential criminal,” Petar Vitanov, an MEP from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, said in a statement.
“There should be no place in the EU for such systems — they are unreliable, biased, and unfair.”
Fair Trials released the test results amid growing calls to outlaw predictive policing.
The topic has proven divisive in proposals for the AI Act, which is set to become the first-ever legal framework on artificial intelligence. Some lawmakers are pushing for a total ban on predictive policing, while others want to give leeway to law enforcement agencies.
Fair Trials has given supporters of the systems a new reason to reconsider their views: the tech can also target them.
TikTok parent company ByteDance is reportedly laying off what South China Morning Post maintains will be “hundreds of employees” working at its VR headset manufacturing subsidiary, Pico Interactive. A separate report from Reuters also maintains Chinese tech giant Tencent is scrapping its plans to release a VR headset.
According to two people with knowledge of the Pico layoffs, a substantial portion of the VR headset maker is expected to be affected. The report maintains that some teams will see as much as a 30 percent reduction, while some higher-level positions are also expected to be affected.
After being acquired by ByteDance in August 2021, Pico job postings revealed the company was making a sizable expansion into the US to presumably better compete with Meta on its home turf.
Shortly afterwards, the China-based company then released its latest standalone headset, Pico 4, in Europe and Asia to consumers. Seen a direct competitor to Meta Quest 2, Pico 4 still isn’t officially sold in the US; the headset is currently only available across Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and most countries in Europe.
It was also reported by Chinese tech outlet 36Kr that Tencent, the massive Chinese multinational, was disbanding it 300-person strong XR unit. The company has since refuted this claim with Reuters, stating instead it will be making adjustments to some business teams as development plans for XR hardware had changed.
Citing sources familiar with the restructuring, Reuters reports that Tencent is abandoning plans to release a VR headset due to a sobering economic outlook.
This follows a widening trend of layoffs which have affected nearly every big name in tech, including Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. Microsoft recently announced it was shuttering its social VR platform AltspaceVR in addition to its XR interface framework, Mixed Reality Toolkit. Meanwhile, Microsoft has also had trouble fulfilling its end of a US defense contract which uses its HoloLens AR headset as the basis of a tactical AR headset.
It was also revealed late last year that Meta was planning to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter, alongside a layoff which affected nearly 11,000 employees, or around 13 percent of its overall workforce.
With Horizon Call of the Mountain, Sony is hoping to have an exclusive big-budget VR game to entice players to the new PSVR 2. Does the title succeed? Read on to find out.
Horizon Call of the Mountain Details:
Available On: PSVR 2 Release Date: February 22nd, 2023 Price: $60 Developer: Geurilla Games & Firesprite Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Editor’s Note: The clips in this review that were captured from PSVR 2 do not look correctly saturated due to incorrect HDR downmixing on our part. Rest assured, the world of Horizon Call of the Mountain is quite vibrant!
Gameplay
The first thing you should know about Horizon Call of the Mountain is that at its core, it’s a VR climbing game. While it’s obvious from the name that climbing would be part of the experience, I can’t say I realized that it would make up about 50-60% of the gameplay. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing; climbing in Call of the Mountain is well executed and creates perfect situations to showcase the game’s stunning environmental art.
The second thing you should know about Call of the Mountain is that it really is a full game and not just a collection of mini-games or one-off experiences. That includes a cast of characters with performances that developers Guerrilla and Firesprite clearly spent a lot of time on, with results that challenge the groundbreaking portrayal of virtual humans in Blood & Truth (2019).
Climbing is the central pillar of gameplay in Call of the Mountain; at first you’ll be using just your hands, but later you’ll find new tools that do a good job of mixing up the climbing gameplay just enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, though I wish the later equipment felt less redundant.
While the climbing systems work very well throughout, I found a near complete lack of challenge in the climbing gameplay; I don’t think I fell to my death a single time during the game. The only ‘challenge’ is occasionally needing to look around to find out where to make your next move, but there’s barely any real ‘threat’ during climbing segments, which would have served well to emphasize the game’s otherwise daring climbs.
The climbing may not throw any real challenges your way, but it certainly creates effective opportunities to see the beautiful world of Call of the Mountain. The environmental art and lighting direction in the game is seriously top notch and of a quality scarcely seen anywhere else in VR. You’ll come across vista after epic vista as you climb to new heights, and it always felt worth it to me to take a minute to soak in the views. From most vantage points you can make out other major landmarks in the game which helps make the whole thing feel like a cohesive world.
While climbing is a huge part of the game, you’ll also be doing a lot of bow shooting, which is also well executed in function and feeling. To that end, the combat is where the game really challenges players, and I was actually surprised just how difficult it can be. While I only died from a single encounter in the game, the combat definitely put my skills to the test in a way that I expect would be fairly difficult for inexperienced VR players. While there’s options to tweak the difficulty, unfortunately they’re somewhat hidden in the Accessibility menu which means some players might not find them given that they may be looking for a more common ‘difficulty selector’ as some games provide.
Instead of throwing enemy after enemy at you, combat in Call of the Mountain most often consists of very specific encounters with a set number and type of enemies. The game also takes on a totally unique form of locomotion when these fights start, where the player can swing their arms to quickly rotate around the outer edge of the combat space as they avoid attacks and look for new angles to attack from. While it might look strange from the outside, the overall concept works well, especially when you’re fighting some of the game’s biggest and baddest beasts.
Granted, I found it difficult to read and time the enemies’ melee attacks, and I didn’t feel like the ‘dodge’ mechanic (where you swing both your controllers to one side to do a quick strafe) worked particularly well. While I applaud the developers for building a unique and thoughtful combat system that’s specific to VR (and impressively comfortable, I should add), it could use a bit more refinement to really shine.
The same goes for the combat overall. While it’s definitely fun to fight the fascinating machine creatures from the world of Horizon—thanks to their excellent looks and sounds—combat never felt particularly strategic to me. For the most part you just need to keep lobbing arrows down range. That’s especially strange considering the game allows you to craft several different arrow types (like fire and ice), but all of them essentially just felt like extra damage rather than a strategic choice. That’s compounded by the fact that the game provides the player with more than enough resources to usually have their special arrows maxed out—which further meant that actually finding those resources didn’t feel very exciting.
While Call of the Mountain is a linear adventure, you’ll return to a hub area between missions where you’ll get to talk to the game’s small cast of characters. Although there’s unfortunately minimal character development and intrigue, the characters themselves are impressively rendered across the board, from the way they look to the way they move to the way they sound. It’s a shame they aren’t more involved in the game because they’re so technically compelling.
When you’re on the trail but not actively climbing or fighting, there’s usually loot to scavenge for. The game does a good job of leaving extra bits of loot for those that go looking, but since the only gameplay reward is ingredients for different arrows (which as we established, don’t really make the combat more unique) or a small upgrade to your health it can be a bit of a let down to keep finding the same stuff that you’ve already got plenty of.
Even if you’re full on arrows though, the game still peppers its pathways with little collectibles to find for those who are looking more closely at the world around them, as well as hidden targets for you to shoot (which I appreciate because this gives players another good reason to take in the environment at large). Some of the game’s levels also have optional (and sometimes hidden) ‘Legendary Climbs’, which are longer climbing segments that usually lead you to another awesome view, and these feel like a good reason to replay a level if you didn’t find them the first time around.
Call of the Mountain is a fun adventure with tons of VR native gameplay taking place inside one of the best looking virtual worlds seen in VR to date. I can’t say the story really grasped me—I completely missed why the protagonist and his brother are at odds with one another—but at least it’s all well delivered and ties the gameplay together. It took me about 7 hours and 30 minutes to complete the main campaign while finding roughly 60% of the extras like trophies, collectables, and Legendary Climbs.
While it isn’t particularly comprehensive, the game also has a small challenge area where you can test your bow and climbing skills with some timed challenges. And last but not least, there’s also the ‘Machine Safari’, which is an extended version of the opening sequence which shows off the game’s great looking creatures and animations in a non-interactive way (great as a short demo to show friends who aren’t gamers).
Immersion
Image courtesy PlayStation
Call of the Mountain is definitely easy to get lost in thanks to its beautiful visuals and solid-feeling world. Yes, you’ll come across a bunch of epic vistas to soak in, but the game also does a great job with the smaller details too. You’ll see nice touches like moss growing between rocks, glints of crystal flecks in some of the rock faces, and a ton of foliage and environmental decoration, all backed up by great lighting and art direction.
While it was a bummer to find that only some of the foliage was interactive, it did make me smile when I could naturally use my hand to push a vine away from my face, see fuzzy moss bend under my hands, and watch leaves move realistically as I grazed them while looking for my next hand-hold.
Overall, Call of the Mountain might have the best visuals of any VR game I’ve seen to date. Though I’d say Half-Life: Alyx still has the more technically proficient graphics, those graphics are largely in service of realizing a dirty, broken, dystopic city. Call of the Mountain, on the other hand, offers up a rich world full of natural beauty that’s a delight to see.
Beyond the interactive foliage, the developers also scattered lots of interactive props throughout the environment. While they have nothing to do with gameplay, they’re certainly tempting to play with. Though I can’t even recall the name of the game’s main antagonist, I do recall playing a tambourine, drums, a pan flute, finding various hand-made dolls, smashing a table full of pots with a hammer, ringing huge gongs with a mallet, throwing snowballs, and shooting vases off a steep ledge with my bow. All of these various props are detailed with their own sound effects, physics, and generally tight hit-boxes.
While it was great to see that all of these items were physically interactive and could be pushed appropriately with your hands, the physics would sometimes freak out when items interacted with each other (ie: putting a stick in a mug).
Also relating to item interactions, I was a little disappointed to see that Call of the Mountain lacks a proficient force-grab system (which is essentially standard in VR games today). While you technically can grab things with a bit of range, it was really hard to see exactly which item you are targeting, which would sometimes mean grabbing something other than what you had intended. And then there’s the fact that when grabbing distant items, your floating hand in many cases would fly away to meet the object, which certainly doesn’t look right. And all of this sometimes makes picking things up from the ground an annoyance.
A more thoughtful force-grab system would have been welcomed; it’s easy to imagine emulating the gravity glove system from Half-Life: Alyx, and either explain it away by saying it’s advanced technology from the Old Ones (the futuristic lost civilization of the game), or by creating an (admittedly contrived) version of the gloves using string and pulleys. I also would have liked to put items over my shoulder to stash them in my inventory instead of having them magically teleport there after touching them once.
One place where Call of the Mountain really went above and beyond in the immersion department is with its characters. Yes, they look great, they’re well voiced, and the facial capture is very expressive, etc., but the thing that really impressed me is the way the developers dealt with players reaching out and touching the characters.
In many games if you reach out to touch a character nothing happens (maybe your hand even clips through them), which breaks immersion. Other games will just keep the characters 10 feet away from you, but that can also kill immersion because they’re outside of your ‘personal space’ (making you feel less connected with them).
Call of the Mountain keeps the characters in that personal space, but if you reach out to touch them they will lean away from your hand while sneering at you in a way that feels really natural. And when I say natural, I mean the expression on their face—and the way they first look at your hand and then back at you—very effectively conveys a sense of ‘what the hell is wrong with you, why are you touching me’ without using any words at all. It’s such a minor detail but it’s incredibly well done, especially considering that this system is fully dynamic so it can happen regardless of how they’re gesturing, looking, or speaking. Whoever worked on this system and the accompanying body language and animations, bravo, you’ve set a new bar for the ‘players touching characters in VR’ problem.
Comfort
Though there’s plenty of motion in Call of the Mountain, the game is clearly designed to take comfort into consideration.
First and foremost, the game has a solid ‘arm swinger’ locomotion option which is the default for two of the three pre-configured comfort profiles. I found that it kept me more comfortable and felt more immersive than using pure stick movement—though it was just a little bit annoying that it slows you down so much when you come within a few feet of stationary objects like walls or rocks.
In addition to the arm swinger movement, the game has a dynamic blinder system that kicks in when there’s lots of motion, like when you’re jumping, climbing, ziplining, or falling, and I found that it did a great job of keeping me comfortable.
In addition to offering up three pre-configured comfort profiles ranging from lots of comfort accommodations to fewer accommodations, you can also go into the menu and fine-tune the settings to taste. The game also thoughtfully includes an ‘Arm Reach Multiplier’ option for anyone that needs it, either because you don’t feel like reaching as far, or because there’s a physical reason you’re unable to.
As with any VR game involving climbing, when you clasp a handhold you can effectively shake your own body around by waggling your arm; some of the very sensitive folks are likely to find this movement inherently uncomfortable, regardless of blinders. So if you are particularly sensitive to motion in VR, you might want to give this game a shot but be ready to take advantage of Sony’s PlayStation Store refund policy if you can’t handle the motion comfortably.
Below you can find the full list of comfort options in Horizon Call of the Mountain.
Horizon Call of the Mountain’ Comfort Settings – February 16th, 2023
Sega’s futuristic block-breaker, which you might remember from its launch on Dreamcast in 2001 or in arcades throughout Europe and Japan, is being reimagined for PSVR 2 with C-Smash VRS.
The game is bringing an immersive twist to Cosmic Smash’slow gravity squash-meets-blockbreaker gameplay, including single player, co-op, and 1v1 multiplayer modes—that’s what the ‘VRS’ stands for, both virtual reality and versus.
Besides bringing the futuristic racket sport to VR, C-Smash VRS is also set to rekindle some long dormant memories with its thumping OST, which seems to be inspired by the original’s ambient techno score; new tracks are being composed by DJ Ken Ishii (Rez Infinite) and Danalogue (The Comet is Coming, Soccer 96).
The game is currently under development by indie studio RapidEyeMovers, with the IP licensed from Sega. The studio says it’s working with VR veterans Wolf & Wood (The Last Worker, The Exorcist: Legion VR), and designers Cory Schmitz (Rez Infinite, Sound Shapes) and Arkotype (Polytron) to bring it to PSVR 2 later this year.
While we don’t have a launch date yet, a free demo of C-Smash VRS for PSVR 2 is coming to the PlayStation Store on March 23rd. In the meantime, you can wishlist the game here.
Half-Life 2: Episode One is getting VR support soon, brought to you by the same team behind the recently released SteamVR fan mod for Half-Life 2.
Released in 2006, Half-Life 2: Episode One is the first in a series of games to reveal the aftermath of Half-Life 2 and launch a journey beyond City 17.
The standalone title is finally getting VR support on March 17th, courtesy of the SourceVR Mod Team, a group of VR enthusiasts who are unaffiliated with Valve.
Like the team’s Half-Life 2VR Mod, which released for free on SteamVR headsets in September 2022, the VR mod brings the same possibility of playing Episode One in full room-scale VR with tracked motion controllers, allowing you to physically walk around, shoot weapons, pick up objects, climb ladders, etc.
And as you’d imagine, the Episode One mod is including the rash of VR-specific interactions first released in the HL2 VR, such as intuitive and realistic weapon handling, quick and easy weapon switching via a radial menu, over-the-shoulder ammo inventory, functional iron sights, two-handed weapons, and manual reloading. Like HL2 VR, there’s also set to be optional laser sights and an arcade style ‘quick reload’ option if realism isn’t your thing.
SourceVR Mod Team says on their website that creating mods for both Episode One and Two required a separate build from the one used in the original HL2VR mod due to “a few major issues that need to be resolved,” the group said in September. Ostensibly, the team has now solved those issues, rendering Episode One fully playable in VR.
In addition to downloading the VR mod on Steam for free, you’ll need to own copy of Half-Life 2: Episode One to play. You’ll be able to find it in a variety of cost-effective bundles on Steam. While you’re at it, make sure to nab Episode Two to get a jumpstart on things before the team releases VR support in the near future.
PlayStation VR 2 is just around the corner, and by this point Sony detailed all of the headsets core specs and features. Comparing PSVR vs. PSVR 2 specs side-by-side shows us how much has changed since Sony’s first consumer headset released in 2016.
Update (February 6th, 2023): With PSVR 2 launch day just around the corner, we’ve updated this spec sheet and commentary with the latest info, now including PSVR 2’s weight and cable length.
Among the major players in the VR space, Sony has bided its time on a follow-up to the original headset. By the time PSVR 2 releases on February 22nd, 2023, it will have been six years and four months since the original PSVR released back in 2016.
The original PSVR was released about six months after the first major consumer VR headsets—HTC Vive and Oculus Rift—hit the market back in 2016. However HTC, Oculus, and others have released many new headsets in the interim. To its credit, PSVR managed to feel competitive for many years after its release, but eventually began to feel dated as the rest of the pack charged ahead into VR’s ‘gen-2’ epoch.
Now here we are in 2023 with PSVR 2 on PS5 set to bring new life to Sony’s VR ambitions. Let’s take a look at how PSVR and PSVR 2 specs compare:
PSVR vs. PSVR 2 Specs
PSVR 2
PSVR
Resolution
2,000 x 2,040 (4.1MP) per-eye, OLED, HDR
960 x 1,080 (1.0MP) per-eye, RGB OLED
Refresh Rate
90Hz, 120Hz
90Hz, 120Hz
Lenses
Fresnel
Single element non-Fresnel
Field-of-view (claimed)
110° (diagonal presumed)
100° (diagonal presumed)
Optical Adjustments
IPD, eye-relief
Eye-relief
Connectors
USB-C (no breakout box)
USB, HDMI (breakout box)
Cable Length
4.5m
4.4m
Tracking
Inside-out (no external beacons)
Outside-in (external camera)
On-board cameras
4x IR (external), 2x IR (internal)
None
Pass-through View
Yes
No
Input
PSVR 2 Sense controllers (rechargable), DualShock 5 (rechargable) eye-tracking
It’s easy to get lost in the numbers so let’s really break down the major changes between the headsets.
Resolution, Field-of-view, & HDR
For one, PSVR 2 has about four times the pixel count of PSVR. All things being equal, that means images inside the headset would look about four times sharper, which is a substantial improvement.
However, we know that all things won’t be equal. Sony quotes the field-of-view of PSVR 2 at 110° compared to 100° for PSVR 1. That means that while PSVR 2 has many more pixels, they’ll be stretched over a slightly wider area. Overall the sharpness of the headset should still be substantially better, but not quite as much as the sheer increase in pixels would suggest.
As for the field-of-view itself, 100° to 110° isn’t a huge leap, but you’d surely notice it if you compared the headsets side-by-side.
Unless a surprise headset beats it to the punch, PSVR 2 will be the first commercially available VR headset to launch with an HDR (high-dynamic range) display. That means it’s capable of a much wider range of brightness than a typical headset. Functionally this means the headset will be able to produce scenes with more life-like brightness which in theory could improve immersion considerably.
Granted, in our PSVR 2 preview we didn’t clearly notice the headset’s HDR capabilities, though it isn’t clear if the games on display had been optimized for the feature yet. Another possibility is that the HDR mode simply may have the kind of peak brightness you’d see from an HDR TV. So at this point it’s unclear if HDR will be a ‘nice to have’ feature, or something that defines the headset compared to its contemporaries.
The original PSVR was for a long time the only major headset on the market that didn’t use Fresnel lenses, which are known to cause glare (in exchange for other benefits). PSVR 2, on the other hand, will be following the rest of the industry which has long moved to Fresnel lenses as the industry standard.
The lenses in the original PSVR had a large enough eye-box that Sony didn’t feel the need to include an IPD adjustment (which adjusts the lenses to match the distance between your eyes). However, PSVR 2 does have an IPD adjustment which is a good idea for many reasons, so we’re glad to see this addition. Meanwhile, PSVR 2 retains the eye-relief feature found on the original PSVR, which is useful for dialing in the most comfortable view and to make room for those with glasses.
Ease-of-use & Tracking
Even though this reads minimally on a spec sheet, this is a huge deal for PSVR 2—no more breakout box and no more external camera.
PSVR 1 setup diagram | image courtesy Sony
PSVR 1 ships with a large breakout box that accepts two plugs from the headset that run along a thick cable. The breakout box has to be connected to the host console by a USB cable and an HDMI cable (and also has to be plugged into the TV). And don’t forget that it needs its own power supply. That’s six… yes, six, individual plugs running into and out of the box.
Needless to say, the breakout box was a bit of a pain. Not only did it complicate the user’s A/V set up, in some cases it even created resolution and HDR issues for certain TVs; this was partly fixed with a later revision to the PSVR hardware, but even so the breakout box was a hindrance to the overall experience.
Oh and don’t forget about the camera. PSVR 1 required the PS4 camera for tracking, which meant having another peripheral plugged into your console. Not only that, but the camera was never made for VR in the first place and it suffered from poor tracking accuracy and limited coverage.
PS4 Camera | Image courtesy Sony
Sony has identified and eliminated these issues for PSVR 2. The breakout box is completely gone; the headset will plug into the PS5 with a single USB-C cable through the USB-C port conveniently placed right on the front of the PS5. That’s great news but we surely hope that little connector can hold the cable in tightly enough to not get yanked out if the cord gets tugged during intense VR sessions!
Image courtesy Sony
And the PS4 camera is gone too. Instead of using ‘outside-in’ tracking with a camera that sits on your TV, PSVR 2 has on-board cameras for ‘inside-out’ tracking. That means the cameras on the headset itself are used to track the player’s head movements. This eliminates another extra peripheral compared to PSVR 1.
But there’s a risk in Sony’s move to inside-out tracking. The quality of inside-out tracking varies greatly between headset makers. While the inside-out tracking on Quest 2, for instance, is very good, the inside-out tracking on Windows VR headsets leaves much to be desired. Only a handful of companies in the world have shown that they can deliver top-tier inside-out tracking for VR.
Granted, the bar is pretty low in this case. Tracking on PSVR 1 was arguably the worst among major headsets on the market, but it still sold very well regardless. Even if PSVR 2 has just ‘ok’ inside-out tracking, it could still be an improvement over the poor tracking of the original.
All that said, Sony tends to be pretty serious about VR, and I expect they’ll have a decent solution for inside-out tracking, if not a very good one.
Here’s the truth: the tech industry has long had a gender imbalance problem, and it starts early. Globally, women obtain 53% of STEM university degrees, but in the EU only 34% of graduates in the field are women, according to data from Girls Go Circular.
That has obvious knock-on effects. According to figures from Eurostat, women hold only 17% of major technology jobs, such as programming, systems analysis, or software development.
Startup funding too poses particular challenges for women in technology. In 2021, despite a record amount of capital invested that year in Europe, women founders were on the receiving end of less than 1% of the total funding, or €400 million, according to PitchBook data.
And now, with the advent of the metaverse, these systemic problems are raising their heads again.
The metaverse’s gender gap
A virtual world, or a collective area created by the convergence of physical and virtual reality, the metaverse is envisioned as a shared space where people can interact and participate in a simulated environment that mimics the physical world — albeit in a more enhanced way. The metaverse is underpinned by six technologies known as “BIGANT,” which represents blockchain, interactive, gaming, artificial intelligence, network, and the Internet of Things.
Despite last week’s announcement from Meta that its metaverse division lost $4.279 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, adoption is increasing. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 10% of workers will regularly use virtual spaces, up from 1% in 2022. It also says that by 2027, 25% of retail organizations with an ecommerce presence will have completed at least one proof of concept for tokenized assets using metaverse technologies.
Some companies are already leveraging the metaverse to build up hype, with luxury and consumer goods being particularly quick out of the traps.
At last week’s Samsung Unpacked event, the company announced that it will work with Google and Qualcomm on an upcoming mixed-reality platform. Apple, too, is expanding its footprint in the space, with reports indicating that its hotly-anticipated mixed reality AR/VR headset will arrive in the second half of this year.
Balenciaga gave one of Fortnite’s characters a digital Balenciaga-branded hoodie that could also be bought in real life for €725. Lacoste has created digital looks for Minecraft characters, plus a co-branded Minecraft collection of sportswear available to buy online, and Ralph Lauren created digital snow apparel for Roblox’s Winter Escape, pitched as “the ultimate holiday experience.”
But one issue persists. Right now, there is a significant gender imbalance in the metaverse.
McKinsey data shows women are using the metaverse more than men, both to achieve business goals and for leisure. McKinsey’s data reveals that 60% of women report they have implemented more than two metaverse-related initiatives in their organizations, and they are 20% more likely to implement multiple metaverse initiatives.
But, while they may disproportionately utilize its capabilities, women leaders in the industry are far more scarce. In the past five years, male-led metaverse companies received a higher share of total funding (90%) than women-led metaverse companies (10%).
This matters because the lack of equality has significant knock-on effects. Companies with 30% or more women on their boards have environmental scores that are one and a half times better, as well as four times more R&D investments than companies with no women. The bottom line is affected too: McKinsey says that companies in the top quartile for women on executive teams are more likely to have above-average profitability. Not to mention the fact that a lack of diversity on early-stage development teams leads to deeply ingrained biases and faulty products.
If you want to carve out a career in the metaverse and make a difference in this growing industry, there are plenty of interesting roles available, including the three below, plus many more on the House of Talent Job Board.
Lead Game Designer — Metaverse Solutions, Improbable, Remote
Improbable is leading the way in defining what the metaverse can be. The Lead Game Designer — Metaverse Solutions will be part of the Metaverse Solutions group, working alongside experienced game developers familiar with all aspects of the game development lifecycle. You will be directly involved in shaping both the technical and commercial direction of how metaverse experiences are developed and launched. If you are skilled in designing and documenting core-loops features, and limited-time events within a multiplayer context and have experience managing senior and junior designers across multiple design disciplines (e.g. level design, technical design, progression, single-player, multiplayer), then find out more about the job here.
Software Engineer (Leadership) – Metaworks, Meta, London
Meta is seeking an experienced Software Engineer to join the teams building the core platforms that enable the future of work. Meta wants to solve unique, large-scale, highly complex technical problems, and you will drive the team’s goals and technical direction to pursue opportunities that make the larger organization more efficient. You’ll effectively communicate complex features and systems in detail and understand industry and company-wide trends to help assess and develop new technologies. Interested? Find out more here.
XR/Metaverse Consultant, Komodal, Laval
Leading provider of consulting services on virtual worlds and the future of the metaverse, Komodal is based in France and is seeking an XR/Metaverse Consultant. You’ll join the production team and creatively research, experiment, and go beyond conventional technical limits to detect tomorrow’s innovations related to the metaverse. The role requires a Bac+5 in engineering, IT, design or significant experience in the field of immersive technologies. The cnadidate will also needknowledge of XR, virtual worlds, and the metaverse. Apply for this job here.
As we head into the next generation of XR hardware, here are some of the big developments and releases coming out of the industry.
Where Is XR Heading?
Terminology and ease of access has meant that it has been a challenge to inform the general public about XR platforms. But at last, we are seeing a shift from dedicated platform-specific hardware to agnostic all-in-one devices that makes sense for all involved.
As developers, we can design multi-purpose experiences that are fluid whilst the consumers need only to concern themselves with a single piece of kit that can do it all. That’s the direction we’re going in right now and companies are laying their cards on the table in a bid to be the dominant force driving us forward through their own varying strategies.
Think how Microsoft revolutionized personal computers, or how Apple changed the mobile phone market forever. We’re on the cusp of another life-changing piece of technology and the race is on.
There has been a multitude of devices announced, rumored, and even speculated upon. The common themes you’ll see pushed by the marketing teams are weight and resolution.
Let’s take a look at the technology coming our way.
What Is Everyone Working On?
Magic Leap 2
Magic Leap jumped the starting gun and played their cards early. The Magic Leap 2 was released in September last year with an entry price point of $3,299.
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An updated version of their first MR device, it features 1440 x 1760 resolution and weighs in at a tiny 260g. In comparison to the upcoming competitors we’ll discuss, this device by far stands above the rest in terms of financial expense alongside Apple.
Reality Pro
Apple’s Reality Pro is rumored to be unveiled in the next few months and a speculated price point of $3000 puts it up there with the Magic Leap 2 for its inaccessibility to the average consumer.
With Apple being rumored to enter the field of VR/AR, there are numerous speculations of these high price tags and a focus on productivity over gaming, which has been a major drive in VR platform focus in the past few years.
It will be interesting to see what Apple brings to the field as there might not have been much of a consumer-side push for a VR device that is focused on productivity, taking calls, and using regular phone apps in VR over just gaming or fitness.
The device will supposedly make use of hand tracking or a clothes-pin like a finger module for pointing and selection. Meta, in contrast, is aiming for a more commercially viable XR product.
Quest 3
The Quest 3 is one of the most anticipated and discussed XR headsets this year, with little information being known about it even now. Zuckerberg has tipped a price point between $300-500 and the release is expected later this year.
There is currently much speculation about whether it will be packing the in-development Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR 2 Gen 2 chip or the same XR 2 chip from the previous model. It’s a strong contender to be the headset that sets the new standard for value.
PICO 4
ByteDance was another early offering in the hardware market. The PICO 4 virtual reality headset was released mid-October last year and features 4K+ resolution, a weight of 295g, and is available in Europe and East Asia for €399 (around $428).
Arguably one of the lesser-known devices and studios, this is ByteDance’s offering as a viable competitor to Meta, specifically the Quest 2. While it packs a punch, it also has some limitations, such as low-resolution passthrough, Meta might be about to blow it out of the water. With the Quest 3 on the horizon, a lot of consumers are holding off on the PICO 4 at the moment.
HTC
HTC is about to release its offering in the form of the VIVE XR Elite with a release date of February 25 and an entry-level price of $1,099. With it being the most decorated VR headset at CES 2023, expect them to go toe-to-toe with Meta for dominance in the market.
On paper, they are fairly evenly matched and it could come down to pure user experience and well-designed software. HTC is doubling down on VR glasses for smaller experiences like in-car journey entertainment and movie watching through the VIVE Flow.
It is possible that these developments and improvements in hardware will converge into smaller wearable devices that are suited more for passthrough or passive experiences but can also be worn for work too, like the high-end VIVE XR Elite and Meta Quest Pro.
Sony
Sony is also bringing out the PSVR2, which is said to use eye tracking for menu selection and navigation of user interfaces. With the PSVR2 and Apple VR, both are moving away from controller-oriented inputs which could bring a layer of accessibility to VR.
How often have we shown a friend or family VR and had to explain to them where the buttons are on the controllers for the first time? If headsets move towards using eye-tracking selection and hand tracking, controllers could become optional for devices like these, which could also bring down the hardware price for consumers and help drive adoption through the reduction of learning curves.
Why We Need to Get It Right
The metaverse remains at this point a vision for the future and will do so until an extensive commercial breakthrough is made. The metaverse is entirely dependent on engagement and interconnectivity. There is a harsh expectation of constant usage and whilst some would argue that our lives are already technologically dependent, the level of integration into our lives that we’re talking about is unprecedented.
Accessibility also remains a firm stumbling block as technology will take some time to offer true value to people and not act as a luxurious gimmick. This is likely to remain the case for the near future. We do need to evaluate moving forward which hardware ultimately works for users and developers alike. But for now, we are testing what’s possible and creatively, it is a great time to be involved.
Guest Post
About the Guest Author(s)
Rob Farthing
Rob is a Unity-certified Artist and digital programmer for XR applications with experience in pairing machine learning with augmented reality. Since graduating from the University of Portsmouth (BSc Hons 1st class) in 2016, Rob has developed a range of immersive experiences for clients such as Samsung, GSK, and Harman.
Chris Hull
Graduating in Computer Animation (Hons) at Bournemouth University’s prestigious NCCA in 2017, Chris has broad knowledge across the 3D pipeline with a specialization in Application Development and XR technologies. He has worked in various industry roles and developed a broad portfolio of previous clients including Red Bull, IKEA, and The Ministry of Defense.
Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives. Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives.
The decline of pollinators, particularly bees, is having a grave impact on agriculture and human health. Scientists estimatethat 4.7% of the world’s total production of fruit, 3.2% of vegetables, and 4.7% nuts is now lost because of inadequate pollination. But there’s hope. Researchers at Tampere University in Finland have developed a robot that could serve as an artificial pollinator.
The team was inspired by dandelion seeds and tapped into the technological advances in stimuli-responsive polymers used in small, wirelessly-controlled soft-bodied robots, which can walk, swim, jump, or even hover. The result was a polymer-assembly robot that uses wind and light to fly — a world first, according to the researchers.
The robot resembles a dandelion seed and has several biomimetic features. Its porous structure and light weight (1.2mg) enable it to float in the air, directed by the wind. Notably, the robot can also adapt manually to wind direction and force by changing its shape. And thanks to a stable separated vortex ring generation it’s suitable for long-distance wind-assisted travelling.
Here’s what the robot looks like. Credit: Jianfeng Yang / Tampere University
“[It] can be powered and controlled by a light source, such as a laser beam or LED,” Hao Zeng, the research group’s leader, said. Essentially, light can be used to control the structure’s takeoff, landing, and shape.
According to Zeng, the proof-of-concept experiments demonstrate a significant potential for “realistic applications” suitable for agricultural pollination. In the future, these artificial dandelion seeds — dispersed freely by natural winds and steered by light — could carry pollen towards designated areas requiring plant pollination.
With this goal in mind, the team’s planning to improve the material sensitivity that would allow the robot to operate in sunlight, and is looking to upscale the structure so it could be equipped with micro-electronic devices, including GPS, sensors, and biochemical compounds.
Nevertheless, the technology requires further research and collaboration with material scientists and microrobotics experts to address two main challenges: the precise control of the landing spot and reusing the device to make it biodegradable.
Sports VR games are changing the fitness game. These highly interactive apps have the potential to transform the way we stay fit by making sports and fitness activities more fun, engaging, and convenient.
They allow players to immerse themselves in a virtual environment and engage in physically demanding activities, such as playing virtual basketball or boxing, within the confines of their own homes. With research indicating increased energy expenditure while playing, VR games offer a fun and convenient alternative to traditional workouts.
If you’d like to get some sports into your fitness routine but do not have time to hit the gym or stay out on the field, here are five of the top sports VR games you can try out at home. These games provide a full-body workout that challenges players to improve their hand-eye coordination, reaction time, and physical endurance. They can help burn anywhere from 4 to 13 calories per minute.
5 Sports VR Games to Up Your Fitness Game This Year
Gym Class VR
Love shooting hoops? Gym Class VR brings the ball game right where you are. Join players from all over the world for an immersive basketball game. Warm up with jumping jacks, wall squats, and other drills. Form a team with your friends and compete with other teams.
This game transports you into a virtual court and makes you feel as if you were playing on a real one. Dribble, pass, and shoot the same way you do in real life. For an extra level of motivation to keep playing, track your progress with statistics, shot charts, and streaks.
Racket: Nx
Court meets arcade in this sports VR game that blends elements of racquetball and pinball to create a fast-paced and exciting workout experience. Racket: Nx takes you inside the glass dome of a pinball machine for a one-of-a-kind racquetball experience.
Get your ball ready and hit targets as soon as they light up. Score points and dodge obstacles in the giant pinball arena. With its high-paced, psychedelic, and competitive gameplay, you’ll have a blast as you improve your hand-eye coordination, speed, precision, and agility.
The Thrill of the Fight
Feel the thrill of a real fight with the hyper-realistic gameplay of this sports VR game. The Thrill of the Fight lets you face off with your opponent in a virtual ring set at room scale.
Dodge hits, throw jabs, cross hooks, and land knockout punches as if you were in a real boxing match. Play the game regularly to learn and hone different boxing styles and techniques. Progress faster through the levels as you improve your skill, timing, and strategy.
Eleven Table Tennis
Smash your way to fitness. With the fast-paced gameplay and intense action in Eleven Table Tennis, you’ll be breaking a sweat in no time. Touted as the best simulation for table tennis, this game mimics actual movements and physics.
Whether you are competing online against other players or practicing with an advanced AI opponent, you’ll feel as if you are playing the game in real life. The exercise intensity depends on a player’s skill level from a light workout for beginners to a super intense game for dedicated or highly skilled players.
Sports Scramble
Go berserk with all the fun you’ll be having while playing a mix-matched sports VR game. Sports Scramble combines the distinct elements of different sports to create unique and totally fun VR experiences.
Play tennis with a badminton birdie, bowl a strike with a basketball, or score a home run with a racket. This game lets you play in a large tennis court, a zany bowling lane, or a baseball field but makes the experience more exciting—and crazily fun—by giving you unusual sports gear for your game.
Start Your Fitness Journey the Fun Way
Indeed, sports VR games are good workout alternatives that offer more enjoyment, convenience, and accessibility than traditional workouts. By providing an enjoyable and interactive way to exercise, they help people start their fitness journey the fun way and make it a sustainable part of their lifestyle.
However, it is important to be conscious of your mobility and fitness levels and consult a doctor if you have any medical concerns before using VR. Also, while sports VR games are a fun workout option, they should not replace actual sports training and one should be careful not to over-exercise.
Prisms VR, an immersive platform for teaching math, announced it’s raised $12.5 million in a Series A round, which the company says will be used to expand its VR math literacy platform to more schools across the US.
Led by Andreessen Horowitz, the latest funding round brings Prisms VR’s lifetime funding to $19.1 million, according to CrunchBase.
Launched in 2021, Prisms focuses on teaching math in VR through problem-driven, tactile and visual learning. Essentially, it immerses students by confronting them with real-world problems—a far sight from the sort of drab word problems which typically involve far too many watermelons for comfort.
Prisms was founded by Anurupa Ganguly, who has taught math and physics across both Boston and New York City. The app’s development, Ganguly explains, was in response to the US education system, and how math instruction doesn’t appeal to real life situations.
“Technology has failed our students, especially where math is concerned. With new developments in immersive tech, we have the opportunity to make learning experiential and connected to students’ lives,” said Ganguly, founder and CEO at Prisms. “Prisms is the first learning solution that empowers students to experience real-life problems with their bodies versus reading about them divorced from personal experience. They are then able to build up to shorthand abstractions from intuitive visual and tactile experiences that lead to enduring retention and deeper understanding.”
The company says it’s using the funds to accelerate growth and adoption of its product and team in addition to expanding programs to more schools across the US. The company is also currently developing products aimed at higher education and other subjects as well.
The startup’s Meta Quest app is available to parents, tutors and teachers with a seven-day free trial, costing $24 for an annual subscription to its growing library of immersive lessons. For now, it includes around two dozen modules, teaching from middle school fractions all the way to advanced algebra.
To date, Prisms has already been adopted by 100+ school districts across 26 states, the company says, bringing its app to more than 80,000 students.
An EV that cleans the air while driving might seem like a pipe dream , but a student team based at the Eindhoven University of Technology has made it reality. TU/ecomotive — as the team is called — has been creating inspiring, environmentally conscious concept cars for over a decade now.
Among the concept vehicles presented by the students, last year’s Zem — which stands for “zero emission mobility” — is the most outstanding. It’s a passenger EV that not only paves the way towards vehicle carbon neutrality, but also cleans the air while driving, something that, in turn, reduces CO2 emissions.
Credit: TU/ecomotive
Zem was unveiled in July 2022 at the Louwman Museum in the Hague. Its message is clear: if a team of 32 students can create a car like this in under 12 months, then what’s stopping the automotive industry from doing more?
“We were inspired by the EU’s Green Deal,” Louise de Laat, Industrial Design student and team manager of the Zem project, told TNW. “Reducing our CO2 emissions is something very important for us, and we would really like to make a carbon neutral car. And that’s the reason for the recent project’s focus on zero emission mobility,” she explained.
CO2 neutral mobility requires a vehicle to have zero carbon emissions across its entire lifecycle, and Zem is an apt example of how close to this goal an EV like this can get.
In this piece, we’ll look at how Zem achieves this through its use, production, and afterlife — as well as what the car industry can learn from these sorts of schemes.
The air-cleaning technology
As we mentioned at the start, instead of emitting CO2, Zem captures it. Effectively, it cleans the air while driving. That’s thanks to an innovative technology called direct air capture (CAP), which “traps” carbon dioxide into a filter. Companies such as Climeworks and Carbyon have been applying this air-cleaning method via large installations. But the Zem team decided to implement it on the car.
It works like this: while driving, air moves through the car into a self-designed filter, which captures and stores CO2, allowing clear air to flow out of the vehicle. This compensates for the total emissions of all life phases.
Credit: TU/ecomotive
But what happens when the filter is saturated?
“We have designed a special charging pole for this,” Louise explained. “While Zem is charging you can remove the filter and place it in a special tank inside the pole. Cleaning the filter takes about the same time as charging. At the same time, the CO2 absorbed and saved in the tank can be repurposed and used by industries that need it, to make carbon fibers, for instance,” she added.
And to increase the vehicle’s sustainability even when not in use, TU/ecomotive has equipped it bi-directional charging technology to provide electricity to homes, as well as solar panels to store energy.
Maximising sustainable production and afterlife
To achieve a high level of sustainability, the TU/ecomotive opted for a novel production method: additive manufacturing — or simply, 3D printing. The team collaborated with partners — such as CEAD and Royal3D — to develop the car’s fundamental structure. Specifically, the monocoque and the body panels.
As Louise explained, they also 3D-printed parts of the interior, including the car seat shell, the dashboards, the middle console, the steering wheel, and the roof beams.
According to the team, this manufacturing process results in nearly zero waste materials, as the various car parts were printed in the exact shape needed. At the same time, they did the printing using circular plastics. These are granulates that had already been used and can be shredded and reused afresh in other projects.
“You can use that same material again to make the same event over three times before it loses its specifications,” Louise noted.
The vision of circularity has been applied throughout Zem’s design as well.
For example, the seat upholstery is made from the residue released during pineapple production. The roof upholstery and the floor mats consist of ocean plastics. And, through the collaboration with Black Bear Carbon, recycled black carbon from worn tires has been used for the EV’s coating and tires.
As a result, the concept car boasts “as little CO2 emissions as possible” during the production phase. At the same time, the types of materials, their ease of separation, and their circularity, all contribute to keeping CO2 emissions during the end-of-use phase at a lower level — especially when compared to conventional cars.
Credit: TU/ecomotive
But, according to Louise, it proved extremely challenging to give a specific number to Zem’s overall emissions via the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method, revealing a gap in the industry.
“We need a lot of data from the partners where we get the parts from and some of them don’t know the exact LCA of their product,” she said. On the upside, she considers it beneficial that this project meant their partners acknowledged the vehicle’s environmental footprint.She also remains hopeful that respective legislation from national governments and the EU in general will standardise the use of LCA.
As per Louise, Zem has succeeded in reaching its goal to drastically lower CO2 emissions to the maximum extent possible. Yet, the EV does come with disadvantages that would require further work to enable its scaleup into a marketable product.
“If you build a car in less than one year, there will be some flaws that you still need to work on,” she noted. “Zem drove smoothly on the DRC track during the US tour, but the closer you get to the vehicle, the easier it is to see its flaws.” And that’s to be expected when you work with new materials and new technologies within a short period of time, Louise added.
A win-win for students and commercial partners
Now that the Zem project has been concluded, a renewed team has started working on the next concept vehicle. Stijn Plekkenpol — a sustainable innovation student — will lead the next project.
“What we really want to do now is build a climate positive car by 2030. This means, a vehicle which is marketable, which could be produced, and actually have a positive impact on the environment instead of any negative ones,” Stijn told TNW.
In the meantime, Louise aims to keep working on the filter technology and would be excited to see Zem turn into a mass-produced car. After all, it’s not uncommon for a student concept to grow into a startup and a real-life product. Think of Lightyear, the now famous solar EV Dutch startup, which was also started by students of the Eindhoven University of Technology.
Credit: Bart van Overbeeke/ TU/ecomotive
While both Louise and Stijn attribute Zem’s success to the students’ team “long working hours and [their] dedication”, they explained the vital role commercial patterns played as well.
“The majority of our partners are from Eindhoven’s Brainport region, which is known for its high density of R&D, and is called the Silicon Valley of the Netherlands,” Louise said.
These partners supported the project by providing parts, materials, knowledge, and financial support. And as for what they gained in return, Louise summarised three main advantages: employee recruitment, exposure, and the enjoyment and inspiration stemming from the collaboration with young people bringing bold ideas to the table.
Both Louise and Stjn have optimistic views on the future of mobility. They believe that cars will remain an integral part of transportation, but that they have the potential to be climate-positive instead of adding to carbon emissions.
And, as Zem showcases, we should trust in the innovative ideas of the younger generations, further seeking the collaboration between daring university projects and commercial partnerships.
The new concept vehicle will be revealed on July 27 — and I, for one, can’t wait to see what the students have in store for us.
