Join us at Stand B40 on April 10, 11 and 12, 2024, to discover our easy-to-use VR SAAS platform. We'll be pleased to join Kizwork, Massive Immersive, QBranch and OLFY at stand "B40 - Le Village by CA".
My first brand, subOceana, was born in a metaverse, in 2007... I often hear people refer to me as a specialist, a creative technologist, an alumnus, a gamer, a visionary, a geek, a CEO, a CTO...
I've never really liked labels! Every community has its own language, every profession its own jargon. Depending on the world in which you evolve or the people you meet, what makes sense in one case can be completely ridiculous in another.
What I really like: learning, sharing, spending hours on technological brakes, diverting tools from their primary functions, innovating* in use to ultimately make life easier for users. You know, a bit like when you spend time cooking a complicated dish, with the pleasure of simplicity and conviviality in mind. A customer (ours are professionals) who can easily appropriate technology, and in this case virtual reality in particular, will use it to enhance their ability to create, train, communicate, share and inspire their own audience.
And I can't wait to discover your worlds!
*Innovating: talking 6 months before others about things... that we've been doing for 10 years to general indifference, sometimes tinged with a little mockery 😉
We touched on the independence of the Web in an article on the genesis of "Metavers", and the podcast linked below is a good complement for those who want to know more about these concrete and effective struggles. This aspect of (cyber)culture, a dream of the hippy-techno libertarians of the 1990s, is little known in France, where hardly anyone has been aware of these struggles since the beginnings of the Internet (sic - Yannn Minh).
"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather." - John Perry Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
For the American John Perry Barlow, in the 90s, the Internet was going to change the world. He was right: digital civilization has become our ubiquitous reality. But at what price? Hasn't the libertarian and emancipatory utopia been privatized and hijacked by GAFAM, the Internet giants?
Podcast on this declaration of independence in cyberspace.
declaration of independence for cyberspace
The Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace is a famous text written on February 8, 1996 in Davos, Switzerland, by John Perry Barlow, writer, activist and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It supports the idea that no government (or any other form of power) can impose itself and appropriate the Internet, created six years earlier and still in its infancy and in full expansion at the time.
It was written partly in response to the passage of the TelecommunicationsAct of 1996 in the USA - then under Bill Clinton. The Communications Decency Act (CDA), incorporated into the Telecommunication Act, aimed to censor certain offensive and pornographic content, making it illegal and punishable by a $250,000 fine to, for example, say "shit" online, talk explicitly about abortion, or refer to various bodily functions in anything other than strictly clinical terms, thus tending to limit certain freedoms on the Internet.
Because of its subject matter, this declaration became famous within the first few weeks of its publication, and is still popular on the Internet today. As for the part of the Telecommunications Act concerning expression on the Internet (CDA), the loud cries of Barlow and other defenders of civil liberties bore fruit: in June 1997, after several months of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court ruled that it was incompatible with the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
My first brand, subOceana, was born in a metaverse, in 2007... I often hear people refer to me as a specialist, a creative technologist, an alumnus, a gamer, a visionary, a geek, a CEO, a CTO...
I've never really liked labels! Every community has its own language, every profession its own jargon. Depending on the world in which you evolve or the people you meet, what makes sense in one case can be completely ridiculous in another.
What I really like: learning, sharing, spending hours on technological brakes, diverting tools from their primary functions, innovating* in use to ultimately make life easier for users. You know, a bit like when you spend time cooking a complicated dish, with the pleasure of simplicity and conviviality in mind. A customer (ours are professionals) who can easily appropriate technology, and in this case virtual reality in particular, will use it to enhance their ability to create, train, communicate, share and inspire their own audience.
And I can't wait to discover your worlds!
*Innovating: talking 6 months before others about things... that we've been doing for 10 years to general indifference, sometimes tinged with a little mockery 😉
Harassment at school, stimulating debate with virtual reality (VR)!
The immersive features of VR headsets provide an ideal environment for teaching students empathy in a world of plural cultures and personalities.
From November to April 2023, Roland Toullec, our project manager, proposed to 2 4th grade students working on a project to raise awareness of harassment, to use our explorations360 platform to build their film. The viewer thus becomes a witness to a virtual experience of harassment, helping to better understand the emotions and negative consequences associated with these situations.
Feeling emotions
We know that VR headsets headsets put more strain on the right brain, which is more visual and intuitive. It generates a more creative and less organized way of thinking and acting. It allows you to feel other people's emotions, and to empathize.
By experiencing these emotions in an immersive way, students can develop empathy for victims of harassment.
A 360° teaching kit to raise awareness of harassment?
What if this first "hands-on" experience, carried out in Saint-Brieuc as a proof of concept, accompanying students at Collège Saint-Yves La Salle, was the first brick in a vast library of immersive content designed for all types of educational outreach?
PicoXR pedagogical headsets cases
Why not go one step further and ask students from other secondary schools to create their own resources? It would be a simple matter to roll out a "harassment teaching kit" for creating 360° content, enabling students to record their own 360° videos or 360° images.
Test the consequences of your actions!
Thanks to the explorations360 platform and the experience of our teamswe can create immersive questionnaires, and propose different situations and reactions whose consequences can be tested.
This interactive approach promotes active learning and encourages students to think about different ways of resolving conflicts and promoting a respectful school environment. The fight against bullying at school cannot rest solely on the shoulders of students and teachers.
Distribute widely
It's essential to involve as many people as possible in this process. Virtual reality can be an invaluable tool for raising awareness among all key players and helping them to better understand students' experiences.
What to do about bullying?
Senate information report of September 22, 2021 Click here!
My first brand, subOceana, was born in a metaverse, in 2007... I often hear people refer to me as a specialist, a creative technologist, an alumnus, a gamer, a visionary, a geek, a CEO, a CTO...
I've never really liked labels! Every community has its own language, every profession its own jargon. Depending on the world in which you evolve or the people you meet, what makes sense in one case can be completely ridiculous in another.
What I really like: learning, sharing, spending hours on technological brakes, diverting tools from their primary functions, innovating* in use to ultimately make life easier for users. You know, a bit like when you spend time cooking a complicated dish, with the pleasure of simplicity and conviviality in mind. A customer (ours are professionals) who can easily appropriate technology, and in this case virtual reality in particular, will use it to enhance their ability to create, train, communicate, share and inspire their own audience.
And I can't wait to discover your worlds!
*Innovating: talking 6 months before others about things... that we've been doing for 10 years to general indifference, sometimes tinged with a little mockery 😉
Our relationship with virtual tourism. The metaverse report danger...
The title of this article is a question that was put to me on QUORA, and before giving any hints as to the answers, let's recall the promises of the Metaverse, and those of tourism.
Metaverse definition
Metavers in French. It's an open tool, fully customizable by its users. It's an evolution of Internet use whose main value propositions are :
A spatialized, immersive digital world built by its users
Persistent (when I turn off my PC, the world lives on)
The ability to interact with virtual elements in the environment and with other users
The ability to manage your avatar (appearance, gestures, gait, expressions, etc.). With subjective view in VR helmet immersion and/or 3rd person avatars (piloted and seen from the outside). Long-lasting avatars.
Ubiquity (being in several places at once, piloting several avatars if you wish)
A diversity of users and communities
Freedom unconstrained by arbitrary moral rules
A universe with its own economy
An interoperable tool, with the ability to manage possessions and move from one environment to another if different Metaverse bricks were based on different technologies.
Decentralization and security (data is certified, and the system belongs to the users, not to a single entity)
Tourism
For a long time, tourism was the only way to discover other people and places, long before the advent of modern communication and even transportation tools. In our modern society, tourism has become synonymous with :
Job creation
Infrastructure and service development
Heritage preservation and enhancement
Cultural exchanges
Mutual understanding
Local community development
Virtual tourism via the metaverse?
Let's frame the subject a little: before talking about a "metaverse danger", it's worth pointing out that the Metaverse doesn't yet exist in its absolute form(article); it's being built in bricks, but is already inducing new uses that prefigure it! For tourists, the Metaverse will never replace a visit or a trip, just as flight simulation has never replaced the pleasure of flying, or put amateur (or pro) pilots out of work. Nor have car racing games with immersive headsets replaced real racetracks.
However, we need to think about how we "consume" travel. I was discussing this with a friend not long ago, who told me that his experience of visiting the Sistine Chapel was not the best memory of his stay in Italy: crowds, hubbub, everyone shoulder-to-shoulder, noses up, eyes on their smartphones... It's a far cry from a mystical or architectural experience.
Today, a digital twin lets us immerse ourselves in it for as long as we like, dimming the lights, with spatialized sound, letting us fly up to the ceiling, see details of the paintings, connect with friends, a personal guide, etc... with an ambience so close to the original, that one wonders if it's still worth creating such a human flow on the real monument. Especially as most of the time, it's become a case of ticking a box on your list of selfies for your Instagram account.
So, from a French or Italian perspective, a virtual visit to the Sistine Chapel may seem excessive, but is it really so absurd when you think about it? Would a Japanese or a Hawaiian have the same point of view? "Virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel" is a very popular keyword on Google, as is "virtual tour of the Château de Versailles", "virtual tour of the Louvre" or "virtual tour of the Grotte de Lascaux". And from France, do we think the same of more distant destinations?
Wasn't there also a craze to revisit Notre Dame intact, just after its tragic fire? All of a sudden, the virtual world was becoming an essential conservatory of heritage, accessible from anywhere, and "notre dame de paris virtual tour" was skyrocketing in Google Trends! ScanPyramids VR, the virtual tour of the Khéops pyramid organized by the Cité de l'architecture in Paris, was such a success that the operation is regularly restarted. The tour teleports a group of six people, equipped with a VR headset and accompanied by a guide, onto the Giza plateau for forty-five minutes.
"This form of off-ground tourism or tourism 4.0 will develop without eclipsing tourism, which remains a time to experience elsewhere. The virtual enables multisensory experiences or experiences that are impossible in the real world, but it won't replace climbing Mont Blanc, for example." David Nahon, Director of Immersive Experience at Dassault Systèmes(article).
The place of social issues
Visiting a digital twin of the Vatican doesn't mean that its "in real life" access is off-limits to the public, but it does mean thinking about how and why we consume tourism. Above all, it's a reflection on our individual behavior towards the most popular tourist sites, which are often subject to excessive pressure . On theother hand, life in the surrounding neighborhoods, the little restaurants, the human exchanges, the atmospheres, the smells, the local recipes, etc... all made the richness of my friend's trip.
The uses
It's all about thinking about use, and the relevance of use!
The tool could enable several people to share an immersive experience in a place that cannot otherwise be shared between friends, or members of the same community: because it's too far away, too expensive, or as mentioned above, too much tourist pressure (and therefore needs to be preserved), too dangerous for me, etc.
Given the pressure on tourism, these tools provide an opportunity to discover new places, and better distribute visitor flows. In some countries, such as France, we're talking about using social network influencers to propose new destinations, to preserve others; VR headsets and applications on their Stores are a good way to discover and prepare.
Thanks to digital twins, and if you feel like it, you can go and visit your chosen accommodation in immersion on a 1:1 scale, prepare a slightly complicated hike (get your bearings, get an idea of the difficulties), etc. My children have never visited a site with as much curiosity and playfulness as the day they visited Mont-Saint-Michel in Second Life the day before going there "in real life": they were on the lookout for all the little details they'd had time to observe "flying" over the streets or "diving" into the basements. Surprisingly, the surprise and discovery were multiplied tenfold.
It can also complement a tourist site, offering visitors the chance to immerse themselves in the past or the future, either on-site or remotely, through rich interactions!
The place of art and nature
FranceFrance, the world's leading travel destination and oldest tourist nation, can set an example by reflecting on the place of art in vacations, and respect for nature, landscapes and local people. Jean VIARD, sociologist and CNRS research director at Cevipof, Centre de recherches politiques de Sciences Po Paris.
The NøøMuseum, virtual museum, or the "First Virtual Science Fiction Festival After The End Of The World"; inaugurated in May 2013, is the dematerialized extension in cyberspace of the "Festival de la Science Fiction et de l'imaginaire de Roanne" founded thirty years ago. The production of its various digital versions is the fruit of a collective effort involving artists, sound designers and network technologies.
Real-time 3D reconstruction of Velasquez's painting Las Meninas, by Yann Minh for the Noomusueum, with the possibility of wandering IN the painting to better understand its composition. https://www.noomuseum.net/
We could also mention experiences that bring us closer to nature, some of which are inaccessible to many of us, or not (any more) to be had for conservation reasons: the summits of high mountains, deep dives, journeys into lost heritage, into the future...
In the virtual experiences we've built up, I remember Laurent Ballesta, oceanologist and naturalist photographer, saying in October 2013 "Ohlaa, I'm going back!" as he discovered an immersive virtual dive to a depth of 120 m with the Coelacanth, which he had studied in the Gulf of Mozambique .
At the time, he took pleasure in pointing out that fewer people had dived with this mythical fish than there had been men on the Moon... 4 minutes to descend to 120 m, but the 5-hour decompression stop ascent in open water for 30 minutes of exploration at the bottom, the physical training, the cost of the equipment and the complexity of the gas mixtures to be breathed must have had something to do with it...
Laurent Ballesta - January 2014, pointing at a Coelacanth, 120m down...
We brought the experience to hundreds of people in January 2014 at the Paris International Diving Show. Today, 10 years on, the experience is portable in any home for the price of a smartphone. Tomorrow, it will be standard.
Drawing a parallel between the Moon, space and the visitor's standard, there's also a free online "iss virtual tour" of the International Space Station (with VR headsets or on your PC).
The Metaverse, like virtual reality and augmented reality tools, is a relevant way of creating a continuum of visit, enabling a link between before, during and after the visit. And it's a place where we socialize, just as we do in Second Life (an ancestor of the Metaverse), where I worked for over 4 years and met "users", initially through their avatars, who became friends and/or partners "in real life". Let's not forget that in 2021, Second Life's gross domestic product (the money generated by transactions in the platform's internal currency, which many say is "dead") will amount to $650 million.
What kind of tourism do we want?
If we bounce off this "consumer tourism" phenomenon, we shouldn't forget the new generation raised on Fortnite or Minecraft, with their hundreds of millions of users. Universes in which we don't just play games, but also create content, attend shows, and socialize online, and... in the real world, with the organization of events that bring together tens of thousands of people in the same place.
As a result, tourism and local businesses are boosted! And this is certainly where the real debate begins, as not all tourist sites are prepared for this:
"What kind of tourism do we want for tomorrow, and how will new tools impact our most harmful behaviors?"
Jul 27, 2019; Flushing, NY, USA; A general view of Athur Ashe Stadium during the Fortnite World Cup Finals e-sports event at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Schneidler-USA TODAY Sports
My first brand, subOceana, was born in a metaverse, in 2007... I often hear people refer to me as a specialist, a creative technologist, an alumnus, a gamer, a visionary, a geek, a CEO, a CTO...
I've never really liked labels! Every community has its own language, every profession its own jargon. Depending on the world in which you evolve or the people you meet, what makes sense in one case can be completely ridiculous in another.
What I really like: learning, sharing, spending hours on technological brakes, diverting tools from their primary functions, innovating* in use to ultimately make life easier for users. You know, a bit like when you spend time cooking a complicated dish, with the pleasure of simplicity and conviviality in mind. A customer (ours are professionals) who can easily appropriate technology, and in this case virtual reality in particular, will use it to enhance their ability to create, train, communicate, share and inspire their own audience.
And I can't wait to discover your worlds!
*Innovating: talking 6 months before others about things... that we've been doing for 10 years to general indifference, sometimes tinged with a little mockery 😉
👉Retrouvez-nous le 28/03/2023 de 12h15 à 13h45 au Village By CA des Côtes d'Armor pour une conférence gratuite sur l'AI avec Thomas Wentz!
The speaker - Thomas Wentz 🗣 Founder of SperedIA and doctor in medical information processing. After a career in the public and private sectors, he supports companies in developing responsible Artificial Intelligence systems.
Testimonials 💬 During the event, we will be pleased to receive testimonials from two start-ups supported at the Village: explorations360® & Hoali.
👉Philippe CARREZCEO and founder of Explorations 360, offers a tool for creating and publishing 360° immersive content for the web or virtual reality headsets! The aim is to quickly create, adapt and update richly interactive content.
👉Alexandre SolacoluCEO and founder of Hoali, wants to help its users move towards less carbon-intensive consumption by removing the disincentives to using tap water, and by making it easier and more fun to use a gourd in our nomadic consumption to do without plastic bottles.
We know from experience that these subjects are not necessarily straightforward, and as our advice sometimes seems to be relevant, we can work alongside you to make deployment easier, while retaining your own way of doing things and your own style.
Likewise, if you don't yet have any media to stage, we're at your service: a palette of designers who'll be happy to immerse themselves in your business universe.
In short: if you don't have the time or resources in-house, we can offer you the services of our agency, with designers at your disposal to produce your 360° images, videos, animations, sounds, 3D objects, QUIZZ, drone filming...
by Pascal Guitton with the participation of Philippe Carrez
The "L'invité(e) du jeudi" conferences - a partnership between Cnam Bretagne and AFAS - are offered every month. Hosted by experts with a passion for their field, they deal with topical issues, but with the necessary distance. https://www.cnam-bretagne.fr/actu...
"METAVERS, WHY?" Lecture recorded on Thursday March 9, 2023 by Pascal Guitton, Professor Emeritus University of Bordeaux & Inria, with the participation of Philippe Carrez, director of "Immersion Tools", a company specializing in virtual reality in Saint-Brieuc.
For a little over a year now, we've been confronted with an avalanche of announcements concerning the emergence of metavers; sometimes dithyrambic, sometimes catastrophic, most often excessive in one sense or another. The aim of Pascal Guitton's presentation is firstly to provide a clear understanding of what metavers might be, where they might come from and what they might be used for. Secondly, we'll look at the main #risks associated with this type of service.
We know from experience that these subjects are not necessarily straightforward, and as our advice sometimes seems to be relevant, we can work alongside you to make deployment easier, while retaining your own way of doing things and your own style.
Likewise, if you don't yet have any media to stage, we're at your service: a palette of designers who'll be happy to immerse themselves in your business universe.
In short: if you don't have the time or resources in-house, we can offer you the services of our agency, with designers at your disposal to produce your 360° images, videos, animations, sounds, 3D objects, QUIZZ, drone filming...
