Thoughts on Virtual Reality

Having an interesting conversation here about VR. Here are my feelings about it.

Yes I might be a grumpy old bastard but I have great hope for VR. It has a lot more potential than just gaming which everyone is focusing on. We appear to be living in a society now that demands instant gratification, we want everything now and if it's not perfect it's a failure. Or even worse, misery and scandal sell advertising so I'm going to create a click bait negative headline to get hits.  Sorry but that is a bullshit attitude.

I'm sure there are a lot of you that remember the days of the Amiga, Atari, C64 and so on, loading software from tapes?  Blowing on tapes, tapping discs on the table, repairing your own cables? Having the patients to figure things out? Yes, we got frustrated and lost it at times, who wouldn't? But imagine if instead of having imagination and a little vision, we'd said "Fuck these computer things, they don't even work half the time!". Where would we be now?

I have Google cardboard first gen. The first app I got was the official Google Cardboard one. It includes a demo called 'Windy Day' which has this very simple (light on the hardware) but very beautiful animation style, kind of like paper animation, simple but effective. If you haven't seen it try it out.

It might not be super realistic but if you're expecting hyper realistic VR you'll be wait several years or decades. It could however be very effective for story telling. Imagine a history lesson in school being told in this style instead of a boring lecture, it would bring the classroom to life. I think it would be much more effective than standard education. It's far more engaging and interactive than some dude at the top of the class saying "Bueller, Bueller, Bueller...?". It would allow teachers to express themselves and get their point across so much more effectively.

Film is another area that is going to take off with VR headsets. Why go to the cinema when you can watch the latest movie with a VR headset and it will look like the biggest screen you've ever seen in your life? No annoying idiots making noise or jumping up in front of you, sounds great to me. Story telling and the arts will thrive with virtual reality, interactive art shows. Theatre will be brought to life like never before, fully interactive story telling, you'll feel like you're in the story with the characters.

The conversation is on going but I just wanted to impose my thoughts on you all. Virtual Reality is something I've been excited about for a very long time.

Google or Flickr?

If you haven't heard the big news of the last week and you're a photographer, then you have really missed out. Yahoo announced a complete Flickr revamp not just including a new look and redesign, which to be honest was really needed, but also that from now on Flickr will be offering 1 TB of storage free, yep, 1 TB and not just that, you can now also upload full size images. This is huge, with our image sizes getting larger all the time having access to 1 TB of storage space is incredibly handy. The new design is also fantastic, very modern and really helps to show off your images, whether they are on a desktop, laptop, tablet or phone. Flickr is now a great example of how a unified experience across multiple device types can work really well.

But getting back to the question I asked in the title, Google or Flickr? Well, with Google announcing at their I/0 all the new and mostly great features for Google Plus I was stuck because even though I really like the idea of Auto-awesome and Auto-enhance, I really don't want Google messing with images I have already edited myself. But I really would not mind leaving those features on for my everyday images. And that is where I get my answer to the question of Google or Flickr, why not use both? Google for your light everyday snaps and Flickr for your better, more professional images and collections? At least that is what I've decided to do given that I like the idea of auto enhancing normal snaps and really don't want to turn off that feature. I've spent today updating my Flickr account and moving images over from Google.

And just as a slight trip down conspiracy lane where the Popes and Pirates remain, here's a thought. Given that Marissa Mayer is a former Googler who has been given the unforgiving task of rescuing Yahoo from the jaws of corporate take over or worse and Google are constantly having to battle investigation for antitrust behavior because, well, for better or worse, they have their fingers in everyone's apple pie, could it be that a small deal was struck behind closed doors, that Google would become the photo backup and auto-enhancer for normal everyday pictures and Yahoo through Flickr would reclaim their place as the go to sweet spot for photographers? Just a wild thought that obviously could never happen in real life. Either way though, we the public are benefiting from Yahoo's fight for survival and they have won me back for one, at least where pictures are concerned. It would be nice if the big tech giants could cooperate on a small level for the public's benefit and to help push technology forward, making life better for all instead of constant patent disputes which just lead to delaying our technological advance. Anyway, for now I'm enjoying both Google Plus for my pictures and also really enjoying being back on Flickr since the announcement.

You can find me on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chedean/