Labor of Love – Hypatia

JWise Dreams, TimefireVR

A Glimpse At Some Of Hypatia From TimefireVR

Sometimes, in an effort to create something extraordinary, we take chances on unproven markets and ideas that have no precedence; this is the path to innovation. We are in an age that demands participation from better-educated populations on a global scale. We cannot allow geographic and/or economic isolation to limit our ability to enjoy the benefit of what deep cultural integration and a strong education can bring. We must all be afforded the opportunity to be the right person in the right place at the right time. Our world, now more than ever, requires our innovation and ability to develop workable solutions that do not rely on outdated technology. We cannot survive in isolation and ignorance. We truly are living in the future many of us have dreamed of and must learn to live accordingly.

TimefireVR through Hypatia has been a labor of love that has been toiled on for more than three years. Through a million lessons learned and a host of methods explored on how not to create a VR title, we finally reached the point this summer that we thought we were ready to test the waters. The only problem was that by then, our funding was running thin, and we would have to try to find customers without a marketing budget and being limited by being “ready” for just one platform; the HTC Vive.

Stumbling blocks were encountered shortly after our early release, as happens in many small companies still in the startup phase, but with a reduced crew, we have endeavored to correct some of our shortcomings and are close to being able to roll out an update to Hypatia.

First of all, we are making changes to our pricing model for Hypatia, and a BIG surprise is around the corner. In order to help with this change, we have worked over the summer to bring a trade and commerce model to Hypatia that will allow better economic participation in our city.

Next, we have been updating our map for easier navigation, updating the entry into the world, updating the avatars, and making a ton of improvements for an all-around better experience while people visit, play, and learn in Hypatia.

Finally, we are just about ready to launch in support of the Oculus Rift.

For those of you who have been our early adopters, we offer you thanks for trying to help us create an early economic model that was hoped to help bring visibility to our efforts. We have something in mind to reward you for your participation and will discuss that in a future blog post. Again, thanks for your contribution.

[Edit: I posted this as a blog entry on my other website: http://www.timefirevr.com/ as an update to what has happened to our company over the summer]

Hypatia Launched Today – TimefireVR

JWise TimefireVR

Virtual Reality world Hypatia

Three years ago my friend Jeffrey Rassás put together my first working capital, and we founded TimefireVR: a bunch of intrepid artists and developers starting on an endeavor to build a multi-player massive online social virtual reality application. We have now finally arrived at the day that it is being made available to the world. At midnight, our team launched the VR city of Hypatia. Over the years, many people have worked on this, and many are still striving to make it even better and will hopefully continue to do so for years into the future.

My ambition was to create a non-violent explorer who would go the extra mile to break down the geographic and economic barriers afflicting a large swath of all populations around our globe. It has been my belief that when we humans have the opportunity to play, explore, and extend our curiosity with others, we become better citizens of Earth, and more importantly, we become better persons to ourselves.

The original idea was born in 1994 while I was living in Frankfurt, Germany, with the working title “Zones.” Back then, many of us thought VR was about to be the next big thing, turned out that the next big thing would be the internet. Zones were to be an environment influenced by Berlin and Frankfurt where transmogrifying insectoids would morph in and out of reality as they explored a world of art that would deliver them into the surreal. Today, our VR city is named Hypatia in honor of the first known female intellectual. The avatars are scaled back for now and are known as “Hoverbots.” The environment initially borrows architectural influences from Amsterdam, while being immersed in an alternative universe should certainly qualify as being surreal. So maybe I’ve achieved a few of those objectives from all those years ago.

It took 23 years until the performance of computers, the speed of the internet, and the capability of headsets began to deliver the quality necessary to make VR viable, though, to me, it feels like it took nearly a lifetime. Now that it’s here, I’m amazed that I’ve had the incredible opportunity to participate in this groundbreaking paradigm shift in how we view reality and the virtual one we are creating.

What has been created here in Hypatia is not a simple game, not by a long shot. It is the culmination of an acquisition of knowledge that started with ideas of invention and exploration I had as a small child, leading me to discover the evolution of the mind of humanity as seen through the philosophical filter of Aristotle and Friedrich Nietzsche to the sociology of Jean Baudrillard and Jürgen Habermas. Growing up in Los Angeles, living in Europe, and learning about the proto-city of Çatalhöyük played their parts in how my perception would lay the foundation of a virtual city meant to be a cultural and educational epicenter of the future. I’ve stood in the living room of the James Ensor House in Ostend, Belgium, and listened to Mozart’s music on the streets of Salzburg in Austria. I’ve visited Eisenach, Germany, where Bach was born, and I walked through the Wartburg, where Martin Luther translated the bible. From World War II Japanese internment camps in the California desert to the Yellowstone Caldera over to the streets of Manhattan, I’ve studied who and what we are and how we have moved through history and shaped our cultures.

Whether rafting the Colorado River like John Wesley Powell or launching a rocket to deliver the first humans to the moon, there is an imperative for people to go out in search of the extraordinary. Unfortunately, not all of us can be so lucky. Virtual Reality can change that and afford humanity the opportunity to have a surrogate experience that allows us to touch the impossible. Hypatia is but a first step in helping teach the language of this new art and reality. Reduced to its very basics, the reality is nothing more than a configuration of energetic particles that form the basis and material that drive the perception of the universe around us. In VR we are on the verge of harnessing the placement of light and illusion of matter in a setting that soon will be indistinguishable from what we know to be reality. So, in a sense, we are creating a new universe that we can explore, where our real universe is too large for us to venture beyond our solar system.

All of this is important to me as I find that the discovery of novelty and a healthy relationship to learning intrinsically complex things essentially make up a fountain of youth. We are children once because we do not yet have a broad foundation of knowledge regarding the world around us. Our best moments of learning are found in play. We learn language with the help of family and friends who dote on us as infants, encourage our unintelligible sounds, and reward us with love and amazement. We extend our developing skills by the exploration of what is immediately around us, such as when parents fill the crib with toys, stuffed animals, a mobile, and musical devices. Then, it’s off to find the house before wandering into the backyard and then the park. Every step of the way, we are playing and venturing further out, and no one asks that we do more than that. We are not graded to talk, we do not receive marks for achieving an efficiency of play with our teddy bear. We do not pay children to go to make sandcastles or fire them when they do not win at hide-n-seek.

This age of innocence and exponential learning comes crashing to a halt as soon as we find out that our teachers are allowed to be disappointed with us and worse. They embarrass us and tell our parents that we are failures in their eyes; even our peers are allowed to wreak havoc on our developing sense of self by ridiculing us for not being as fast, as pretty, as smart, as tough, or as rich. After all of this social conditioning, we want well-balanced adults who are prepared to enter the workforce and not be burdened by mental illness, alcoholism, violent tendencies, or laziness. Our system is broken, yet while it’s wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes, many think it’s better than the alternative of the Emperor not wearing any clothes at all.

Someone has to step up and offer something different. While no one person or group is likely to have a universal answer that will solve the predicament that we as a society and global population are in, it is obvious we are in need of greater imagination and the ability to adapt to complexity. We must strive to discover alternatives to an education process that is not inspiring the generations to dream of going to the figurative moon.

If we cannot dream without fear of failure or laugh at the absurd that makes us challenge our perception of what is possible then I feel that we are heading into a cultural dark age. A large problem I have with that is that I cannot believe the opportunity that all of us have right before us here and now. We have greater access to knowledge than at any other time in human history, including even the recent history of just 20 years ago. We have access to tools that allow people with limited skills to develop a vocation by simply seeing it out and applying themselves. Music from across history is available immediately, as are billions of minutes of on-demand video that can share nearly any information or teach almost every topic known to us. Unless we are able to embrace what is difficult as we get older, stagnation can only harm our self-respect and the economic opportunity that we might have otherwise carved out for ourselves.

But who wants to try something difficult if it means we can get bad marks, be embarrassed by our peers, or find ourselves destitute because we were fired for not achieving the goals others have set for us? Play is just as important for the two-year-old as it is for the 12 and 72-year-old. Hypatia is a place where play takes center stage. Developing the city of Hypatia and inviting people in, we have witnessed over and over again people of all ages fall into amazement, followed by fits of joyous laughter and disbelief that they are exploring a magical place where it appears that all things are possible.

Over the years, investors asked me who our target market was, and they wanted specific answers, but they rarely asked for or wanted a truthful answer: our target market is not solely 12-17-year-olds. Our market is humanity from all walks of life, all religions, all colors, genders, orientations, or levels of intellectual and economic success. I understand this is too broad for most people to wrap their heads around; after all, they stopped dreaming big once they were pulled from the sandbox and dropped in front of a book about equations and rules of grammar.

Just as anyone reading this can see, I voluntarily conformed to the rules of spelling and was able to use common words to convey my thoughts in order for me to remain in the social fabric of cohesion. If left to my playful self, I can learn anything and enjoy staying within the shared rules that govern our ideas for civility that allow us to interact with one another. Hypatia is my attempt to create a playground where the sandbox of potential is forever within our grasp, allowing us to dip out of our competitive reality and re-energize our playful selves. One in which we are able to climb any monkey bars, go down the longest slide ever, swing until we spin around the bar, or build sandcastles of such epic proportions they would certainly lead us into magical underworld dimensions or stretch into the sky so far we might be able to touch Jupiter. We must dream of play and play to offer ourselves dreams worthy of inspiring our waking selves, so this life need not be of drudgery and fear of failure, anger, or violence.

It’s time for us to evolve. It’s time to take a step into the unknown and reclaim the pioneering spirit of our species that was never afraid to cross a desert, climb a mountain, travel an ocean, or risk everything to visit the bottom of the sea or the surface of the moon. Virtual reality may be the place where we all start to understand it is our place in this universe to explore, document, and share our discoveries so we might once again have stories of amazing adventures to tell each other around the campfire. Hypatia is my contribution to the story of the people of our Earth.

Thanksgiving in VR – TimefireVR

JWise TimefireVR

Thanksgiving

[This is a post from my company, TimefireVR, that is being archived here to join the rest of my writing.]

Thanksgiving, for me is the recognition of people helping those less fortunate so everyone has the chance to enjoy life. Back in 1621, it was through the generosity and collaboration of the Wampanoag indigenous people of the Atlantic Coast that animosity and division did not lead the day. Instead, the sharing of food and skills for the celebration of a great harvest was offered out of kindness.

Fast forward 395 years to 2016, and the pilgrims of a new age are on the digital shore, waiting to land on the frontier of tomorrow known as virtual reality. While these explorers arrive with a wealth of science, social media, and expectations for certain human rights, the empire they are fleeing from is looking less and less friendly to those who may not be sharing the same values.

The 17th-century pilgrim fathers fled their homelands to avoid hostility towards their ideas of freedom. Even today, intolerance plays a significant role in the oppression of people from around the globe. Then there are those who do not conform to the status quo and fear potential threats to their ideas for the expression of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While the age of one-size-fits-all is winding down, there are those among us who are not evolving but are clinging to some outmoded ideologies that many are afraid will damage humanity and our planet.

With the advent of virtual reality, humankind has been offered a golden opportunity to land on new shores and establish cities that can be created and governed in ways that best support people seeking non-hostile environments. This, then is not only the beginning of a new global form of Thanksgiving, but it is also the day that TimefireVR is asking the globe to help contribute to a Universal Declaration of Digital Independence and a Living Constitution for Virtual Citizens.

This, then is not only the beginning of a new global form of Thanksgiving, but it is also the day that TimefireVR is asking the globe to help contribute to a Universal Declaration of Digital Independence and a Living Constitution for Virtual Citizens.

Virtual reality today is a wild west free-for-all that will see the emergence of some extraordinary environments and experiences. A large part of TimefireVR’s role is the building of the first curated cultural epicenter in the form of the city called Hypatia. How will the governance, rights, freedoms, and evolution of this new space evolve? The answer is found in the participation of the brightest minds in this current reality from around the globe.

We are asking those of a compassionate, altruistic nature to come forward and share their ideas on what they believe should be enshrined in Hypatia’s constitution. Instead of an “End-User License Agreement ­- EULA,” we will carve into a prominent location in Hypatia the documents we hope will be adopted by others in the virtual space to help guide their ideas of rights and freedoms that should be afforded all people. We will not condone hate, violence, intolerance, or other forms of aggression that only act to isolate and marginalize our fellow human beings. Favor and privilege will not be given in consideration of power or wealth; we will allow and encourage all to participate in a conscientious, sharing, and helpful manner. This was a large part of the generosity and collaboration offered by the Wampanoag tribe to the early Pilgrims who landed in North America; it is a tradition worth repeating.

Emergence – TimefireVR

JWise TimefireVR

Emergence

We are at the precipice of an emergent phenomenon where digital intelligence is about to unleash a wave of creativity that will exceed almost everyone’s wildest dreams. While there’s the chance that some horrific dystopian future featuring our enslavement by evil robot overlords could occur, I find it pretty unlikely. After all, we managed to avoid killing ourselves off with nuclear weapons in spite of all the doom-and-gloom prophecies.

So, with the obligatory nod to the pessimists that bad could come of it, I now opt to share the cultural positives that will likely emerge from the exploration of artificial intelligence, also known as deep learning. Why is this important to virtual reality? It’s because I don’t see Hypatia and VR as exclusively living in the world of gaming, on the contrary, it is a window to our future, creativity, and education. A future where passive entertainment is anathema to the progress of an advanced civilization. A future that demands our participation. Hypatia is an immersive explorer in which there will be much more than casual observation of pretty places; the visitor to our world in the sun of VR will be compelled to pick up a paintbrush, sculpt, sing, create music, or juggle the atoms that hold the structure of this virtual reality together in order to learn a thing or two about the science of digital construction.

For a society to make these strides, we’ll have to think differently, and one of the fundamental changes occurring today that is forcing this confrontation with our ingrained, outmoded ways of thinking is the emergence of machine intelligence. Many are frightened by it, but I am not. It is the advent of this type of computing, powered by ever-faster computers, that is demanding we evaluate the potential of the machine’s intelligence before it displaces ours. The faster the technology changes, the faster it will propel us to move forward or fall behind.

To move forward, we have to find out where these advances intersect our own lives and how we can benefit from such a rapid evolution and then embrace our next step.

The reality, though, is that the general public is not ready for this and is, in fact, fearful and afraid of the change that is dragging them into the Unknown. So this then places the hope for a solution on the shoulders of artists and engineers to use their craft to ease the transition into our exploration of infinity. What will have to emerge are new creative forms, architectures, music, and expression.

We are already seeing some of the benefits when we ask our phone to answer a question or when we see the next advancement in self-driving cars. But this is just the tip of the electronic iceberg. How long before an algorithm helps guide our hand so we can draw better or the computer recognizes how we are playing an instrument and makes recommendations on how to play it better? We should already be asking why our phones aren’t helping us learn another language by translating what we say to it or analyzing our restaurant visits and recommending places to eat based on our previous culinary excursions.

What will come from our explorations of this frontier is mostly yet to be defined, and it will, with the help of unobtrusive guiding applications, engage us in fun and exciting discoveries that will more gracefully bring us into the future. This cannot be the work of just a few companies; it must come from the efforts of millions of individuals who embrace their role in advancing humanity into the new day where the digital sun shines brightly.

The Heart Of A City – TimefireVR

JWise TimefireVR

The Heart of a City in TimefireVR

At the heart of a city is an essential quality that plays an important role for its citizens and is present in world-class centers: the intersection of social and creative elements. When designing Hypatia, we have taken this idea and placed it at our core; it is our heart, and it takes center stage.

In the context of virtual reality, “social” has a whole new meaning. While being able to directly communicate with friends and family is important and already a part of our world, a great city relies on the idea of the “commons” to engage its population. The commons are those social places where people gather, such as parks, museums, clubs, trails, coffee shops, river walks, galleries, and places of higher learning. We are building a new commons open and accessible to all of humanity, all the time, and without leaving home.

Considering that over 1 Billion people a year travel to other destinations to take part in the special places our Earth has to offer, such as London, Manhattan, Paris, Venice, Kyoto, Machu Picchu, the Grand Canyon, the Great Pyramids, and countless spots between, Hypatia is to be the destination for when we cannot get away physically. Hypatia is a curated virtual city where, at any given time, we can visit a world-class museum, take in a show, go painting, dance the night away, solve a puzzle, or explore the sublime.

This is where creativity comes into play and allows us to build something new with Hypatia. Our global stage is a dynamic environment where the creative works of our citizens will find a platform. Just as we will supply the map, buildings, transportation, and landscape, we will be recruiting “Friends of Hypatia” to help us build much of the content. We can create the tools, but it will be our visitors who fill the streets with graffiti, musical performances, poetry, photographs, installations, and stage plays.

We recognize that not everyone is a creator, and not everyone wants to help build the metropolis of the future. We are laying the foundation and creating a large part of our virtual world to inspire our visitors to celebrate the work of others by simply participating in an active form of consumption made possible with the advent of virtual reality. Exactly the form and function of how Hypatia will work will be rolled out in the coming months.

International Women’s Day – TimefireVR

JWise TimefireVR

International Womens Day at TimefireVR

Today, we are celebrating International Women’s Day by highlighting the involvement of all women in arts and sciences. Pictured above are the current women of Timefire. According to surveys conducted by the International Game Development Association (IGDA), women represent less than 30% of the game development workforce. The gender representation statistics for virtual reality development have yet to be published.

We strongly believe in building an inclusive and supportive community, which is why many of us at Timefire have created a Women in Games International (WIGI) chapter locally. There are many other organizations in which you can get involved to support women in game development, virtual reality, programming, technology, etc.

Let us all spend today discussing how to achieve equal representation and celebrating all women around the world.

Submitted by Jessica Sweeny