Month: March 2021

Mixed-reality platform, Microsoft Mesh, will allow people to join and share the same virtual experience wherever they are in the world.

The system was announced at the company’s Ignite digital conference, earlier this month.

While augmented reality overlays virtual objects in front of you, mixed reality allows the user to interact with what they can see and the assets are anchored in the real world.

The system can be accessed through a range of devices including Microsoft Hololens 2, virtual reality headsets, computers and even a smartphone.

But how could it change the way we work, play games and be entertained? BBC Click’s Omar Mehtab finds out more.

People in the UK have been sharing personal safety tips on social media following the death of Sarah Everard who disappeared as she walked home from a friend’s house in south London last week.

Police have confirmed that a body found in woodland near Ashford in Kent is that of the 33-year-old marketing executive.

Metropolitan police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick has said it is “thankfully incredibly rare” for women to be abducted on the streets of London, but women around the country have shared experiences of facing fear or intimidation.

Useful phone features shared include those already built into many smartphones and popular apps, such as shortcuts to emergency call access and temporary location-tracking services.

Emergency call shortcuts
On most smartphones, the unlock screen will include an emergency call button without the need to unlock the device.

On some, pressing the on button and a volume key can also bring up a shortcut to 999.

On an iPhone 8 or above, continuing to hold these buttons down will sound an alert and start a countdown from three, and if the buttons remain pressed the call will be made automatically. iPhone users can also say the number 14 to the voice assistant Siri, which will then ask whether you want to make an emergency call – although in some countries it will connect straightaway.

Emergency contacts can be set up via the iPhone health app – and the people you choose will be notified if an emergency call is made.

Google’s safety app, available on its Pixel handsets, has a similar function.

Samsung’s emergency mode is designed to prolong battery life while keeping the phone on standby. It limits features and the home screen is displayed as black but it enables emergency calls, calls to an emergency contact, and location-sharing within a message using minimal power.

Location-sharing
There are a number of location tracker apps available to download, and they are popular – but not everybody wants to be tracked all the time.

WhatsApp users can choose a contact, hit the attachment button to the right of the text box and select “location” – this will share the location of the device, only with the person they are messaging, for a certain period of time, ranging from 15 minutes to eight hours.

On an Android phone, if the emergency location service is switched on (it’s within settings, under the location tab), the device will automatically share its location with the emergency services during a call.

An iPhone will automatically ping its location once the emergency call is finished, but this can be cancelled by the phone owner.

‘Hey Siri, I’m being pulled over’

This iPhone shortcut was not made by Apple itself and was first shared on Reddit in 2018 but has surged in popularity in the US since the protests over the death of George Floyd.

It’s designed for car drivers, it requires downloading, it only works on the operating system iOS 12 and above – and certain permissions will have to be activated first. There is no official equivalent for Android, although it is possible to create your own rules for the Google voice assistant.

However, if you’ve jumped through those hoops, detailed here by The Verge, saying “Hey Siri, I’m being pulled over” will result in the phone screen dimming, pausing any music that’s playing, activating do not disturb and starting a video recording through the front-facing camera.

The handset will also send an automated message to a chosen emergency contact saying that the owner has been pulled over, and giving their location.

In an interview with Business Insider, its creator Robert Peterson described it as “the civilian equivalent” to police-worn body cameras.

A digital-only artwork has sold at Christie’s auction house for an eye-watering $69m (£50m) – but the winning bidder will not receive a sculpture, painting or even a print.

Instead, they get a unique digital token known as an NFT.

Where Bitcoin was hailed as the digital answer to currency, NFTs are now being touted as the digital answer to collectables.

But there are plenty of sceptics who think it is all a bubble that is going to burst.

What is an NFT?
NFT stands for non-fungible token.

In economics, a fungible asset is something with units that can be readily interchanged – like money.

With money, you can swap a £10 note for two £5 notes and it will have the same value.

However, if something is non-fungible, this is impossible – it means it has unique properties so it cannot be interchanged with something else.

It could be a house, or a painting such as the Mona Lisa, which is one of a kind. You can take a photo of the painting or buy a print but there will only ever be the one original painting.

NFTs are “one-of-a-kind” assets in the digital world that can be bought and sold like any other piece of property, but they have no tangible form of their own.

The digital tokens can be thought of as certificates of ownership for virtual or physical assets.

How do NFTs work?
Traditional works of art such as paintings are valuable because they are one of a kind.

But digital files can be easily and endlessly duplicated.

With NFTs, artwork can be “tokenised” to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought and sold.

As with crypto-currency, a record of who owns what is stored on a shared ledger known as the blockchain.

The records cannot be forged because the ledger is maintained by thousands of computers around the world.

NFTs can also contain smart contracts that may give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.

What’s stopping people copying the digital art?
Nothing. Millions of people have seen Beeple’s art that sold for $69m and the image has been copied and shared countless times.

In many cases, the artist even retains the copyright ownership of their work, so they can continue to produce and sell copies.

But the buyer of the NFT owns a “token” that proves they own the “original” work.

Some people compare it to buying an autographed print.

People are paying millions of dollars for tokens?
Yes. It’s as wild as it sounds.

How much are NFTs worth?
In theory, anybody can tokenise their work to sell as an NFT but interest has been fuelled by recent headlines of multi-million-dollar sales.

On 19 February, an animated Gif of Nyan Cat – a 2011 meme of a flying pop-tart cat – sold for more than $500,000.

A few weeks later, musician Grimes sold some of her digital art for more than $6m.

It is not just art that is tokenised and sold. Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey has promoted an NFT of the first-ever tweet, with bids hitting $2.5m.

Christie’s sale of an NFT by digital artist Beeple for $69m (£50m) set a new record for digital art.

But as with crypto-currencies, there are concerns about the environmental impact of maintaining the blockchain.

Is this just a bubble?
A day before his record-breaking auction, Beeple – whose real name is Mike Winkelmann – told the BBC: “I actually do think there will be a bubble, to be quite honest.

“And I think we could be in that bubble right now.”

Many are even more sceptical.

David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50-foot Blockchain, said he saw NFTs as buying “official collectables”, similar to trading cards.

“There are some artists absolutely making bank on this stuff… it’s just that you probably won’t,” he warned.

The people actually selling the NFTs are “crypto-grifters”, he said.

“The same guys who’ve always been at it, trying to come up with a new form of worthless magic bean that they can sell for money.”

Former Christie’s auctioneer Charles Allsopp said the concept of buying NFTs made “no sense”.

“The idea of buying something which isn’t there is just strange,” he told the BBC.

“I think people who invest in it are slight mugs, but I hope they don’t lose their money.”

Chief executive of Roblox David Baszucki may well be letting out the “Oof” sound made famous by the game, after the firm’s debut on Wall Street netted him $4.6bn (£3.3bn).

The gaming platform has risen in value by 60% to $47bn after its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

It means it is worth more than some of biggest games publishers, including Take Two, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts.

Mr Baszucki said it would help create a digital world that went beyond gaming.

“To all those who helped us get one step closer to fulfilling our vision of the Metaverse – thank you,” he tweeted.

Roblox: How the children’s game became a $30bn bet on the Metaverse
Roblox game-makers must pay to die with an ‘oof’
The Metaverse is a science fiction concept for a series of interconnected digital worlds where people hang out, play games, work and learn.

The phrase was coined in the novel Snow Crash, where it served as a virtual-reality-based successor to the internet. The novel Ready Player One and its 2018 film adaptation depicted a similar idea in its “Oasis” and several games have attempted to create virtual worlds for real-world activities.

Roblox is the world’s largest user-generated games site. Players can also build and share online worlds. It is free to play, relying on purchases paid for in currency known as “robux” for its income.

Developers are also paid in the virtual currency, which can be converted back into cash. Last year more than 1,250 developers made $10,000 or more, with 300 making more than $100,000.

Billion-dollar year
The pandemic lockdowns made 2020 a huge year for the firm as children, cut off physically from their friends, flocked to Roblox for social interaction instead.

As well as a huge variety of games to play, visitors can also attend concerts, birthday parties and other events, meaning the average user spends more than two hours per day on the platform.

User numbers jumped 85% over the past year, and now stand at 37 million globally. Most are children aged 12 or under.

In 2020 the firm generated close to $1.2bn from the Apple App Store and Android’s Google Play store.

Craig Chapple, an analyst at research firm Sensor Tower, said its surge in value showed the huge confidence investors had in the firm.

“Roblox has executed superbly on its vision of enabling vast amounts of user-generated content, cross-platform play and a platform to connect with others.

“These are some of the big key games industry trends that other publishers are just now catching up on, where Roblox is already racing ahead.”

But he added there were challenges ahead.

“This includes increased scrutiny of the company’s business strategies and raising the average age of its young player base – but Roblox offers something unique in the market that’s not easy or quick to replicate.

“This new injection of funds is a bet from investors on bringing us a step closer to the Metaverse, like that depicted in Ready Player One.”