Posted on

Honza interviewed by Forbes!

Honza got some media attention a while back. He was interviewed by Forbes Czech. We cannot let this kind of opportunity for bragging to slip away, so we decided to translate it in English and publish it here.


1) From your point of view what is or how looks like the future with VR?

Today we see only very clumsy baseline of VR, on which we can develop. Most probably we will use it in direct connection with AR, as adoption rate will increase. I think it is just a natural progress of technology, affecting many areas education, communication…

We will see technologies interconnecting together: internet, VR, AR, blockchain (decentralised networks, on which cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are running), IoT vÏcÌ, and big data, AI. I like to call this general connection of technologies “new reality”. And I believe that VR can be ideal environment which will help people discover better ways how to create, cooperate and interact with technology, as well as have fun, learn and connect.

2) Could virtual reality be better than reality one day? When? Under what conditions?

I wouldn’t say it will be “better”. However I believe, and maybe I am a little bit worried,· that for some people it indeed it may be more appealing. Why am I worried? Just look at differences between last couple of generations. Tech, especially communication channels and devices are widening that gap even further. From first telegraph, telephone call, TV to online chat rooms and social media not much time had past. We have so many new ways of interaction, yet it seems like we understand each other less and less. Such fast progress is good news for futurists and geeks, but might not be such a good news for humanity. But maybe, just maybe, VR can bring humanity closer together in more direct sense.

Honza – true visionary. Do you see the future yet?

3) What is your favourite lifehack linked to VR?

I am fascinated by VR for many years, from the very first sci-fi stories I read. From the very start, I imagined that VR+AR+AI is the killer app of technology. It can help us process and visualise unimaginable quatities of information in new ways, interacting with other people. Being able to easily and playfully work with big data and interact with AI (like neural network) directly in the machine – that is the kind of “lifehack” we are yet to invent, but it is already my favorite.

Another “lifehack” in development: Education. I’d love to see students in VR – learning and understanding complex subjects easily. I’d love to see scientists on VR conferences, debating and experimenting, visualising data, predicting trends and simulating phenomenons.

This is why we are developing octopus engine. A tool, which will make it happen. Some of it’s features we cannot fully imagine yet, but we will get there. This tool will be “my favourite lifehack”.

Do you think Honza is right? Will his prophecy be fulfilled? Stay tuned 🙂

Posted on

czech VR fest (part 2)

It is already 2 months since we attended the very first Czech VR Fest (part 1)

There we met all of the high-profile guests and leading brands from the VR/AR industry.

These are the speakers we liked the most:

Jan Horsky – Jan is VR pioneer, developer, journalist, blogger and gamer. He spoke about challenges of designing hardware and optics for VR. His talk went into great technical detail and was the most informative when it comes to hard facts.

Vojta Rocek – As a co-founder of business intelligence startup Stories, Jan introduced his vision about using VR for working with complex data structures. He also put great emphasis on the need of making VR more accessible to non-technical Executives, since these are the ones making decisions. We are planning to cooperate with Stories on their VR mission.

Vit Jedlicka – president of Liberland officially introduced Virtual Liberland .

Amir Ebrahimi – Principal Software Engineer in Unity, he takes care of VR development. Unity is great platform and we were amazed how quickly they are improving their VR support.

Jaroslav Stehlik – Using drones and photogrammetry, he is putting real castle ruins and other historical places in VR. We tried his VR game from Okoř Castle, finding hidden mysteries. His project has a name Bohemia VR.

We also got a chance to present our own ideas during a short speech, we will introduce in part 3.

Next year there will be even more progress in VR space and we at octopus engine will be significant contributors.

Posted on

Liberland is becoming (virtual) reality (Part 2)

Some time ago, we released first info about creating Liberland in VR. Today, virtual Liberland beta was presented on Czech VR Fest by Mr. President Vit Jedlicka himself.

President proudly announced Liberland to be the very first virtual nation. We are honored that we could make it happen. Special thanks goes also to Krzysztof Juroszek – it is his 3D model of the city which placed second in the global Liberland architecture competition and which we used for VR.

However there is much more work to be done. Streets of the city are still empty, we will add content, better textures, more models…until our graphic cards will scream and beg for mercy.

The vision is huge – to create first real-Virtual City-state, with multiple users visiting it at once, with animations moving, some mini games being played. We want to add content which will tell the story of Liberland…there may be some product placement to attract sponsors. Last but not least we want to make it all multi-platform, so everyone can enjoy Virtual Liberland at least partially.

Liberland community is huge and we received lot of responses from volunteers willing to help. But…we were quite busy and did not feel like we can manage such enthusiastic and diverse group. That’s why we decided to create the beta ourselves, and once we have something solid in our hands, only then can we really expect others to share our vision and join us.

So right now, we are turning to Liberland community again.

  • If you are still interested in helping us, stay tuned. We will prepare simple landing page, where you can tell us about you and your skills and join our dev team.
  • If you like our vision you can also support us by small BTC/LTC donation.
  • Last but not least, please like and share us on Facebook, help us spread the word! Now we have chance to tell story of Liberland in new and cool way…

To live and let live!

 

Posted on

legal issues in Virtual Reality

 

Following is guest post from our friends from Blockchain Legal. Modern legal advisors for digital and decentralised space:

Honza Čopák introduced us to virtual reality. We could not possibly hope for better introduction! Virtual reality impressed us in many aspects and areas as well as a place for potential utilization of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

Nevertheless, virtual/augmented reality comes with many legal problems, which are not addressed by present legal system – including intellectual property rights to objects used and created in virtual/augmented reality, real persons’ legal acts in virtual world and their liability and personal data protection. As the digital world is very close to us, we will gladly contribute in this area by providing our legal services.

Our first digital footprint in virtual reality is 3D model of Blockchain Legal created by Honza. Thank you, Honza!

Radim and Pavel from Blockchain Legal  > blockchainlegal.cz

 

 

Posted on

Liberland is becoming (virtual) reality (1)

Vit Jedlicka is a man with a big dream. Claiming undisputed piece of land on Croatian/Serbian border, he wants to create new country. Country for all libertarians and free-minded people from around the world. With almost zero government regulations and voluntary tax system.

Sounds like an utopia to you? Liberland  already has thousands of fans, followers and contributors around the world.

We love the idea of Liberland. It’s bold and promotes one of the most important values – freedom. Since it will take some time to build Liberland, we will create a virtual version of it.

Vit spent couple of hours playing in our VR space (tossing some balls around is fun even for Mr. President). We agreed on basic vision of Virtual Liberland and now with the help of people from Liberland all around the world, we are putting together first draft of VR presentation.

Liberland designers sent us some 3D models for country’s architecture, to make our VR demo even more realistic.
Architectual and urban competition aiming the vision of future Liberland >

If you are also fan of Liberland and want to help us, we have made an announcement in Liberland forum.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. – John F. Kennedy

Posted on

virtual philosophy

What happens when you let a philosopher to experience your concept of Virtual Reality? Honza invited his friend Jan Fikacek  – philosopher and university lector to try VR and play with objects in our workspace.

What does Jan say about VR and our concept?

Hardware finally enables almost photo-realistic VR experience. It is fast enough to keep the sense of stability and solidity of the virtual world.

There is one psychological effect of being in VR – you have kind of a “double perception”. You perceive Virtual Reality but also the Real Reality, although visually hidden from you at the moment. You still feel the room around you, estimate the position of furniture and walls so you don’t bump into it. And after you take off your headset, you almost feel that behind the real room around you there is another room – more real than the one you see. Super-real. And you are afraid to move so you don’t bump into some kind of super-furniture which is located in the super-reality.

Jan, deep in virtual reality

Another interesting observation – there is a contact between VR and Real Reality, in my case it were controllers – you hold the physical controllers and you see them in VR as well, if you clap them together, they clap together in both realities at the same time.

I got an idea to make VR demonstration of my philosophical concept. Even my university class is called Philosophy of Virtual Reality! 

Virtual objects with no gravity

Conclusion – VR is much more than games and simulations. It offers new points of view, interesting intellectual stimuli and lets us ask more philosophical questions about our reality and perception.

We will definitely expand on these subject in the future, with Jan’s input.

VR is beautiful demonstration of phenomenology. – Jan Fikacek

– team octopus engine –