Welcome to episode 18 of Lost in Immersion, your weekly 45-minute stream about innovation as VR and AR veterans. We will discuss the latest news of the immersive industry. Let's go. Fabien, first topic. Let's go. Yeah, thanks. So today my topic is about announcement made from Niantic. So Niantic is one of the leaders in commercial AR. They have Pokemon Go, that many of you probably know already. They also released Peridot, which we already talked about, which is one very nice AR game. And they also have 8th Wall, which is the leading web AR platform. And so what they announced is what they call rewarded AR ads. So first, it's interesting that ads are also coming to the metaverse, meaning virtual world. And what's even more interesting is the concept of rewarded ads. So basically, it's already launched in Pokemon Go. You can see a box like that on in Pokemon Go. And if you click on it, you will have a small AR experience. And then once you complete the AR experience, you will be prompted with a coupon code or a reward or something that you can use in store or in the e-commerce store. So I find this very interesting for a few reasons. First, it's not an ad that you are a victim of, quote unquote. You see the ad, but if you want to participate in the ad, you have to click on it. So I think they are mentioning a very high engagement rate for this. I don't have numbers here. So yeah, engagement rate 76% and the completion rate on 85%. So very high engagement numbers. So that's the first. And then the reward at the end. Now we know that any experience, if it's just showing something cool and there is no interest for the user, but here they have the reward at the end. So that really makes the ad compelling. So yeah, that's really all for this one. And I'm curious to know what you think. And maybe you can also think about the future and how ads will also go into all the virtual worlds that we are now part of. So I don't know, maybe Cel, I can start with you. Yes, that's like you said, interesting. I prefer to read it this way than something that you can't avoid. So that's definitely better. And we knew that it was coming, but I would even rather prefer no ads at all, of course, but that's a good way to, I guess, to make it happen. At least less invasive for the user. And I like the fact that you can search for it and go then to the shops, bringing back the user to shop. It could be a nice tool for them to bring people back to the shop and try stuff. I'm just trying to project what it will be once you have hundreds and hundreds of different ads in this. So you're telling me that if you don't want to click on the ad, you don't have any ads in your games? You add these boxes all around and if you're not clicking in it, you just add boxes and not any commercial messages? I don't know. The only picture that we have for now is this one that you can see here. So there is the, I don't know if this is after the user has clicked on the box or before, but I'm sure they have some kind of messaging about the brand even on the box itself. I mean, that would make sense. Okay. Because on one side, it's, I think, a very smart approach because you are making the user himself or herself clicking on the box, making them choose the way they want to see the ad and if the ad is funny or you have some kind of mini games, it makes sense and it would be a new way of seeing advertisement by making it a game. It's a real gamification of advertisement, which we don't really have right now. It must be something that would be working in AR and not like when you are on YouTube, you don't have any kind of interaction with this. So it's a good approach. But if you are not liking or willing to click the ad, I'm a bit afraid that at some point you are surrounded or flooded with these boxes telling you, yeah, you should click, you should click. No, you should really click on this. So I don't know how they would adapt the behavior of the customer or the user of this app. If they see that you are clicking on this box, do you have more boxes coming around? Or if you are not clicking on them, do you have less boxes around? It should be a personalization or customization of your app depending on your behavior so that you are experiencing what you are willing in this. So I'm a bit afraid that it won't be on the other side, like forcing, trying to force you to click if you're not willing to. So I don't, we'll see what kind of approach Niantic is taking on this. But the concept itself is very interesting and making the user choose if he wants or not this messages and these coupons is very smart. Yeah, it would be interesting to see how, indeed, how they move forward. Like, I don't know, if the brand pays more, they will have more boxes. I don't know, this kind of stuff. So, yeah, it would be interesting. And something else that was quite funny in the press release is they are starting to use spatial computing here as well. So it's amazing how Apple use of the world has completely, like, flooded everybody and everybody is now using that concept. Well, I guess they are presenting a solution to a problem because a lot, a lot of people are trying to erase the term metaverse. And what Apple brought to the table with spatial computing, people are embracing these words. And now you can see that metaverse is completely disappeared and the spatial computing is kind of replacing it. And I saw some articles bringing that spatial computing is part of the metaverse. So it's right to use this term instead of metaverse. But yeah, I think that the media was right about the fact that the metaverse is dead, but the term, the word metaverse is dead at this point. And even if when you are talking to clients or partner, when you are bringing up the metaverse term, people are laughing now. So we really have to find a new way of describing this. And I guess right now, this is spatial computing. Yeah, yeah, totally agree. Okay, Seb? Yes, on that part, I think the scale-up will be interesting to look at how they ramp up on the number of brands they add inside the app and the number of ads you can see at the same time. For one user, how they filter the kind of things you are interested in, so you have only ads that matter to you. Yeah, that would be an interesting thing to look at. They have been really good at scaling up the game and making it work with several people at the same time, with a lot of people. So we'll see how they handle this part with the ads. Great. Yeah, the number they announce about the number of users that engage and the number of users that bought or went through the world ads to gain something or go to the shop to buy a cup of coffee at the end, for example, that's amazing, the number they have. It's quite impressive. I wonder if it's just because it's new or because it's the community that use the Pokemon Go app that are keen to have this kind of ads because they are looking for, walking to a place to find something and then go to another place to find something else. So it seems like the ads just match this behaviour. So they must have the best audience for this kind of ad. So it was really smart for them to use their Pokemon Go apps to add this kind of ads inside of it. Yeah, we did an event a couple months ago where we did an AR app, very similar, that the system was very similar, a small game and then the reward at the end. And we saw also very high engagement rate. So that system really works. Okay, nice. Do you want to continue with your topic yourself, please? Sure. My topic is about the AI that allows you to generate 3D models that start to come and be more productive as before. And this one is 3Dify, a new tool that went out and allows you to create a couple of 3D models and generate it as you want and add some text to modify them accurately to your vision of what you want. And it's interesting to see how they approach it. You have to first select what you want to generate, like a sofa, a table, a lounge, a table, or different things like that, a swamp, for example. And then you can customise the prompt and add whatever you want to make it the way you want. I think that's an interesting approach to have a filter at the beginning so you generate really something that you want and then try to adjust it to your vision. I think that seems to be interesting, the way they approach things. And it's really the early beginning, so it's powerful. It's missing a lot of other objects that you would like to generate. But what I think is very interesting too is that they already separate the materials and stuff, so you can import it to your 3D tool and even modify it afterwards, so change the texture, the materials, the colour. So it's not just to make it a video, it's really to use it in your 3D tool afterwards and embed it in your video production or in your game. I don't know if you have any comments or thoughts about that. Yeah, so it's really impressive what they are managing to do. And I think that having a selection of a category before is actually helping reaching that quality. It's a bit like at the beginning, generative AIs for text were able to do only a few things and now GPT-4 can do a lot of things. And now for this 3D generation, we are at the beginning, so we have to kind of narrow the possibilities first and then maybe the next one will be able to, they will add another model before or many models inside. I mean, AI models, not 3D models. So to remove that step of choosing a category. And what I found also really interesting is what you said is it's actually an object that you can download and use. It's not like, you know, a looping video or something like that. So that's really impressive. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just trying to test this real time. But yeah, one of my... When I'm seeing this compared to other generated 3D app, it seems to be very advanced. And this is why I'm... Yeah, I'm wondering what part is real AI and what part could be a 3D database in the background? Because as they are filtering through specific categories, what is the real interpretation of what you are typing? I don't know if you understand what I mean, but I'm suspecting that at some point, some companies are claiming that they are doing AI is just basically on the prompt itself and not on the 3D generating part. Because the mesh seems to be so nicely done and the texture as well. It seems too good to be true at this point. Because when you are comparing to the NVIDIA works on this 3D generated, like the Gates 3D, for example, paper, you can see that the mesh is not as perfect as it is presented right now. So I'm, yeah, I'm a bit suspicious that at some point they don't have a huge database of 3D models in the back and they are just interpreting your prompt and getting the best 3D objects that correspond to what you are typing. So what I was trying to do is a request for an asymmetrical sofa, for example, to see if they are doing... Yeah, if you are requesting something completely weird, is this generating something that corresponds to the prompt or are they just showing up something that may be interpreted as your request? So yeah, I know I'm a bit suspicious on this. The mesh is too good for, I guess, what we can do right now with 3D generative AI. So yeah, continue, I'm just trying, I just have to sign in. Yeah, I agree with you. I was exactly trying to do that. I signed in just before the program. I generated one table and I was trying to adjust the prompt to make it different. And at first, the first table that I received was really similar to the one you see on the video. So that's why I will try to move the prompt to see how far I can go from the first initial table that they gave. Like, it's a table, a standard table, there is no specification or stuff on it. So I will try to re-adjust the prompt to see. But I feel like it's like a mix. At least my feeling is that they have a database of 3D models, like you said, and the AI tool that they developed allows you to add stuff on top of it or modify it. But at least you are using a database of things that they have interpreted. But I don't think they have like a huge number of models. It's more a number of models to determine what is the top part of the table, how the material needs to be separated between the different parts. So at least the AI just iterates from that, but not from scratch to determine what is this part, what is this part. Yeah, there was, I remember, I don't know if it's a completely verified story, so don't quote me on this one. But I think there was a service that claimed to do that a few months back and it was actually artists doing the work for very cheap. So yeah, I don't think it's the case here. But indeed, it seems very good to be true. Maybe as you said, it's like they have a database and they are just like taking in the prompt and maybe they have like modifiers on the three objects and assembling like a puzzle of parts. I don't know. Maybe that's one or two. Let's dig in and see if we find out how they did. Well, the generation takes some time, so they're probably doing something. Well, it's just for, as you mentioned, Fabien, it's a Theranos of 3D. It's a very modern interface and you have people doing this in the back by hand. So, okay. So, well, yeah. So, can I share this to you? Just two seconds. So, I asked for an asymmetric sofa and it's not asymmetric. It should be this. And here are the sofa I got. So, I'm not really sure about the result. How long did it take to generate? I guess it's about two or three minutes to get this. So, I'm not sure about what is asymmetric on this. Should we dig in and maybe try to... Yeah, yeah. We'll see. We'll do some front in the back while we continue this. So, I'm not sure about the result, but I guess it's about two or three minutes to get this. While we continue this. But, yeah. Another thing I wanted to share, I don't know if you can show my video from my screen, is, again, with all the news that we get and all the entertainment announcements from Apple, we are missing the fact that augmented reality can be really useful too. So, I just wanted to show you a video I found. There's a lot of use cases displayed from this company, VGIS, and they are really using the augmented reality to be able to check out the layer under the ground and see where things are installed so they can find back the water pipe and stuff like that. Or the strength on the building where there is the most strength where action needs to be done. So, now with the tool, with VGIS and stuff like that, I guess it tends to be more and more accurate. So, you should be able to see that more often and get more and more useful tools for not even construction, but also for flat market, buying your flat, and stuff like that. What we saw with Google I.O. a few weeks back, I guess we'll see more and more of this kind of application, which completely makes sense for the professional. And as you mentioned, the Apple Vision Pro should be a new wave of companies that are able to do this with the new definition and precision that we can have through Google and the Apple Vision Pro captors, for example. So, it would be very interesting to see how this market is adapting to these new kinds of devices. Because once again, the tablets and smartphones are not the best for doing that because you need your hands and when you're on a construction site, you can have these kinds of devices laying around. So, how Apple is taking this professional side of their headsets, I don't know. Because right now, they mentioned the Pro in the name, but we don't really have... Yeah, we had one or two use cases with industrials and how the headset could be used for construction lines and workstations. But we don't know if they have some kind of protection or... What was the name of the company that were making AR headsets specifically for industrials? Like they had an helmet on top of the... Yeah, they had the helmet and just a big visor. But the big visor was an HoloLens 2, no? No, no, no, no. There was a brand that bought AR toolkit. Let me check. Yeah, Fabien, you can comment on this if you want. I'll get the name in a few seconds. Yeah. So, yeah, I think we might see a period of time where they still have smartphones or tablets. I've seen some construction workers, like they are taking pictures of the... When they are done, they are taking pictures with the smartphone and send that to some kind of software for validation or I don't know. So I think there might be like a step behind that where still professionals are using smartphones or tablets. But, yeah, ultimately, this will really work nicely if it's a headset. I mean, this will work in... This will be adopted widely if it's a headset. So, oh, yeah, that's the headset that you were mentioning. No, it's technically the company, they closed their doors because they were killed by the other lens. Okay, but Trimble is doing that also, the picture I'm showing right now. They are doing a great job, apparently. So I went to Le Bourget, the air show in France, in Paris last week, and there were a lot of HoloLens 2 used for my intention of building work in the plane. They use a lot of HoloLens 2 for that to check the work and make sure everything is placed correctly. And the parties have a lot of time to do that. So HoloLens 2 are already in the plane industry, they are already used for real use case too. So, yeah, it was tech 3. And just for you to know, I asked for a big side, a large side for the sofa and a smaller one on the other side, and it's still the same sofa at the end. So, apparently, they can't do asymmetric models. Yeah, at what point it's real or it's real AI generative or it's just getting the right model in their database. We'll have to do a little more digging in. Yeah, I was digging on the three-leg table, just to see if there are only four in the reference. So I will see how it goes. I will let you know. Okay, great. So, I'll bring up my topics as well. So, just let me get this up. And for my part, I would like to celebrate the 20th birthday of Second Life. So, it started in 2003. And right now, they have, I guess, this is quite 1 million users on a weekly basis. So, very, very interesting. And more than just the fact that it is their 20th birthday, I would like to bring up the history of this, meaning that Second Life, at the beginning, was seen that weird way of people living their life through an avatar. And in 2003, it was very, very not, it was not very well presented by medias. And it was just considered like a bunch of no-lifes that were willing to leave something different. And we can see that 20 years after that, they have a huge community. They created what we are considering as the metaverse right now, by having this creator economy, when people can, they have company in Second Life that are creating assets for avatars or building as well. And they can manage to generate some profits. And it's really interesting that they brought this parallel economy and showing us that it can work. Especially with their dedicated currency, with the Linden, they showed us that you can create a new money, a new currency, and make it official in the real world. And we can see that right now, you have the ability to certificate your studies and learn some very specific knowledge inside this metaverse, to call it that way, as people are calling it a metaverse. But I don't know if we can call it a spatial computing at some point, but maybe. And the other thing that I would like to talk to you about is that the power of the community inside this metaverse, we can now say that if you have a strong community, if you listen to your users, you can bring up some really, really long-term relationships and long-term projects. And you just have to embed what the community has created for these years. Why I'm telling you about this is that when you are trying to create a new company, a new service, for example, in VRChat, you are first to know their codes and know what they're doing, what are the unwritten rules of these worlds. So it's really, really, really important to respect that. And we can see that, for my part, I think this is one of the main reasons why MetaHorizon or other metaverses, they don't have the same kind of audiences or number of users that smaller initiatives like VRChat or other metaverses could have, is that because they try to impose their view of the metaverse. And we can see that in this new way of creating 3D environments and 3D experiences, you have to give the key to the community and to the users themselves. And if you want it to live up for a very long time. So I guess Second Life did this. I saw that you can still play Ultima online as well. The 1992 first MMORPG game is still living. So you can see that if the content doesn't have to be perfectly realistic or perfectly rounded, you just have to have a strong community believing in your project and just let them create and bring what they want to do this. And for sure, it will live on for years and years after that. So what do you think about this 20-year milestone by Second Life? I guess everyone is a bit surprised to know that it's still living. And there's still a lot of people using this platform, which was my first thought when I did my research for the metaverses a few years back. But yeah, what do you think about this? Yeah, I have the same surprise that it's not surprised that it's still on, but there are still so many users. And I totally agree with you on the community part. Actually, it's really interesting to see that. I mean, when we design events for real on-site events, not in the metaverse, it's really important also to think about the users and where they are coming from and their demographics and stuff like that. And when we think about this, the experience is much more compelling. And it's funny to see that it's actually really great that Second Life and VRChat have managed to reproduce that sense of community in the virtual world. And I've seen as well, maybe, are they talking about having a mobile experience as well? I think I saw that somewhere. It's a trend right now. I know that VRChat is not compatible with mobile phones. And I guess Second Life is doing the same. They are kind of surfing on the metaverse trend to bring up some new users. Okay. Seb? Yeah. I'm also amazed that 20 years might solve the issue. But I wonder if there is any feedback on the different communities that exist there. And if there are any scientific or research groups that are working together inside this Second Life platform to come up with some article or stuff around what they did together as a community and if they achieved something, or if it's just to meet and discuss. Yeah, I confirmed that they have the mobile app. They did this in Unity. And you can have more content more easily. Yeah. I think, yeah, it's more, back to what you were saying, Seb, it's it's a first social platform. But after a while, you don't meet unknown people, you try to, if you have a community, you try to meet some people around the subject and try to come out with ideas or discuss subject. Yeah, I don't know if they are bringing so much, so many new users right now, new users right now, because you would have to learn all these codes and rules, as I said, and what behavior you could have or not in Second Life. So, even if, maybe they have some tour guides or people that are teaching newcomers how to react and, but I'm not sure that the new generation is interested in Second Life just because of the graphics and how it is. I guess this is a hardcore of users that are still there for years and years, has been there for a few years right now. I guess the new generation is more towards what you can see also on Roblox. You can have these new communities and or VR chat for the younger users, even if they are trying to bring up some more mature or adult audience. Yeah, I'm not sure, but like Ultima Online, I guess these are the same people that were playing 20 or 30 years ago and they are now just a bit older, but I can't see the community of Second Life like just booming and becoming something huge, bigger than it is right now. Maybe if they change some aspect of it, like the graphics or the rendering or how they interact, I guess this is for a specific community, but it's a really strong one. And, yeah, you can see exactly the same with VR chat. VR chat on the other side could bring higher audiences because it's very active on the social networks and it can bring up more young people. And I don't know what are their targets right now with VR chat, but I think it's a really more young people. And I don't know what are their targets right now with VR chat. We can see that they brought this whole around access to their app, to their application through the broader VR and now the mobile devices. We can see that Apple Vision Pro didn't choose VR chat for their Apple Vision Pro, which is kind of weird because it's based on Unity and Unity app, they just get their partnership with Apple. So it was the obvious choice, but they prefer the Rec Room Metaverse-like, which I don't really appreciate because I don't know why the Rec Room is getting more attention than the VR chat. I don't know if you have any information on this, but for me, the VR chat is way more advanced as the Metaverse than the Rec Room, which is more of a gaming collaborative application like Warbox and other Metaverses. And I still don't know why they choose the Rec Room, despite the fact that maybe the community is older or more compatible with the Apple Vision Pro kind of customer, I don't know. Yeah, I don't have much more to add on this one. Just one thing is I saw that Rec Room has like a, I don't know if it's another app or if it's just a section of the app that is kid safe, it's a dedicated area for kids. And I don't think, I'm not sure, but I don't think VR chat has that. No, it's one of their weakness. It's like many Metaverses, the protection of children is an important point and they don't have the right answers right now to this. But we can see it's a global issue, even with World of Warcraft, they have this kind of issue with how to protect the children from predators. And despite checking the age through an ID and stuff like that, they can't really moderate right now. So I don't know how Rec Room is doing this, but yeah, it's a real issue. It's a real issue because you have direct conversation and direct interaction with users. And if they are underage, it could be an issue right now. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So do you have anything more to add? One, two, three, go. Okay. So it's a wrap up for today and we'll see you all next week for another.
