Welcome to episode 21 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. And this week, we are only the two of us, as Seb is on holiday again. So, Fabien, if you want to start, please. Yeah, thanks. So today, I want to speak about quite, I think, a big news in the metaverse, quote-unquote, metaverse industry, is that Roblox, which is one of the most popular virtual world around currently, will arrive on meta headsets, so the Quest devices. So Roblox has pretty impressive numbers. They created the game around 10 years ago, and they have now around 56 million users daily, and 78% on mobile. And something that is quite important as well is the age of the users. So 9 to 12 years is around a quarter of the users of Roblox. So I think a few weeks back, there was an announcement that meta is also putting down the age on horizon, I think, to 10 years old. So we can see that there is a trend there to bring more young users to the metaverse and to VR headsets. So what is Roblox? Basically, it's an open virtual world with a lot of different worlds inside. And you can experience each world as you want. You can go there with friends. You can invite a friend to a world. A lot of the worlds that are around are games, very casual games like the one I'm currently playing here. So you have stages and puzzles that you need to go through. So it's very, very casual. And so that's the big part. And of course, brands are also on Roblox. So Samsung, Gucci, Nike, and others have their worlds in Roblox and users can access it. And there is a whole developer community and monetization around Roblox as well. So it's a very successful metaverse. I will use this word for that. So we know that, I think we mentioned that previously many times in the podcast, that meta is lacking a strong community around the users of the quest. So of course, there are like VRChat and others. But what I think they hope is the 56 millions of daily users, some of them will also experience the metaverse through a quest. And that will either increase the sales of the quest or increase the usage of the quest. So some people that already have a quest may also try to experience the Roblox on their device instead of keeping it in the closet. So yeah, that's very interesting news. And I'm curious to know what you think. Well, I agree with you that it's a strategy made by meta to bring more people inside there. If it's not Horizon, maybe they will try to do some strategic move and do things that Horizon is switching to Roblox or something like that. And they can switch Horizon off and keep their faces with this whole situation. I think it's a bold move, meaning that they are doing the community stuff the other way around instead of having the VR sets and building the communities through VR and then putting it on mobile and PC like VRChat did, which is a success by the way. And the same for Second Life, I guess they are putting the mobile part after that. Here, this is a completely opposite and they want to bring the mobile slash PC or I don't know if it's a console as well. But yeah, and switch them to VR. I'm not personally convinced about the success of this because, as you mentioned, the whole community on Roblox is mainly children or kids that are basically using their cell phone or their parents' cell phone because they are bored or whatever. And it's just a way for them to have a quick entertainment. And I can't see those parents buying VR headsets for their children just for them to play Roblox. It could be a very small part of this. So the whole quarter of your community, well, I won't bet on that. And the other one is, I don't really know the share of this universe, but I'm guessing when you're playing Minecraft or Roblox or those kind of games, you're not particularly attracted to VR. So maybe like we are seeing in the whole population, it could be one, two to 5% of this community that would be getting a VR headsets and try it. So, yeah, and this is what I think that we discussed just at the beginning of the, before the podcast began, that the most games that were made for Roblox are, we guess, not compatible with VR. So once again, they will have to adapt all their games or create new ones specifically for VR. And I don't think those world would be the best or where the most people would go. So we'll see, but I'm not very enthusiastic with the strategy. We will see if it's, if you're more on that. But yeah, once again, it confirmed that a meta is in the deep, that there is a really wanting a community somehow. And I think this is a very like financial way of trying to get people like I'm buying this company to bring their community with me. And I'm pretty sure this is not how it works with community, especially in VR. Yeah, it's, I totally agree with what you say. I think as you can see on the game that I'm playing right now, it's not at all made for VR. So that would be a lot of work to bring everything into VR. So, yeah. And the graphics as well are not that, yeah, motivating. As it is, I guess it is one of the main reason why metaverses, as you said, we use that word maybe one last time. But people are not that attracted to this word because they are too cartoony or too, yeah, they are finding them too basic. And they are not willing to use them. And this is one of the reason why VR chat is so popular is that it's because the main world, they are trying to make something beautiful with the technical difficulties they have to bring something real time in VR with so many people in there. But, yeah, it's not solving this problem with Roblox. It's maybe on my side, it's maybe one of the ugliest world we could adapt in VR. So maybe they'll be doing some changes as well. But it's really the image or the brand of Roblox is this graphical style. So I'm not very enthusiastic by the idea of seeing that in VR. It's just some colorful blocks and without any shadows or whatever. It's really, really, it's too simple. Yeah, it's not something that I'm very willing to do. It would bring me back like 15 years back when we were doing some basic VR and I don't really want to experience that anymore. Yeah. Something and I'm curious to know what you think is back to the topic of kids using VR. I know that true or false, I don't know, but there are concerns from parents that kids that will use VR will have, I don't know, that troubles or difficulties with VR that it could somehow harm. I think we already talked about that topic of social interactions in VR. But like, are there also concerns about having like physical concerns about having a 10 year old using VR, you know, the perception of reality or stuff like that. I saw that somewhere and I'm not really sure if it's an accurate statement or not. Yeah, the, the official age for VR is between eight and 10. And not before that, because you would, because the children's eyes are in construction. And by putting them VR headsets that are modifying the way you are perceiving the depth, it could make them not having a good sight for their future. So I know it's eight to 10, but they prefer 10 to be sure right now. So there are studies about this. So, as you mentioned, all the community before 10 shouldn't be in VR. And yeah, you're absolutely right. I guess Roblox had those kind of problem with moderation, because there are some adults on those platform as well. And we know that we don't need VR to have some deviant attitudes or way we need to protect the community and the children from predators that could be on those platform. I don't think VR would worsen the situation that is already in place, because we simply saw that maybe in world that are not supporting VR like World of Warcraft or any other kind of game that is bringing a lot of people all together, they will find some way of doing some weird stuff or forbidden stuff. So I don't think it will do something more that is already in place now, especially with a 50 million community. But I know that Roblox had some issue with that and people were criticizing their way of doing moderation that was too light for some users. So we'll see how they'll do that. But I don't think that they will, on the other hand, I don't think that Roblox will be having a big boost in their community as well. I don't think VR will bring more users. It would be the current users that would be using VR. So yeah, it's a very blurry strategy. We don't really know what would be happening in this. Yeah, well, at least with such graphics, the performances will be good. Yeah, I hope. It's not that sure because I know that there are some lag issues with Roblox when you have very dense instances. So we'll see how they do that as well. Yeah, I had a few lags when playing the game. Yeah, because as you mean, it's a simple graphic, so they don't work on optimizing this. So I don't know how it works in VR. Okay, so next topic. You will continue to play in the background. So my topic is this one. So this is Adam. Adam is a developer that, like all of us, saw the Apple Vision Pro demonstration. And he just wanted to recreate the front display that is showing the eye of the user. So his idea was to take his Quest Pro that has high tracking and create some kind of avatar that is getting the face and eyes of the users behind the VR headsets. And show it on an iPhone that is snapped in front of the Quest Pro to show some kind of the same effect, meaning that you'll see the eye moving around of the users and have some kind of facial representation of what the user is doing in his headsets. So what I have to say about this is that, okay, it's a good effort, but I think it is showing what we shouldn't be doing with this technology, because as you can see, it's very gimmicky, a bit uncanny as well. So he tried to do this blurry effect on the Apple Vision Pro, but I think the difference here is that it should be looking like the eye of the user. What he's doing here is more like a mask. He tried to do some games as well. So great creativity here, but I don't think this is the point of what Apple was trying to do with this front display. So it really looked like some work that has been done in a research lab in Japan, I guess, or that they were trying to put some googly eyes in front of the VR headsets. I think we talked about this and we thought that it was very, very weird. And it's the same impression or feeling I have with this setup. So great idea, a good execution, but not what we should be doing with this front display. It should be something, this is my feeling, but I think this is something that should be looking like the face of the users like Apple did, and something very light, something very, just a simple option to bring some presence for people that are around. And this version is not what we are seeking. It's more weird than it should be. And yeah, I would like to know what you are thinking about this. Yeah, I totally agree with what you said, actually. What's very interesting to see is that even if the device, the Vision Pro is not released yet, and it won't be until, I don't know, maybe one year or less. Or more, you know what I mean? Or more. The name that they use, so spatial computing, is now like a word that everybody, quote unquote, is using. In a few days after the release, there were some developers who tried to recreate and successfully recreated the eye gaze. And the pinch. And now we have this example that you are showing where people are trying to recreate the front facing screen. So to me, it shows like how powerful Apple is into bringing standards, I would say, into the industry. And back to this exact example. Yeah, I totally agree with you. It's a fun demonstration. But I don't think this is what Apple will do with the front facing screen. It's, as you said, it's mostly to break the isolation of people in VR and to bring them back, their presence back a bit into the real world. Yeah, I don't think anyone wants to see eyes or brains in the front. Especially like, for example, for the game. I don't know if he's seeing the same thing in the device, or if it's only a game for... It should be a game because the main cameras of the Quest are in front. So the iPhone is blocking those cameras. So I think he won't be seeing what is going on. You are just deactivating the AR capability of the Quest Pro by putting the phone in front of you. So once again, it's not the best way of doing this. But one thing I wonder is, and I can't remember if Apple showed that, is, do they have like a sense of depth from the eyes? Like, are the eyes really like on the top of the screen or really like back into? I don't know. It feels a bit different. There is some kind of parallax in this application. Do you think that they will be using the same in Apple? I don't know. I don't know. It looks a bit strange. But as you mentioned, the power of Apple and bringing those worlds. I'm not completely agree with this. Of course, they have those kind of power. But right now, I think this is for creators and developers. This is a quick way of getting another audience or bringing some clicks for their video. This is some kind of a race for the first one to do the same thing to get the attention. We can see that this video is like around 4,000 views for an 80 members account. This video is all around LinkedIn for people to see in the VR community. So, like, every time that there is a new innovation or a big names putting some concept, developers are trying to code something very quickly to match this and try to get the attention. I'm not sure this is just the power of Apple. This is also a way for some developers or creators to get an easy and fast attention to their work. So, sometimes it's very gimmicky and so on. But they are getting the buzz around this. Yeah. And this is absolutely what we are doing right now. So, yeah, this is just something I wanted to show. And I have another thing. Just quickly. Let me get this. Okay. This is also something we discussed a few weeks back about the Google IEO convention and their capability that they are offering to integrate directly the Google Earth or Google tiles inside the Google Cloud. Inside a game engine like Unreal. And someone did this and implemented some superhero or flying capability for you to discover the whole Earth. So, basically, what we have now, it's a digital twin of the Earth. And you can move around this. So, we implemented this super hero. There is also a plane, a paper plane. He added the possibility to have some vehicle on the floor. And there is a chat GPT option where you can simply type something in the world, maybe a stadium or something like that. And it will teleport you to the closest area matching your research. So, it's very cool. And once again, it's a way for developers to get attention. And maybe give more ideas for game developers to create a real application. It's just a technical demonstration for what can be done in Unreal. And, of course, the limitation right now is the resolution slash the representation of the Earth itself. It's from Google Earth. And, of course, it's not that detailed. So, when people are saying that it could be the playground for a whole new metaverse, we know that some people are willing to create a digital twin of the Earth to be able to play with it. So, when people are saying that it could be the playground for a whole new metaverse, we know that some people are willing to create a digital twin of the Earth to be able to play with it. And other people are saying that we can maybe be playing GTA in this kind of environment. That would be cool. But, once again, it's a very huge environment to manage. But I thought this is a very cool technical demonstration of what can be done. But what will be the real use of that, I don't really know. But I wanted to show you this. So, what do you think? That's very interesting indeed. What I'm very curious about is what is actually shown right now is the ability to experience different time of the day. So, yeah. And I agree with you as well. It's like, how will the game be completely done in that? Is it possible to have a complete scenario in there? But still, yeah, it's very impressive. I think there are many applications in, I don't know if game is the main application, but in architecture or even video production, that can have a lot of application in there. Yeah. And apparently, you can download the project as well for you to try. So, very interesting. Yeah. Very interesting for you to try if you want. I wonder if it's available in VR. It could because it's Unreal and we know that it's not that tricky to add the VR support. So, I guess someone will do it in the next following weeks or days. Because this video is also getting a lot of attention. So, I guess there will be some following to this. Okay. So, you wanted to discuss the latest Elon Musk extravaganza? Yeah. So, Elon Musk announced the creation of a new company, X.AI. And the title is, I'm forgetting the exact words, but basically understanding the universe. Important questions about the universe or something like that. And the answer is 42, if you have the pop culture reference. But it's very interesting to see the method that he's using. So, I think it's a team of 12 people only, but they have a huge, huge amount of GPU power per person. I don't know how many there are, but it's a crazy investment. And the release plan that they have is super fast. So, I think their first release is a few weeks ahead. So, I'm not sure that this is the best way to have safety, like a safe AI. And what I'm really wondering as well is, with the current AI models, we don't know... Well, I mean, the model doesn't know how it reaches a conclusion. So, if you ask Chad DPT, how did you reach that conclusion? You cannot put back a trace of facts. It just emerges from the training. So, if they reach an answer to a very important question, like, I don't know, are we alone in the universe or whatever, they will need to build a completely different model that can explain what are the facts that led to that conclusion. So, yeah, very curious. I mean, Elon Musk has a track record of both very clever things like SpaceX and Tesla that are very successful, and a bit less successful things as well. Like Flamethrowers. It was a success at the start. He sold a lot of these. But yeah, it's really strange, as you mentioned, that someone like Elon, that is very prone to security and making some borders to AI because he's frightened that it could be out of hand, and he's doing these bold moves and trying to do the fastest AI that could be done. So, maybe he's... I don't know what kind of structure he's willing to do, and is he willing to create this real AI, meaning that something that could be, as you mentioned, creating the whole process of getting a solution and just not only based on the dataset learning. But one thing that I am very curious about is that you mentioned that he's trying to compress the time of releasing new forms of AI. And the thing is, at some point, you have to wait for the AI to learn. And I don't think you can compress this time. We can see that ChatGPT is taking a few weeks or months for the new iteration to learn more. And I can't see how we can make this process faster. That's a very good point. I don't know. Although maybe they have already in mind a model that doesn't have to be trained that much. But that's a very good point, yeah. And yeah, on that point, we discussed about this also is that it's come from yesterday, I guess, with the Chinese government trying to bring new way of limiting the AI and especially the generative AI on the Chinese territory. So, apparently, it will bring some ideas of what we can do. To slow it down or, I don't know, control the AI, which seems to be very difficult on paper. So, I didn't read those specifications because it came yesterday. But we'll see what they are willing to do with AI. And it will be interesting to see if other countries will be getting these ideas as well. Yeah, it would be very interesting to see indeed, because so, I mean, as you know, they have a very different type of governance in China. Sorry. So, will they do like more strict regulations than in the US or very different type of governance? That would be very interesting to see and learn. In the good or bad way. Yeah, they're trying something and we'll see what it will do with AI. Are they just simply shutting down any kind of way of doing AI at some point? But yeah, I don't know. Very interesting because they can't close the door to AI as well if they want to keep their competitiveness on a world level. So, yeah, it's a tricky situation for China. Okay, so do you have anything more to add Fabien? No, I'm good. Okay, so that's it for today. It's a wrap up and yeah, we'll see you next week. I don't know if Seb would be there as well. I think it's the two weeks, two week holiday. So, we'll see. So, see you next week.
