Virtual Reality Devices for Home use
Facebook's virtual reality push is about data, not gaming
Facebook has announced the latest version of its successful standalone virtual reality (VR) headset, the Oculus Quest 2. The new device packs more computing power and a sharper screen than its predecessor, and is also US$100 cheaper.
The Oculus Quest 2 is the latest step in Facebook’s long-term strategy of making VR more accessible and popular. Facebook recently brought all its VR work under the umbrella of Facebook Reality Labs, it has announced new applications like the Infinite Office VR workplace, and will also require a Facebook login for future Oculus devices.
The compulsory link to Facebook has many consumers concerned, considering the social media giant’s chequered history with privacy and data. VR and its cousin, augmented reality (AR), are perhaps the most data-extractive digital sensors we’re likely to invite into our homes in the next decade.
Why does Facebook make virtual reality headsets?
Facebook acquired VR company Oculus in 2014 for an estimated US$2.3 billion. But where Oculus originally aimed at gamers, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg wants VR for social media.
At the same event last year, Zuckerberg said Facebook sees VR as a pathway to a new kind of “social computing platform” using the enhanced feeling of “presence” that VR affords. For Facebook, the introduction of VR-based computing will be like the leap from text-based command line interfaces to the graphical user interfaces we use today.
This may well be right. VR affords a strong feeling of embodied presence that offers new possibilities for entertainment, training, learning and connecting with others at a distance.
But if the VR future is the one Facebook is “working in the lab” on, it will function via the company’s existing social computing platform and business model of extracting data to deliver targeted advertisements.
Virtual reality collects real data
A VR headset collects data about the user, but also about the outside world. This is one of the key ethical issues of emerging “mixed reality” technologies.
As American VR researcher Jeremy Bailenson has written:
…commercial VR systems typically track body movements 90 times per second to display the scene appropriately, and high-end systems record 18 types of movements across the head and hands. Consequently, spending 20 minutes in a VR simulation leaves just under 2 million unique recordings of body language.
The way you move your body can be used to identify you, like a fingerprint, so everything you do in VR could be traced back to your individual identity.
Facebook’s Oculus Quest headsets also use outward-facing cameras to track and map their surroundings.
In late 2019 Facebook said they “don’t collect and store images or 3D maps of your environment on our servers today”. Note the word today, which tech journalist Ben Lang notes makes clear the company is not ruling out anything in the future.
Virtual reality leads to augmented reality
Facebook wants to collect this data to facilitate its plans for augmented reality (AR).
Where VR takes a user to a fully virtual environment, AR combines virtual elements with our real surroundings.
Last year Facebook unveiled the Live Maps application, a vision of an expansive surveillance apparatus presumably powered by AR glasses and data collected from Oculus Insight. Live Maps will provide many minor conveniences for Facebook users, like letting you know you’ve left your keys on the coffee table.
Now Facebook have announced their first steps towards making this a reality: Project Aria. This will involve people wearing glasses-like sensors around Seattle and the San Francisco Bay area, to collect the data to build what Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly calls “the mirrorworld”, the next big tech platform.
People are rightly concerned about the ethical implications of this kind of data extraction. Alongside Project Aria, Facebook launched its Responsible Innovation Principles page, and they’re already quick to emphasise that faces and license plates will be blurred in this data collection.
As we have argued elsewhere, framing questions about VR and AR surveillance in terms of individual privacy suits companies like Facebook very well. That’s because their previous failings are actually in the (un)ethical use of data (as in the case of Cambridge Analytica) and their asymmetric platform power.
Read more: Why the business model of social media giants like Facebook is incompatible with human rights
We need more than just ‘tech ethics’
Groups like the XR Safety Initiative recognise these emerging issues, and are beginning work on standards, guidelines and privacy frameworks to shape VR and AR development.
Many emerging technologies encounter what is known as the Collingridge problem: it is hard to predict the various impacts of a technology until it is extensively developed and widely used, but by then it is almost impossible to control or change.
We see this playing out right now, in efforts to regulate Google and Facebook’s power over news media.
As David Watts argues, big tech designs its own rules of ethics to avoid scrutiny and accountability:
Feelgood, high-level data ethics principles are not fit for the purpose of regulating big tech … The harms linked to big tech can only be addressed by proper regulation.
What might regulation of Facebook’s VR look like? Germany offers one such response – their antitrust regulations have resulted in Facebook withdrawing the headset from sale. We can only hope the technology doesn’t become too entrenched to be changed, or challenged.
But regulation has not always stopped Facebook in the past, who paid out US$550 million to settle a lawsuit for breaching biometric privacy laws. In the multi-billion dollar world of big-tech, it’s all a cost of doing business.
Another question we might ask ourselves is whether Facebook’s virtual-reality future and others like it really need to exist. Maybe there are other ways to avoid forgetting your keys.
Marcus Carter, Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures, SOAR Fellow., University of Sydney and Ben Egliston, Postdoctoral research fellow, Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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As you are probably aware most published content such as music, software, books and photos have copyrights that require permission and usage grants. In the case of U.S. Government documents most are considered to be part of the public domain, unless otherwise stated. That is why it is important to consider what country the public domain material is coming from.
One thing you will find when you try to find public domain books through the search engines that some people are trying to sell the sources to you for a fee. I guess if you do not want to do the research yourself it may be worth the cost of admission, but on the other hand it is really not that hard to find the sources for free.
I like to research so for me it was a challenge to see if I could find anything and it turns out that if you know where to look you can find a treasure of free resources to use anyway you want to. Top Places to find Public Domain Resource Information Okay so lets get started.
Remember I am not an expert in this area and pretty much this is just my opinion on the subject. Also this article does not cover every aspect of the public domain intellectual property rights it is just an overview.
Websearch.about.com - this is a section written by Wendy Boswell an about.com guide and I will have to say that I think she is one of the best researchers on the web, basically she provides resources on how to find just about anything online. websearch.about.com/bio/Wendy-Boswell-13134.htm Wikipedia commons - has a large database of media files that have been contributed from a variety of sources for nature, science, society, images, sounds and videos. commons.
wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Google Book Search - here you can find a library of scanned books, and many of the public domain books can be downloaded. Under the advanced book search link you want to enter the date of the books you want anything before the year 1923 will be part of the public domain.
books.google.com/advanced_book_search Project Gutenberg - is one of the oldest sources on the web with thousands of books that come in a variety of formats such as the Kindle and Sony Reader. gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page Questia - is one of my favorites because of the selection is not just books but it includes magazines, newspapers, journals in the humanities and social sciences. questia.com/library/encyclopedia Amazon Books - this is an untapped resource, if you go to the amazon store and under the books category type in public domain it will give you a list of helpful resources some are even free if you have a kindle reader.
amazon/public-domain The Mutopia Project - has free music downloads, All of the music on Mutopia may be freely downloaded, printed, copied, distributed, modified, performed and recorded.
mutopiaproject.org Public Domain Resource page:
Here is a helpful guide of public domain resources provided by wikipedia, the list includes everything from Dictionaries, Mathematics, Historical, Language and Linguistics, Political science, Psychology, Architecture, Business and industry, Communication, Computer science, Education, U.S. federal government, Non-U.S. federal government, Solar energy, Law, Science, medicine, and technology, Classics, Music, and Religion.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_resources
It will be easier to find what your looking for if you put the exact phrase you want. For instance if you want images or photos then put that in the search box.
If you want books or literature than use that and if you want content from a specific genre such as "U.S. Government" or "public domain cookbooks" then make sure you are specific because otherwise you will get a general search and it will pull up things you don't want. I am sure if you look you can find tons more. Happy hunting!
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