Hello and welcome to issue #1!
If you followed me here from the W3C’s Immersive Web Weekly then I’m happy to see you again. I will continue to cover our community as I did before but with additional resources so that I can also cover emerging ideas about open, standards-based, and sustainable agreement technologies.
If you’re a new subscriber then hello and I’m glad that you’re here! Back issues of the Immersive Web Weekly are a good way to get a sense of how I work but it’s also fine to simply wait and see what happens.
No matter how you arrived, I’d love to hear from you.
I’m always trevor@TransmutableNews.com and @TransmutableNew.
One last note: I use the two terms “Wider Web” and “Agreement Bedrock” which do not mean the same thing as terms like “the Immersive Web”, “the Metaverse”, “web3”, or “blockchain”. I’ve written a short introduction about how I think about “my beat” and by extension our future.
(short definitions are at the top for folks who want a TL;DR :-)
Pull on your wellies, zip up your fleeces, and brace yourself for the cold winds of change because it’s time for issue #1 of the Transmutable News Weekly!
Sponsors
This issue is sponsored by me! I’m still working through your offers for financial support (thank you!). If you appreciate how I cover the Wider Web and the Agreement Bedrock then I hope that you’ll consider sponsoring an issue or three. Details are on the about page.
Are paid job listings something that you’d like? Let me know.
News
Put A Link On It
The Quest team announced that users can now share a link from their smartphones directly to the Quest’s browser, minimizing one of the main barriers for wider web content: typing in VR. They also announced tracking support for Apple’s keyboard so it appears that at least some people (myself included) still want to type in VR.
Castles In The Skybox
The folks at Needle Tools released Castle Builder, an editor for scenes in which jousting and swords might be appropriate. They used Unity to create the experience and then exported it to Three.js. Unlike previous way-too-heavy Unity-based projects, Castle Builder uses around 8MB of network data to land in your browser, including art assets.
Agreements Without a Chain
Paul Frazee announced a proof of concept of Vitra, an open licensed library and whitepaper exploring a concept called “execution transparency”.
The Gym is Closed But You Can Still Stretch and Move
The Vartiste team (who perhaps is entirely Zack Capalbo?!) demonstrated their new animation and model stretching tools.
A Rubric for Decentralization
The W3C’s Decentralized Identifier Working Group published a note about how to evaluate any technology’s characteristics which may or may not be grouped under the umbrella term “decentralization”. That word has been throw around and misused quite a bit so it will be good to have guide to inspect and communicate the underlying meaning.
It’s a Computer, not a Console
SimulaVR released details of their upcoming kickstarter campaign for a stand-alone VR headset that runs an open licensed distribution of Linux. They claim that unlike other headsets, developers will be able to build and deploy their own immersive-first browsers without going through a commercial app store or jumping through hoops to unlock the hardware.
The Cost of Being Public and Immutable
Molly White wrote a concise summary of the downsides of publishing transaction records and other data for all to see and that can (perhaps) never be deleted.
Be At Home Anywhere
Prolific creator Jin shared their work while porting their home space to (at last count) nine wider web spaces including Mozilla Hubs and JanusXR.