Photo by Michael Martine, May 2020

Michael and Michael are joined for this episode by both Andy Piper *and* Ian Hughes from across the pond to be virtually together and a romp through some amazing stories.  

Starting things off with bang, Ian shares his impressions of the recently concluded Augmented World Expo, which like many (all) of the other conferences in 2020 have gone fully virtual.  One would think that if any conference could succeed in this social distancing world, AWE would be the one, and it did not disappoint.  One of the especially intriguing things about the conference was the exhibits and socialization at the Museum of Other Realities, which does need a VR headset to experience the art in the appropriate scale and interaction of the exhibits.

Minecraft has an upcoming music festival from June 25 – 28th called Electric Boogaloo, um, Electric Blockaloo featuring more than 300 artists, in the virtual space with ample room for virtual stages.  Could this be the 2020 equivalent of Woodstock?  Time will tell.  The BBC’s “BBC Together” service is designed to bring people together virtually to experience content with one another.

Check out the discussion on the importance of music to the human condition, and how mixed reality spaces are taking advantage of all music has to offer to bring people together.  Keeping people appropriately socially distant from each other, however, is a new AR innovation by Google, where the 2m / 6 foot distance visualized on the Android platform.

Wrapping things up is a story about how a real life father/son felted chicken tossing game turned into an app.  This is a chicken that you have to try tossing!

There were so many more stories than we had time to cover, so please check out the extended remix links below.  What fun it was to have everyone together for this episode! 

Selected Links

AWE USA 2020 — https://www.awexr.com 

Museum of Other Realities — https://www.museumor.com

GamesSpot article: Minecraft Gets Dance Festival Electric Boogaloo Starring Diplo — https://www.gamespot.com/articles/minecraft-gets-dance-festival-electric-blockaloo-s/1100-6477647/ 

Electric Blockaloo — https://electricblockaloo.com 

MacRumors article: ‘BBC Together’ Service Lets UK Users Enjoy BBC Content With Others Remotely — https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/19/bbc-together-lets-uk-viewers-enjoy-bbc-with-others/ 

Mashable article: Google launches new AR tool to visualize social distancing rules — https://mashable.com/article/google-sodar-social-distancing/ 

Sodar — https://sodar.withgoogle.com 

Couch Chicken — https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/couch-chicken/id1237593923 

Extended remix links for this week

VR and Fun article: Learn to Create Pottery in VR — https://www.vrandfun.com/learn-to-create-pottery-in-vr/