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we are cyborgs

Long time no see… We were busy. With life and the future.

Octopus team always aims to be at the frontier of inovation. That’s why we agreed to get a RFID implant.

RFID implant is a simple little thing, that is injected in between our thumb and trigger finger.

  • xNT tag – 13.56MHz ISO14443A & NFC Type 2 NTAG216 chip
  • ISO14443A – compatible with all ISO14443A RFID systems
  • Fully NFC Type 2 compliant – compatible with all NFC devices
  • 7 byte UID and 880 bytes of user read/write memory
  • 10 year data retention. Rated for 100k writes per memory block.
  • Encased in 2.1mm by 12mm Schott 8625 bioglass with non-toxic epoxy

This RFID is effectively turning us into cyborgs – humans with artificial body enhancements. Just a little pink prick and implant is in. It’s just harmless piece of glass and electronics that can be used for storing information, payments (instead of a card or bitcoin/litecoin payment address). You can also turn it into your private electronic key, which can unlock your electronic lock device.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not possible to track someone via their implant, RFID works only through short distance as a passive device. It is just a first step merging humans with machines. And we can proudly claim we are one of the first people to use it.

And that counts.

 

Links:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140209-why-i-want-a-microchip-implant
xNT / dangerousthings

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czech VR fest (part 1)

We were invited to biggest conference of Virtual and Augmented Reality in CEE region – Czech VR Festival in Prague.

Whole event took place in very artsy building. The hall – former slaughter – was filled with stages of different companies trying to impress visitors with cutting edge VR&AR tech. Most of them were games and visualisations of real world – this is still 90% of VR market right now.

It was great meeting so many people who are making in happen in VR. And we are also proud that octopusengine has much to offer even among such competition – our proposition is still quite unique.

We also found ourselves among speakers – Microsoft, NASA Unity and even couple of venture capitalists. In 2nd part, we will go into more detail – Czech VR Fest was really worth the effort.

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Liberland is becoming (virtual) reality (Part 2)

Some time ago, we released first info about creating Liberland in VR. Today, virtual Liberland beta was presented on Czech VR Fest by Mr. President Vit Jedlicka himself.

President proudly announced Liberland to be the very first virtual nation. We are honored that we could make it happen. Special thanks goes also to Krzysztof Juroszek – it is his 3D model of the city which placed second in the global Liberland architecture competition and which we used for VR.

However there is much more work to be done. Streets of the city are still empty, we will add content, better textures, more models…until our graphic cards will scream and beg for mercy.

The vision is huge – to create first real-Virtual City-state, with multiple users visiting it at once, with animations moving, some mini games being played. We want to add content which will tell the story of Liberland…there may be some product placement to attract sponsors. Last but not least we want to make it all multi-platform, so everyone can enjoy Virtual Liberland at least partially.

Liberland community is huge and we received lot of responses from volunteers willing to help. But…we were quite busy and did not feel like we can manage such enthusiastic and diverse group. That’s why we decided to create the beta ourselves, and once we have something solid in our hands, only then can we really expect others to share our vision and join us.

So right now, we are turning to Liberland community again.

  • If you are still interested in helping us, stay tuned. We will prepare simple landing page, where you can tell us about you and your skills and join our dev team.
  • If you like our vision you can also support us by small BTC/LTC donation.
  • Last but not least, please like and share us on Facebook, help us spread the word! Now we have chance to tell story of Liberland in new and cool way…

To live and let live!

 

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hackathon vol.2.

 

When iNFINITE organised second VR hackathon , we couldn’t say no. After the experience from the first one, we wanted to shine again.

This time our team was much bigger, counting 7 people altogether – Honza, Mato, Hans, Ondrej, Brano, Lukas, Simon.

We set up couple of goals for our project:

  • Connect object zero to Android platform
  • Run octopus engine on Oculus Rift with Unity
  • Connect data from BTC exchange to VR via API
  • Create a demo for octopus engine functions
  • Have a good time 🙂
  • Don’t get sick from chips and redbull

After initial troubles with setting up the stage, our team was ready to go.
Thanks to Ondrej, we managed to run Android app, that means we can extend project to Google DayDream (Cardboard). That is important, because this way we can target much larger audience and community.

Hans and Lukas helped us with gathering data about Bitcoin price from the internet, while Brano was able to run Oculus Rift with Unity.

With Honza we also tried Tiltbrush and now we think about using it for creating hyperobjects.

Unfortunately, we did not have time to finish all our goals, but it was still another great time spent in community of like-minded VR geeks and enthusiasts.

We are definitely looking forward to next hackathon!

“VR hackathon is a friendly event with the purpose of creating together, prototyping, diving into something new or trying that project you delayed for so long. All skill levels are welcome, we help beginners out and veteran creators can benefit from sharing experience with others.”

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octopusengine HYPEROBJECTS

VR is new frontier with many possibilities. We are looking for best ways to work, cooperate and have fun inside our framework. That is why we are using new elements in our octopusengine. One of them we describe as HYPEROBJECT.

HYPEROBJECT is similar to “hypertext” (in HTML – active piece of text, leads to another information when activated). HYPEROBJECT is active object in VR space, which will expand or lead to another action when user interacts with it.

The main difference in VR is interaction – thanks to advanced VR framework, HYPEROBJECT doesn’t only have start and end state (like hypertext), but can also have dynamic properties. These dynamic properties can be used for visual effect, but also as a source of dynamic information. HYPEROBJECT can move, expand, collapse, conduct any kind of action.

 

Right now we are starting with primitive expansion and collapsing of objects. Next step is to experiment with more complicated shapes and dynamic changes, which can provide user with different kinds of information, static or dynamic. Our end goal is to create complex HYPEROBJECTS, which we cannot imagine from “Real world”. Objects with many different properties, or even their own AI, which can recognise voice and act as artificial personas in VR.

Beauty of VR is that we are not restricted with real world mechanics, gravitation or physics in general.

 

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legal issues in Virtual Reality

 

Following is guest post from our friends from Blockchain Legal. Modern legal advisors for digital and decentralised space:

Honza Čopák introduced us to virtual reality. We could not possibly hope for better introduction! Virtual reality impressed us in many aspects and areas as well as a place for potential utilization of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

Nevertheless, virtual/augmented reality comes with many legal problems, which are not addressed by present legal system – including intellectual property rights to objects used and created in virtual/augmented reality, real persons’ legal acts in virtual world and their liability and personal data protection. As the digital world is very close to us, we will gladly contribute in this area by providing our legal services.

Our first digital footprint in virtual reality is 3D model of Blockchain Legal created by Honza. Thank you, Honza!

Radim and Pavel from Blockchain Legal  > blockchainlegal.cz

 

 

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Liberland is becoming (virtual) reality (1)

Vit Jedlicka is a man with a big dream. Claiming undisputed piece of land on Croatian/Serbian border, he wants to create new country. Country for all libertarians and free-minded people from around the world. With almost zero government regulations and voluntary tax system.

Sounds like an utopia to you? Liberland  already has thousands of fans, followers and contributors around the world.

We love the idea of Liberland. It’s bold and promotes one of the most important values – freedom. Since it will take some time to build Liberland, we will create a virtual version of it.

Vit spent couple of hours playing in our VR space (tossing some balls around is fun even for Mr. President). We agreed on basic vision of Virtual Liberland and now with the help of people from Liberland all around the world, we are putting together first draft of VR presentation.

Liberland designers sent us some 3D models for country’s architecture, to make our VR demo even more realistic.
Architectual and urban competition aiming the vision of future Liberland >

If you are also fan of Liberland and want to help us, we have made an announcement in Liberland forum.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. – John F. Kennedy