If you're an HN regular, I guess you were expecting a comment like this - is there an open URL we can use just to get a feel for it?
And I don't think using a fake or alternative email is an option.
And now I am stuck in the tutorial because it wants me to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel or the track pad, and I am at my desk with my computer closed and plugged into my monitor and my Wacom tablet and it doesn't recognize using the touch ring set to 'scroll'. It's sure not doing a good job of suppressing Safari's right-click menus when I hit the stylus button I have set to right-click to rotate the view, either.
I guess my main curiosity is how we get people who don't believe virtual communication/living is the same as in-person or at least capable of being socially fulfilling. Does Spot do anything special to attract the people who go in with cynicism?
Why should anyone use this over a competitor?
Here's my summary:
* The world is easy to move around in and manipulate, which is rare for a 3d space (as opposed to Mozilla Hubs for example)
* Video chat showing up on peoples heads is much nicer than in a separate section like Gather.town
* Hear people per-room, rather than just volume attenuation is a better solution for larger meetings
* The screen sharing on a wall is such a nice and intuitive way to glimpse content from afar but still be able to full screen it
That said, my team is on Gather and we will stick, largely because we have team members on slow laptops and the 3d world of Spot makes the fans spin.
It’s 3D but is designed to run well on low end laptops. It incorporates UX patterns from Slack and Notion and has full world building (voxels) and friendly avatars with lip syncing based on voice. No webcam used, on purpose. It does presume some basic gaming literacy.
(I started the Hubs team at Mozilla and Jel is a derivative work from Hubs)
We are just barely able to do these concurrent chats on 2d, mostly because of advancements on stuff like webRTC.
3d is going to be at least 10 years out - and at that point ubiquitous VR/AR might already be a thing.
What’s going to be the pricing model moving forward. Surely voice and such can’t be free in perpetuity.
Nice work!
I mean.. you just have to pay attention. And maybe think about making a pricing page.
Personally I love the idea, especially 3D and programmability.
<a bit of a plug coming up> We've been working on solving similar problems but going about it differently. Rather than a shared virtual environment, we're looking for better ways to connect real, distributed environments. We created https://sharetheboard.com because we simply didn't want to give up the whiteboard sessions. Reading here though I wonder if some kind of mashup wouldn't be interesting? A real whiteboard session could easily be displayed on the wall of your virtual office, allowing for serendipitous participation... Let me know if you're interested and we can discuss.
First, this looks like a cool idea and could be useful. But we are on Internet so going directly to the problems.
In both Firefox and Chrome on windows 10 the fps was mostly around 30 fps when moving around, some times dropping down to 5 fps. Probably because of this I kept getting stuck in furniture. There was also something that did feel off when looking around using the mouse, not really sure what maybe it only was lag. On most demos on Babylon and Three, and on other games, I get solid 60 fps. I am sure the experience will be much better if you also manage to get close to 60 fps.
We're 100% focused on communities and human connection, not on office work or commercial tools :). But work employees can be a community as well and strengthening the bonds you have with your coworkers is a great use of Topia!
Topia is all about creating real relationships built upon shared experiences and memories. We have tons of fun features to help world builders create unique, connective experiences.
Was this an automated post made to any mention of Topia?
As an adult, many of my most meaningful relationships have come from my work environment. When working remotely or in a distributed setting, however, I find this not to be the case. Existing tools such as Slack and Zoom simply don’t cut it. Individual productivity may benefit, but the culture is fundamentally lacking.
As a leader and someone who has founded and built a large company, I have experienced first-hand how critical it is to have a highly engaged team. This affects everything from communication to culture and company values. Moreover, there is a lack of innovation that spontaneous whiteboard sessions and more fluid communication styles afford.
Spot is the culmination of a year of research and development to recreate a highly engaged workplace with smooth and natural interactions. (Not to mention, it is also a lot of fun!). Would appreciate some feedback from the HN community.