Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story:
VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations.
Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens.
Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android
treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell
unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it through official
channels and maybe not at all.
And it isn't even just about VR... the point is, we, collectively, are losing control of our use of computing and technology.
Remember the early 80's, when anybody could buy a handful of 8086 processors, a Phoenix or Award BIOS, some cases, etc., and start pumping out IBM compatible PCs? That was pretty amazing, and arguably led to amazing things. How about the way you could take your PC and install ANY operating system on it: DOS, Xenix, Solaris x86, Windows, OS/2, BeOS, BSD Unix, various flavors of Linux, etc. Great opportunity for invention and creation there...
and now? When was the last time you installed a new OS on your smartphone? Your game console? Your VR device? Your smart watch? Etc?
Yeah... thought so.
Look, I'm not saying anything terribly new here, and I don't claim to be. Cory Doctorow said it all better, and before:
http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
But we need to take this seriously. I don't want to live in a world where Google, Facebook, IBM, HP, Twitter, Microsoft, EMC, Cisco, Snapchat, etc., decide what content I can consume, what programs I can run, etc. And I doubt most of you do either.
Remember the early 80's, when anybody could buy a handful of 8086 processors, a Phoenix or Award BIOS, some cases, etc., and start pumping out IBM compatible PCs? That was pretty amazing, and arguably led to amazing things. How about the way you could take your PC and install ANY operating system on it: DOS, Xenix, Solaris x86, Windows, OS/2, BeOS, BSD Unix, various flavors of Linux, etc. Great opportunity for invention and creation there...
and now? When was the last time you installed a new OS on your smartphone? Your game console? Your VR device? Your smart watch? Etc?
Yeah... thought so.
Look, I'm not saying anything terribly new here, and I don't claim to be. Cory Doctorow said it all better, and before:
http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
But we need to take this seriously. I don't want to live in a world where Google, Facebook, IBM, HP, Twitter, Microsoft, EMC, Cisco, Snapchat, etc., decide what content I can consume, what programs I can run, etc. And I doubt most of you do either.