Karl Hodge
Journalist and academic.
A technology, VR, games, science and culture writer with a thirty year career divided between academia and journalism, online and print. PhD in narrative and VR.
techradar.com
The 8 best ways to get fit in VR
With the launch of the Oculus Quest 2, virtual reality continues its march into the mainstream. VR is now wireless and no longer requires a powerful PC to work.
A welcome side-effect of this freedom-of-movement is a boom in fitness applications. Virtual reality games are inherently more active to play than sedentary first-person shooters. Sure, an hour or so of Warzone can get the heart pumping, but it doesn’t get you moving. Play Beat Saber or FitXR for the same length of time, though, and y...
whynow.co.uk
Adapting to Virtual Space: The Possibilities of VR Cinema
We’re finally adapting to virtual spaces. What does the future have in store for cinema?
Cinema
Netflix
Virtual Reality
If there’s a silver lining to the pandemic, it’s that we’ve finally adapted to virtual space. In 2020 video calling became normal and 2021 was the year of live-streamed events. 2022 could be the year that VR cinema takes off.
Going to the cinema can be fun, but it can also be horrible. When I was a kid, there was more to it, a kind of ritual. There was a supporting feature, ...
whynow.co.uk
The Huge Amount of David Bowie Music Released Since He Died
This month marks six years since the death of David Bowie. Most musicians would see death as a barrier to a continuing career. Not Bowie. Since his death in 2016 there has been almost as much “new” material released as there was during his lifetime. The most remarkable thing? All the evidence we have suggests that it was planned.
The world ended when David Bowie died. Think about it. The 10th of January 2016 was before Brexit, before Covid and before Trump. If music is the sap that connects o...
whynow.co.uk
Artificial intelligence is the future of music – here’s why you shouldn’t worry
With ChatGPT all the rage and a certain David Guetta recently provoking the ire of musical purists by playing a deepfake Eminem, Karl Hodge examines the future of artificial intelligence in music – and why it might be an integral new asset. A recent kerfuffle in the world of complaining about technology saw DJ David Guetta use a couple of A.I. websites to clone Eminem. Of course, not all of Eminem, just a few fresh bars that Eminem never spat. Guetta’s description of the process sounds like h...
The Conversation
If it’s free online, you are the product
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s recent testimony to congress highlights one of the key issues of our time – data acquisition by digital corporations and its lack of regulation. The kernel of the issue is in this exchange:
Senator Orrin Hatch: ‘How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?’
Zuckerberg: “Senator, we run ads.”
Medium
Soylent and the Future of Hunger
You‘ve probably heard about Soylent by now. If not, it’s a nutritionally balanced, total meal replacement in liquid form. And by “total meal replacement” we mean something that replaces eating. Entirely.
Its inventor, 24 year old former Software Engineer Rob Rhinehart, claims that those who use it feel better, stronger and faster. And, for the record, the real Soylent is beige, not green.
Community based food hacking has a noble aim. A spin off of the bio-hacking and self-quantification movem...
Slate
Sunshine State: The University of California's Solar Breakthroughs ...
Sunshine State: The University of California's Sola...
techradar.com
Whatever happened to PC soundcards? | News | TechRadar
How this once essential component became a niche product
wish.co.uk
How to be a YouTube millionaire | Wish.co.uk Blog
Last year, 24 year old Felix Kjellberg made $4 million from playing video games. To be more precise, Felix made $4 million from playing video games really badly.
creativebloq.com
9 lessons Mad Men can teach freelance designers | Career ...
9 lessons Mad Men can teach freelance designers | C...
wish.co.uk
The man who lived at Google HQ | Wish.co.uk Blog
Google does everything it can to keep employees on site... Perhaps too much.