Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd:
Today, we’re excited to share a preview release of Hubs by Mozilla, a new way to get together online within Mixed Reality, right in your browser. Hubs is the first experiment we’re releasing as part of our Social Mixed Reality efforts, and we think it showcases the potential for the web to become the best, most accessible platform to bring people together around the world in this new medium.
[...] When using a Mixed Reality headset with Hubs, you’ll be able to interact online in a whole new way. Instead of through a screen, you will be spending time together in what feels like a real place. You can make eye contact, high five, laugh together, or just explore. It’s up to you, and it all happens right in your browser just like any other website.
[...] When in the room, you can see one another, move around, and pick up and throw virtual objects. And of course, you can hear each other’s voices with fully spatialized audio, so it sounds like you are in a real place.
Source: Introducing Hubs: A new way to get together
Related Stories
Mozilla's Firefox Reality web browser is now available
Mozilla's vision of a VR-first web browser is ready for consumers to download and judge.
Firefox Reality is a browser built entirely for virtual reality. While you may have read about desktop Firefox or Chrome adding WebVR support, Firefox Reality is a web browser that you actually use entirely inside a VR headset. You can visit URLs, search things and otherwise browse the 2D and 3D internet within the new browser all without moving a mouse, just your VR hand controller.
Firefox Reality is available on the Oculus, Viveport and Daydream platforms and is optimized to run on the latest standalone mobile headsets like the Oculus Go and Lenovo Mirage Solo.
Also at Engadget, Road to VR, VRFocus, and VentureBeat.
Related: Hubs by Mozilla: A New Way to Get Together Online
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 27 2018, @12:43AM (6 children)
Is it a new decentralized communication platform?!
...
False alarm, it's just mixed reality.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 27 2018, @02:09AM (5 children)
Someone will be monitoring it. Probably some NSA and FBI agents wearing their own headsets.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Friday April 27 2018, @02:21AM (2 children)
NSA/FBI Joint Fap Force.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 27 2018, @02:35AM (1 child)
But, Agent Wilson, the headset goes on your BIG HEAD, not the little one!
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Friday April 27 2018, @03:16AM
Are you implying Agent Wilson's d..k is not big enough for the headset?
Because, size aside, his two heads are indistinguishable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Friday April 27 2018, @03:14AM (1 child)
I don't know about you all, but I have enough trouble with regular reality. Not exactly sure what "mixed reality" is, but I'm pretty sure it's not for me.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 27 2018, @10:29AM
Mixed reality is diverse reality, you bigot!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday April 27 2018, @12:43AM (4 children)
</sarcasm>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by Snotnose on Friday April 27 2018, @01:32AM
This is where the Craigslist personals will end up.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday April 27 2018, @04:01AM (2 children)
My thoughts exactly. Second Life in virtual reality. Not my cup of tea, but like Second Life it might be good for many handicapped people.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1) by hereweareagain on Friday April 27 2018, @04:07PM (1 child)
> Second Life
--Thanks for reminding me about that, I have a lonely/disabled friend that might benefit from it.
--BTW, YMMW when it comes to Mozilla Hubs - it hung my 2008 iMac running the latest Firefox HARD. Music was still playing, but I had to ssh in to reboot it.
--I'm willing to admit I just *might* be wrong... Are you?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 27 2018, @04:17PM
That's a pretty old machine. Maybe the browser-based Hubs is using too much resources for what it does, along with many other JavaScript-based thingies, but I don't think I'd begrudge Mozilla's shiny VR/AR/MR experiment (preview release) for not working on a dual-core pre-Sandy Bridge CPU with 1 GB DDR2 RAM [everymac.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Friday April 27 2018, @01:11AM (6 children)
Every time I think Mozilla is maximally crazy they come up with a crazier idea.
Still, it's Mozilla, not Firefox. Perhaps they won't attempt to force integration of it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday April 27 2018, @02:08AM (2 children)
And they want people who use this thing to get together.
Maybe this is a secret plot to breed users!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 27 2018, @03:23AM
FTFY as, unfortunately, they won't get together IRL.
Would it be so, the place to designate as appropriate for the congregation is Ship B.
Or at ground zero of the next nuke test of any nation, NK** included.
---
** for the purpose, NK should get the necessary permissions from all grateful nations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Friday April 27 2018, @05:36AM
There is a Revolution going on in California. Soooo many want OUT of this ridiculous breeding concept.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Friday April 27 2018, @03:25AM (1 child)
Firefox is the short name for Mozilla Firefox and is a web browser. Mozilla is the company that makes the Firefox web browser.
If there is any air-gap between the to its strictly in your head.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 27 2018, @05:49AM
The air gap is that the group makes, or can make, more than one thing. Granted, they seem to have given up Thunderbird...
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 27 2018, @03:19PM
You must be new here
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 27 2018, @01:12AM (4 children)
Firefox still leaks memory like a sieve. Come on Moz, fix some of the bugs before spending time on new shit (this also means leaving the UI alone, don't waste time/money on people that want to change things for the hell of it).
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Friday April 27 2018, @12:50PM (2 children)
not only that - it crashes and keeps prompting "Refresh your browser!!" - which deletes all the useful stuff.
This is a project (perhaps like many others) in serious need of flatpak/snap/$WHATEVER/docker to ensure the deployment is the same as the developers have.
Recently though it has been behaving. Best features? (for me).
a) profiles
segregate all your activities - the interface for this is pitifully poor, but still useful.
you may ask why whole profiles rather than sandboxed tabs? Some sites you want to have different plugins settings etc...
b) sync
might be creepy, but being able to send a tab from my phone to phone -sweet!!!
c)DRM
one of the reasons for the profiles - at least it works ;-/
(Score: 1) by higuita on Friday April 27 2018, @02:55PM
If the "refresh your browser" is the question to start over with a clean profile to clean old jump... yes, it will delete most things ... but you should get that only if your profile have a old data... after starting up, it should be updated to a new version and stop asking that.
Maybe your profile is corrupt and you never really save the profile... try to start and quit, just to save the profile. If it continues do crash and ask that... you really have some problem
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 27 2018, @03:16PM
It still cracks me up when IE says, "Hey, we notice you've got some extensions here. Do you want to disable them?"
Or is that the difference between IE and Firefox* extensions -- IE extensions are all shit installed by other programs, that you don't want, while Firefox extensions are things you install yourself?
*Well, used to be, anyway, before they jettisoned the last useful feature Firefox had that Chrome doesn't.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Informative) by higuita on Friday April 27 2018, @02:50PM
what?! for years i do not have memory leaks in firefox... are you using webextension add-ons? if yes, check their process memory... if no, why not?
maybe you navigate many "infinite scroll" pages... those can eat huge amount of ram, as you keep many parts of it in ram.
huge animated gifs also use lots of ram, there was a bug to discard "seen" frames, do not know if it was merged yet
i use both firefox and chrome and by far, firefox uses less ram, specially with many open tabs
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Friday April 27 2018, @01:15AM (2 children)
Even after a quick read I'm not sure what "mixed reality" is -- looks like some shitty robot vr social club if one is to go after the images. Is it robofacebookvr? Clearly they need to add some blockchainz otherwise this thing will never ride the hypetrain.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 27 2018, @01:24AM
Augmented reality on steroids:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality [wikipedia.org]
I thought it was supposed to denote a headset that could do both VR + AR, guess not.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Friday April 27 2018, @02:20AM
Watch the movie Cloud Atlas.
Initial mixed reality will be shitty. You're overlaying digital virtual reality over physical objects. It's the super advanced form of Beer Goggles. All of the tech we imagine being able to override billboards with scenery, override advertising audio with silence or substituted audio, is an implementation of mixed reality.
In Cloud Atlas, the mixed reality is so perfect that it can take a blank concrete room and turn it into an opulent apartment once you turn it on.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Funny) by SomeGuy on Friday April 27 2018, @01:33AM (3 children)
So, can I used mixed reality to display a less retarded user interface over the Firefox UI?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday April 27 2018, @01:37AM (2 children)
Unfortunately not.
It's only in the natural order of this world: you'll have the worst of all realities stewed together in that mixture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by MostCynical on Friday April 27 2018, @01:57AM (1 child)
VR by Mozilla: it allows you to move around, while ensuring you trip over every piece of furniture you own.
Every control and setting will require you to wave your arm above your head (which will mean hitting youself on the head, repeatedly)
Eventually, all users will be so broken and brain damaged, the "normal" UiI will look good, and they will enjoy it.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Friday April 27 2018, @02:44AM
Username checks out...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 27 2018, @04:16AM (1 child)
and I didn't see any weapons at all.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Friday April 27 2018, @06:07AM
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/25/17278902/google-dumping-pistol-emoji-watergun-microsoft [theverge.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday April 27 2018, @08:08AM (1 child)
This seems like maybe one of the least qualified teams to take on such a project. Maybe they should sharpen their skills on debugging and restoring a usable interface to Firefox first?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 27 2018, @01:03PM
They should release it as a Chrome extension [soylentnews.org].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday April 27 2018, @06:52PM
The primary use of this technology will be for VR/AR sexting.
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