Tag Archives: music

VR/AR News + Fun Links

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Progress on Quest/Horizon OS

Since I last wrote on Meta Quest OS (v64 in April), lots of improvements have happened. Per the changelog:

  • v65
    • upload panoramic photos or spatial video to headset via Quest mobile app (supports IOS 17 or later)
    • passthrough environment
    • fewer interruptions from hand tracking when using a physical keyboard or mouse with headset
    • Local multiplayer and boundary recall with Meta Virtual Positioning System
    • Travel Mode for airplane flights (experimental, optional, available only for Quest 2 and 3)
  • v66
    • improvements to passthrough, including [significant] reductions in warping
    • adjustments to exposure, colors, and contrast
    • improvements to background audio for 2D apps, including minimizing apps without automatically pausing playback
    • media controller moved out of notifications into a Media Control Bar under the universal menu to control media playback
    • wrist buttons for clicking Meta and Menu icons (experimental)
    • ability to hide any app (installed or uninstalled) downloaded from the Quest Store
    • teens and children ages 10-12 who are supervised by the same parent or guardian are automatically able to see each other in the Family Center (starting June 27)
    • Sleep Mode added to power-off menu
    • Space Setup automatic identification and marking of furniture (windows, doors, tables, couches, storage, screens, and beds, with additional furniture types supported over time) (documented, optional)
  • v67
    • New Window Layout (experimental):
      • expanded maximum number of open windows from three to six in window layout (up to three docked and three attached)
      • ability to grab and detach windows to position and resize them freely
      • button to temporarily hide other windows in immersive view
      • ability to take any window fullscreen, thus replacing other windows and replacing the dock with simplified control bar with buttons for toggling curving, passthrough background, and brightness of background.
      • replaces explicit Close View and Far View modes
    • new creator videos in Horizon Feed
    • ability to use swipe typing to enter text when using headset
    • improvements to eye tracking recalibration (Quest Pro only)
    • select different durations for Do Not Disturb
    • Wi-Fi QR code scanner (Quest 3 only)
    • open Quest TV or use File Viewer to watch immersive videos without quitting current immersive app
    • developers allowed to swap out Boundary for Passthrough in their apps

Also, the verdicts on the most available VR/AR glasses:

  • Mobile XR glasses
    • Brilliant Frame has major issues with functionality
    • Meta Ray-Bans are top notch
    • TCL Ray Neos do most of what is advertised but has potential for more
  • Stationary XR glasses
    • Rokid is meh
    • Xreal Beam Pro is an improvement upon Xreal Beam, expands capabilities of the Xreal Air 2 Pro
    • Viture Pro holds up to Xreal Air 2 Pros, decent for gaming (especially with Viture Neckband)

Videos

Neurodiverse Friends: Schizophrenia SKIT

I’m now a fan of this animator’s output. Their series on Neurodiverse Friends uses animated cats to accurately describe expressions of conditions on the spectrum.

Queen Coke Francis: Ranking Mr. Birchum Yaoi

Context: Mr. Birchum is an unfortunate adult animated series produced by the right-wing website Daily Wire which attempts to be a comedy. Not only are the jokes a collective dud, but quite a few conservatives themselves are turned off by the presence of one (1) openly-gay character in the cast, who is meant to be the butt of the jokes anyway.

Anyway, here’s a ranking of the yaoi made of the series.

F.D. Signifier: Kanye was never good

This puts Kanye and his downfall in a new light.

Mashups

In a way, I’m glad that YouTube is not the total repository for fan-created music out there.

Between Milo Yiannopoulos and Kim Burrell

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Between Milo Yiannopoulos and Kim Burrell, similarities:

* They have something attractive about them (Milo is a twink who styles himself as the epitome of White gayness, Kim has an amazing jazzy voice for gospel music which makes her a sought-after “friend” for singers of the urban milieu);
* They cash in on others’ social advances (Milo likes Black penis in bed “so he can’t be racist”, Kim cashed a check from openly-bisexual singer Frank Ocean to guest on his album);
* They are otherwise reactionary personalities (Milo is openly disdainful against Black people protesting police brutality, Kim is apparently disdainful against gay and bisexual people);
* They preach to their respective choirs (Milo to reactionary nationalists, Kim to social conservatives in the Black church).

Neither individuals share my headspace much. They’re not even shames or disappointments.

And yes, Tariq Nasheed, Milo has been protested greatly for his unoriginal anti-Black and anti-Trans screeds. Pay attention.

Frank Ocean’s highly anticipated Blonde is only the most recent offering in a remarkable string of theologically complex R&B and rap music. In a year that saw Kendrick Lamar’s Untitled Unmastered, Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book and Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Blonde (initially titled Boys Don’t Cry) only further emphasizes how gospel themes are being increasingly used as a mode of resistance.

Since its release at the end of summer, the album’s message has continued to spread far and wide, making its latest round in the news cycle this week when Kanye West threatened to mount a boycott against the Grammys if Blonde wasn’t nominated.

Ocean has in the past expressed his belief in a redemptive God (“We All Try”) alongside his disbelief in the value of organized religion (“Bad Religion”). In this sophomore work, he further evolves his spiritual identity in the context of racial justice and queer masculinity. The tone is plaintive but also resilient, fitting into an ethos seen from other black artists this year.

Source: Racial Justice and Queer Masculinity: The Gospel of Frank Ocean | Religion Dispatches

Kanye West – “Famous”

OK, “Famous”. Watched the whole video.

Very heterosexual. No guys next to each other. The only women next to each other are Amber Rose and Caitlyn Jenner. Very voyeuristic.

Even the artist whose giant mural inspired the video, Vincent Desiderio, was taken by how his own feelings toward the people depicted flowed from ridicule to empathy for “Slumbering gods, they were, but also like babies or small children at the height of vulnerability.” Obsessed to a point with power. All famous people, most of them being attached in some way with whom they had sex or were publicly obsessed (or who simply had their own public sexual histories).

Too many pieces already written about the deliberate placing of women next to/in the same bed as the men with whom they had toxic, well-publicized or distant relationships; Lena Dunham’s takedown comes to mind. Oh, and Bush and Wintour. Who have they had sex with and how? The public needs to know, I’m sure.

#Lemonade

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Just finished watching #Lemonade on Facebook.

I wonder if Lemonade is Beyonce’s magnum opus album, or her magnum opus video anthology.

But, going off of the film, this is NOT a pop album. None of this is pop. This is higher concept than her self-titled album. This is her most thematically-compact album to date.

Sasha Fierce, 4 and Self-Titled fit within a thematic trilogy of exploring feminism, beauty, power, love and self-expression in the world. Lemonade is new territory, in which she explores Black womanhood, infidelity, inheritance, pain, anger and appreciation in history.

The pacing is incredibly taut, like a one-hour religious ritual. Everyone, every dancer and guest, is posed exactly as they should be posed, to be canvasses for the story, like they’re dreamy expressions emanating from Beyonce’s mind. But it’s all a process. It goes from reacting to betrayal to reconciling and rebuilding with one’s love.

It goes beyond some mere “Becky with the good hair” to a wider theme of being true to those who you will meet when you wake up: oneself and each other.