Netflix – Page 2 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

January 23, 2024

TechScape: Why Apple’s Vision Pro headset won’t have Netflix, Spotify or YouTube

This new ‘spatial computing’ device is supposedly the most immersive way to watch TV – but major streamers aren’t building apps for it. Plus, Facebook’s AI god complex

• Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article here

It’s good to have friends. They come to your birthday party, offer a shoulder to cry on when things are hard and spend precious corporate resources developing apps for your nascent virtual reality platform despite little direct return. It can be tempting to believe that a pile of cash worth $30bn, and a single product line that brings in more than $200bn a year, is an acceptable substitute. But Apple is learning that money can’t buy you everything.

Last week, pre-orders opened for the company’s Vision Pro headset, the $3,500 “spatial computing” platform CEO Tim Cook has positioned as the successor to the Mac and iPhone and the launch of the third major era in Apple’s history. But in the press, the launch has been overshadowed by the quiet hostility towards the device from those whose support will ultimately be needed to ensure its success.

Rather than designing a Vision Pro app – or even just supporting its existing iPad app on the platform – Netflix is essentially taking a pass. The company, which competes with Apple in streaming, said in a statement that users interested in watching its content on the device can do so from the web.

YouTube … isn’t planning to launch a new app for the Apple Vision Pro, nor will it allow its longstanding iPad application to work on the device – at least, for now […] Spotify also isn’t currently planning a new app for visionOS – the Vision Pro’s operating system – and doesn’t expect to enable its iPad app to run on the device when it launches, according to a person familiar with matter.

All App Store developers – including those who place buttons or links with calls to action in their apps – benefit from Apple’s proprietary technology and tools protected by intellectual property, and access to its user base. […] Apple’s commission will be 27% on proceeds you earn from sales.

The Meta chief executive has said the company will attempt to build an artificial general intelligence (AGI) system and make it open source, meaning it will be accessible to developers outside the company. The system should be made “as widely available as we responsibly can”, he added.

AGI is not a strictly defined term, but it commonly refers to a theoretical AI system that can carry out an array of tasks at a level of intelligence that matches or exceeds humans. The potential emergence of AGI has alarmed experts and politicians around the world who fear such a system, or a combination of multiple AGI systems, could evade human control and threaten humanity.

September 19, 2023

‘Squid Game’ Multiplayer VR Game Coming to Sandbox Locations in September

Sandbox VR, the location-based VR destination, announced its multiplayer experience based on hit Netflix show Squid Game is coming to Sandbox VR locations starting September 29th, featuring a number of its deadly mini-games.

Update (September 19th, 2023): Starting September 29th, Sandbox VR locations will host groups of up to six players to compete in Squid Games’ deadly mini-games, such as ‘Red Light, Green Light,’ and ‘Cross the Glass Bridge.’ The studio, which develops all of its VR content in-house, says we can also expect “surprising new twists that expand on the world of the series.”

After each game session, players will also get a personalized highlight video capturing their virtual in-game reactions and recapping how their own Squid Game story unfolded.

Since the original article was published, Sandbox VR has now grown to over 40 global locations, 18 of which launched in the last 12 months. You can find more info about Squid Game and other VR experiences on the Sandbox VR website.

Original Article (February 8th, 2023): Netflix’s most watched show of all time will soon have its own location-based VR experience, which will let fans take on the role of Squid Game contestant.

Set to roll out to Sandbox locations in late 2023, the location-based VR game promises “pulse-pounding challenges” where users compete against each other to be the last one standing. What’s more, game sessions include personalized highlight videos capturing in-game reactions for post-game review.

There’s no trailer for the Squid Game VR game, although the company’s hype video should give you a good idea of what to expect:

Sandbox’s locations feature motion-tracking technology, which captures the movements of a player’s body and props, such as guns. Its haptic system also provides players with added realism to go along with the large room-scale VR experience.

The company currently features six proprietary experiences based on both exclusively licensed IP (Star Trek: Discovery), as well as in-house experiences. All Sandbox VR experiences are developed by an in-house gaming studio, which tailors the company’s social experiences for groups of up to six users at a time.

The Squid Game licensing deal is likely the direct result of its $37 million Series B funding round from November 2021. The company has made a strong rebound from the stagnation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing the company’s eventual reemergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy following debt restructure.

Sandbox now operates 30 VR locations, spanning major cities in North America, Europe, and Asia (see update). The company says it’s launched a dozen such locations over the past twelve months, making for one of its largest growths spurts.

August 14, 2023

Netflix is finally testing out cloud gaming on TV and browsers

Netflix finally started a beta that lets subscribers stream games like Oxenfree to their TV's Netflix app or the service's website.

August 9, 2023

Netflix games may be coming to TVs soon, as revealed by new iOS app

It looks like a Netflix Games on TV beta is imminent after a Netflix Game Controller app just appeared on the iOS App Store.

July 12, 2023

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals review: eerie sequel is a must-play for Netflix subscribers

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals balances an eerie ghost story with an introspective drama about how we're never quite done growing up.

April 22, 2023

Where to rent DVDs and Blu-rays as Netflix ends disc rentals

With Netflix sunsetting its DVD-by-mail rental service this September, we've put together this list of some alternative DVD rental options to fill the void.

March 30, 2023

Netflix may bring its gaming service to TVs, with iPhones serving as controllers

Netflix is working on a feature that will bring its games to TVs and allow players to use their iPhone as a controller, according to code found in the app.

March 20, 2023

Netflix expands its game lineup with new titles from Ubisoft and more

Mighty Quest: Rogue Palace, Monument Valley, and more are coming to Netflix as it doubles down on its gaming efforts.

July 10, 2022

How to find and install Netflix Games

Yes, Netflix is bringing games to its platform. Here's what that means, where you can find Netflix games, and how to quickly download them on your devices.

May 30, 2022

NFT Spotlight: Love, Death + Art

Please note that the following review is not an endorsement of purchasing the NFTs discussed, and the author does not themself own any of the collection.

The Netflix-produced animated sci-fi anthology series Love, Death + Robots has recently released its third series. To mark that occasion, the show has partnered with a Web3 studio known as Feature to produce an NFT scavenger hunt.

According to the site, QR codes have apparently been hidden within promotional videos and real-world billboards, as well as the episodes themselves. Once scanned, these codes redirect users to a website where they can view artworks and mint them as NFTs.

Minting the NFTs requires users to have a MetaMask or Coinbase wallet. Minting the unlimited NFTs is free except for variable gas rates, and the collection encourages those without an interest in NFTs to simply save them as JPEGs.

The Collection

The collection consists of short clips from season 3 of the show, and as such inherits the production values of Love, Death and Robots, which is known for the diversity of styles between episodes.

Only three of the nine-strong collection (one for each episode of the latest series) are viewable prior to being collected. In one we see a dancing, jewel-encrusted siren, animated in a near photo-real manner. In another, three very different robots look between a clipboard and the viewer, and the final example, from the episode “The Very Pulse of the Machine”, sees a lone figure standing over a strange alien landscape of neon lights in a pose highly reminiscent of Caspar David Friedrich’s Romantic classic Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.

It’s a clever way of repurposing content, especially when that content has been created by artists working at the level required to produce one of Netflix’s tentpole shows. The move into NFTs is also one that makes perfect sense for Love, Death and Robots, thanks to both its technological and artistic reputation, sidestepping the weird incongruity of projects like that of TV chef Gino D’Acampo. In other words, more people will be happy to give the NFT collection the benefit of the doubt, instead of denouncing it as a cash grab.

At the time of writing, some 27,000 NFTs have been minted, with a floor price of 0.003ETH (approximately $5 or $6). It’s not a princely sum, but it highlights that there is an appetite for collectables issued in this way and gives people a small amount of motivation to take part in the scavenger hunt. Hiding the codes within promotional material and episodes is a particularly smart choice, encouraging close watching and encouraging the collection to go viral as viewers share the locations they have found codes.

The Background

Of course, this isn’t the first NFT project to base itself around a scavenger or treasure hunt. Last year, The Great NFT Treasure Hunt took a slightly different approach by hiding passwords to wallets containing 32 different NFTs across Southern California, issuing clues to their location via Twitter. And budding metaverse NFTWorlds earlier this year organised a hunt within its virtual worlds with puzzles, riddles and challenges to unlock the twelve words necessary to gain access to a wallet filled with 3ETH and 500,000 of its native WRLD currency.

Nor is this the first intersection of TV and NFTs. Fox has called its upcoming animated TV show Krapopolis “the first-ever animated series curated entirely on the blockchain“, with plans to launch a dedicated marketplace that will sell digital goods including character NFTs and social experience tokens. And Seth Green’s plan to produce an animated show featuring a Bored Ape he owned was recently thrown into jeopardy after he lost the NFT in a hack and it was subsequently resold.

While the collection isn’t much more than a novelty and makes a point of saying that the show or Netflix derives no revenue, it could represent Netflix dipping its toe into the Web3 sector following recent revelations about its poor financial health. It reported a loss of 200,000 paid subscribers in its latest quarterly earnings report and estimated it would lose another 2 million by the time of its next earnings report in July.

The Verdict

The Love, Death + Art collection highlights an interesting way for more traditional forms of media to get involved with NFTs. Done respectfully, as this has been, NFT collections such as Love, Death + Art can serve as a gateway for individuals outside of NFTs to become involved with the space – instead of alienating them. Other TV shows looking to take a similar approach should be aware, however, that without a throughline that connects NFT technology to the programme in question, viewers will likely turn up their noses.