Divergent Realities: VR and AR

Article | February 14, 2020

Augmented reality is arguably the next big thing for its potential to replace the smartphone and change how people interact with technology. Across the industry, all efforts are currently phone-based with Google’s approach focused on Lens, Maps, and ARCore. However, a new report today shines further light on the situation — suggesting those efforts are largely the extent of the company’s AR ambitions at the possible expense of hardware glasses.

Article | March 2, 2020

The UK has officially left the EU, well, kind of. Now we are in the next phase of negotiations, a transition period that is supposed to run until January 2021. This means, for the time being, not much will be changing for the UK’s entertainment industry. Filmmakers, musicians, game developers and other creative types will not discover the exact effects of Brexit on the sector until next year, but that doesn’t mean future challenges cannot already be seen in the distance. Whereas some see hurdles to navigate, other professionals in the entertainment see an opportunity, especially with the development in smart 5G technologies, virtual/augmented reality, and a booming new niche of entertainment, in eGaming.

Article | February 25, 2020

Whether you realise it or not, we are entering a new and unprecedented age: one driven largely by artificial intelligence. Up until very recently, artificial intelligence was of a very narrow sort. Put simply, it could do certain things, like arithmetic, very well. But other things, like speech recognition and complex decision-making, were left to humans. Nowadays, computing power has reached a stage where machines can learn for themselves – and the implications are sure to be felt in every area of the economy. This includes the entertainment industry – right down to smaller studios, who, with the help of small business loans, are now able to access worlds of ai-driven power previously denied to them.

Article | February 26, 2020

The top-grossing movie (Avengers: Endgame) and the top-grossing video game (World of Warcraft) of all time are both part of franchises -- long-running media properties with multiple iterations and derivative works spawned from a core creative concept, like superheroes saving the world, or an orc invasion. Their massive successes were built over years of careful audience cultivation. But Marvel's cinematic universe, and the world of Warcraft, are more outliers than inevitabilities. Sequels are rarely sure things, and many franchise attempts have failed, sometimes even taking entire companies down with them.