EaseVRx employs the principles of CBT and other behavioral therapy techniques for the purpose of reduction of pain and pain interference. The prescription device, which is intended for at-home self-use, consists of a VR headset and a controller, along with a “Breathing Amplifier” attached to the headset that directs a patient’s breath toward the headset’s microphone for use in deep breathing exercises. The device’s VR program uses established principles of behavioral therapy intended to address the physiological symptoms of pain and aid in pain relief through a skills-based treatment program. These principles include deep relaxation, attention-shifting, interoceptive awareness–the ability to identify, access, understand and respond appropriately to the patterns of internal signals—and perspective-taking, distraction, immersive enjoyment, self-compassion, healthy movement, acceptance, visualization, knowledge of pain and rehabilitation.
In actuality, Facebook is basically spending $10 billion on a prayer that, in the short run, it might change the conversation. It gives them an opportunity to talk about the metaverse instead of insurrection and teen depression. It gives Mark Zuckerberg a chance to talk about the metaverse instead of saying, “Hi, I’m the CEO of Facebook, I’m ruining the world.”
The people with the most options in the world, specifically Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, either want to be off the planet or they want to create a different universe on this planet. It feels like the mother of all abdications. “We don’t want to improve the world, we want to go to a different world.” It seems somewhat nihilistic and strange.
Oculus sells like 2 or 3 million units a year? Apple sold 110 million AirPods last year.
Marks, B., & Thomas, J. (2021). Adoption of virtual reality technology in higher education: An evaluation of five teaching semesters in a purpose-designed laboratory. Education and Information Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10653-6
Microsoft Mesh always felt like the future of Microsoft Teams meetings, and now it’s starting to come to life in the first half of 2022. Microsoft is building on efforts like Together Mode and other experiments for making meetings more interactive, after months of people working from home and adjusting to hybrid work.
Rather than ruling one metaverse, Microsoft wants its Mesh platform to be the glue that holds a multiverse of many worlds together.
Microsoft has been developing its own take on the metaverse through Mesh for several years now in conjunction with the launch of its Hololens AR headset.
Microsoft connects people across any device (smartphones, laptops, headsets, etc.) into shared spaces where they can all interact, no matter how they may have dialed in.
Microsoft imagines Teams as a prototype for the metaverse, where companies can set up their own spaces. Rather than rule its own metaverse as Meta/Facebook aspires to, Microsoft sees its role with Mesh in providing the foundational glue that helps hold a multiverse of worlds together. This is not just a philosophical view on technology. Microsoft’s Mesh is built to allow companies to use APIs, much like apps can on the iPhone today, to help a company build its metaverse and have a persistent identity across all these metaverses.