iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 29/09/2026

Starheart's first album is out now! fallingstarheart.bandcamp.com/album/wonder... I met her via Raindance Immersive making music videos for her songs. She's got a pretty fascinating backstory of finding her authentic voice in VRChat. My convo with her from 2024: voicesofvr.com/1400-becomin...

voicesofvr.com

#1400: Becoming Starheart: A VTuber's Creative Journey in Finding Her Authentic Voice & Identity in VRChat - Voices of VR Podcast

Starheart is a Musician, Composer, Filmmaker, and VTuber who has been doing live performances in VR over the past couple of years. She started making music videos on Halloween of 2022, and realized th...

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 20/09/2026

Yeah, the Basis Load test was the closest I've felt to what it feels like a IRL industry conference with a lot of people that I run into within the hallways. Serendipitous collisions are a lot harder when a gathering is split into different 80-person instances. Felt like the happening place to be.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 19/09/2026

Participated in a #BasisLoadTest @basisvr.org, which is an open source, social VR framework that got 200+ people and 1630 people + bots into a single instance. Self/hosted instances make it feel like the early days of the Internet & what High Fidelity aspired to do but with VRChat culture to do it.

200+ people and 1630 total bots & people in the Basis VR load test.

The CCU (concurrent user count) of 1630 from Rainwolf via Basis Discord

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 13/08/2026

Here’s an example of how this approach can help to elucidate all of the different elemental qualities of presence of a piece like “Asteroid.” I interviewed Hollywood director Doug Liman with his 30 Ninjas team + Google Android XR Max Spear at Venice Immersive: voicesofvr.com/1750-doug-li...

Different centers of gravity for Asteroid

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 13/08/2026

Vertical orientation of the 64 possible orientations and combinations of four elements. The top two elemental centers of gravity are similar enough to create dozen elemental genres. This PDF shows how I’ve applied this to my Venice coverage d315f3wfn5d33f.cloudfront.net/wp-content/u...

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 13/08/2026

Here's the four-fold Venn diagram that shows the Blending of the Elements. More details are here: voicesofvr.com/1787-blendin... YouTube video of lecture: www.youtube.com/watch?v=01M5... PDF of slides: voicesofvr.com/wp-content/u... Previous canonical 2022 talk: voicesofvr.com/1389-element...

Venn diagram of blending of the four elements with 15 primary combinations. When considering the order and the combinations of 1, 2, 3, or 4 elements, then it expands out to 64 possible combinations. But this graphic shows the overlap.

In the upper left-hand corner is the Fire Element of Active Presence: Agency, Intention, Interactivity, Game Design.

in the upper right-hand corner is Air Element of Mental & Social Presence: Meaning, Form, Possibility, Semiotics, Language, Relationality.

In the lower right-hand corner is the Water element of Emotional Presence: Experiential Processes, Story, Film, Music, Cycles, & Time.

And in the lower left-hand corner is the Earth Element of Environmental & Embodied Presence: Worldbuilding, Space, Senses, Immersion.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 13/08/2026

Here's a visualization of all 64 orientations and combinations of the elements if you consider the position of all four elements and different centers of gravity. I dive into the process-relational and semiotic philosophical foundations of the elements in this post: voicesofvr.com/1787-blendin...

64 orientations and combinations of the elements if you take the order into consideration.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 13/08/2026

In each episode, I dig into the elemental center of gravity, as well as the contextual domains explored, story that is being told as well as some of the archetypal themes and character of the story. My coverage kicks off with an interview with Doug Liman on ASTEROID: voicesofvr.com/1750-doug-li...

Elemental center of gravity for the immersive story called "Asteroid." Picture of DK Metcalf in a space suit on an asteroid with a table on the left that reads:

1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: cinematic Virtual Reality thriller that begins as a film and continues as an immersive story game. Combination of live-action 180-video along with CGI-driven animations also in 180-video

2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Worldbuilding of sci-fi extraction of asteroid, you embody a character in story in the last part, and you break the fourth wall in the onboarding talking to the actor who plays a character via AI

3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Conversational-driven AI Story Extension – You talk to the actor DK Metcalf at the beginning and with the character at the end. A bit of puzzling together of the myserious aspects of the story

4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: continues as an immersive story game – Improv convo + slightly nudged and directed exploration

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 13/08/2026

I've now published all 30+ hours of my Venice Immersive 2025 coverage. I categorized the projects into a dozen elemental genres to help navigate it. There's 64 possible combos of all four elements, but 12 primary dyads. I unpack it all more in this LinkedIn post: www.linkedin.com/posts/kentby...

There are four elements (earth, air, fire, & water), and if you take into consideration the order / center of gravity, then there are 64 possible orientations. In looking at the dyadic orientations of two elements, then there are a dozen configurations that do a nice job of create "elemental genres" of immersive stories and immersive art. This post shows the twelve combinations, and then the associated projects underneath that.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 02/08/2026

I thought so! It's a pretty awesome archive embedded in that montage, and best explored on a tablet touch screen.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 02/08/2026

Is this you @scottstein.bsky.social? If so, you're featured in Hoff's HoloLens 1 & 2 montage here with 1,600 other photos: picmotif.com/u/hoff/tribu...

Picture of Scott Stein wearing a HoloLens 2

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 02/08/2026

This is an amazing archival montage documenting AR culture of HoloLens 1 & 2. Michael Hoffman says, "On the Microsoft HoloLens team, I had this idea to tell the HoloLens story in photos, so started collecting every image I could find, over 1,600." Lots of history here! picmotif.com/u/hoff/tribu...

A composite image of the HoloLens 1 on top facing right and HoloLens 2 on the bottom facing left made out of 1,600 public images. Creator Michael Hoffman says, "On the Microsoft HoloLens team, I had this idea to tell the HoloLens story in photos, so started collecting every image I could find, over 1,600."

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 01/08/2026

Raindance Immersive curates the absolute best of virtual culture in VRChat. I’ve been a judge every year since 2020, and participated in this documentary coming out on August 9th. Excited to see this recap by @madamekana.bsky.social, the most prolific documentary maker in VRChat doing amazing work.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 29/07/2026

I just posted a pretty epic video on "Blending the Elements of Experiential Design. I'll be applying it to my 30+ hrs of oral history coverage of immersive stories from Venice Immersive 2025 & 15+ hrs of SXSW Immersive 2026 coming soon: youtu.be/01M5NcOYzx0 Slides: voicesofvr.com/wp-content/u...

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 13/07/2026

I participated on a Socratic Debate about AI at Augmented World Expo where I represented an Anti-AI & Pro-Human Rights POV. I was called an "AI Denialist," which catalyzed me to collect 30k words citing critical AI scholars & philosophers presenting the skeptical take: voicesofvr.com/1749-socrati...

Ava from Hacks says, "I just -- I got distracted researching the ethics of AI. Turns out, really bad."

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Reposted by Kent Bye (Voices of VR)

Kathryn Yu #OpenToWork @kathrynyu.com · 09/07/2026

In 2022, I shelved my thesis VR game, Penrose Station, when I joined Twisted Pixel to work on Marvel's Deadpool VR (too much of a conflict of interest.) Fast forward to 2026: Meta shut our studio down. 😔 And with the conflict gone, I finally had a reason to pick it back up….

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 14/06/2026

Looks great. I'd love to chat with you about it here soon. On my way to AWE and have a bunch of Voices of VR podcasts to publish afterwards, but this looks like a substantial deep dive into the culture and would love to unpack it more here within the next month or so!

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 10/06/2026

We should chat about it all at AWE! I’ll be debating against AI on Thur at 2:30p. www.awexr.com/usa-2026/age... Also check out my “demonstrating what is uniquely human” section of my IDFA DocLab report for a deep dive. professionals.idfa.nl/stories/idfa... “Ghost in the Machine” doc is also great

“Demonstrating what is uniquely human vs what is generated by a machine” section on pages 81-82 of IDFA DocLab report.

“Demonstrating what is uniquely human vs what is generated by a machine” section on pages 82-83 of IDFA DocLab report.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 05/06/2026

I’m loving the “chaotic early WWW energy” here that the #ATproto represents. I skipped to the demos to see the wide range of decentralized apps that these savvy devs were able to assemble after a 4-hour @codetv.dev Web Dev Challenge. Lots of Wild West Experimentation Vibes. youtu.be/S-XytKfGCO8?...

youtu.be

Rebuild your website (again) with ATproto · Web Dev Challenge S3.E4

YouTube video by CodeTV

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 05/06/2026

Good times! Love hearing the sound effects as it brings back lots of memories. Sad! ☹️

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Reposted by Kent Bye (Voices of VR)

Rec Room @rec-room.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

We apologize. :[

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 04/06/2026

I'm presenting new material at Seattle XR: "Blending the Elements of Experiential Design" XR is an interdisciplinary design discipline that's fusing together architecture, industrial design, theater, film, music, game design, web design, human computer interaction, social media... luma.com/n8vhi1ue

A series of 9 different slides showing the fusion of elements together in the context of experiential design.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 04/06/2026

One of the paradoxes of the next paradigm shift is valuing human experience & emotion beyond rational facts that don’t change behaviors on their own. It’s a rejection of an objectified “view from nowhere” absent situated knowledges that come from a body, feelings, mind, & will. youtu.be/z-XNH4upTVw

youtu.be

Patterns of Meaning, Transformation, and Impact in XR - MeaningfulXR Keynote

YouTube video by Kent Bye

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 04/06/2026

Thanks for tuning in! It is always great to reflect on the past as we move into the future.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 04/06/2026

4 new Voices of VR eps: Immersive Impact Review, Impulse Impact Study, Patterns of Meaning, Transformation & Impact Open call from Agog on Climate Futures + Immersive Media voicesofvr.com/1720-immersi... voicesofvr.com/1721-impact-... voicesofvr.com/1722-meaning... voicesofvr.com/1723-agogs-o...

Four Voices of VR podcast episodes: Immersive Impact Review, Impulse Impact Study, Patterns of Meaning, Transformation, and Impact in XR, and an open call from Agog on Climate Futures + Immersive Media

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 04/06/2026

I love seeing your AI roasts on my LinkedIn timeline. I'm glad to see that being on the frontlines of fighting AI Slop provides you with so much entertainment, as it's a breath of fresh air to your candid takes cutting through all of the hyperbolic BS.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 03/06/2026

Have they released anything yet? I’m just seeing the contact us button on their page on my phone. Moved from Premiere to Kdenlive for video editing, but the Spectral Analysis + Waveform combo of editing in Audition had yet to be matched by a FOSS alternative. But would love to be free from Adobe.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 02/06/2026

Yeah, open source runs counter to the logic of capitalism. But XR & AI are asking for these new paradigms of economic value exchange that we're still trying to figure out. So having open & interoperable worlds starts to look more like the "Metaverse" than these proprietary closed walled gardens.

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Reposted by Kent Bye (Voices of VR)

Todd Heberlein @toddheberlein.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

This was an incredibly touching and informative conversation. Certainly if you are in the AR/VR space I encourage you to listen. But even if you are an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur, you should check it out. The story of Rec Room as a business is fascinating all by itself.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 02/06/2026

The Creative Industries Immersive Impact Coalition (CIIIC): www.ciiic.nl/en My interview with them: voicesofvr.com/1713-ciiics-... Shared Realities: voicesofvr.com/1697-can-imm... Also be sure to check out the IDFA DocLab report that dives into more context: professionals.idfa.nl/stories/idfa...

ciiic.nl

CIIIC

Stimulating IX in The Netherlands by providing infrastructure, funding and guidance to the IX community.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 02/06/2026

Gamer's Nexus details how NVIDIA is abandoning the PC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUqQ... This March 3, 2026 from /r/pcmasterrace foreshadows how Big Tech are abandoning personal computing in favor of AI data centers. They're pushing "you will own nothing and be happy." www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterra...

Comic posted to the r/pcmasterrace subreddit on March 3, 2026 with the title "I don't like where this is going..." by /u/Desperate-Grocery-53 with the first pane in 2009 with two GPUs in a computer, then a giant GPU in 2024, but then in 2029, there's no local computer with a PC and GPU because everything is in an AI Data Center. The caption under the comic reads: "Updated that 2024 meme..."
Source Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1rjse9e/i_dont_like_where_this_is_going/

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 01/06/2026

RIP Rec Room. 2016-2026. A bit of a shame to see another UGC-driven social VR app shut down. Export tools were recently provided to makers, but hoping to see more open source / open standards in XR in the future. My chat with Shawn Whiting reflecting on what happened: voicesofvr.com/1719-rip-rec...

Image used on the blog post for Rec Room's closing that reads "School's Out for Rec Room"

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 18/05/2026

I'd love to interview you about your latest book. I cited your work in this 121-page report on the future of immersive entertainment: professionals.idfa.nl/stories/idfa... I also cite you extensively in this write-up countering some libertarian market fundamentalism: voicesofvr.com/1718-primer-...

professionals.idfa.nl

IDFA Professionals | IDFA DocLab Immersive Think Tank Report 2026

Every year, IDFA DocLab’s R&D Summit reflects on the state of the new media sector and where it’s headed. This year’s report focuses on XR Distribution Trends at a moment of profound transition, as a ...

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 08/05/2026

Great to meet you & I love how your cartoon came out! I cited Maria Farrell's rewilding the Internet in my report for IDFA DocLab, which is based on trends of immersive artists facilitating embodied and face-to-face interactions to revitalize civic society: professionals.idfa.nl/stories/idfa...

professionals.idfa.nl

IDFA Professionals | IDFA DocLab Immersive Think Tank Report 2026

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

I totally understand. They're driven by some deep philosophical commitments on non-violence. If you're curious, then you can dive into to those here: voicesofvr.com/668-guns-mon... voicesofvr.com/711-politica... voicesofvr.com/936-indie-de...

voicesofvr.com

#668: Guns, Money, & Morals: A Debate on the Ethics of VR Simulation, Capitalism, & the Limits of Decentralized Techno-Utopianism – Voices of VR Podcast

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

Anton’s answer in the video: "100% No! It will not."

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

Here's @antonhand.bsky.social's announcement featurette: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifeE... Surprising he had Meta funding for 20 people to work on it for 2 years in a non-exclusive deal, but the VR market has changed since these 2 convos: voicesofvr.com/668-guns-mon... voicesofvr.com/936-indie-de...

youtube.com

Creature Feature Showcase 2026 | Deadly Delivery, Compass, Wordbound & Much Much More

YouTube video by VR Games Showcase

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

H3VR is THE most elaborate & sophisticated gun simulator in VR, but @antonhand.bsky.social's condition is it will never be used to simulate violence against humans... only hot dogs. After a decade of R&D & 2 years of development, H3VR2 was announced today. His devlog: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK_6...

Question: "Will H3VR have Humans / Bipeds, Multiplayer PVP / Co-op?"
Anton's Answer: "100% No! It will not."

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

Here's my interview with @dnorco.bsky.social about last year's Creature Feature. They're consistently putting out some of the most interesting XR experiences, and so I'm excited to see what they'll be announcing here at 9:30a voicesofvr.com/1562-highlig...

voicesofvr.com

#1562: Highlights of Creature’s IGN XR Gaming Showcase + State of VR Vibe Check with Doug North Cook – Voices of VR Podcast

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

Excited for CREATURE FEATURE's new indie XR games. A YouTube commenter spotted a subliminal message of @antonhand.bsky.social eating a hotdog. He said on his devlog that his new game would be announced. Also "Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades" has been in Early Access for MORE THAN A DECADE now!

Anton Hand eating a hotdog as a subliminal message within the Creature Feature

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

Awesome! Yeah, this device feels very much in alignment for how we're trying to get OFF THE INTERNET, or at least move towards more calm tech that isn't trying to constantly hijack our attention. I wish there was an option for self-hosting or Proton Drive rather than Big Tech clouds or subscription.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

I was really hoping for a refresh on this! I ended up buying the Remarkable Paper Pure before I even finished reading your review, especially because I've been in the market for an E Ink tablet for reading and note-taking, and this seems like a perfect fit. The drawing & sketching feels like a bonus

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

Here's the recording from the @pdx.atproto.camp meetup from tonight if you want to see the Welcome to #ATProto talk by @brittanyellich.com, and hear about the types of people-powered, decentralized social apps the PDX community is building: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFda... bsky.app/profile/pdx....

youtube.com

Introduction to ATProto from the PDX ATProto Meetup

YouTube video by Overcommitted

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

There's a growing ecosystem of #ATProto decentralized open science covered @atmosphereconf.org atproto.science/events/atmos... I got more details from @byarielm.fyi, @liminal.rip, & @nandi.latha.org, but @row1.ca & @matsulab.com's keynote is a comprehensive overview ionosphere.tv/talks/ats26-...

ionosphere.tv

Keynote: Towards Modular Open Science

Keynote: Towards Modular Open Science by Matt Akamatsu, Rowan Cockett — ATmosphereConf 2026

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

Yeah, I would lose the context when you covered up the labels, and if you leave the labels as being persistent then I think that will help preserve the context that you're weaving. But I really appreciated the high-level survey and pointers to some of apps to check out in the Atmosphere!

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

Learned a lot at @pdx.atproto.camp tonight. @pds.ls is a great PDS navigator where you can look up anyone's Decentralized Identifier (DID) to see all of the apps they're using. See @stream.place dev @iame.li's apps pds.ls/at://did:plc... Self-host PDS w/ @tranquil.farm tangled.org/tranquil.far...

pds.ls

iame.li (did:plc:2zmxikig2sj7gqaezl5gntae)

Hosted on iameli.com

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

I loved your talk, and I found it really useful. One bit of presentational feedback is in some slides you would progressively reveal a photo that would then occlude the context of what that photo is about. Here's a quick mock-up of how you could reveal those photos, but still maintain the labels.

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Kent Bye (Voices of VR) @kentbye.com · 06/05/2026

Well, it's only the second meetup, and literally everyone at the meetup is already interested in and likely already using the ATProto. So perhaps not exactly the same circumstances that you're in. But check it out & perhaps use both for a bit, but slowly migrate over?

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