Just Business : Inspiration from Hollywood

NOTE TO OUR FAITHFUL READERS:
This post will be a departure from our irregularly scheduled technical, design, and development musings. Today, we are focusing on that elusive topic called business. Enjoy.

Back in the day, my boys and I were on the high-school wrestling squad. We actually competed at a fairly high level, Varsity won state that year. And at least once a month, the night before match, we’d gather in front of the TV, and watch our deepest wrestling inspiration: VisionQuest. The scene with Matthew Modine beasting up the peg wall then running up and down the stadium bleachers are etched into my brain for life. I can still recall them when I need that last little boost for triathlons.

So now we get to the topic at hand, business. Who’d have thought, there are movies that inspire there too. And here they are. Watch and learn.

color-of-money-movie

5. theĀ Color of Money

Official-poster-for-Wall-Street-1987

 

4. Wall Street

“Greed is Good.” Watch the speech. Again. and Again. That is all.

 

 

blood-diamond-movie

3. Blood Diamond
“What’s the business in this one?” you ask. Quite simply: Hustle. If you need the abbreviated lesson, just skip to the scene where DiCaprio barters the weapons for the diamonds…

The-Social-Network-movie-poster-David Fincher

 

2. The Social Network

The youngest, richest, most successful entrepreneur of the 21st century deserves a decent treatment… and this one is genius.

 

 

JOBS-movie-poster

 

1. Jobs

Steve Jobs captained Apple from a “has been” into the most profitable, most valuable company in the world. There are lessons here. We shall say no more.

 

 

 

 

Further Inspiration & Investigations…

This list is theĀ companion piece to “Required Reading for VR.”
Your choice. Reading or viewing. Programming, either way.

…did I mention the Matrix?

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

 

finally… HANDS

and finally, we have hands… in VR land. Tuscany, to be precise. coming soon to an HMD near you…

the first time seeing my hands in VR on our own development rig.

the first time seeing my hands in VR on our own development rig.

Thank you so much to Sixense, and Razer Hydra, for making this possible. And to BitCoin, without which we wouldn’t have obtained the hardcore PC to drive this sim.

And so we pivot : Enter the Rift

Hi All,

dSky begins its pivot to Rift app development, starting today.

I am returning fresh from San Francisco, where I toured the latest development studios, and demo’ed a massive amount of hardware and software that will be released to consumers within the next 18 months.

Let me say, without a doubt, that we are on the threshold of a computing revolution that can and will transform the world. Playing and learning in a VR space is not merely computing, nor gaming… it is ACTUAL EXPERIENCE. It is not merely “immersion” as you might get in IMAX 3d or older VR systems, it transcends mere immersion into what is known as PRESENCE: the uncanny feeling that you actually ARE in another place and time and reality.

These software experiences are so powerful, and the hardware, after 50 years of R&D, is finally ready. Many of you have read about the Neo’s Matrix, Tron’s Grid, Stephenson’s Metaverse, or Ender’s Game. Not one, but ALL of these will be present and available in this coming wave of hardware and software.

Major forces are coming to play. Facebook is currently in the lead with the Oculus Rift. Sony announced Project Morpheus for the PS4 earlier this year… and just today, Samsung announced their Galaxy GearVR, a fully mobile and untethered VR headset that pairs with their Note smartphone.

In the next 12 months, hopefully sooner, each of you will be able to demo these experiences, and I can guarantee that you will have your “aha” moment and see the potential.

So I have decided from here forward to invest my time and money and resources into developing the next generation of education and entertainment software for this new computing platform, which truthfully, Michael Abrash has identified as “the final computing platform”. Won’t you join me?

See you in the Rift,
Greg

Designing for Glass, by Glass

This is a wonderful treatment of a spoken word recording by Ira Glass, of NPR’s This American Life. He speaks the core truth of creative people: when you have a vision, translating it to reality is an iterative, lengthy process.

I think many of us who are experiencing Glass have great visions of its potential… and now comes the hard work of translating those visions into actual applications and businesses.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.