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VR meets art - Brain and extra limbs - Major opportunities in life

Zvonimir Fras

• 2 min read

From art in VR (virtual reality), through your amazing 🧠, to a message from one the greatest investors of our time.

Welcome to 3-in-3 😜

Thing 1 - VR meets art

When you got your first smartphone, you became a photographer.

And so did everyone else.

This changed the way you

  • communicate
  • express yourself
  • consume information

Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and the rest of the gang rode the wave of creativity made possible by all the new photographers.

VR can still feel like a fringe thing you use to play games for 15 minutes before you get bored or motion sick.

But...

  • the number of new devices sold is doubling every year
  • each generation is closing the usability gap

You'll soon be one of the VR creators nobody warned us about.

What will art in VR look like?

Experiences.

Here's how you could experience Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" 🤯

Van Gogh - The Starry Night VR - 3D 360° experience (it's a 3D video so you can look around)

And here is how you could make one. No, it's not easy. Even a good TikTok takes effort.

Thing 2 - What would you do with an extra thumb?

Luke Skywalker's artificial arm is a result of bad parenting, sure, but it looks so real you couldn't even tell. (just like the psychological damage, hidden in plain sight)

With all the Jedi Master powers at his disposal, Luke controlling a robot arm in place of his own... Not that impressive.

Dr. Otto Octavius (a.k.a. Doctor Octopus) controlling tentacles, in addition to his own limbs... Wow, slow clap, Otto.

Which begs the question... (Does it, Z?)

Could you control an extra robotic limb if you had one?

Yes.

UCL research team trained people to use a robotic extra thumb. They controlled it with pressure sensors under the big toe. Yay, no drill through the skull.

In the end, it felt like a part of their body. Their brain started changing and adapting the representation of the biological body.

(Blind people can learn to see with their tongue using electrical signals on a plate on the tongue.)

Dani Clode with the Third Thumb

Now that you know it's possible, what does the future hold?

(source)

Thing 3 - Major opportunities don't come every day

Assume that your really major opportunities in life are going to be few, and when you get a lollapalooza, for god sakes, don't hang by like a timid little rabbit. Don't hang back. There aren't that many of the really big good ones.
Charlie Munger

Go get that extra limb, make that art, play your card, share this email with a friend 😛

I'm off to my weekly opportunity spotting,

Zvonimir