6G - Transportation - My first experience with Business VR - VirBELA! – scalable, sustainable & salubrious - saving time, treasure and Terra Earth -

Prologue: “Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.” - Robert Heinlein 

The goal of transportation is to move people or things from point A to B the fastest, easiest, safest at the lowest cost.

There have been 4 Generations of transportation through history:

·       1G - Boats/Ships: The oldest boat ever found is ~10,000 years old.

·       2G - Trains: for the last ~200 years

·       3G - Automobiles: for the last ~130 years

·       4G - Planes: for the last ~114 years

Author’s Note: there is a generation 0 of transportation which is biological transportation: foot or animal transportation.

These Gs have transformed our society but they have also impacted our planet.  Today, transportation uses 25% of the World Energy resources and generates 27% of US greenhouse gases. https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/transport-uses-25-percent-of-world-energy

We are now poised for a 5th Generation of Transportation

• 5G - Automated and Autonomous Vehicles - AV

As I highlighted in the blog: A 5G Communication System for a 5G Transportation System

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/5g-communication-system-transportation-doug-hohulin/

Self-Driving Cars Could Help Save the Environment—Or Ruin It. It Depends on Us, highlights that “Automated vehicles could reduce energy consumption in transportation by as much as 90%, or increase it by more than 200%” https://time.com/4476614/self-driving-cars-environment/

Could there be a 6th generation of Transportation that is even more transformative than AV? Yes:

·       6G of Transportation is VR

I had the opportunity to be part of the Abundance Digital (AD) Extended Reality Conference Experiment hosted by Peter Diamandis. AD wanted to create a blueprint for the first-ever, fully virtual conference and I attended the conference in “VirBELA”, a desktop-based work platform that increases productivity by allowing people to work virtually.  The event included keynote speeches, exciting XPRIZE updates, and virtual world relationship building. There were ~135 Abundance Digital members interacting and engaging with each other from around the world.  https://www.virbela.com/blog/peter-diamandis-hosts-event-in-virbela 

The Agenda:

·       What is VirBELA? Get familiar with VirBELA, Explore the space.

·       Keynote by Peter Diamandis on “History of Incentive Prizes & Founding of the XPRIZE” (in Large Auditorium)

·       Meet Fellow Attendees/Intro Yourself. Come up with 3 Great Questions

·       Q&A with Peter Diamandis in auditorium.

·       “XPRIZE Today – What’s Next?” w/ Zenia Tata & Chanda Gonzales

Just like the smart phone changed the world in the last 15 years, AR/VR could do the same in the next 15 years.

A few months ago, VirBELA wrote a post about a new VirBELA record that was set for the number of users in a VirBELA virtual world at once: 916.

The challenge conference calls and video calls – especially when interacting with a lot of people at the same time – is networking. When I go to a conference, 30% of the value is the information but 70% is the networking.

VirBELA platform has created a VR business environment where you can “Meet Fellow Attendees/Intro Yourself” and really connect with people – even randomly. As highlighted in this video: What is VirBELA? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4sLO9Wbiq8

As one example, I went in VirBELA to meet a co-worker but met Adriana Vela who was trying out the system for a presentation she will be giving to the American Chemical Society's Annual Meeting: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work. She will be giving part of the talk in VirBELA VR. I plan to attend. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/artificial-intelligence-future-work-upcoming-acssandiego-vela/

I enjoyed meeting her in VR and it showed me how VR helped with meeting people and networking.  

Author’s note, even though VirBELA is designed for the business community, they do have a VR speedboat to drive around the VirBELA campus. Adriana asked me to take her on a VR speedboat ride after just meeting. Only later did I think it was a little unusual that someone I just met would ask me to take her on a speed boat ride. Life is safer in VR. BTW, I am a safe boat captain in real life, and I am happy to share my interest in boating and wake surfing with anyone I meet.

As someone who cares about the planet and likes to sail and boat, I am following Greta Thunberg's travels to the UN Climate Summit. “As her strict climate ethos prevents her from flying, she is preparing to travel to the New York UN Climate Summit on September 23 by sailboat.” See Greta Thunberg: the world's youthful climate conscience https://phys.org/news/2019-08-greta-thunberg-world-youthful-climate.html

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/

As this article highlights: Teen climate activist from Sweden plans U.S. visit the old-fashioned way: by boat https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/teen-climate-activist-from-sweden-plans-us-visit-the-old-fashioned-way-by-boat/2019/07/30/f30b33e8-b2e7-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html?utm_term=.7949acded482

I applaud Greta's passion and desire to make a personal difference but there are very few sailboats in the world that can make this trip. This type of travel is NOT scalable, sustainable even if it is salubrious (unless the sailboat sinks). If you think air turbulence is bad, try being in a storm on a boat.

Instead, of going backwards to a 2G transportation system, Climate activist should visit the right way with the lowest GHG impact by going to the conference virtually – saving time, treasure and Terra Earth - going from “it” to “bit” and minimizing the amount of GHG used.

We need to “go forward, not back. “Back” is for emergencies; the future is better than the past. … the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands...with tools...with horse sense and science and engineering.” - Robert Heinlein: The Door into Summer 

Politicians report their financial spending. If climate change is a real risk, politicians should report their GHG travel usage as well. 

I have flown over 2 million miles in my life.  As this video shows, flying can be very frustrating.  Passenger forcibly dragged off a plane

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrDWY6C1178 

To be fair, flying is usually faster, safer and better than the other 4 Gs (walking, boat, train, car) of transportation for long distances.  

For those who travel a lot, you may have your own horror or interesting stories of flying.  A few of my travel stories are flying out of Venezuela after a coup d'etat attempt in 1992, being stuck in DC because of an ice storm - sat on a runway for 4 hours just to come back to the terminal because of weather.

“Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.” Robert Heinlein 

I am working hard on the next 2 Gs of transportation: AV/CASE and VR so I can be lazy.

Society fundamentally changed with each new transportation generation in the past. The next 10-25 years may be more transformative with 5G AV/CASE and 6G VR than the last 4Gs of transportation. If we are going to solve the problem of excess GHG, we are going to have to change the way people travel.

Epilog

I will be giving a 20-minute talk to KC AR/VR - My first experience with Business VR - VirBELA! 6G of Transportation – scalable, sustainable & salubrious - saving time, money and the planet - going from “it” to “bit”. I will be doing this at VirBELA VR and at the KC AR/VR 8-26 6:30pm CDT - Meetup @ Centriq!

https://www.meetup.com/KC-VR1/events/263972411/?gj=co2&rv=co2&_xtd=gatlbWFpbF9jbGlja9oAJGVlN2YxOTUyLTA5NDUtNGM5ZC1hM2Q0LWY1ZDY5ODBiY2Y3Yw

If you want to attend in VR,

Download VirBELA at: https://www.virbela.com/opencampus

Set up your account and design your avatar BEFORE the talk (takes about 10 minutes). 

My 16-year-old nephew asked if we should be afraid that the robots (technology) will take over – “Terminator World”. I told him we should be more afraid of the “Wall-E World” - Technology making us Less Healthy, Apathetic, Ignorant, Lonely, Helpless and Lazy! I want to work for “A Baymax World” of Collaboration with Technology that helps you learn, exercise, see the world in a new way, and make new human friends that share your passion. Also, driving or flying around (in VR) with Your Robot Friend – saving those in harm's way and saving the planet.