It's been awhile since my last project log and I've made a ton of breakthroughs that have shaken me to my core at the potential impact that this could bring to the world for revision 1. First of all, I've created a new front-end to AVALON using darkengine.

Because the page will be loaded up quite often, I've kept it very minimalist. It is also nice that darkengine has its own docker-compose for easy setting up (although Docker only works on 64bit systems, arm support is very limited). Also for the simple fact that it the web server is being hosted on a raspberry pi, I wanted to keep it as small a footprint as possible. I was unhappy with the upload mechanism because it would involve iframes and did not seem a very elegant solution. Droopy is a python script that creates the web server that allows for easy file sharing into the directory of one's choosing. I could either have a database back-end to organize all the things or perhaps run multiple instances. It would be straightforward to Dockerize the program as well or include it with darkengine.

I'm sure there is some nice HTML5 file-dropper code out there as well. I want it to dead simple for a person to bring content from a device into VR, without having to touch any FireBoxRoom code so that they can focus on designing and creating the rooms from inside Janus. There were a number of steps involved with getting darkengine running on the Raspberry Pi:

• Update/Upgrade and install software-properties-common
• Install nginx
  • sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:nginx/stable
  • apt-get update; install nginx
• rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
• install php5-fpm from php5-redis
• rsync config files into /etc/nginx/ and /etc/php5/
• point 127.0.0.1 php in /etc/hosts

On a system with Docker, it's easiest to use Docker-Compose

# Install docker-compose
curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download1.2.0/docker-compose-`uname -s`-`uname -m` > /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
# run in directory where the docker-compose.yml is
docker-compose build && docker-compose up -d
# check to see if it's running
docker ps

I found some inspiration for a FireBoxRoom I want to create that looks straight out of Burning Chrome:

Another important development involves discovering IPFS when I was investigating large scale distributed systems, latency, and general infrastructure involved with the Metaverse.

The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a peer-to-peer distributed file system that seeks to connect all computing devices with the same system of files. In some ways, IPFS is similar to the Web, but IPFS could be seen as a single BitTorrent swarm, exchanging objects within one Git repository. In other words, IPFS provides a high throughput content-addressed block storage model, with content-addressed hyperlinks. This forms a generalized Merkle DAG, a data structure upon which one can build versioned file systems, blockchains, and even a Permanent Web. IPFS combines a distributed hashtable, an incentivized block exchange, and a self-certifying namespace. IPFS has no single point of failure, and nodes do not need to trust each other.

You can read the white paper on IPFS from here. Here's some key points:

• Peer-to-Peer distributed file system
• BitTorrent swarm exchange objects within one Git repo
• Data structure upon which one can build content-addressed + versioned filesystems, block-chains, even a permanent web.
• Combines distributed hash table, incentivized block exchange, self-certifying namespace.
• No single point of failure
• Nodes don't have to trust each other.

This seems to be a very promising solution in the context of heavily mediated Virtual Reality distributed networks to have a hypermedia distribution protocol.

Speaking of media distribution, we also had one of the best 360 live-streams yet from inside a movie set!

Standing outside of the 360 Video Sphere.

I have also had a recent breakthrough in terms of mobile implementations for AVALON that carry huge implications and keep me up at night.

I'm experimenting with a decentralized cryptocoin marketplace implementation in VR using BitcoinJS and OpenBazaar.

Going beyond virtual reality, I have also been polishing up code in order to smooth the transition from a 2D web page into a 3D one so that when you start the client, you are automatically transported into a super cool Virtual Reality room. This technology transforms WiFi networks into a means of transporting the soul and devices into a pocket universe. These devices will light up like a star in a lone black-sky desert, forming archipelagos as people mesh together ad-hoc networks -- forming constellations. I'm serious about creating a metaverse and have made incredible progress its infrastructure.

I'm at my limit for the amount a single person can do and really need to put forth a business plan. This is why my updates are less frequent as I align myself with the mission to obtain adequate funding that is required for a lab / additional programmers. Money will help move the project along quicker so that I could focus on creating content and avatars, just in time for the consumer release that is a matter of months away.

Oh yeah, one more thing...

Stay tuned to find out what this might be ;)