AMA: OVR CEO Davide Cuttini talks Augmented Reality and OVRLand

2020-10-27

Last week, we had an incredible turnout for our Ask Me Anything (AMA) session with OVR CEO Davide Cuttini which we made especially for the audience of our ongoing private sale for OVR (do contact us if you’re still interested in participating!). Conducted on OVR WeChat, the coverage was actually done in Mandarin for our Chinese followers, but in case you missed it, here is the AMA in English!

Welcome Davide Cuttini and thank you for joining our interview today. Please introduce a bit about yourself.

I’ve been a software engineer and an entrepreneur since 2003. During these years, my development teams and I focused on most of the new trending technology. These skills permitted us to develop important software solutions for big corporates like Bosch and Danieli. We also worked in the artificial intelligence field as a technology provider of IBM.

I consider myself a pioneer in augmented reality (AR), having developed AR techniques for 7 years in an era where few people knew what AR was.

Before the blockchain industry, which areas did you work in? Why did you decide to build up an AR platform like OVR?

I worked on new hi-tech trends since 2003 with my first software company, and in the last 7 years, our team attained high skillsets in augmented and virtual reality development. On top of that, we also focused on deep learning AI development to power AR/VR experiences with intelligent avatars and cognitive augmentation.

In the last 2 years, I focused all my efforts and investments in the OVR project as the global project that permits everybody to join what is called the Metaverse — a digital world parallel to ours where everybody can virtually live inside, buy properties, upload contents, socialize and drastically reduce the distance between the users. In the coming future, everybody will wear something resembling glasses which will replace smartphone usage. OVR is in the first line with this vision and it’s already enabling this huge opportunity by letting all users join the community of the future.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sndrv/36314167451/

Some of our community members don’t have a very clear idea about the difference between AR and VR. Could you please give us some general conclusions?

It’s very important to clarify the different technologies. When you see a 3D environment that has been completely manufactured, you risk losing contact with reality and you can’t see anything around you in the real world; this is virtual reality. Augmented reality, as the term suggests, augments the real world so you can still see the reality around. Your perception and the 3D software together add elements around you in a coherent way.

OVR is the first AR platform based on blockchain. Can we understand it as a huge AR game community?

No, the OVR platform is much more than an AR game. Our main focus is developing use cases in the following areas. Gaming — take the example of Pokemon Go; live events like the Marshmello and Travis events on Fortnite; exhibitions — today, because of Covid, most exhibitions in the West are going virtual; retail VR and AR shopping with avatars animated by humans or AI helping you to shop; tourism with virtual tour guides that you can visualize in the actual locations with AR; real estate and education.

Why did you choose to combine blockchain tech with AR?

Our platform allows us to connect AR and VR content to real geographic locations, we want to augment real places with AR and VR experiences. In order to do that, we needed a system to assign the ownership and the rights of editing contents on the digital layer of the physical world.

Just like on the web, in order to publish content on the website, you need to own the WEB DOMAIN (e.g.: www.cocacola.com) — in OVR, to edit content in the real world you need to own the SPATIAL DOMAIN. And what is the best way to assign the property of a digital good? The blockchain of course! So we divided the world into 1.6 trillion hexagons of 300 square meters which we call OVRLands. Each one of those OVRLands is represented by a Non-Fungible Token (ERC-721 standard) on the Ethereum blockchain.

Since you mentioned OVRLand, can you give us more information about it?

The OVR ecosystem is underpinned by a grid of hexagons covering the whole earth’s surface. The hexagons are called OVRLands, have specific geographic positions, and a standard dimension of 300 square meters.

OVRLands will be bought by OVROwners, their property will be granted by a non-fungible token – ERC-721 standard – recorded on the Ethereum blockchain allowing for decentralized and censorship-resistant property rights. OVRLands are freely tradable among users in a decentralized fashion through the use of the marketplace OVROwner. This means that OVRLand owners can decide what kind of experience the user will experience once entered in the OVRLand.

What is the value of OVR land? Why is it worth investing in?

As an OVRLand owner, you will be able to link content to the geographic location represented by your OVRLand, you will be able to rent the virtual location to people that want to publish content on that OVRLand (imagine you bought Times Square in New York or the Colosseum in Italy, for instance). You will also be able to speculate on the open market by selling back the location. All of this actions can be performed on our web user interface. Moreover, since OVRLand is a standard ERC-721 token it will be possible to sell it on any marketplace (such as OpenSea for example).

In the OVR ecosystem, there is another kind of token, what is its function?

We do have a fungible token called OVR. You can use it to purchase OVRLands with double the purchasing power and enjoy the cash refund policy (up to 95% cash back after one month lockup). You can use OVR to make trades in the marketplace, for example, rent OVRLand, or pay the 3D content creators. In addition to that, you can perform in-app purchases (skins for your avatars, tickets for special events, bidding on virtual casinos and so on).

How do the IPFS nodes function on the platform?

OVR assets are hosted by OVRNodes powered by a P2P IPFS protocol ensuring storage decentralization. In the first phase, there will be 10 masternodes located across different geographical areas. At the launch of the platform, nodes will be subsidized by OVR. Subsequently, an update of the OVRNode software will introduce the automatic remuneration of the nodes based on the storage and the bandwidth shared by private users. The OVRLand Owner will pay a hosting fee for hosting the content on IPFS; such a fee will be distributed to the nodes proportionally to the resources deployed.

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