In a set built in one of the enormous spaces that make up Rebellion’s 220,000 square foot studio complex, a large LED screen forms the backdrop to what looks like a more conventional film set. But the similarities end there because the screen is driven by Rebellion’s in-house game engine and responds to the on-set action in response to the actors’ movements and camera direction.

Rebellion’s head of film studios Brian Mitchell explained: “Where the camera is looking, the screen is much higher resolution. Because we’re tracking where the camera is looking in the space, this feeds back to the game engine, which then creates a much higher fidelity image for the camera.”

Having the backdrop react to the actors’ movements on set and ‘in camera’ can save significant time and money in post-production. The director can see how the finished shot will appear, and actors who are used to working in green screen on a blank set marked up to indicate key elements of a scene will welcome being able to perform in the intended background. “It’s a bit like being on a green screen,” said Mitchell, “except you can see your environment and getting feedback on this is very helpful.  Using the game engine, you can put extra things in, and there are lots of options as it depends on the shot, the production, what you want to see and how you want it to behave.

“So for example you can have a point in a 3D space which an actor can pass through, and that would trigger a second reaction, or an explosion, or an audible cue. So it’s effectively driven by the actor, because whenever they hit a point in space or on the floor, it will trigger something else. The reaction is generated by the game engine and will therefore be natural, with the timing spot-on. You don’t need someone off-screen creating sound effects.”

To give visitors a good idea of the potential of the technology, Rebellion put together their own mini production starring Rebellion’s co-owner, Jason Kingsley, creator of YouTube smash hit Modern History, who donned a full suit of armour for the three-day shoot. The piece was directed by HaZ (Hasraf Dulull) whose work as a director includes 2036 Origin Unknown (Netflix) and Fast Layne (Disney+).

Dulull had already experienced working with camera moves synchronised with computer-generated (CG) images: “Although this was an actual short film production, there was also a level of R&D involved,” he said.

“As with all new technology, it’s new territory for all the crew on set. What is great is that so much emphasis is required in pre-production which is a great change, as prep is usually one of things that get rushed with the hope things get figured out on set or fixed in post.

“With virtual production you are capturing the computer-generated and the real elements all in camera, which means all the amazing CGI environments need to be designed and lit way ahead of time. This means visual effects, art department and cinematography all work hand in hand during prep.

“As director it also means the way I design my shot list is based on my understanding of what can be done with the CG environments on the LED screens, and what I should avoid (such as crazy whip pans which may cause issues with tracking).”

Mitchell added that the project was designed to give production professionals a chance “to come in and play around with it, see how far they can push things. It’s a production tool and as long as you can understand what you can get from it, you can make it work for you.”

Over the three days, the team had attracted people from all over the film production industry including studios such as Leavesden and Pinewood. “We’ve had a lot of freelancers and independents come through who are  interested to know more,” said Mitchell, “many of them working on big-budget projects.”

To install the virtual production set up Rebellion partnered up with established players in the business: MBS Lighting provided lights and power distribution, Universal Pixels provided the LED screens, ARRI brought cameras and dolly, camera tracking came from Ncam and Satore Studio built the set. Rebellion’s in-house VFX team provided the virtual reality backgrounds.

“One key thing about this is that it requires a lot of collaboration. You need to bring in lots of different skills and suppliers,” added Mitchell, citing the LED screen and the processing that goes on behind as an example. Looking ahead, he sees the technology moving forward and a need for flexibility: “The hardware will evolve quite a lot over the next two or three years, the different specs between the different panels you can use and what technical challenges they throw up from a camera point of view.”

Mitchell foresees making the virtual set a permanent part of the offering at the studios. For now, the task is to introduce its capabilities to filmmakers trying to shrink their production schedules, stretch their budgets and express their creativity.

Now Rebellion is bringing the once third-person tactical shooter to virtual reality with the aptly named Sniper Elite VR. I spoke to their Assistant Head of Design, Steve Bristow, about the franchise’s first foray into the virtual realm as it wraps up development. I also managed to chat on Zoom with Stewart Gilray, CEO of Just Add Water Developments Ltd (JAW), which is co-developing the game with Rebellion.

Bristow said that JAW is “the main development studio for Sniper Elite VR”, which is referred to internally as SEVR (pronounced ‘sever’). Rebellion is handling the marketing and distribution, along with providing a few members of its team to help with quality assurance and final development tasks. As well as JAW, Rebellion has solicited the help of Sunderland-based developer Coatsink for the recently announced Oculus Quest version of SEVR.

Rebellion is confident that the franchise is in capable hands. Bristow referenced JAW’s experience collaborating with developer Oddworld Inhabitants when talking about his pleasure to be working with the Leeds based company.

“It’s a close collaboration that works as well as it does because of JAW’s genuine enthusiasm and respect for the Sniper Elite games, and their experience working on other respected IPs like Oddworld.”

In 2014 JAW developed a complete remaster of the original PlayStation classic Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, which received praise from industry critics and fans. The Scottish born Gilray claims that he is “a pain in the arse when it comes to attention to detail”, something previous Sniper Elite games were brimming with.

SEVR is a separate game to the untitled Sniper Elite 4 sequel that was announced  by Rebellion’s CEO Jason Kingsley in March 2019. The VR spin-off actually takes place before Sniper Elite 4’s covert conquest of Italy, although you’ll still be sneaking around Mediterranean villas and vineyards, this time on the island of Sicily.

Consequently, players won’t be taking control of the franchise’s usual protagonist Karl Fairburne, but when pressed on whether some Sniper Elite 4 companions will be reappearing in SEVR, Gilray replied with a tantalising “there might, or they might not be. Who knows…” Read into that what you like.

SEVR’s plot progression is embedded within a veteran sniper’s retelling of his war stories in the present day. The player will be hopping from memory to memory, reliving the highlights of the resistance fighter’s battle against the Nazis. Gilray also confirmed that, as well as being able to traverse using teleport controls, the player can also freely move around using the joystick on most VR controllers, or even a PlayStation DualShock controller. Similar movement options were seen in the recent VR hit Half Life: Alyx.

Gameplay for SEVR was first shown off by Sony at E3 2019. With the game being optimised for PS VR, and the upcoming launch of the PS5, one can’t help but wonder if the game’s development team had their minds on the new console’s hardware during production. Unfortunately, both Gilray and Bristow claim that SEVR was developed primarily for the PS4 hardware. Bristow stated, “PlayStation have announced that PS5 will support PSVR hardware, and of course their desire is for the vast majority of PS4 games to work on PS5… [but SEVR was] developed first and foremost for PS4 and PS4 Pro.”

I got a similar response when I asked about a non-VR variant of SEVR for those without the necessary peripherals. Bristow stated that, “Sniper Elite VR is developed from the ground up for VR devices only.” There was no confirmation that Rebellion would sanction a community-made modification for conventional keyboard and mouse controls.

A release date hasn’t been confirmed yet, but Bristow urges us to “expect news soon.” Gilray also confirmed “the game is definitely in the last stages of development.” From this, it seems reasonable to expect a release date before Christmas 2020, if not a full release before the end of the year.

I am an admirer of Ridley’s writing, even if I don’t share his politics, and particularly enjoyed his previous book, The Rational Optimist. His ability to make scientific subjects accessible to a lay audience makes him one of this country’s stand-out writers in this genre. In addition to his journalism and book writing, he has also been involved in business and politics, although his stint as Chairman of Northern Rock did not necessarily enhance his credentials in the former aspect of his life, but may explain why he believes failure can be an important driver of innovation. Indeed, in his book he argues that the success of innovation in the US is in part explained by that country’s benign attitude to business failure (“fail fast and fail often”).

So what can we learn from Ridley on innovation? For a start, he draws a useful distinction between invention and innovation. Innovation is the ability to make use of an invention in such a way that it becomes worth using and provides societal benefit from its application; the inventor is not necessarily, and most often not, the innovator. He borrows a quote from Deirdre McCloskey that describes ‘innovationism’ as the habit of applying new ideas to raising living standards.

In Ridley’s analysis, making inventions and technology accessible is a key element of innovation. He emphasises it is those that find ways to drive down costs and simplify products who make the biggest impact.

The reader is left in no doubt about the significance of the subject of the book in the mind of its author, as he states: “Innovation is the most important fact about the modern world, but one of the least well understood,” and adds a description of Amara’s Law: people tend to overstate the importance of a new technology in the short term but underestimate it in the long run.

As a self-confessed libertarian, Ridley makes freedom the sine qua non of innovation, saying: “innovation happens when people are free to think, experiment and speculate”. This view is somewhat compromised when Ridley brings China into the discussion and suggests “that in the coming decades China will innovate on a grander scale and faster than anywhere else”. He seeks to explain this apparent contradiction by suggesting that in China, the entrepreneur is “surprisingly free of petty bureaucratic rules and delays….and free to experiment”.

Almost as important as freedom in Ridley’s opinion, is the idea of exchange and trade: “Innovation happens when people meet and exchange goods, services and thoughts,” he says, and similarly: “if you cut people off from exchange you lower their chances of innovating”.

To illustrate some key aspects of how innovation works, Ridley draws on a number of case studies, which found that innovation:

• Is a collective phenomenon (“innovation happens between, not within, brains”),
• Is a gradual, incremental and messy process,
• Often precedes understanding, and often involves accidental discovery, citing the development of vaccine as an example,
• Involves anticipating what people want, and
• Is unpredictable, except in retrospect.

True to his libertarian beliefs, Ridley is dismissive about the role of government in promoting innovation. He is not persuaded by Mariana Mazzucato’s argument that government support and funding of research and development are the main sources of innovation. He cites the history of the development of railways in the 19th Century as a purely private sector phenomenon. Academics fare little better in his analysis, and he quotes a study that found just 2% of innovations originated in academia. I am closely involved with the early stage business ecosystem in Oxford and my experience suggests that academics have and continue to make a significant contribution to innovation.

Ridley is antagonistic about the value of IP and patents. He argues that the patent system discourages innovation and cites evidence that shows there is no less innovation in areas unprotected by patents. He sees patents, along with regulation, standards and licences, as part of a system which protects incumbents and erects barriers to entry. He takes aim at ‘innovation-phobic’ Europe and blames ‘Brussels’ for promulgating legislation to protect incumbents and place barriers to innovation. It comes as no surprise to learn that Ridley is a strong supporter of Brexit. There is a lengthy description of how the EU held back Dyson’s invention of the bagless vacuum cleaner, and this may account for a glowing endorsement of the book by Sir James Dyson.

So what practical lessons can an organisation like Oxford Innovation take from Ridley’s findings?

Perhaps most importantly is his emphasis on collective endeavour and the importance of exchange in fostering innovation. This suggests that the concept of innovation centres which maximises the opportunity for entrepreneurs and their teams to exchange ideas provides the optimum working environment for innovators. It also underlines the threat to innovation posed by the current pandemic which inhibits exchange.

I also gained more than a mote of pleasure from his observations about the messiness of innovation, that the journey from idea to commercial realisation is not smooth. As chairman of a company that supports investment in young innovative companies, I can confirm that many of the successful businesses we help to finance are not successful in exactly the way that they thought they would be.

Two final oddities from Ridley are first that he is strangely silent about finance and its role in promulgating innovation; and curiously he doesn’t talk much about the role of the individual entrepreneur, a point which may be explained by his statement that the “individual is strangely dispensable” when it comes to fostering innovation. This latter observation runs counter to what I observe as being the critical role of the individual entrepreneur in making innovation happen.

In short a wholly worthwhile book, possessed of some interesting and strongly held views, but perhaps with the odd lacuna or two.

ColdQuanta’s Quantum Core Technology is currently part of NASA/JPL’s Cold Atom Laboratory (or CAL) to test the behaviour of quantum matter in space.  The new quantum positioning system (QPS), or gyroscope, will allow precise navigation by very accurately measuring rotation and help to overcome vulnerabilities associated with current GPS (or GNSS) systems. Its commercial potential includes applications in automated shipping, defence systems, aircraft and trains, and it could eventually be miniaturised for use in cars and mobile phones.

The projects being developed by ColdQuanta are partially funded by the UK government, whose investment through the National Quantum Technologies Programme has totalled more than £1 billion since its inception in 2014 and is being used to accelerate the translation of quantum technologies into the marketplace.

Dr Tim Ballance, lead scientist at ColdQuanta UK, said: “The Innovate UK funding allows us to provide cold atom quantum technology for three separate projects in the UK: to lead the development of a quantum gyroscope that will be demonstrated in flight; to develop technology that will enable continuous operation of quantum sensors; and to work with partners on an updated system to improve the integration of lasers into quantum atomic systems,” adding:

“This funding demonstrates how ColdQuanta’s cold atom technology can be the basis of a broad range of new quantum applications. Our team is excited to have been chosen for these projects, all of which will advance the commercialisation of our cold atom quantum technologies.”

The Oxford Trust chief executive officer Steve Burgess added: “It is exciting to see ColdQuanta developing breakthrough projects such as the quantum gyroscope in our Oxford Centre for Innovation, right in the heart of Oxford. The fact that atoms are being cooled to -273.15 C and studied in our innovation centre is thrilling. We have a thriving community of leading-edge science and tech start-ups working in both our innovation centres – The Wood Centre and Oxford Centre for Innovation. It is forward-thinking businesses such as ColdQuanta that help to keep Oxford’s due place on the global innovation map. With this new tranche of funding from Innovate UK, we are looking forward to seeing the company grow and thrive.”

ColdQuanta was spun out of the University of Colorado, Boulder, by Professor Dana Anderson, and Rainer Kunz. Dana worked with Noble Prize-winning physicists Eric Cornell and Carl Weiman as well as ColdQuanta co-founder Theodor Hänsch on cold atom technology, but saw it had wide potential and founded ColdQuanta in 2007. The Oxford arm was launched in 2015 when Dr Tim Ballance joined the firm. To complete the three-year Innovate UK project, the team of five plans to expand to 12 people within the next 12 months.

Sixty one per cent of consumers who use their console for streaming media from platforms like Netflix did so more often after the Covid-19 outbreak and just over a third of those who use their console for buying games online splashed out on new titles more frequently.

The success of social gaming is also highlighted by the research findings that showed half of console owners prefer to game with friends.

Mintel technology analyst Zach Emmanuel says: “COVID-19 has had a monumental impact on the sales of video games and consoles as Brits looked to stay entertained at home. While consumers’ concerns over finances are expected to have led to a decrease in purchases of technology products overall, it has not been the case for consoles.

“The market has already benefited from the introduction of the new Nintendo Switch Lite in the first half of the year and the recently launched Xbox Series X, and the upcoming PS5 will provide a further boost to the market.”

He adds: “Xbox has also enabled gamers to have greater flexibility over how they play, with the introduction of its new cloud gaming service which gives subscribers access to over a hundred games for a monthly subscription. However, Xbox is positioning cloud gaming as an alternative and not a replacement for a console. Our data shows that 26 per cent of people use consoles would prefer to play games over an internet connection than use a console – highlighting the appeal of Xbox’s new service. Looking more long-term, the continued roll-out of 5G will make it possible for consumers to reliably use cloud gaming on-the-go, away from their console.”

Mintel’s research covered sales of static consoles such as PlayStation 5, hybrid consoles like Nintendo Switch and portable consoles including Nintendo 3DS plus sales of games on these devices. The report carried out consumer research among 2,000 internet users aged 16+ in June 2020.

The trial started at the end of September and was due to finish after eight weeks on November 25 but thanks to early indications suggesting it has significantly boosted recycling rates, it will continue until the end of January.

The patented technology behind the app was developed by green-tech start-up CryptoCycle, which recently moved into the eco business centre in Bicester.

The Reward4Waste trial covers plastic, glass, aluminium and tin – including soft drinks and wine bottles and cans – bought at a local SPAR shop. Each packaging item carries a unique QR-coded sticker and consumers use their smartphone to scan the code into the Reward4Waste app.

Once they’ve finished the drinks or products, empty bottles and cans can be returned either their own household recycling bin, or a number of public bins marked with a unique code.

Residents can earn 20p for every soft drink bottle they recycle and 10p for wine bottles and aluminium cans which is paid into a digital wallet on their smartphone.

They can then choose to exchange the reward points for cash to spend in a designated store or donate it to charity.

CryptoCycle’s plan is that the unique code could be stamped onto packaging at manufacturing stage.

The scheme, which uses blockchain technology, can track and trace recyclable packaging through the circular economy. The blockchain element helps cut out fraud and can also be used for data capture.

Reward4Waste founder Tony McGurk says: “The trial has been a great success and we have had several councils both in Northern Ireland and here, asking if we would be interested in running a trial in their area.”

The app has been embraced by residents from a wide age range – the youngest taking part in the pilot scheme is 13 and the oldest 80.

“Some told us it wouldn’t appeal to older people, but we have a 78-year-old who is a prolific recycler,” McGurk adds.

CryptoCycle is working with Britvic and PepsiCo for the County Antrim trial and McGurk says other retailers have been in touch on the back of the pilot scheme.

The trial comes at a time when the UK government is consulting on new recycling laws with the aim of introducing a Deposit Return Scheme in 2023.

McGurk says one of his scheme’s biggest advantages is that it uses the existing household recycling infrastructure, unlike reverse vending machines (RVMs) which require consumers to take empty bottles and cans and other packaging to an RVM.

Sensyne already has arrangements in place with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Chelsea & Westminster Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust, Wye Valley NHS Trust, George Eliot NHS Trust, Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

This brings AIM-listed Sensyne’s total anonymised patient data available for analysis to 5.6 million patients.

Sensyne Health chief executive Lord (Paul) Drayson says: “This new agreement will enable research to improve patient care and accelerate medical research and by helping to grow our overall data set to over 5.6m patients, will now enable us to broaden our research and expand our therapeutic focus.”

The hope is that once the technology has been demonstrated, techniques can be rolled out to other businesses across the UK.

5G connectivity offers faster data speeds and less latency across networks. It is hoped this low latency — the millisecond gap between action and reaction — will accelerate the green revolution aimed at tackling the climate crisis.

It should also help vehicles to swap data almost instantly, which can aid navigation and, for example, mean a car can begin to apply the brakes before a driver is even aware of an accident.

Science Minister Amanda Solloway said: “This new state-of-the-art facility backed by government funding will enable our brightest researchers and engineers to better understand how 5G can help connect us all, creating new business opportunities, while delivering green efficiencies across the UK.”

5G is relevant to a broad range of applications including Internet of Things technology, where chips in devices ‘talk’ to one another and augmented reality, and could benefit manufacturing, public safety, enterprise and communications software and entertainment and gaming.

Experts hope 5G will bring greater efficiencies in everything from medicine and manufacturing to farming and will also be a quick, affordable way of bringing a fast data network to places where cables will not reach, from remote villages to disaster zones.

The new Harwell facility will develop software that allows satellite networks, including low earth orbit networks, to be integrated into terrestrial public and private communications networks. This is expected to create new business opportunities for application developers and mobile network providers.

The centre will be built by IT and business consultancy CGI and is being backed by a European Space Agency contract. As part of the development, CGI is working with BT, Avanti Communications and Surrey University on a project to see how it can connect rural communities to 5G in the most affordable way possible.

Elodie Viau, director of telecommunications and integrated applications at the European Space Agency, said: “ESA’s novel 5G Hub will showcase how space technology enables connectivity, partnering with industry to foster innovation in the realms of autonomous vehicles and smart cities, and to enable machines to exchange information with one another via the internet of things.

“Adding satellites to existing terrestrial 5G infrastructure is essential to ensure a reliable and safe telecommunications network that supports such connectivity, which in turn promotes a seamless and more environmentally friendly experience. Investing in space improves life on Earth.”

Tim Hwang’s recent book Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet uses this as its launching point. Hwang argues that not only is online advertising far less effective than assumed, but also that the industry is opaque, fraudulent, and dangerously overvalued. Hwang warns of the potential for a crash — convincingly comparing online advertising to the subprime mortgages crisis.

The book offers three main arguments. Firstly, that the marketplace is dangerously opaque; both because of its scale, automation, and real-time responsiveness, and also because the big players (Google and Facebook) refuse to disclose data. Secondly, Hwang argues that there is a society-wide decline in the quality of attention that these ads can capture, due to younger users reflexively dismissing ads and the use of adblockers (in 2017, Deloitte estimated that three-quarters of North Americans use some form of ad blocking regularly, with Adobe estimating in 2015 that ad blockers cost the industry $21.8bn in global revenue per year). Thirdly, Hwang shows that there is widespread fraud, particularly in the form of click farming and botnets, that make it hard for companies to know if their ad will actually be seen by real humans; Hwang references a Google report from 2014 which suggested that 56.1% of ‘all ads displayed on the internet are never seen by a human.’ Taken together, Hwang’s time-bomb metaphor seems worryingly apt.

In 1994, in a quiet suburb of San Francisco, Wired magazine deployed the world’s first banner ads. At that time, these ads generated a staggering click-through rate of 44%. Almost half of the people who saw them, clicked them. Contrast this with 2018: one data set taken from Google’s ad network estimated an average click-through rate of 0.46% (many estimate lower). Hwang summarises: ‘Public indifference towards online ads is reflected in the surprisingly ambiguous empirical evidence that these ads do anything at all.’ This is a shocking departure from common belief. Normally, online advertising – particularly programmatic advertising (the buying and selling of ad inventory by software programs every time a webpage is clicked on) – is lauded for its measurability and effectiveness. Famously, these ads can target a specific demographic, and it is easy to collect information about how many times they’re seen and how they’re interacted with (did people linger before scrolling past? did they click-through?). However, Hwang points out that while it is indeed easier ‘to get granular information about a given ad that you have placed’, it is ‘far harder to get a sense of the overall marketplace’ or even to determine basic information such as how these ads are priced or where they will be deployed. This makes it easy for industry players to overstate their effectiveness and manipulate optics. For instance, in 2015 Facebook was reprimanded for overstating the effectiveness of video ads, and in 2017, it was pulled up for claiming to be able to reach 25 million more 18-to-34-year-olds in the US than actually existed according to census data.

This murkiness paves the way for large-scale fraud. In 2018, a study by Adobe concluded that around 28% of all website traffic showed ‘non-human signals’, indicating it was produced by click-farms or botnets. Hwang argues that there is little incentive for the industry to tackle this problem, given that ‘fake traffic driven by click farms and botnets makes ads look better and more effective than they actually are.’ However, this severely reduces the trust companies can have when purchasing ads: Forrester Research concluded that in 2016, more than half of all spending on online display advertisements was wasted on fraudulent or unviewable inventory. In summary: ‘Online advertising inventory is increasingly dubious, whether it is ignored, blocked, or entirely fake.’ For Hwang, the inevitable outcome is for this bubble to burst.

Throughout the book, Hwang offers an extended comparison between the programmatic advertising industry and the subprime mortgage industry before the 2008 crash. This framing allows Hwang to sidestep some of the hairy ideological questions about internet censorship, free speech, surveillance capitalism, and echo chambers. Instead, he makes a simpler case: this is bad economics and bad market regulation. The author also takes some of the mysticism out of the tech industry, reducing the problem to basic principles: we should be worried when a marketplace is opaque, an asset is likely overvalued, and key players are incentivised to withhold information and inflate prices. This shows a way forward: Hwang advocates forming an independent organisation, perhaps modelled after the National Bureau of Economic Research, to conduct authoritative, widespread studies which shed more light on the industry, as well as introducing more regulations around disclosure. These strategies draw lessons from both the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the 2008 global financial crisis, arguing that the first step to avoiding bubbles and crashes in a marketplace is to make more concrete information available so that it can regulate itself.

Importantly, Hwang’s work shows that the structure of today’s internet is the result of yesterday’s decisions. This fights the feeling that the internet is a runaway train, beyond our control. Keyed into the frequency of the problem, Hwang is compact, snappy, and responsive to the moment. His argument is compelling, and the stakes are high — as he points out: ‘Shifts in how attention is bought and sold will have major consequences not only for our everyday experience of the web but also for how the internet affects broad questions of expression, identity, and democracy.’

Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet is published by FSG Originals