philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

The Portland Art Museum rents out virtual reality experiences

... The Portland Art Museum’s Center for an Untold Tomorrow (PAM CUT for short) now rents out virtual reality headsets, preloaded with 10 curated immersive VR pieces from around the world, for you to try out for a few days at home. The VR to Go program is a partnership with the Pfi Centre in Montreal, and PAM CUT is the program’s only venue in the United States. With it, the center hopes to increase access to this growing and evolving art form, and eventually to open doors to new creative work in virtual reality and 3D filmmaking here in the Northwest. ...

See the full story here: https://www.opb.org/article/2022/09/10/portland-art-museum-exhibits-center-for-an-untold-tomorrow-virtual-reality-experiences/

Millions of kids today make and play games on Roblox. They’re also helping build the virtual worlds of tomorrow.

... Co-founded by David Baszucki, ’85, and the late Erik Cassel in 2004, Roblox has two attributes that make it stand out from its peers: Each of the millions of games in its catalog was created by the site’s users themselves using the company’s proprietary software, Roblox Studio. And almost half of the roughly 54 million people who log on to the platform daily are under the age of 13. In 2020, the company estimated that 75 percent of children aged 9 to 12 in the United States had created a Roblox account. ...

See the full story here: https://stanfordmag.org/contents/life-the-metaverse-and-everything

Animation: The Most Popular Websites by Web Traffic (1993-2022)

See the full story with time-lapse video here: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/most-popular-websites-by-web-traffic/?fbclid=IwAR0Z02hSCZvuOzo8lEHVbR5SsUbwD6vXLM3Ux-EbsNuTYJW534Cez9Ot4oU

Smelling strawberries, smoke and space in virtual reality

... LiKamWa, an associate professor in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering and an assistant professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, leads a multidisciplinary team of students and faculty from across ASU departments to incorporate realistic, environmentally-sensitive smell into VR for more than just entertainment. ...

While others have developed smell for VR, the ASU team is working on elements to enhance the experience, like incorporating different intensities of smells depending on how close the user is to a scent and combining multiple odors that can be present in the virtual environment. ...

The project known as the Smell Engine emerged from work that Tanya Harrison, former director of research at the ASU NewSpace initiative, had been leading for the university’s Interplanetary Initiative. Harrison’s original intent was to incorporate smell into virtual reality training for space exploration applications. ...

Along with LiKamWa and Smith, Harrison brought together a team that includes Research Associate Professor Richard Gerkin from the School of Life Sciences, Assistant Professor Christy Spackman from ASU's School of Arts, Media and Engineering and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, as well as electrical engineering doctoral student Jessica Lai and computer engineering doctoral student Alireza Bahremand. ...

One of the challenges the team faces is how to mix different chemical compounds to recreate smells from the real world. This is where Lai’s role comes into play. Her first test to analyze how well the technology works is to accurately represent the smell of a strawberry in various stages of freshness. ...

See the full story here: https://news.asu.edu/20220909-smelling-strawberries-smoke-and-space-virtual-reality

Martina Navratilova-Backed Virtual Reality Platform May Be A Game-Changer For Cognitive Training In Tennis

... Last month, ahead of the U.S. Open, Navratilova signed a partnership with Sense Arena, a Prague-based company focused on developing ground-breaking virtual reality training in sports. Hours before Serena Williams’ final professional match of her storied career, Navratilova promoted the innovative VR product inside a suite at Arthur Ashe Stadium last Friday. ...

 “Yeah, why not? You don’t have to go anywhere; you can do it in the comfort of your living room and still work on specific shots.” ...

Sense Arena has achieved a modicum of success with a hockey training platform that is being utilized by 30 professional teams worldwide, including five in the NHL. At least 10 NHL goaltenders have used the training system, most notably Philipp Grubauer, a 2021 Vezina Trophy finalist, awarded each year to the league’s top goalie. In training with Sense Arena, goalies can improve their box control by tracking the puck more quickly and becoming more effective at reading the release by opposing snipers.  ...

See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattrybaltowski/2022/09/09/martina-navratilova-backed-virtual-reality-platform-be-a-game-changer-for-cognitive-training-in-tennis/?sh=681bf2455e29

Lil Nas X Becomes Second Artist to Bring Augmented Reality to His Tour

... Upon arrival, fans can scan the tangible Playbill handed out at entry to enter the creative world of Montero, the 2021 debut album from Nas. A voice message accompanies the visuals and explains what fans are about to see throughout the show. During the 70-minute performance, fans can use the app to see digital enhancements, such as a cocoon in act one, butterflies in act two and eventually Nas himself during the final third act. ...

Meanwhile, Jack Harlow’s tour kicked off Sept. 5 and features a commerce experience that allows fans to skip the line and shop his tour merch directly from his Snapchat profile. In addition, he’s offering a creative experience (a jet appears through AR above the stage during “First Class”) and a selfie experience (fans can use a lens that applies the artist’s signature sunglasses to their face). ...

See the full story here: https://www.billboard.com/business/touring/lil-nas-x-long-live-montero-tour-ar-experience-1235135634/

Today is Disney+ Day, and, as part of its perks, the company is offering Disney+ subscribers a new AR experience in conjunction with the short film “Remembering,” starring and produced by “Captain Marvel” Brie Larson and directed and written by filmmaker Elijah Allan-Blitz. The eight-minute-long movie features a companion augmented reality app that allows users to scan their TV with an iOS device to watch an extension of the movie on the small screen. ...

To engage with the AR experience, Disney+ viewers will scan a QR code on their TV screen that allows them to download the “Remembering: The AR Experience” app, designed by technology studio Magnopus and Walt Disney StudioLab, on their iPhones or iPads. Users can also visit disney.com/remembering or search the App Store to find the new app. ...

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/08/disney-plus-new-ar-short-film-starring-brie-larson/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAET46Kv1ps34UJe5pFs4q8rA1MOAdO7RY3hNz6N2CYuiiMUZTPyIx_4T9n_URCCqeFHiDnBNgkwTRQLwrcuylN-YYvSpE1lxW4N5M403cJRVU9hueBWdDvomuFm_hdgbSqA7V0XRNn35Fw9N831oulzBDcvsU_mt0F4cxVxNgh3E

Bizarre Muzzle Microphone Keeps Your Mouth in the Metaverse

... Unlike VR headsets, which strap to the head and cover a user’s eyes, the mutalk straps to the head and sits over the user’s mouth. Inside the mutalk is a microphone and Bluetooth hardware which picks up the user’s voice and transmits it wirelessly to other devices like a smartphone or a gaming console. What differentiates it from other wireless microphones is that the mutalk traps and contains all of the sounds coming out of the user’s mouth, or at least most of them, as it’s promised to reduce the intensity of high-frequency sounds (voices) by about 30-decibels. ...

See the full story here: https://gizmodo.com/muzzle-microphone-headset-mutalk-noise-isolating-ar-vr-1849511121

World premiere: Humans.ai has brought the first Bored Ape NFT to life on stage at Comic Con

Bored Ape NFT #223 from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection created by Yuga Labs, was brought to life by European tech startup Humans.ai at East European Comic Con. ...

The Bored Ape #223 NFT, named Elon Munskey,  is part of the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, created by Yuga Labsand was invited to speak on stage at Comic Con and answer tens of questions from audience members interested in learning more about the NFT universe. ...

See the full story here: https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/world-premiere-humans-ai-has-brought-the-first-bored-ape-nft-to-life-on-stage-at-comic-con-810629821.html

An AR experience that speaks ‘truth to power’

... Next week will see the reveal of award winning public arts company Aswarm’s Holding The Flame, a prominent AR-Statue of civil rights campaigner Marcia Rigg.

Led by McIntyre-Burnie, the statue was specifically created to be in dialogue with its site – the square outside Brixton Police station; a place significant both for its role in the Brixton uprisings of 1981, and for Marcia’s brother Sean Rigg, who died in Police custody there in 2008, in circumstances resonant with George Floyd.  ...

The App is audio visual, they can listen to Marcia speak to the emotions and intentions embodied in her statue and as the statue appears so does the sound of her breath; “for this is not a statue of someone who can no-longer breathe”. ...

Holding The Flame will mark the culmination of a year-long programme of events commissioned by 81 Acts of Exuberant Defiance, an initiative designed to raise questions and stimulate discussion about the state of race relations 40 years on from the 1981 Brixton Uprisings. ...

See the full story here: https://www.voice-online.co.uk/entertainment/2022/09/06/an-ar-experience-that-speaks-truth-to-power/