Local virtual reality game putting New Zealand on the world stage
Auckland video game studio Method has created a virtual reality game in which players walk on the moon, visit ancient Mayan temples, and fend off crocodiles with a baseball bat.
When the game, called Wanderer is released next Friday on the Sony PlayStation VR, it will be the first virtual reality game made in New Zealand to be released by major console maker.
In the game you play as Asher Newman, an unwitting hero thrust into a time-bending journey to change the course of history and prevent the collapse of civilisation. ...
The game has been in the works since early 2014 when Ramlu and her team became excited by the prospect of using virtual reality technology in gaming. ...
See the full story here: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/127521643/local-virtual-reality-game-putting-new-zealand-on-the-world-stage
Rahul Sood’s Irreverent Labs unveils MechaFight Club NFT game
MechaFightClub’s chickens are mechabots with nonfungible tokens (NFTs), which use blockchain to verify the uniqueness of each chicken. The title is a “play-to-earn” game, where players can own the characters that they buy and profit from them if they can resell them to someone else once they’re leveled up.
The game is set in a dystopian future dominated by extraterrestrial mechabots. When a global resistance hacks the 41,000 remaining chicken-shaped mechabots, these weapons of war are redistributed to the public as “weapons of mass entertainment.” ...
It takes place in 2065, after extraterrestrials make their first contact with Earthy. They deemed humanity finally worthy of joining the interstellar races of the galaxy. And then the aliens realized they seriously overestimated humanity. They left, and abandoned Earth. But they left behind some technology for the humans to figure out. ...
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/20/rahul-soods-irreverent-labs-unveils-mechafight-club-nft-game/
Augmented Reality Theater Takes a Bow. In Your Kitchen.
The success of digital-only theater productions has been one of the pandemic’s surprise silver linings: Audiences have been willing to try them and theater companies have found fans thousands of miles away. But could immersive technologies provide a more intriguing path forward for drama, one that will endure once Covid-19 (hopefully) subsides? Augmented reality (A.R.) and virtual reality (V.R.) are already changing gaming, music and art; might theater be next? ...
In 2016, he set up the National Theater’s Immersive Storytelling Studio, which operates as a kind of “start-up” within the company, he said in a recent interview at the studio’s modest space, which was crowded with a jumble of technical equipment. The team’s brief is to see how live theater and new technologies can interact and intersect. ...
So how long until we’re watching Ibsen or Shakespeare in augmented reality at our kitchen tables? Coffey laughed, then cautioned that designing successful A.R. performances was still an emerging skill. “But some day it’ll happen, I have no doubt,” he said.
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/theater/national-theater-immersive-storytelling-studio-all-kinds-of-limbo.html
Digital mapmaking innovations are revolutionizing travel
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The great indoors
While radio waves are helpful, the biggest advances in indoor navigation may come from visible light. Smart phones will use their cameras and machine learning to interpret scenes, essentially becoming a substitute for the human eye and brain.
Google has already implemented just such a system with its “Live View” feature, which is available in the Zurich, Switzerland airport, some Japanese malls, and Australian transit stations. ...
Under the sea
Even with these advances, one major navigation dead zone remains: anything that’s under the surface of deep water. ...
Bivol’s company has come up with a small-scale solution to that problem. The DiveNET GPS system (which costs between $5,000 and $15,000) includes four buoys that, when deployed by a dive boat, commutate with GPS satellites to locate themselves, and then use sonar to track divers within about a one-mile range. The divers wear receivers that show them, in real time, where the other members of their group are, where the dive boat is, and points of interest on the ocean floor. “In the future, you might even have an underwater drone videotape your dive for you,” Bivol says.
See the full story here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/digital-mapmaking-innovations-are-revolutionizing-travel?loggedin=true
‘Who’s to say it’s not real?’ Street artist Kaws on creating Fortnite’s first exhibition
The New Yorker has made a virtual art show to take place within the smash-hit game – and a real-life one at London’s Serpentine with a touch of augmented reality. Can it get young gamers into galleries?
His desire to bring art to the masses is partly why his work spans collectable toys and streetwear collaborations, as well as paintings and sculptures that sell for millions. His new exhibition will allow him to connect with a large number of eyeballs in, he says, “a new and massive way”. The show, New Fiction, is at London’s Serpentine Gallery, and simultaneously on two free online platforms: the gaming behemoth Fortnite and the augmented-reality (AR) app Acute Art.
With more than 400m player accounts, Fortnite is massive, especially when compared with the estimated footfall of an average Serpentine show (around 35,000). While the uninitiated might dismiss Fortnite as just another shooting extravaganza, players are increasingly spending time in its more peaceful zones, such as creative mode, where they can mooch about the Fortnite metaverse without fear of elimination.
See the full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jan/18/kaws-fortnite-serpentine-street-art-augmented-reality
Is the U.S. military’s futurism obsession hurting national security?
Four reasons why we are future obsessed
1. The Jetsons Effect: Prior expectations of the future were wrong or disappointing
2. The future is here-ish, but better technology is predicted to be right around the corner
3. Catastrophic risks are more apparent
4. Overcorrection is fueling our zeal
Four problems with future obsession
1. Not preparing for current crises
2. Kicking the can down the road
3. The drunkard’s search
4. Escapism over engagement
See the full story here: https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/is-the-u-s-militarys-futurism-obsession-hurting-national-security/
The best AR and VR news from CES 2022
Good compilation. We already picked many of them.
See the full story here: https://www.virtualrealitypulse.com/edition/weekly-apple-samsung-2022-01-08?open-article-id=20892105&article-title=the-best-ar-and-vr-news-from-ces-2022&blog-domain=skarredghost.com&blog-title=the-ghost-howls
