[PhilNote: actually there is no limit to how large the screen can be!]
One expert said it would likely take decades for 16K tech to filter down to consumer products.
The 63ft by 17ft (19.2m by 5.4m) screen is currently being installed at a new research centre that has been built for the Japanese cosmetics group Shiseido in the city of Yokohama, south of Tokyo. It is so large it will stretch between the first and second floors.
Sony had previously designed a separate 16K display that went on show at Tokyo's Haneda Airport in 2014, but that looked like it was made up of dozens of smaller screens rather than presenting a single seamless picture.
The new "super-size" installation has in fact been created out of several modular panels, but because they do not have bezels they can be fitted together without any visible gaps to create the impression of being a single screen.
Since little 16K footage exists elsewhere, the firm has produced its own film for Shiseido showing life-size animal wildlife.
It has not disclosed the method involved, but has previously achieved what is known as "quad ultra-high definition" footage by using a method called demosaicing.
The Key is an astonishing room-scale interactive VR journey that will have you making incredibly difficult and delicate decisions under intense pressure. As you put on your VR headset, you’re taken on a journey straight into the heart of darkness. Each step inside the virtual world is filled with twists and turns that will inch you closer to unraveling who Anna is, her mysterious past, and the significance of the cryptic key that she dreams about each night.
You’ll follow Anna as she guides you through multiple worlds to face a variety of challenging moments, each path immersing you further into the experience.
Quest is Oculus’ first standalone VR headset that includes 6DOF tracking on the headset and controllers.
Because it doesn’t have the power of a beefy PC, you can expect graphics to have a decidedly ‘mobile’ feel, but nevertheless it’s very possible to get lost in VR on Quest, even if the graphics are far from what you’d see on a PC VR headset.
Who is it For?
Quest is made for gaming, and most apt for the VR user who isn’t willing to invest in a gaming PC that has enough power to run a PC VR headset. Quest can only run Quest-specific content available on the Oculus Store (Oculus Rift and Oculus Go also have their own separate content libraries).
Oculus has confirmed that Quest will cost $400.
Oculus Rift S
Image courtesy Oculus
What is it?
Rift S is Oculus’ second PC VR headset, and the company is positioning it as an easier to use version of Rift—with a few upgrades.
Another upgrade over the original Rift S is a new display with a higher resolution that will make graphics sharper and reduce the ‘screen door effect’ (the unlit spaces between pixels), which will make for a step up in clarity.
Oculus has confirmed that Rift S will cost $400.
HP Reverb
Image courtesy HP
What is it?
HP’s Reverb headset is the company’s second PC VR headset which runs Microsoft’s ‘Windows Mixed Reality’ platform, and can also play SteamVR content through an official plugin. Like Rift S, Reverb uses on-board tracking and doesn’t rely on external sensors for tracking.
The biggest upgrades that Reverb brings to the table are an all new design which offers on-ear headphones, as well as new displays which offer a big jump in resolution compared to pretty much any other headset on the horizon.
HP has confirmed that Reverb will cost $600 for the consumer edition and $650 for a professional edition for enterprise use.
Valve Index
Image courtesy Valve
What is it?
Although Valve contributed significant R&D to the HTC Vive, the company’s upcoming Index will be the first PC VR headset made and sold by Valve. Though only limited information is available so far, it seems that Valve is positioning Index as a flagship headset for SteamVR, and it’s thought that the company could announce a least one first-party game to launch with the headset, but we’ll have to wait and see. The headset will launch with the ‘Knuckles’ controllers which Valve has had in the works for many years now (though they plan to call them ‘Valve Index controllers’ moving forward).
...as the field develops, collectors may want to address other considerations: What can VR accomplish that is unique to this medium? And does that always have to mean flashy, astounding, or visceral interactions? Birnbaum pointed to a work in development that will be unveiled as part of “Electric,” his exhibition at Frieze New York. Undertaken with the mixed-media painter, it’s a VR exploration of Hilma af Klint’s tropes and motifs. “It shows that VR can be used in places where one doesn’t expect it,” he said. “That VR is not only sensational. This will be very subtle—and I hope, not boring. It’s going to be challenging and interesting.”
Parallux creates the technology that allows VR headsets to be linked together, but it also creates content like Cave from scratch. Although the audience at Tribeca will be limited to 16 people, Cave was initially made for 30 at a time.
"That presented incredible challenges, because it's the first time you're not focusing the attention towards one person," explains chief creative officer Kris Layng. "So you have to take into account that every single person needs to have a good view of the action."
"I think audiences have a real desire for these more immersive experiences," he says. "Movie theatre attendance is on the decline. I think there needs to be something that's going to jolt things [...] People want to go out, and they want more and more and more. And they want to step into the world of their favorite IP – step into the Marvel universe, step into Star Wars – and it just opens up a whole new world, I think."
"Instead of Cave, which is intended for 30 people at a time and six minutes long," says Zetter, "our new piece is going to be 20 minutes long, intended for 50 people at a time. And this is going to be an origin story of Frankenstein from the perspective of a young Mary Shelley, who was 18 years old when she wrote it, off of a bet with Lord Byron over who could write the scariest ghost story. We’re really excited about that, and are working on finishing up for later this year.
Once deemed That Thing You Do in Between Screenings, interactive offerings—a mix of virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, performance, and other internet-y projects—have blossomed into packed events that generate as much buzz as premieres. Traditionally, they've offered somewhat solitary experiences: Sit in this chair, wear these goggles, lose touch with the festival around you. Now, programmers are looking to make interactive experiences fun for the whole family.
"I believe that festivals are a crucial part of the ecosystem of location-based entertainment, particularly as it relates to [VR, AR, and mixed reality]," says Loren Hammonds, programmer for the Tribeca Film Festival's Immersive slate. "We don't have the Netflix 'problem' yet of losing audiences to their living rooms, mostly because the majority of people haven't adopted headsets for at-home usage yet. What we're offering are premium experiences that simply can't be duplicated at home, with fully realized installations, live actors, and more that can truly complement the digital work of the creators."
The ultimate question with all of this, though, is: Where do all of these projects belong? Experiences that need live actors, huge installations, or big audiences will only ever be available in a handful of places.
...That's what Jessica Brillhart is hoping to create. Her Tribeca project, called Into the Light, is an immersive audio installation that will pipe Yo-Yo Ma's rendition of Bach's "Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor" through multiple floors of Tribeca's Spring Studios location. The experience at the festival will be unique, but it was created with Brillhart's audio platform, Traverse, which has an app version that anyone with an iPhone can use. Right now, Traverse requires Bose AR glasses, but soon the app should be usable with standard headphones (and also compatible with Android devices).
Austrian parliament building with Athena statue on the front in Vienna on the sunrise
It's not just China that wants to reduce anonymity online. Austria's government has introduced a draft law that would require you to provide your real name and address to larger sites before commenting. You could still use a nickname in public, but authorities would have an easy way to find you if they believe you're harassing users or otherwise violating the law. Companies that didn't honor the law could face fines up to €500,000 (about $562,000) if they didn't comply, and twice that with a repeat offense.
It would only affect sites with more than 100,000 registered users, bring in revenues above €500,000 per year or receive press subsidies larger than €50,000. There would also be exemptions for e-commerce sites as well as those that don't earn money from either ads or the content itself.
As always, there's also the simple question of privacy. While requiring names and addresses could discourage harassment and hate speech, it might also discourage people from coming forward with insightful stories and opinions. Moreover, this would turn sites into veritable gold mines for hackers -- if they could breach a database, they might swipe personal information for thousands or millions of users. Simply put, there could be a chilling effect on freedom of expression even as Austria attempts to preserve it.
By 2025, two billion of the global population is going to be made up by the youngest generation: Generation Alpha, also known as the iGeneration. Generation Alpha are children born between 2010 and 2025.
This is the first generation entirely born in the 21st century. These children are considered to be the most technological-infused demographic up to date.
Alpha children are accustomed to acquiring knowledge by doing, screen-touching, and experiencing. Schools need to provide an adequate environment that enhances this type of learning.
This type of environment requires changes and a new approach to education at all levels. Schools and colleges should get ready by creating programs of study that require deep learning.
Schools need to start preparing programs that are flexible enough to be adapted and modified quickly according to the young Alphas' inquisitive mind.
Video Summary:A specialized camera that TIME, in collaboration with Felix & Paul Studios, sent to the space station is recording the first cinematic virtual reality experience in space.
There's a limit to the volume of death metal humans can reproduce -- their fingers and vocal chords can only handle so much. Thanks to technology, however, you'll never have to go short. CJ Carr and Zack Zukowski recently launched a YouTube channel that streams a never-ending barrage of death metal generated by AI. Their Dadabots project uses a recurrent neural network to identify patterns in the music, predict the most common elements and reproduce them.
The result isn't entirely natural, if simply because it's not limited by the constraints of the human body. There are no real pauses. However, it certainly sounds the part -- you'll find plenty of hyper-fast drums, guitar thrashing and guttural growling. In a chat with Motherboard, Carr noted that death metal's rapid-fire pace is ideal for this as it creates more consistent output than you'd get with other, slower genres.
