philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Sling TV Launches First vMVPD for Oculus Go Virtual Reality Headset

Oculus Go is getting even harder to shell out of its hard-won, best-all-in-one VR headset category. The plethora of available content just got bigger, with Sling TV becoming the first virtual vMVPD to grace the Go screens. Users can celebrate the Oculus Go virtual TV option with $80 credit for services, it’s on Sling.

At just $199, Facebook Oculus Go is pretty hard to beat in terms of value for money Virtual Reality. It has become an unavoidable stepping stone towards bigger and better, while being reasonably well put together itself.  One thing was missing content-wise though, multi-channel virtual TV. But Sling TV, itself on a mission to spread across milieu of different devices, opens its VR home entertainment option to Oculus Go users. The Oculus Go virtual TV app is already available on the store. The service is integrated with the Oculus TV app, as well.

See the full story here: https://www.realitytechnologies.com/sling-tv-launches-first-vmvpd-for-oculus-go-virtual-reality-headset/

New York Times App Lets You See a Higgs Particle Reaction from the Large Hadron Collider in Augmented Reality

On Friday, the Times published "It's Intermission for the Large Hadron Collider," an interactive story that gives readers a virtual tour of the Large Hadron Collider at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland and explores its most famous discovery, the Higgs boson.

A series of 360-degree photos and an accompanying VR video make up the virtual tour of the massive and costly Large Hadron Collider, which enables physicists to smash subatomic particles together to simulate the conditions of the Big Bang and reveal the hidden secrets of the universe.

Now, via augmented reality, readers can see one of the particle collisions that proved the existence of Higgs boson and earned the team a Nobel Prize. Using the surface tracking capabilities of ARKit and ARCore, the app projects the 3D collision data from the Atlas collider as it occurred on June 10, 2012.

The 3D model shows an outline of the device and the paths of the particles from the collision, tracking several rare particles that managed to pierce the lead and iron exterior of the collider's inner detector. The experience matches the Large Hadron Collider itself in scale, stretching across an average living room and spilling over into adjoining rooms.

The publisher's portfolio of mobile AR experiences now stands at 13, establishing a pace of more than an article per month. In terms of frequency of coverage and content innovation, the Times is far ahead of the competition in applying augmented reality to news coverage. But that doesn't mean that the rest of the news media landscape is standing still, as the Washington Post, USA Today, ABC News, and others are also working to leverage the technology for more immersive and compelling storytelling.

See the full story here: https://mobile-ar.reality.news/news/new-york-times-app-lets-you-see-higgs-particle-reaction-from-large-hadron-collider-augmented-reality-0191792/

Magic Leap & AT&T Team Up to Bring Fans ‘Fantastic Beasts’ AR Movie Experience in Chicago

The special experience, which is only available to the public at AT&T's Michigan Avenue store in Chicago, was revealed by Magic Leap on Sunday via Twitter.

Earlier this year, Magic Leap announced that it would begin giving the public a taste of the Magic Leap One in select AT&T stores in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. This new experience appears to be the first of those public-facing demo stations.

Magic Leap hasn't indicated if or when the experience will come to other AT&T store locations, but if you're in the Chicago area, the store is usually open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the address to go to is: 600 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

See the full story here: https://magic-leap.reality.news/news/magic-leap-at-t-team-up-bring-fans-fantastic-beasts-ar-movie-experience-chicago-0191790/

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ALGORITHMS DESIGN A CONCERT HALL? THE STUNNING ELBPHILHARMONIE

Though Hamburg’s $843 million philharmonic is filled with stunning architectural gems, its most interesting feature is the central auditorium, a gleaming ivory cave built from 10,000 unique acoustic panels that line the ceiling, walls, and balustrades. The room looks almost organic—like a rippling, monochromatic coral reef—but bringing it to life was a technological feat.

The auditorium—the largest of three concert halls in the Elbphilharmonie—is a product of parametric design, a process by which designers use algorithms to develop an object’s form. Algorithms have helped design bridges, motorcycle parts, typefaces—even chairs. In the case of the Elbphilharmonie, Herzog and De Meuron used algorithms to generate a unique shape for each of the 10,000 gypsum fiber acoustic panels that line the auditorium's walls like the interlocking pieces of a giant, undulating puzzle.

On looks alone, the effect is stunning. The 10,000 panels coalesce into a billowy, off-white skin, punctuated only by 2,150 seats and 1,000 hand-blown glass light bulbs. But beauty was only part of the architects’ intention when they began designing the building more than 13 years ago. “Every panel has a function,” says Benjamin Koren, founder of One to One, the studio that worked with Herzog and De Meuron to design and fabricate the panels.

See the full story here; https://www.wired.com/2017/01/happens-algorithms-design-concert-hall-stunning-elbphilharmonie/

Dave & Busters Rolls Out New Dragonfrost VR Attraction

The winter fairy tale offers a journey “through the magical icy and wondrous land of Dragonfrost while battling orc encampments with goblins, orcs, trolls, plenty of explosives – and even Ice Hawks! The objective is to defeat the Ice Prince and his Army of Ice in order to restore peace and prosperity to the land of Dragonfrost,” according to VRstudios.

While Dave & Busters hasn’t released numbers to back it up, the Jurassic World attraction saw such a strong launch that Dave & Busters representatives say they will be working to increase capacity for the VR attraction in 2019. We consider the work to be a bright spot in the location-based VR market in the United States where efforts like IMAX VR struggled to find an audience.

See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/dave-busters-dragonfrost/

Augmented Reality Top 8 of 2018

2. Notable Women, by former Treasurer of the United States Rosie Rios, Google Creative Lab, and Nexus Studios

See the full story here: http://www.virtualrealitypulse.com/edition/daily-oculus-htc-2018-12-21?open-article-id=9458470&article-title=augmented-reality-top-8-of-2018&blog-domain=vrscout.com&blog-title=vrscout

3 Ways You Can Use Virtual Reality to Boost Member Engagement in Your Facebook Groups

1. Meet outside of meatspace.

2. Create a virtual reality show.

3. Promote VR content exclusively in the group.

See the full story here: https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/3-Ways-You-Can-Use-Virtual-Reality-to-Boost-13484023.php

Aronofsky’s VR series ‘Spheres’ opens to the public in NYC

Spheres consists of three 15-minute chapters, which were originally shown at different film festivals throughout 2018.

Tickets are already available for purchase for $50 each, and some of the first screenings are nearly out of slots.

See the full story here: https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/22/spheres-nyc-virtual-reality/

The U.S. Challenges Iran’s Attempt to Develop a Cryptocurrency

Congress introduced a bill on December 17 called the “Blocking Iran Illicit Finance Act” that threatens Iran with more sanctions in response to activity that could see Iran develop its own national cryptocurrency. The U.S. is worried that the development of such a cryptocurrency could allow Iran to launder money, thereby dodging U.S. sanctions.

A corresponding bill sponsored by Ted Cruz (R-TX) calls for additional sanctions against anybody who could be aiding Iran to develop such a digital currency, including sanctions against any foreign person that might facilitate transactions for the “sale, supply, or transfer” of such a currency.

See the full story here: https://futurism.com/us-congress-iran-sanctions-cryptocurrency

This Algorithm Can Create 3D Animations From A Single Still Image

Chung-Yi Weng, PhD student at the University of Washington, and some of his friends created something truly astonishing.

Their software called “Photo Wake-Up” allows character animations to simply “walk out” of a static image frame — without leaving a hole in the picture behind them. The results were published in a recently submitted paper.

Weng’s method identifies a 2D subject in a single photo as input, and creates a 3D animated version of that subject. The animation can then “walk out, run, sit, or jump in 3D.”

Researchers have tried to create a similar effect in the past, but the results have been a lot less impressive. Weng’s new approach adds an important new ability: it can identify different body parts like arms and legs, and warp each one individually in a way that matches the 2D cutout exactly.

See the full story here: https://futurism.com/algorithm-3d-animations-still-image