philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Can Jesus save virtual reality?

Vive Studios just debuted its first "feature-length" virtual reality movie at the Raindance Film Festival in London. It's neither sci-fi nor twee endearing animation, however: it's a Christian film based on Jesus' seven miracles, captured in 360-degree video, and it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Story. The majority of the tale is told in wrap-around 8K video, with each of the miracles taking roughly 10 minutes. The episodic structure makes sense: Virtual reality is still tiring, both because you're wearing the mask and because you have a screen so close to your eyes.

See the full story here: https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/09/can-jesus-save-virtual-reality-seven-miracles-htc-vive/

Weta Workshop launched AR shooter game ‘Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders’ during Magic LeapCon

The project is based on original IP from, and created by, Weta Workshop. Magic Leap funded the development of the game, though the amount was not disclosed.

Weta Workshop is in the early stages of developing additional content for the headset, according five-time VFX Oscar winner Richard Taylor (The Lord of the Rings), co-founder and creative lead at Weta Workshop and a founding Magic Leap board member.

See the full story here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/weta-lucasfilm-debut-augmented-reality-content-at-magic-leap-developers-confab-1151060

A group of Magic Leap alumni are making experiences for 50 pairs of smartglasses at once — and they’re working with Marina Abramovic

• Technologists think that augmented reality is the next big thing that could replace smartphones, TVs, and all the screens in your life.
• Alumni from Magic Leap, a hyped augmented reality startup, are now using the technology to create music and art pieces.
• Their first work stars Marina Abramović and will premiere simultaneously to 50 people in London in February.

There are lots of challenges when recording a person in three dimensions, often called "volumetric capture," he explained. It usually requires an array of cameras, as many as 32, as well as a lot of care and time to put the images together in a way that can be placed into a real-world environment.

Other challenges include how colors are represented in augmented reality — red looks very different than, say, black, inside a headset that's based around displaying graphics inside transparent lenses. And each different augmented reality headset, like Hololens or ODG, also requires tweaks.

I was able to see a short preview of the Abramović piece on a Magic Leap One, although I was nowhere near London. Inside the smartglasses, you could see the artist, and although there were technological limitations including the headset's field-of-view, cutting off parts of the virtual people in frame, I felt her "presence" in the room with me — but I was just in a conference room in New York.

See the full story here: https://www.businessinsider.com/marina-abramovic-performance-from-augmented-reality-studio-tin-drum-to-premiere-on-magic-leap-2018-10

‘Star Wars’ Augmented Reality Experience ‘Project Porg’ Will Let You Train Porgs

Star Wars: Project Porg is a “mixed-reality immersive experiment in which you’ll need to gain the trust and affection of your porgs. How? You’ll feed them treats, play with them, and you’ll also teach them how to maneuver real-world environments with care instructions from C-3PO himself.” Actor Anthony Daniels will return to voice C-3P0 yet again.

ILMxLAB demonstrated the experience at a press preview event Tuesday, where the lab had added some extra AR easter eggs for L.E.A.P attendees. The living room setup used to demonstrate the app featured a handful of physical objects that could be controlled with the Magic Leap One headset, thanks to AR overlays that explained their functionality. This allowed attendees to turn on a Sonos speaker, change the program on a TV set and turn on a fan, and then see the porgs react to each of these devices — a nap in front of the TV included.

See the full story here: https://www.slashfilm.com/project-porg/

Step back in time with Auckland’s augmented reality tour

Guided by the knowledgeable and ever-excited DJ Hannah, the audio tour follows nine different sites of interest including Orange Hall, the Mt Eden Prison and St David's Church, with each site offering its own augmented reality experience.

See the full story here: https://ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/articles/news/2018/10/step-back-in-time-with-aucklands-augmented-reality-tour/

Apple has acquired Spektral, a Danish computer vision startup, for augmented reality technology

Apple has purchased Spektral, a computer vision company based out of Denmark that has worked on segmentation technology, a more efficient way to “cut out” figures from their backgrounds in digital images and videos, reportedly for over $30 million.

This type of technology can be used, for example, to make quicker and more accurate/realistic cut-out images in augmented reality environments, but also for more standard applications like school photos. That was actually the first market the startup targeted, in 2015, although it appeared to shift strategy after that to build up IP and make deeper inroads into video. You can see a demo of how its technology works at the bottom of this post.

Spectral’s first application may have been the fairly retro world of school pictures, but what’s most notable here is what Spektral might contribute to Apple’s imaging business. That could be for applications that Apple has yet to launch, but also to improve the quality of those that are already in the market, from legacy products like PhotoBooth through to ARKit, the company’s platform for mobile development.

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/11/apple-has-acquired-spektral-a-danish-computer-vision-startup-for-augmented-reality-technology/

Magic Leap’s Mica is a human-like AI in augmented reality

Magic Leap showed off a demo of Mica, a humanlike artificial intelligence that can be viewed in the company’s augmented reality glasses, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition.

On stage today at the Magic Leap L.E.A.P. event, Andrew Rabinovich, head of AI at Magic Leap, and John Monos, head of human-centered AI, talked about how they see digital humans and AI-based virtual avatars becoming real in the coming years on the Magic Leap platform.

See the full short story here: https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/10/magic-leaps-mica-is-a-human-like-ai-in-augmented-reality/

‘Surreal’: Virtual Reality Simulation Shows What It’s Like to Die

An end-of-life simulation by Embodied Labs is now educating staff and students at the Gosnell Memorial Hospice House in Scarborough, Maine. It's also a required experience for medical students at the University of New England. Grant money awarded to UNE paid for the simulation technology.

"It was amazing," said Hospice of Southern Maine CEO Daryl Cady. "I was pretty skeptical in the beginning. It's very unique and very emotional as it's happening."

The simulation lasts about 30 minutes and follows a cancer patient named Clay. The participant sees how Clay is struggling to have conversations with his family, suffers a fall and ends up in the E.R., and eventually transitions into hospice care. The experience shows how his skin changes and senses dull.

See the full story here: https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/End-of-Life-Virtual-Reality-Simulation-Gosnell-Memorial-Hospice-House-Maine-496691461.html

Ronald Reagan comes back to life at presidential library – via virtual reality

...the library found an actor who matched Reagan’s build and could replicate his mannerisms. Using computer-generated imagery, they married Reagan’s head with the actor’s body, creating a seamless, holographic image of President Reagan.

“This was our most challenging hologram ever,” said David Nussbaum of Hologram USA, emphasizing that many holograms are viewed from hundreds of feet away. “It had to be perfect. No pixelation. No rough around the edges. And it had to look exactly like President Reagan.”

How close is this representation of Reagan? “I’d say 99.9 percent,” said Heubusch. “I think he would find it just incredible that we could bring him back to life in this way.”

See the video here: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/ronald-reagan-comes-back-to-life-at-presidential-library-via-virtual-reality

Your Move, Apple: Facebook Intros First-Party Cookie Option To Power Its Tracking Pixel

The third-party cookie isn’t crumbling so much as imploding.

In a Friday email to advertisers and publishers, Facebook said that on Oct. 24 it will start offering a first-party cookie option for the Facebook tracking pixel so that businesses can keep targeting their ads and measuring their campaigns without relying on third-party cookies. Facebook confirmed the release to AdExchanger.

Buyers and pubs can immediately log into Events Manager, Facebook’s data management system, to update their settings in preparation.

Apple has been particularly aggressive in its attacks on third-party cookies in Safari, starting with Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) last year, a mechanism that blocks cookies if they don’t have a first-party connection to the user.

In June at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple made a move to kill digital fingerprinting in iOS 12 and its latest Mac OS, making a direct dig at Facebook. “Data companies are clever and relentless,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software engineering, at the time.

Although the way Facebook’s ad products work won’t change, in cases where there aren’t first-party cookies feeding Facebook’s pixel, reporting will inevitably be less granular for conversions and activity coming from Safari.

See the full story here: https://adexchanger.com/platforms/your-move-apple-facebook-intros-first-party-cookie-option-to-power-its-tracking-pixel/