Beijing’s biggest funeral parlor held an open day last Thursday that featured a virtual reality simulation of death, reported The Beijing News — though it left some wondering why you would want to experience death prematurely.
Visitors could don VR glasses and earphones to experience having a seizure at work, a failed paramedic rescue, and entrance into the afterlife. Funeral parlor employee Dong Ziyi told The Beijing News that the immersive experience “enables people to better cherish the beauty of life.”
In addition to the death experience, visitors can use VR to explore funeral services with a five-minute session that goes through corpse delivery and storage, mortuary preparations, the memorial service, and cremation — a tour that would take an hour in real life.
See the full story here: http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001982/virtual-reality-funerals-give-the-living-a-little-taste-of-death
“Smart contract” is also a misnomer from a legal perspective—it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with a legal contract. A smart contract is simply an “if-then” statement that runs on a blockchain.
See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610718/states-that-are-passing-laws-to-govern-smart-contracts-have-no-idea-what-theyre-doing
There’s a number of ways to implement redirected walking, but the strengths of this saccade-driven method is that it’s hidden from the user, widely applicable to VR content, and dynamic, allowing the system to direct users away from objects newly introduced into the environment, and even moving objects, the researchers say.
The basic principle behind their work is an exploitation of a natural quirk of human vision—saccadic suppression—to hide small rotations to the virtual scene. Saccades are quick eye movements which happen when we move our gaze from one part of a scene to another. Instead of moving in a slow continuous motion from one gaze point to the next, our eyes quickly dart about, when not tracking a moving object or focused on a singular point, a process which takes tens of milliseconds.
Saccadic suppression occurs during these movements, essentially rendering us blind for a brief moment until the eye reaches its new point of fixation. With precise eye-tracking technology from SMI and an HTC Vive headset, the researchers are able to detect and exploit that temporary blindness to hide a slight rotation of the scene from the user. As the user walks forward and looks around the scene, it is slowly rotated, just a few degrees per saccade, such that the user reflexively alters their walking direction in response to the new visual cues.
See the full story here: https://www.roadtovr.com/researchers-exploit-natural-quirk-of-human-vision-saccade-hidden-redirected-walking-vr-gtc-2018/
Dreams of otherworldly escape became reality for a group of seniors living in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood on Tuesday. Pastries, coffee and French music set the mood at the Curry Center on Turk Street, as the seniors got their first taste of virtual reality with a 360-degree “trip to Paris.” Once the initial novelty of the Seine and the Eiffel Tower began to wane, seniors began requesting other destinations such as Rome, Mesopotamia and even an underwater shark experience. The event was part of ongoing community outreach efforts by Zendesk, a San Francisco software company, in the mid-Market area to engage seniors at risk of community isolation.
See the full story here: https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Virtual-reality-turns-Paris-into-moveable-feast-12788110.php
It’s a complicated way of saying that real-world scenarios look a lot more realistic and just… better. That’s just my take on it, but if you want to read more on how the Google sees Google’s new app, “Welcome to Light Fields” seeks to educate users on what exactly light fields are and how important the technology could be to unlocking more pleasant-feeling virtual reality experiences. The app seems to consist of a number of fairly simple scenarios where users can walk around and observe how light changes these environments.
The app is available for the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality platforms.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/14/google-explores-how-light-fields-shape-vr-environments-in-new-free-app/
Today at Nvidia’s GTC conference the company unveiled a wild technology demo and it’s straight out of Black Panther. Simply put, a driver using virtual reality was remotely controlling a car in real life.
The demo at the show was basic but worked. The driver in VR had seemingly complete control over the vehicle and managed to drive it, live but slowly, around a private lot.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/27/nvidia-stuns-by-driving-a-car-in-real-life-through-virtual-reality/
The Pro League’s virtual reality app will enable soccer fans to follow all the action on the pitch via a handful of virtual reality angles, with cameras placed on the sides of the field and behind the two goals. The app is also equipped with a replay function and statistics about players and league standings.
Much more info in the story here: https://www.sporttechie.com/uae-pro-league-broadcast-full-live-matches-virtual-reality/
Here's Adobe Digital Insights' complete list of predictions for 2018, paraphrased:
- Extra cash flow from changes to the tax law will be a "windfall" for marketing budgets.
- Cryptocurrency awareness, particularly of bitcoin, will lead to eventual adoption of blockchain-based commerce.
- Disconnecting from social media "will create social echo chambers that intensify debates" and make it tougher for people to avoid negative news.
- Automation will "re-level" the workforce as people want more personalized service.
- Dystopian imagery aside, positive sentiment will ramp up the adoption of automation.
- Virtual reality entertainment is heating up, and "consumer demand will be higher and faster than you expect."
- Traditional media will stabilize for a while.
- Podcasts are having a moment.
- There's a shift toward paid social media ads and away from paid search.
- Marketers should treat social media influencers as partners, "not as hired guns."
...And there's interest in using blockchain as a ledger system beyond cryptocurrencies. In a survey of IT and marketing leaders, "less than 9% have actually started to implement blockchain, 10% are doing a proof of concept and 33% are in the process of thinking about how to get there, which is a really high amount" for such a technology, said Wang.
"Imagine you're in high-end luxury goods, and you want to trade your latest Gucci bag or trade the latest Rolex in the used market," said Wang. "How do I know it's real? When we think about provenance and authenticity, that's where it's going to play a role."
He said he can see blockchain being used not just in retail and commerce but how people trade personal data with marketers, allowing customers to opt in and out of being contacted about their interested in alcohol or cars, for example.
See the full story here: https://www.investors.com/news/blockchain-virtual-reality-adobe-top10-retail-predictions-2018/
A highlight of the trip was Tuesday's visit to the Chinese Academy of Science, showcasing China's scientific and technological achievements since Xi took power in 2011. Pictures showed Kim and his wife touring the exhibition and trying on virtual reality headsets. Kim expressed his admiration for China's accomplishments in a note.
"Under the wise command of the Communist Party of China, we will achieve better scientific performance," he wrote, according to KCNA.
See the full story here: 29572539_626562041029197_3118573744959680372_n.jpg
The Audio Engineering Society is pleased to announce the second International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality, taking place August 20-22, 2018, at the DigiPen Institute of Technology, Redmond, WA. The conference and exhibition will bring together a community of influential research scientists, engineers, VR and AR developers, and content creators to explore such topics as:
- spatial audio capture, rendering, and synthesis over headphones and speakers
- binaural, ambisonics, and wave field synthesis techniques
- 3D sound field navigation
- HRTF modeling and derivation from optical and/or acoustic measurements
- reverb and room acoustics synthesis
- 3D audio mixing and content production
- sound design for VR/AR
See the full story here: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2018/03/26/2018-aes-international-conference-on-audio-for-virtual-and-augmented-reality-announced/
It’s a complicated way of saying that real-world scenarios look a lot more realistic and just… better. That’s just my take on it, but if you want to read more on how the Google sees Google’s new app, “Welcome to Light Fields” seeks to educate users on what exactly light fields are and how important the technology could be to unlocking more pleasant-feeling virtual reality experiences. The app seems to consist of a number of fairly simple scenarios where users can walk around and observe how light changes these environments.
Today at Nvidia’s GTC conference the company unveiled a wild technology demo and it’s straight out of Black Panther. Simply put, a driver using virtual reality was remotely controlling a car in real life.
The Pro League’s virtual reality app will enable soccer fans to follow all the action on the pitch via a handful of virtual reality angles, with cameras placed on the sides of the field and behind the two goals. The app is also equipped with a replay function and statistics about players and league standings.
A highlight of the trip was Tuesday's visit to the Chinese Academy of Science, showcasing China's scientific and technological achievements since Xi took power in 2011. Pictures showed Kim and his wife touring the exhibition and trying on virtual reality headsets. Kim expressed his admiration for China's accomplishments in a note.