British Startup OWidgets Has Created The World’s First Olfactory (smell) Design Kit
Most people don’t think of smell when they think about technology, but really it’s the next natural sense to stimulate in video games, simulators and mixed reality.
Imagine playing a vr game and smelling smoke. You may know that your village is burning down and you have to defend it.
A British company called OWidges has created the first olfactory design toolkit for developers to bring the sense of smell into the world of technology.
See the full story here: http://www.nibletz.com/eureka-park/owidgets-smell
Blippar – The ‘Shazam for faces’: World’s first facial recognition for smartphones is now more than 99% accurate and can even tell identical twins apart
- The app scans faces and brings up a profile with information about the person
- These profiles include images and links to a target's social media accounts
- The augmented reality technology can recognise over 400,000 public figures
- It can even tell apart identical twins such as Irish pop duo Jedward
See the full story here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5239767/The-Shazam-faces-99-67-accurate.html
Amazon Alexa making appearance in $1000 Vuzix augmented reality smart glasses
Little is known about the performance of the glasses, with Travers saying that information from Alexa will be presented inside the wearer's field of view.
The glasses utilize an Amazon Alexa licensing program, allowing third parties to implement the technology in a variety of products. For the most part, the technology has been used in speaker sets and smartphone docks, with the Vuzix implementation being the first in a pair of smart glasses.
The Amazon Alexa-embedded glasses are expected in the second quarter for about $1000. It is hoping to get the price down to under $500 by 2019.
See the full story here: http://appleinsider.com/articles/18/01/05/amazon-alexa-making-appearance-in-1000-vuzix-augmented-reality-smart-glasses
See the ‘Stranger Things’ Upside Down in Augmented Reality
PhilNote: video at link. Fun basic AR.
While in the AR Upside Down, the user can look around, viewing their world through a dark grey haze, from under the shade of a big, creepy tree. It's also possible to look back through the doorway into the real world, and once a person has finished exploring, they can step back through the way they've come - or, it they're feeling boring, they can simple take off their AR headset.
See the full story here: https://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/17454-stranger-things-augmented-reality
Porn industry gets a boost from VR, but manufacturers aren’t thrilled
Porn star Missy Martinez had never acted in a virtual reality production when she was cast in a cosplay parody of the video game series “Fallout,” in which she plays a frisky “vault girl” wandering a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
As she performed her scenes with porn star Ryan Driller, the crew instructed her to keep her eyes fixed on the camera to engage directly with viewers, who will experience the movie at home in 3-D and 180 degrees.
The subscription model used by most VR porn services is providing a new revenue stream for production companies at a time when paying for porn was thought to be a thing of the past.
But the porn industry’s plans to capitalize on VR is facing a roadblock from headset makers. Producers say they are being treated unfairly by major manufacturers who block porn apps from their online stores, thereby making it harder for consumers to access adult VR content.
“Pornography has been pretty important in the development and dissemination of various technologies, but I don’t think the manufacturers from a business factor want too much publicity at this point for that aspect because there's still a great deal of anti-porn sentiment in the public.”
Industry experts estimate that more than 50% of all VR content is porn-related and that adult content is a major driver of hardware sales, along with video games and NFL applications. The VR porn market saw an estimated $93 million in revenue for 2017 and could reach $1.4 billion by 2025, according to Gene Munster, who heads the research firm Loup Ventures.
Since major manufacturers, including Oculus and Samsung, don’t allow porn apps in their stores, viewers often have to resort to cumbersome workarounds to access adult movies.
The bullish spirit is pushing even newer forms of VR innovation. Camasutra VR, an L.A.-based start-up, is betting on VR avatars — digital replicas of real-life porn actors who have been scanned in a process similar to the motion-capture technology used in Hollywood blockbusters.
“It’s a fully interactive and immersive experience with a porn star,” said the company’s CEO, Adam, who declined to use his last name because he still has ties to the mainstream entertainment industry. He said he hopes to launch the new service next year.
See the full story here: http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-virtual-reality-porn-20180105-story.html
Five Big Questions Facing The AR Industry In 2018
Will smartphone AR go big(er)?
The introduction of Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore in late 2017 certainly makes us hopeful, though neither is really capitalizing on their full potential right now. We’ve seen plenty of concept apps for both platforms that don’t seem gimmicky but instead genuinely helpful; morphing map apps into virtual tour guides, helping up find items in massive supermarkets and even projecting furniture into our rooms before we decide to buy it. These are all great ideas, but will the general public catch on?
Is Magic Leap as disruptive as promised?
What are Microsoft’s next steps with ‘mixed reality’?
Where does Apple take AR in 2018?
What is Oculus doing in AR?
But will we see any of its work in 2018? The focus on the launch of Oculus Go, Santa Cruz and a potential Rift successor suggests they might have their hands full right now, even if parent company Facebook is quite enthusiastic about AR right now. Still, Oculus isn’t afraid to talk about far-flung projects at its Connect developer conference; maybe Chief Scientist Michael Abrash could peel back the curtain on what Oculus Research is looking into this year.
See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/five-big-questions-facing-the-ar-industry-in-2018/
The World’s Biggest Gadget Show Matters Again
“Hardware, specifically component hardware, is hot at CES because that is what’s keeping VR, AR, and AI from reaching their pinnacle,” says Patrick Moorhead, president of consulting firm Moor Insights & Strategy. The competitors, he says, all need markedly better performance at low power than their current parts can provide.
Alexa operates a new line of smart speakers from Sonos Inc., and three times as many households use an Amazon Echo than use the second-place Google Home, according to analysis firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Apple Inc.’s similar HomePod is loosely slated for release in the early months of 2018.
Facebook aims to change that early in the year with a budget model, the $200 Oculus Go.
Microsoft is refining its bulky and decidedly uncool-looking HoloLens; Amazon and Google are rumored to be experimenting with their own headsets; and Apple is planning on a 2020-ish release for the glasses it’s betting will be the next iPhone. These efforts will require even more specialized lenses and other components than VR headsets. Paul Travers, chief executive officer of Vuzix Corp., which makes AR glasses and components, says his schedule for CES week is packed with meetings focused on both developing and distributing his glasses and putting his optics in other companies’ systems.
See the full story here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-02/the-world-s-biggest-gadget-show-matters-again