Virtual reality movies are coming to Dubai as part of the Dubai International Film Festival 2017.
Taking place between Wednesday December 6 and Wednesday 13, DIFF will present ten fully immersive movies made for VR at the special du VR Cinema, located at Madinat Jumeirah’s events and conference centre.
See the full story here: http://www.timeoutdubai.com/films/news/80503-virtual-reality-movie-theatre-coming-to-dubai
The ZED mini camera brings an AR twist to your VR headset
The ZED mini device is actually two cameras 65 mm (2.56 inches) apart, designed to mimic the human eyes. They can sense user position and depth, so digital graphics can be programmed to interact with real world objects in a way that looks and feels genuine, complete with realistic lighting.
All of this stereoscopic video and depth information is fed through a USB-C connection into the Vive or Rift, at a 720p resolution running at 60 frames-per-second. That's not the maximum resolution these headsets are capable of when they're rendering VR worlds, but if apps don't need the high FPS rate then the resolution can be upped to the full 2k.
The ZED mini can be preordered now for US$449 and ships on December 18. You can a taste of what's on offer in the video below.
See the full story here: https://newatlas.com/zed-mini-ar-camera/52464/
VRcade Prepares For Broader Location-Based VR Adoption
...the company starts rolling out its own2,400 square foot free-roam multiplayer VRcade system to locationsin the United States, Canada and Latin America in early 2018.
Terminal 17 will be the first adventure...
I had the opportunity to play Terminal 17, and learn more about how VRstudios is planning to expand VRcade locations and experiences, from CEO Kevin Vitale, and Vice President, Creative Development, Chanel Summers.
Summers describes Terminal 17 as a form of “co-opetition” since players are challenged to work together to overcome obstacles, while also competing against each other for the highest score.
While the VR industry searches for the ‘killer app’ to accelerate consumer adoption of VR, Vitale believes that the killer app is in fact turnkey LBE [location-based entertainment] VR. VRstudios’ standard model is to sell a full-package solution to venue operators, including commercial-grade hardware that brings their large-format free-roam VR concept to life. The revenue share model for VRcade Arena covers licensing content and the Attraction Management Platform, AMP. The idea is that expansion can happen rapidly as the upfront costs are covered by operator customers, and ongoing revenue is shared.
VRstudios plans to release news around new content every 4-6 months, but its SDK can help bring additional experiences to market faster.
See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/vrcade-terminal-17/
New Technology Is a Clear Focal Point of 2017 LA Auto Show
One of the highlights was Intel’s announcement of a collaboration with Warner Bros. to create immersive experiences for driverless cars. “The rise of the [autonomous vehicle] industry will create one of the greatest expansions of consumer time available for entertainment we’ve seen in a long time,” wrote Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in an editorial posted in the Intel Newsroom.
Another intriguing announcement, with compelling implications for autonomous vehicles, was Care by Volvo, a new subscription-based alternative to buying or leasing a vehicle. The subscription starts at $600 a month for a two-year contract and includes “everything but gas.” The car, Volvo’s new XC40 compact SUV, insurance, maintenance, and a concierge service are all included.
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/new-technology-is-a-clear-focal-point-of-2017-la-auto-show/
BBC Launches VR Hub As Home: A VR Spacewalk Releases
The BBC is bringing its VR efforts under one roof to produce all of its immersive content going forward.
The organization today announced VR Hub, which it describes as the new home for VR at the BBC. In the past, the group has released plenty of promising experiences, from 360-degree video add-ons to its incredible Planet Earth II series to interactive VR stories like Turning Forest. Now all future VR efforts will be produced through this new studio via commissions.
The group is headed up by Zillah Watson, who promised that the team will work on “pieces across the range of genres the BBC is famous for.”
See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/bbc-launches-vr-hub-home-vr-spacewalk-releases/
People have spent over $1M buying virtual cats on the Ethereum blockchain
People are spending a crazy amount of real money on the game. So far about $1.3M has been transacted, with multiple kittens selling for ~50 ETH (around $23,000) and the “genesis” kitten being sold for a record ~246 ETH (around $113,000). This third party site tracks the largest purchases made to date on the game. And like any good viral sensation prices are rising and fluctuating fast. Right now it will cost you about .03 ETH, or $12 to buy the least expensive kitten in the game.
In all seriousness, it’s a little bit reminiscent of the beanie baby trend where people were paying insane amounts of money for stuffed animals. But if the popularity continues to increase these people may be able to make a return by reselling or breeding their rare kittens, or they’ll be stuck holding the virtual cryptographic keys to a virtual rare kitten when the market crashes in a few days, like eventually happened with beanie babies.
Right now about 15% of all Ethereum network traffic is dedicated to the game, making it the most popular smart contract on the network. For reference, number two with about 8% of network transactions is EtherDelta, the popular decentralized token exchange.
The game was seeded with 100 “Founder Kitties”. There’s also one new “Gen 0” cat released ever 15 minutes, which are listed for the average price of the last five sold, plus 50% – but the sale price declines over 24 hours until someone eventually buys it.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/03/people-have-spent-over-1m-buying-virtual-cats-on-the-ethereum-blockchain/?utm_medium=TCnewsletter
Jason Stutman Talks Apple and Investing in Augmented Reality
In today's Investing After Hours, Wealth Daily's senior technology analyst Jason Stutman joins us to talk about the leak and how investors could start profiting from Apple's augmented reality project.
Jason dissects both augmented reality and virtual reality (VR), emphasizing the differences between the two markets in order to show why investors should be paying attention to augmented reality.
See the full story here: https://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/jason-stutman-talks-how-to-invest-in-apples-augmented-reality-device/8992