Daqri ships augmented reality smart glasses for professionals
Los Angeles-based Daqri is betting that AR — a technology that overlays digital animations on top of the real world — will take off first in the enterprise, where customers are willing to pay a higher price in order to solve complex problems. The idea is to help people solve real-world problems, like fixing a jet engine or piecing together an assembly. Daqri argues that the gains in productivity and efficiency make up for the initial cost.
At $4,995, the system is not cheap, but it is optimized to present complex workloads and process a lot of data right on the glasses themselves.
Roy Ashok recently replaced company founder Brian Mullins as CEO.
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2017/11/07/daqri-ships-augmented-reality-smart-glasses-for-professionals/
Augmented Reality: a new legal frontier for marketing?
One important question to ask is: how will advertising regulations apply to these virtual or altered environments?
With brands eager to engage with consumers in authentic, non-intrusive and natural ways, increased focus has been given in recent years to the need to distinguish between editorial content and advertising.
Rule 2 of the CAP code requires that marketing communications (i.e. advertisements) are ‘obviously identifiable as such’. It also states that advertisements must make clear their commercial content, if that is not obvious from the context. The basic rationale for these rules is that consumers should know when they’re being advertised to.
There is no hard-and-fast rule about how paid-for content should be identified, and the ASA has referred to the ‘technical quirks of each platform’ being relevant to the point at which a brand should identify an advertisement, and how they should do so.
The ASA has previously recommended that social influencers signify their commercial relationship with a particular brand by including ‘#ad’ to posts on Twitter, or an ‘ad’ identifier placed directly on top of an image on Instagram.
Until specific guidance and rulings are given on the use of these technologies for advertising purposes, brands should assume that the ASA will apply the same rules and standards that it has applied to any other form of advertising.
See the full story here: https://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2017/nov/07/augmented-reality-new-frontier-marketing/
Writers Guild Warns Members on Non-Union Virtual Reality Projects
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Nils Jorgensen/REX/Shutterstock (8823238aw)
Mat Collishaw. Thresholds, at Photo London
Photo London press preview, London, UK - 17 May 2017
Photo London third edition press preview, which showcases 88 galleries from 17 countries, at Somerset House, London
“As Virtual Reality technology and platforms continue to develop, so do potential writing opportunities for WGA members,” the WGA West said. “It is important for you to remember, and to remind your representatives, that literary material written for virtual reality programs (VR) is covered by the new media side letter in the MBA. If you are hired to write VR content, whether original or derivative (including any promotional virtual reality project you work on while staffed on a show), you must confirm that the company employing you is a WGA signatory and that your work is covered by a WGA agreement or you will be in violation of Working Rule 8.”
See the full story here: http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/writers-guild-warns-members-on-virtual-reality-projects-1202608557/
Soderbergh works with coders to create an interactive multi-path story experience
PODOP AND HBO LAUNCH INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING APP MOSAIC, FROM EMMY®-WINNING DIRECTOR STEVEN SODERBERGH
What is the future of storytelling? Oscar®- and Emmy®-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh’s answer is unveiled today when the MOSAIC mobile app launches as a free download for iPhone®, iPad® and Apple TV®, with the free Android app coming soon. Presented by PodOp, a media technology company changing the way stories are crafted and experienced, and developed for HBO by Soderbergh and Casey Silver, in conjunction with writer Ed Solomon, the MOSAIC app is an interactive experience that could be the next step in storytelling.
Soderbergh and his partners at PodOp, a media technology company that, unlike other ventures of this type, is driven by narrative rather than technology, explored what happens when filmmakers ask engineers to serve the story, rather than the other way around. Three years in the making, this first full-length production, developed in association with HBO, leverages new technology that enables viewers to choose from which point of view to follow the story and, in effect, to build their own experience from the material created and curated by Soderbergh and Solomon.
Soderbergh explains, “While branching narratives have been around forever, technology now allows, I hope, for a more elegant form of engagement than used to be possible. At no point were we reverse-engineering the story to fit an existing piece of technology; the story was being created in lockstep with the technical team. The fluidity of that relationship made me feel comfortable because I wanted it to be a simple, intuitive experience.”
Challenged to come up with compelling storylines and character connections without being able to anticipate what paths a viewer might choose to take, Solomon’s resulting script read like none other before it, and required Soderbergh to shoot scenes from multiple perspectives throughout filming. The technology developed to support this product resulted in PodOp filing 14 new patents, including script management tools for user selection-driven narratives and new forms of data mining to inform content experiences.
In the MOSAIC app, as in life, the path you pick affects your perception of reality.
Viewers will be able to see how their versions of the story on the app ultimately compare to Soderbergh’s when HBO Films presents MOSAIC as a six-part limited series debuting Monday, Jan. 22 on the main HBO channel.
See the full story here: https://medium.com/hbo-cinemax-pr/podop-and-hbo-launch-interactive-storytelling-app-mosaic-7bb67da0452a
This story also gets into it a bit: https://www.wired.com/story/steven-soderbergh-q-and-a/
Next Gen VR HMD – This Veteran Designer Built A Better Oculus In His Free Time
Branko Lukic, a former lead industrial designer at both Ideo and Frog, who since founded Nonobject, thinks he can do better. His studio designed the hit Bluetooth speaker the UE Boom, which reimagined a rapidly-obsolescent gadget as something that might age proudly, like an heirloom watch or jacket. And for the past eight months, as an unpaid side project for their own amusement, Nonobject’s designers have focused on fixing the pain points of VR and AR in a project called Airhead. Their goal? To make this new frontier “as comfortable as possible.” That includes improving physical comfort, increasing social acceptance, and rethinking the intuitiveness of headsets.
Nonobject’s first idea feels so obvious, you’ll kick yourself for not thinking of it first. Kepi is a VR headset built into a baseball cap. “It’s a hat–not just physical comfort, but emotional comfort as well,” says designer Kevin Killpatrick. Self-explanatory by design, you slip it on much like a fitted cap, while adjustments on the sides ensure you can get a tight fit with the mask.
Split is a VR headset that, rather than slipping over your head, splits in the middle to wrap around it. The actual eyepiece is cut down the center and attached by magnets (and, perhaps, a clasp as well for more active use). All you have to do is pull it apart and the headset comes off. And thanks to the fact that the Rift uses two lenses and LCDs, it’s feasible to crack those components right down the middle–at least for any VR headset that doesn’t require a full, single-piece phone inside.
Much like eyeglasses, Spect is fit with two spring-loaded temples that can wing out, then clamp onto your head. As opposed to resting their weight on your ears, however, they grasp the back of your skull with two large, spoon-like pads. It’s all a bit odd to describe, but putting Spect on takes moments. And as a bonus, the rear of your skull is not as sensitive as the top of your head or face, so the headset is easy to forget about.
Of course, comfort comes in two forms. There’s the comfort of being inside VR. And then there’s the comfort of seeing someone in VR. Serene is designed to be the softest, most approachable shape Nonobject could imagine for a VR or AR headset.
Without getting too into the weeds about the exact ergonomic and tracking considerations at play, Grasp encompasses two great ideas. First is that it actually grabs the hand with the equivalent of fabric brass knuckles. This means you can do something impossible inside the Touch–actually throw a virtual object (without chucking the real controller across the room). “We had this frisbee test,” says Killpatrick. “We put the frisbee test against all the controllers out there. You can’t do it. It’d fly away.”
These soft knuckles weigh on just the right part of your hand to avoid fatigue. To ensure a proper fit, their second great idea comes into play: All you do is pull down on a strap that runs down through the Grasp hardware, and they tighten.
See the full story here: https://flipboard.com/@flipboard/-this-veteran-designer-built-a-better-oc/f-dae0750e60%2Ffastcodesign.com
How We Used VR to Explore What Music Feels Like to a Deaf Person
NYT worked with Lytro, Q Department, and profoundly deaf and partially hearing VR artists to create a VR experience that visualizes sound.
These augmented-reality glasses are helping the blind see again
Hicks's startup, OxSight, is building augmented-reality glasses that render the physical world visible, even to the visually impaired.
The sense we experience as vision is the outcome of a constant jigsaw-assembling process in our brain: the eyes only need to pick up specific visual tidbits (colour, contrast, dimensions), and the occipital and parietal lobes will make sense of the overall picture. Having observed this through his research, Hicks teamed up with fellow Oxford computer-vision scientist Philip Torr to create OxSight, a spinout that launched in March 2016. The pair designed augmented-reality glasses that let partially sighted people make sense of their surroundings by spotlighting specific visual cues and overlaying them on the lenses in real time.
Using computer-vision algorithms and cameras, OxSight's glasses can increase image contrast, highlight specific visual features or create cartoonish representations of reality, depending on the eye condition they're being used to compensate for. "For instance, if you have tunnel vision and issues with colour perception, they'd emphasise colours," explains Hicks, 43. "If you have got glaucoma and your vision is blurry, the glasses will enhance the salience of certain objects."
Pilot users, who are suffering from diseases such as glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa or diabetes, report that, due to the glasses, they can avoid obstacles, see blurry faces clearly again and read from slides.
See the full story here: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/oxsight-augmented-reality-glasses-eyesight-vision-blindness
EMMA, THE ROBOT IS GIVING PROFESSIONAL MASSAGES TO SINGAPOREANS
A robot masseuse named Emma is now offering Singaporeans high-tech back rubs with a gigantic metal arm and warm silicone tips which its creators say perfectly mimic the human touch.
The product of Singaporean startup AiTreat, and developed by Nanyang Technological University graduate Albert Zhang, Emma isn’t necessarily intended to replace human massage therapists. Instead, the idea is that as the population ages and therapists’ workloads thus increase, the technology will allow them to tend to two patients at once – they’ll work on one themselves, while Emma (as instructed by them) will work on another.
For about 60 to 150 dollars, patients can benefit a conventional package that includes consultation, acupuncture, and a 20-minute massage.
Emma 3.0 began service this Monday, at the NovaHealth Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic in Singapore.
See the full story here: https://vrworld.com/2017/11/06/emma-robot-giving-professional-massages-singaporeans/
Cleveland plays key role in virtual reality, voice-activated technologies: Tech Czar Talk
Virtual reality and voice-activated technologies are the hot tech du jour. And Cleveland is unexpectedly playing a key role in both.
Visualizing NASA. The overlooked NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is a world-class research and economic development engine. The campus includes more than 150 buildings that offer a dynamic collection of labs and test facilities. The facility was originally built in 1941 on Lewis Field as part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. NASA was formed on July 29, 1958, during the Eisenhower administration. Soon thereafter, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was merged into NASA.
Voice Activated Entertainment. Voice-activated technology, think Siri or Alexa, is also beginning to influence our culture in profound ways, producing some cool innovations.
In a recent tour of Cox Communications' Parma facility, I saw how voice-activated technologies - i.e. - Siri (Apple), Alexa (Amazon) - are beginning to make a monumental change on how we use technologies for everyday tasks.
The facility has a built in "front room" where one can tinker and interactive with the Contour platform as displayed on a large screen TV.
See the full story here: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2017/11/cleveland_plays_key_role_in_vi.html
VR developers pivot to location-based entertainment
I moderated a panel on VR arcade development at Greenlight Insights’ VR Arcade Summit at the recent Virtual Reality Strategy Conference in San Francisco. Our panelists included Marc-Antoine Pinard, CEO of VR development studio Lucky Hammers in Montreal; Nick Cooper, chief creative officer at VR kiosk maker VRX Networks; Vien Ha, CEO of iSimu VR; and Jonathan Flesher, head of business development and partnerships at VR animation studio Baobab Studios.
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2017/11/04/vr-developers-pivot-to-location-based-entertainment/