Stevenson University Professor Receives Prestigious Award for Virtual Reality Work
Assistant Professor of Digital Rhetoric at Stevenson’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Amanda Licastro, was recently awarded the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations’(ADHO) Paul Fortier Prize for her paper entitled “Teaching Empathy through Virtual Reality.”
“This project demonstrates the potential for digital humanities to foster a deeper, human understanding, specifically by focusing on and exploring the question of empathy in an educational context,” ACH representative to the ADHO awards committee, Micki Kaufman said. “The project illustrates the possibilities that innovative teaching provides as well as the power of digital humanities to foster greater social engagement and understanding through pedagogy.”
“My presentation gave me the chance to showcase the innovative ingenuity of our students, and to demonstrate the power of collaborative, project-based pedagogy,” Licastro said. “Introducing any new technology into a learning environment is risky, but I believe it is vital to prepare our students to be leaders in their chosen industries, which means making the most cutting edge tools available to them for consideration.”
Licastro added that she is an English professor, yet taught herself the skills necessary to understand digital technology and teach it to others. She encourages students to explore the unknown and learn new skills that are outside of their comfort zones.
See the full story here: http://www.stevenson.edu/about/news-events/news/stevenson-university-professor-receives-prestigious-award-for-virtual-reality-work
QVC looks to augmented reality to boost shopper engagement
The aim with the AR experiment is to create an immersive dual-screen experience that brings shoppers closer to the network and the brands that sell within it.
Shopping network QVC is experimenting with augmented reality in an effort to boost consumer engagement during TV broadcasts.
The retailer on Tuesday began prompting shoppers and TV viewers to download an AR-based app called YouCam Makeup in order to "test" beauty products before they make a purchase. The app supposedly uses facial recognition, 3D renderings, and skin tone analysis to give shoppers an idea of how products being demoed on-air will look on their actual faces.
See the full story here: http://www.zdnet.com/article/qvc-looks-to-augmented-reality-to-boost-shopper-engagement/
AR & VR Technology Set to Grow in an Augmented Way – market research mkt res
The global virtual reality marketwas valued at USD 2.19 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach $33.90 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 57.84% between 2016 and 2022.
See the full article here: http://www.ebnonline.com/author.asp?section_id=4043&doc_id=282928
Millennials Regularly Use Variety of Apps for Digital Services
For example, while only 39 percent of consumers over 35 use two or more apps to stream music, almost 60 percent of millennials will commonly do so on a regular basis.
Millennials also consume music differently than other age groups, suggests the study. “These younger users are 21 percent more likely to choose songs to play on demand, instead of streaming music without making changes,” notes TechCrunch.
Millennials are also more likely to use such apps for photo-sharing, sending videos and group chats.
“This is one of the larger differences between younger users and older users,” adds TechCrunch. “The 35-plus crowd prefers plain text messages to communicate, while their younger counterparts have since moved on."
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/millennials-regularly-use-variety-of-apps-for-digital-services/
Alabama Business: Five alternate applications for virtual reality from Innovation Week
Sidewalk Film Festival partnered with commercial application sellers to a TechBirmingham for a TechTuesday event Tuesday as part of Innovation Week. Panelists ranged from traditional filmmakers to a professor of social work, all taking about unexecpted uses for virtual reality.
Here are five unusual applications for virtual reality from the panel.
- Testing: Brendan Beal, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Montevallo, used to be a child abuse investigator. No one was ever happy that he knocked on their doors. And it's hard to test his students on how they'd react to that on a final exam. So he's in the process of developing virtual reality exams: His group social work class, he hopes to see how students would react in a group social work setting and how they'd react to different factors without actually hurting people in a way that's possible in an internship.
- Field Instruction: Birmingham's Gary York has made a company on virtual reality. He told the story of his father, who bought a stereo from Best Buy but couldn't figure out how to get it wired. His father called the store, they sent out a person from Geek Squad, who also couldn't figure it out, and his father returned the stereo for a refund. This was a terrible user experience for both his father and Best Buy. But someone, he said, somewhere, knows how to set up that stereo. That's where Help Lightning comes in: the company uses a simple smartphone app that allows help professionals from anywhere in the world to use forms of virtual reality to see exactly what they're doing, and how they can help them.
See the full story here: http://www.al.com/business/index.ssf/2017/08/five_alternate_applications_fo.html
Engadget Awards $500,000 to These Five Immersive Art Projects
Engadget first announced the Alternate Realities Grants in May, and received more than 300 submissions as a result. A selection committee helped to narrow down this list to 20 projects, and the publication’s editors finally decided on the following five winners:
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- “Untrained Eyes” by Glenn Kaino and Jesse Williams uses facial recognition technology to scour the internet for and then display images that are similar to the face of an audience member. The installation is meant to explore issues around race and inclusion, and highlight how algorithms for image searches and other types of artificial intelligence are influenced by invisible biases.
- “Your Hands Are Feet” by Amelia Winger-Bearskin and Sarah Rothberg is an interactive room-scale VR experience that is accompanying the indie motherhood comedy “Egg.” The experience lets participants experience surreal animated worlds.
- “Dinner Party” by Laura Wexler, Charlotte Stoudt, Saschka Unseld and Angel Soto is a VR thriller that uses the plot line of an alien abduction to explore issues of race and perception in 1960s America.
- “Mapper’s Delight” by Tahir Hemphill is a VR experience that combines mapping and natural language processing to visualize the hidden geographies of hip-hop lyrics.
- “Dance with flARmingos” by Kristin Lucas is a mixed reality experience that invites participants to dance together with flamingo holograms, and build a closer relationship to a species threatened by climate change.
See the full story here: http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/engadget-alternate-reality-grantees-1202531655/
Original post here: https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/18/the-grantees-of-engadget-s-500-000-immersive-arts-program/
I was one of the first humans to see a solar eclipse in virtual reality
Looking directly up at the Sun in VR doesn't risk permanent eye damage the way it would in real life. But it also doesn't provide the kind of "crescent Sun" effect I was hoping to see as the Moon started to cover up the corona. Luckily, CNN superimposed a large, floating "eclipse cam" view with the correct filters and telescopic zoom to show the eclipse in much sharper detail. Being able to glance back and forth between this close-up shot and the surrounding scene on the ground around me in virtual space was a pleasant "best of both worlds" that made me feel like I was in two places at once.
See the full story here: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/08/i-was-one-of-the-first-humans-to-see-a-solar-eclipse-in-virtual-reality/
David Scowsill joins EON Reality as CEO
Dan Lejerskar, founder of EON Reality, said that Scowsill's international business experience as well as his vast network with global industry and government leaders made him "a perfect choice" to lead EON Reality "in our next accelerated growth phase."
David Scowsill, the recently departed head of the World Travel & Tourism Council(WTTC), has been named CEO of EON Reality, an augmented and virtual reality software developer headquartered in Irvine, Calif.
Scowsill, who will work out of a London office, has been a champion of the nascent field and told Travel Weekly last month that virtual reality would enhance the travel industry rather than compete with it.
See the full story here: http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Travel-Technology/David-Scowsill-joins-virtual-reality-company-CEO