A Mixed Reality Application to Heal Young Hearts
A HoloLens visualization tool enables surgeons to treat heart chronic heart conditions more effectively
At this year’s Imagine Cup, Microsoft hosted dozens of student teams from across the world. They showcased an incredibly broad range of products developed to solve practical problems that ranged from getting rescue workers to disaster zones quickly to helping farmers manage the health of their livestock, improving water quality, battling fake news, and holding politicians to account.
And given the company’s vision—which they set out at this year’s Build conference—of developing a Mixed Reality ecosystem, it’s hardly surprising that we also saw a few interesting HoloLens projects cropping up as well. One of those was developed by three Biomedical Engineering students from Xidian University in China, who came up with the idea after meeting at their school’s Innovation Lab.
The students had the opportunity during the course of their studies to work with children suffering from congenital heart disease, and found that often a child’s heart was so small that standard examination and diagnosis techniques were entirely unsuitable for them. In fact, in some cases these standard adult procedures could cause serious damage to their tiny and already fragile organs.
“With our platform we can localize a lesion, and observe all the details of that lesion in a non-invasive way,” explained Maoqing Yang from the Surgical Assistant Team.
See the full story here: https://vrscout.com/news/mixed-reality-heal-young-hearts/
AI Is Taking Over the Cloud
Cloud storage company Box is using Google’s vision technology to make its service considerably smarter.
Fei-Fei Li, chief scientist of Google Cloud and a professor at Stanford University who specializes in computer vision and machine learning, said in a statement that the announcement shows how broadly available AI technology is becoming. “Ultimately it will democratize AI for more people and businesses,” Li said.
Ubiquiti Rolls Out $399 Wearable Camera for Live Streaming
Ubiquiti, a company known for selling networking products, has introduced FrontRow, a $399 Android-based wearable camera with a round display that enables “effortless capture” from a first-person point of view.
The two 55-gram (almost two-ounce) cameras, one on each side of the wearable device, offer a round 1.96-inch 640×572 LTPS (active matrix LCD) display. FrontRow features a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage
The company claims that FrontRow’s battery is good for two hours of live streaming, 16 hours of the Story Mode time-lapse feature and 48 hours of standby; it can recharge in 20 minutes via its USB Type-C port and, more slowly via USB-C phones.
FrontRow — essentially a “more fashionable GoPro,...
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/ubiquiti-rolls-out-399-wearable-camera-for-live-streaming/#more-119170
How virtual reality is changing the way we experience stage shows
We later furthered this work with the performance “@nts”, a multi-dimensional theatre performance inspired by Philip K. Dick’s The Electric Ant. This was staged at the same time in parallel universes: the real world of a real theatre space and the cyberspace of Second Life.
The world is experiencing a “personal theatre” revolution where video games, film, music and stage performances are blending together. What has been a theatre performance for hundreds of years is changing. It is no longer just focused on the here and now, but the here, now and everywhere.
See the full story here: http://theconversation.com/how-virtual-reality-is-changing-the-way-we-experience-stage-shows-81542
Deciphering the New Digital Marketing Buzzwords: Immersive, Experiential, and Multisensory
Visits to Dunkin’ Donuts spiked in South Korea when the company combined a musical jingle with a coffee aroma, released by an atomizer on municipal buses. Sales at nearby donut shops jumped 29 percent, according to Harvard Business Review.
HBR Korea story here: https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-science-of-sensory-marketing
Can We Have Our Virtual Reality Cake And Eat It Too?
This massive potential is why giants like Intel, Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Sony and Samsung are competing to dominate the field. Facebook alone has over 400 people working on VR, and an estimated 230 other companies are developing hardware and software.
Already, 75% of the Forbes World's Most Valuable Brands are starting to use either VR or AR for customers or employees, or are developing the technologies themselves, according to YouVisit, a company that helps brands engage consumers through interactive 360-degree experiences.
Research shows a 34% productivity increase for companies that adopt VR in the workplace. And profits are exploding, with mobile AR poised for a compound annual growth rate of 96% over the next five years.
This raises concerns in terms of what data is collected, how it's stored and protected, and who owns and controls it. Since many AR systems are expected to be mobile and always on — so people can constantly get extra information about their surroundings — bystanders and people in a crowd can also have their anonymity compromised.
since the Fourth Amendment is based upon a reasonable expectation of privacy, the way we use VR can have a real legal effect on our constitutional rights. The more we voluntarily share intimate details, the less legal protection we may have.
Consumers should demand that privacy technologies be built in tandem with VR technologies so that we get the maximum individual and societal benefit and minimize the burdens to businesses.
The industry should also take steps, like threat modeling and making platforms easily updatable to adapt to newfound challenges. This shouldn’t be a controversial move since manufacturers will want to build trust among consumers as they roll out these new technologies.
See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timsparapani/2017/08/16/can-we-have-our-virtual-reality-cake-and-eat-it-too/
Virtual Reality Gives Fans Real-Life Experience With NFL Team
In a partnership between Cox Communications, STRIVR and the Cardinals, fans attending Cardinals home games at University of Phoenix Stadium will be able to get a VR experience of the team’s locker room and field at the Cox Connects VR Huddle.
With the VR experience, fans are able to take a virtual tour through the Cardinals facility, including wondering through the locker room, running through the tunnel onto the field and getting in the huddle with the likes of Carson Palmer, Larry Fitzgerald, David Johnson and Patrick Peterson.
STRIVR, which was founded in January of 2015, currently provides VR training tools for seven NFL teams, 13 college football teams and one high school football team, allowing giving teams extra instruction without having to put on the pads and also better study guides on certain packages they may face.
See the full story here: https://www.rdmag.com/article/2017/08/virtual-reality-gives-fans-real-life-experience-nfl-team
Glass Barn Uses Virtual Reality to Tell Agriculture Story
The Glass Barn at the Indiana State Fair has always been about using technology to teach about agriculture. Now, a new approach gives visitors a virtual farm experience. For the past several years, visitors to the Glass Barn have been able to talk to real farmers on their farms with a 2-way, video connection. Hannah Vorsilak says this year they can also make a virtual visit, “They put on these special glasses, and you can go virtual into a hog barn. It is a 360 degree experience, so you can move your head up and down and all around and see what the inside of a hog barn looks like.”
See the full story here: https://www.hoosieragtoday.com/glass-barn-uses-virtual-reality-to-tell-ag-story/
Self-healing jelly bot regenerates when stabbed – just add heat
To prove the concept, researchers at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in Belgium created a gripper, a robot hand and an artificial muscle, all with the ability to self-heal, out of rubbery polymers that look a bit like jelly. When ripped or cut they can knit back together completely. All you need to do is apply a little heat.
“The polymer has lots of different strands that lock together to form the material. When you add heat, they reorganise to stick back together without leaving any weak spots,” says Bram Vanderborght, who led the research.
The soft materials are ideal for picking up delicate items like fruit or veg, so could find uses in the food industry. Additionally, they are useful for working alongside humans, such as in factory lines, where softer robots or robotic arms will help avoid harmful accidents.
See the full story here: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2144245-self-healing-jelly-bot-regenerates-when-stabbed-just-add-heat
UPS is developing virtual reality tech to train its drivers
The company’s new VR training program will be rolling out next month at nine of the company’s training facilities, simulating some of the uncertainties and challenges of delivering packages on city streets. Trainees will interact with the content using voice commands to identify obstacles while wearing headsets.
...it can still be an effective tool for getting prospective employees ready before they get out on the job. It’s also important because UPS drivers are a clear candidate for utilizing AR headsets in the future to more easily keep track of shipments hands-free while preparing for drop-offs and pick-ups.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/15/ups-is-developing-virtual-reality-tech-to-train-its-drivers/