What Happens When You Can’t Look Away? How VR Developers Used Gaze Activated Technology To Captivate Comic-Con
A young woman runs up to the camera, frantic. She begs the viewer not to look away from her, to steady their eyes — but then, in the corner, a flash. And then another one, just out the corner of your eye. And she continues to beg, the viewer finds it harder and harder to focus, until eventually, most give in and glance over. With an ominous warning, she disappears, replaced by a fearsome monster.
The most interesting part of the experience was that the user didn’t know their actions had any impact on the story. Done overtly, gaze-activation can lend a “choose your own adventure” sheen to a piece, which is fine if that’s the aim. But done covertly, it can provide fascinating insight into the human mind, not to mention a subtle way to make an experience interactive without having to hand someone controllers.
see the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/what-happens-when-you-cant-look-away-how-vr-developers-used-gaze-activated-technology-to-captivate-comic-con/
Space-starved Hong Kong could get its first virtual cemetery for green burials
Imagine remembering your loved ones in a virtual cemetery that displays a digitalised version of your favourite location, while in real life, their ashes are stored in a high-rise columbarium that bans most tribute rituals.
This is what 80-year-old industrialist and inventor Yuen Se-kit and his son Anthony Yuen Sze-ming want to achieve.
As the city continues to age, the government has projected the number of deaths will double from 46,900 last year to 97,600 by 2064.
The share of people being cremated has increased from 35 per cent in 1975 to 93 per cent last year, while the share of green burials accounted for 9 per cent in 2015.
Yuen says the columbarium will ban incense or the burning of offerings to reduce pollution.
See the full story here: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/2103733/hongkongers-encouraged-enter-virtual-world-pay
IKEA better hope its Apple ARKit furniture app looks as good as this developer’s app
If you've already seen ARKit apps in action, this might sound like just another AR demo, but you have to watch the video to realize just how powerful the app is. In just under a minute, Vollmer populates an empty space — while people are moving about in the background — with realistic looking furniture, plants, and even a working fireplace.
See the full story here: http://mashable.com/2017/07/22/arkit-furniture-app-augmented-reality/#22JFwIGIJsqj
EON Reality appoints new Chairman of the Board: Göran Malm, a former President of General Electric Asia Pacific
EON Reality Inc., the world leader in Augmented and Virtual Reality based knowledge transfer for industry and education, announces that Göran Malm has been selected to serve as Chairman of EON Reality effective as of July 18, 2017. Malm has served on EON Reality’s Advisory Board since 2001 and brings his expertise in the Industry, Medical and Technology sectors as well as regional expertise in Asia to EON Reality’s operations. He succeeds Dan Lejerskar who will continue, in his capacity as a Founder of EON Reality, to actively lead the EON Human 2.0 Initiative and its global expansion.
See the full story here: https://www.eonreality.com/press-releases/eon-reality-appoints-new-chairman-board-goran-malm-former-president-general-electric-asia-pacific/
Grindr, virtual reality and vlogging: new ways to talk about sexual health
The first Global Advisory Board for Sexual Health and Wellbeing brings together a group of individuals who are using innovative ways to reach more people with information about sex and relationships. Here are some of the projects they’ve been working on:
Grindr to reach patients at risk of HIV in the US
Usigli thought about using Grindr, a dating app for gay men, to raise awareness of HIV. He set up a profile as a male nurse to tell at-risk patients about the services offered at the clinic. He then developed a script for healthcare professionals to use.
The success rate has been astonishingly high. In the first month of using the app in this way, more than 20 new at-risk patients came to the clinic for a variety of preventative services, such as sexual health counselling, HIV/STI testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).
Virtual sex education aimed at overcoming societal taboos in India
In India, there are high levels of domestic violence , mostly against women. Both women and men refuse to report such crimes to the police.
In June 2017, Love Matters, a website providing information on relationships, sex and love, produced India’s first virtual reality immersive experience on physical, sexual or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse. The film, Kya Yahi Pyar Hai? (Is this love?), uses VR to narrate a powerful story and connect with young people.
See the full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2017/jul/21/grindr-virtual-reality-vlogging-new-ways-talk-sexual-health
Culture for a digital age
McKinsey’s recent survey of global executives (Exhibit 1), which highlighted three digital-culture deficiencies: functional and departmental silos, a fear of taking risks, and difficulty forming and acting on a single view of the customer.
As Ed Catmull of Pixar said in a 2016 McKinsey Quarterly interview, “One of the things about failure is that it’s asymmetrical with respect to time. When you look back and see failure, you say, ‘It made me what I am!’ But looking forward, you think, ‘I don’t know what is going to happen and I don’t want to fail.’ The difficulty is that when you’re running an experiment, it’s forward looking. We have to try extra hard to make it safe to fail.”
Capital markets have typically been averse to investments that are hard to understand, that underperform, or that take a long time to reach fruition.
See the full story here: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/culture-for-a-digital-age?curator=MediaREDEF
A Gamer Channel’s Mission: Send the Trolls and Harassers Packing
What sets Misscliks apart is its response to such behavior. Whenever a sexist remark pops up, the Misscliks community quickly jumps in to explain that the channel’s mission is to be a diverse space where underrepresented gamers can feel safe from harassment and bullying. Commenters who persist are given timeouts, or sometimes banned outright.
“Misscliks is an example of a space grown from the ground up to model a different and less toxic environment,” said Naomi Clark, an assistant arts professor at New York University’s department of game design. “Their team deliberately set expectation and policy from the beginning to counter harassment.”
Of the 2.2 million channels on Twitch, which is owned by Amazon,Misscliks was one of the first to explicitly lay out a goal of being a place where people of all genders and backgrounds could participate in gamer culture without fear, prejudice or harassment.
The popularity of the Misscliks mission has yet to be determined. The channel has just over 23,000 followers, a fraction of the millions of followers drawn to some of the more popular Twitch channels.
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/technology/personaltech/a-gamer-channels-mission-send-the-trolls-packing.html