philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

STUDENT HELPS REIMAGINE JOYCE’S ULYSSES FOR VIRTUAL REALITY

Presented with a first-person perspective, Joycestick is equal parts gameplay and cinematic experience, Harty said. It takes the player through a series of scenes—based on those in the novel—that “make them feel as close to being in the book as they can be,” he said.

Picking up various objects in each scene triggers a recorded narration from the book and other sounds that help to explain its significance. Each scene was recreated based on extensive research into the book and the time period.

See the full story here: https://news.northeastern.edu/2017/07/student-helps-reimagine-joyces-ulysses-for-virtual-reality/

Disney plans to make augmented reality a shared experience

Its scientists have created the Magic Bench, a blend of augmented and mixed reality that entire groups can share. It uses the combination of a camera and a depth sensor to produce a 3D recreation of you and the bench, letting virtual characters and objects interact with you as if they were there. And the seating is key to this -- it can tell the system how many people are present, where they're facing, and vibrate when a digital actor sits down. The activity you participate in depends directly on how many people are involved and what they're doing.

See the full post here: https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/26/disney-magic-bench/

Using Augmented Reality To Help Disabled Shoppers

Virtually unknown: How to put a price tag on the most progressive form of art

Former GDC boss Meggan Scavio will run an elite game academy

Scavio was formerly “GDC Bosslady,” or the head of the Game Developers Conference. She spent 18 years at the GDC’s owner, UBM, and was most recently general manager of GDC events for eight years.

The AIAS is the video game industry’s professional organization, with 35,000 members. The AIAS stages the DICE Summit in Las Vegas each spring, and it holds the DICE Europe event as well, with high-level talks from industry creative and business leaders. It puts on the prestigious DICE Awards, which are like the Oscars of gaming.

See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/26/former-gdc-bosslady-meggan-scavio-to-run-elite-game-academy/

AltspaceVR is Closing Down

In an statement delivered earlier this evening, it was announced that AltspaceVR is closing down due to “unforeseen financial difficulty” related to their upcoming round of funding falling through.

AltspaceVR will officially close on August 3rd from 5-7pm, and the team advised all enthusiasts to make sure to meet up with friends before the shutdown. They also explained that all users’ photos and friends lists can be saved at: https://account.altvr.com/events, by clicking “Friends” and “Photos,” respectively. Click CTRL + S on PC or CMD + S on Mac, and make sure it reads, “Webpage complete” to ensure the download.

See the full story here: https://vrscout.com/news/altspacevr-is-closing-down/?utm_content=buffer9adb5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

HTC Vive Reveal First Standalone VR Headset

Qualcomm will be powering HTC Vive’s all-in-one VR headset, but only for the Chinese market currently.

Without the requirement for an external PC or smartphone to operate, the Vive Standalone will utilise advanced features of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 mobile VR platform designed to support built-in VR functionality and allow developers to more rapidly release compelling content.

“China is the leading mobile market in the world today, and has the momentum to lead the global VR market as well,” said Alvin W. Graylin, China Regional President of Vive, HTC. “Partnering with Qualcomm to deliver an easy to use and more affordable Vive VR system will enable us to make premium standalone VR widely accessible to the masses in China.”

See the full story here: https://www.vrfocus.com/2017/07/htc-vive-reveal-first-standalone-vr-headset/

HoloLens 2.0 to Put a Custom A.I. Chip at the Heart of Its On-board Processor

As reported by Bloomberg, Microsoft says this the AI-capable chip is the first of its kind designed for a mobile device, one that’s light, energy efficient, and can carry out the real-time AI processing on-board instead of sending data to the cloud. This is to ensure minimum possible latency in computer vision tasks like hand tracking, object and voice recognition.

See the full story here: http://www.virtualrealitypulse.com/edition/daily-microsoft-apple-2017-07-24?open-article-id=6924332&article-title=hololens-2-0-to-put-a-custom-a-i--chip-at-the-heart-of-its-on-board-processor&blog-domain=roadtovr.com&blog-title=road-to-vr

Presence Capital Has Made 33 VR and AR Investments in Less Than 2 Years

Presence Capital — one of the earliest venture capital firms to focus on virtual reality and augmented reality startups — is today announcing that it has made 33 investments.

That’s a lot of investments for a fund that was announced in December 2015. Presence Capital has invested in Baobab Studios, Bigscreen, Harmonix, Nomadic, Meta, Resolution Games, Scope AR, Strivr, TheWaveVR, and Visbit. While Facebook bought Oculus in 2014, Presence Capital contends that its was the first VC fund to focus on VR/AR. Six of its investments are in game companies.

See the full story here: https://uploadvr.com/presence-capital-made-33-vr-ar-investments-less-2-years/

Facebook has acquired a content rights startup called Source3 to help fight video pirates

Facebook has had a lot of issues with pirated content in the past, and it has been two years since the company first announced “Rights Manager,” technology to detect and remove video clips shared by people who don’t have rights to the video. YouTube offers something similar, though more advanced, called Content ID.

In April, Facebook added another option for rights holders: Leave the content up, and make money off the views that these pirates are generating for you.

Given the acquisition of Source3, it’s clear that Facebook hasn’t yet perfected its rights management technology. The company would ultimately like to be home to lots of professionally produced video, which is why it’s paying publishers and movie studios to make videos exclusively for the social network.

Update: This isn’t the first time Source3’s founders, Patrick Sullivan and Ben Cockerham have sold a content rights startup. They sold their previous company — RightsFlow, which focused on music IP — to Google back in 2011.

See the full story here: https://www.recode.net/2017/7/24/16021448/facebook-acquisition-source3-video-rights-management-ip