A new collaboration between the California State Library and Oculus VR, a division of Facebook Inc., will bring virtual reality technology to patrons in nearly half of the library jurisdictions throughout California.
Each of the participating library systems will be awarded one or two Rifts and Oculus Ready PCs from Facebook and Oculus free of charge. Alongside the virtual reality equipment, libraries will be provided online training and the opportunity to also receive free or reduced cost virtual reality programs and equipment. Libraries will receive their equipment and training this month and will be able to begin offering virtual reality programs in late June or early July.
This project is managed by Califa, a nonprofit, and is supported in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act.
See the full story here: http://www.library.ca.gov/pressreleases/pdf/Virtual_Reality_Release.pdf
Consulting firm PwC predicts a 6.3 percent compound annual growth rate for console video games over the next five years in the U.S., with revenue increasing from $21 billion in 2016 to $28.5 billion in 2021. “That doesn’t include PC games microtransaction revenue, which is expected to grow from $3 billion in 2016 to $4.2 billion in 2021,” reports VentureBeat. PwC also predicts social and casual games will surpass console games this year. Meanwhile, the PwC forecast points to significantly faster growth rates for virtual reality and eSports in the U.S.
“It estimates 68 million VR headsets will be in use in the U.S. by 2021, with the unit numbers growing at a 69.2 percent CAGR,” notes VentureBeat. “VR is expected to add nearly the same revenue as TV advertising during the period.”
PwC predicts a 22.6 percent CAGR for eSports, climbing from $108 million in 2016 to $299 million in 2021.
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/06/pwc-predicts-moderate-growth-for-u-s-video-games-but-fast-growth-for-vr-and-esports/
and here: http://www.etcentric.org/pwc-forecast-points-to-growth-in-gaming-vr-and-esports/
[Phil Lelyveld comment: I disagree with much of this. His ideas are limited and short-sighted.]
Jesse Schell, CEO of Schell Games and professor at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the game industry’s finest speakers.
In his 2025 predictions for VR and AR, he voiced concerns about the obstacles to growth for VR and the challenges that AR faces in just getting out the door. He believes VR will be a $7.5 billion to $22.5 billion market by 2025. That might seem optimistic, but he said that other predictions are wildly wrong. By 2025, he thinks VR will be no more than 5 percent to 15 percent of the overall game industry.
After hunting down torrent sites for more than a decade, Hollywood now has a more complex piracy threat to deal with. According to the Motion Picture Association, illegal streaming devices can be seen as "Piracy 3.0," offering a Netflix-like experience to consumers, but without rightsholders getting paid.
Piracy remains a major threat for the movie industry, MPA Stan McCoy said yesterday during a panel session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
After McCoy praised the collaboration between the MPA(A) and Russian authorities in their fight against online piracy, the President and Managing Director of the MPA’s EMEA region noted that pirates are not standing still.
McCoy stressed that the devices themselves, and software such as Kodi, are ‘probably’ not illegal. However, the addition of copyright-infringing pirate add-ons turns them into an unprecedented piracy threat.
See the full story here: https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-sees-illegal-streaming-devices-as-piracy-3-0-170502/
Zac Fields, senior vice president of graphic tech and integration at FOX Sports, explained that there will be two versions of augmented reality used for the broadcast next week.
The first is during live action. Every tee shot will be highlighted by some sort of ball-tracing technology — nine tee boxes are equipped with Toptracer for live real-time video overlay, while the other nine have Trackman radar devices that provide enhanced data and are used for FOX FlightTrack, a live trace over a graphic representation of the hole.
Augmented reality will also be used for graphics in the studio, like virtual leaderboards and virtual holes, which “allow our analysts to break down every hole on the golf course in unique fashion,” Fields noted. FOX is using a 75-foot crane that captures overhead views to make this graphics feature possible.
Drones will also be flying around before the tournament starts as FOX captures aerial video to show during its coverage. FOX is also using 4K cameras on three holes.
All in all, FOX will use 110 total cameras, 216 microphones, 36 miles of fiber optic cabling, and more than 62,000 man hours to put the broadcast together.
Some of the tech that FOX tested in 2015, like virtual reality, won’t be used this time around.
See the full story here: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/fox-sports-brings-drones-augmented-reality-shot-tracers-u-s-open-broadcast/
Perhaps most exciting of all is the virtual reality (VR) experience Sword of Baahubali, which has been several years in the making and is now being readied for release starting in India this year.
I recently had the opportunity to visit the AMD studio in Hollywood where many of the technical and creative aspects of the VR experience have been managed. Hosting my visit were Project Manager James Knight, and Senior Tech Developer Anthony Huertas.
The Sword of Baahubali will be introduced to the public as a location-based experience that will release this summer at mall kiosks across India, in what will be the first stage of a multi-country rollout.
See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2017/06/06/sword-of-baahubali-virtual-reality-experience-puts-you-inside-the-movies-world/#333a6a722895
Scientists are using VR headsets to create out-of-body experiences that may be able to reduce the fear of death, according to a recently published study. According to Mel Slater, one of the study’s authors and a research professor at the University of Barcelona
....
After the study, participants in the main group reported lower anxiety about death than the control group, although researchers admit the study is still in the preliminary stages. Limited as it may be, it should surprise no one that a virtual reality simulation could help overcome fears — even the fear of death. It is, after all, being studied in multiple other scientific disciplines as a way to do just that.
BaDoinkVR, a company which describes itself as “the world’s premiere destination for adult virtual reality entertainment”, has teamed up with a top sex educator for a new sex series called Virtual Sexology II: What Women Want.
The “cutting edge experience” is designed to offer lessons in how to “enhance sexual pleasure and performance—both solo and with partners”.
It allows women to put on a VR helmet and disappear into a world where well-hung men are always on hand to deliver a foot rub – and perform all manner of other sex acts too.
The sex scenes are filmed from the woman’s perspective, allowing ladies to imagine they are involved in the action.2
See the full story here: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/3734722/porn-firm-offers-virtual-reality-sex-education-to-help-ladies-become-better-lovers/
Shane Dorian and Albee Layer set off to the Scottish coast, searching the cold, gray waters of the North Atlantic for a ridable wave. What they found was a heavy slab wave off of an unnamed cliff. Inspired by a story from Albee, they decided an appropriate name would be “Blood Eagle”, after a ceremonial offering.
Experience the story with Shane and Albee in virtual reality. From the high cliffs to the powerful wave breaking on a shallow, rocky shelf, it's made all the more real in this immersive 360 experience.
See the full story here: https://www.tetongravity.com/video/surf/explore-secret-scottish-waves-in-virtual-reality
The ETC@USC’s Phil Lelyveld gave a presentation on the dark side of AR at Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara on Friday. His goal was to raise awareness of some fundamental issues now, before there is resistance to change from established AR and VR business models. Phil began by describing how the AR and VR landscape is integrally linked to the Internet of Things (it feeds data to the AR/VR experience), artificial intelligence (it will shape the end-user experience and avatar behavior), and to a lesser degree, robotics (the relatable face of the AI).
As described in the AWE program: “We are in the process of redefining reality; erasing the boundaries between the real and the virtual. We are building experiences under the assumption that we are doing the right thing … or at least that the technology is morally neutral.”
“We are plugging them into AI resources that we barely understand. But there is a political, social, and moral underpinning to every approach to coding and world building. To date there has been a lack of thoughtful discussion of the intended and unintended consequences of what we are building. Let’s at least raise some questions to get the debate started.”
During his presentation, Phil raised three dark-side issues: lack of adequate security, exponential increase of personal data gathered, and embedded bias and psychological manipulation in the AI that may go undetected for a long time.
In each case, Phil referenced work on possible paths to solutions. He closed by saying that these are not problems; they are known elements of an emerging system and should be part of any planning discussion.
“We are defining the starting point and ‘training set’ for future generations” he said.
Phil’s presentation deck is available online. The video of his presentation should be available on the AWE 2017 website around June 15.
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/augmented-world-expo-etc-presents-the-dark-side-of-ar/
