Sneak Peek: ‘Sword Of Baahubali’ Virtual Reality Experience Puts You Inside The Movie’s World
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
Study: This virtual reality simulation could reduce fear of death
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
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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.
‘WHAT WOMEN WANT’ Porn firm offers virtual reality ‘sex education’ to help ladies become better lovers
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/
Augmented World Expo: ETC Presents the Dark Side of AR
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/
Peter Jackson’s Augmented Reality Demo Debuts At Apple Conference
The demo was introduced today in San Jose by WingNutAR creative director Alasdair Coull, formerly head of R&D at Weta Digital, and featured a sci-fi-based aerial attack at a remote space outpost. It was used to show off Apple’s new AR tool ARKit.
Jackson was not at the conference; he’s back in New Zealand working on his next pic Mortal Engines. He and co-founder Fran Walsh formed the AR unit more than a year ago and have since been developing software, conducting R&D, and beginning to create content.
The plan is for WingNutAR to have its first commercial AR content available in Apple’s app store by late 2017.
See the full story here: http://deadline.com/2017/06/peter-jackson-augmented-reality-demo-apple-wwdc-2017-1202107785/
Interview: Two Bit Circus is using VR to cram 50-acre amusement parks into 50,000 sqft spaces
Brent Bushnell is the co-founder of a company that wants to build a family of high-tech amusement park-type operations around the country. And as if that’s not enough, when he’s not busy laying the groundwork for the first of those facilities – which is planned for Downtown Los Angeles and set to launch in early 2018 — he married Maggie Grace, the actress on Lost and Taken, this month.
“There’s kind of this backlash against technology, this idea that people are always on their phones and that their interactions with other people are mediated by technology,” Bushnell said. “We’d sort of like to reposition it and facilitate it with technology. At the end of the day, you and I are going to be elbow-to-elbow playing a game together, as opposed to being connected to our million closest friends while we’re just alone in our basement.”
The target market the company has identified is affluent young adults. Professionals perhaps out for a drink after work, 20- and 30-somethings who might otherwise be going bowling or looking for an escape room experience in the area. The founders even foresee company team-building events taking place in their spaces, maybe even client presentations there.
“Most people get to go to Disneyland maybe twice in their life,” he said. “Once as a kid and maybe once as a parent. We’re looking for something smaller that can be deployed in every major city — in the 40,000-80,000 square foot range, which you can just about put in every major city. We’re also looking for much more regular visitors. You’d come here more than twice in your life. We’re looking at all sort of different ways to engage people on a week-to-week or a month-to-month basis.”
See the full story here: http://bgr.com/2017/05/30/vr-amusement-parks-two-bit-circus-interview/
Osram IR LED will enable augmented and virtual reality headsets
Emitting in the infrared spectrum at 850 nm, the new Osram Opto Semiconductors SFH 4055 LED targets eye-tracking applications including headsets for augmented and virtual reality systems.
The IR LED has a tiny footprint that will allow integration into or around glasses in headsets worn by users, from gamers to scientists.
Osram based the new LED on the Firefly LED architecture that has been utilized as the basis for numerous LEDs that emit in the visible spectrum. The packaged LED emits light sideways. And the 1×0.325×0.55-mm footprint allows a number of the LEDs to be mounted in a typical headset. The LEDs direct IR light at the eye and the reflection is captured by camera-based sensors to track eye movement.
See the full story here: http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/2017/06/osram-ir-led-will-enable-augmented-and-virtual-reality-headsets.html