philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

6Apr/17Off

Should You Use Virtual Reality at Your Event?

[Phil Lelyveld comment - these are good rules to live by for ANY VR / AR / MR project.]

1. What is the goal of using VR at your event?

2. Does VR make sense in the space you have?

3. Will your audience want to use it?

4. Could another piece of event technology do it better?

5. How does VR tie in to your promotion and branding?

See the full story here: http://www.tsnn.com/news-blogs/should-you-use-virtual-reality-your-event

6Apr/17Off

How Salem’s Augmented Reality Exhibit is Actually a Social Mission

rsz_virtual_wuhan-936x340From May 27 to Nov. 30, the Salem Maritime National Historic Site will feature 10 augmented reality sculptures in a free exhibition that's open to the public. The exhibits are going to be positioned throughout the park via GPS, and will be viewable using the augmented reality app Layer. For visitors that don’t have a smart device with them, there will be phones and tablets for checkout.

The work will be curated by five internationally-acclaimed artists: John Craig Freeman, Kristin Lucas, Will Pappenheimer, Mark Skwarek, and Tamiko Thiel.

I caught up with one of the artists, John Craig Freeman, ... Freeman will bring virtual sights from Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Wuhan, China, to the Port of Salem. Visitors will have the chance to look at the former house of a Russian Tea Merchant and the cathedrals of Saint Petersburg. He explained that the location for the exhibit works especially well, as the Baltic region and China have had a shared history of trade with Port of Salem.

[Meron Gribetz] “And what I think we need to do as a community, is really try and make an effort to imagine how we can create this new reality in a way that extends the human experience, instead of gamifying our reality or cluttering it with digital information.”

See the full story here: http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2017/04/05/boston-cyberarts-brings-augmented-reality-to-salem-maritime-site/

6Apr/17Off

UCSD to formally open its new virtual reality lab

The university invested $250,000 to create the lab in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, one of the most crowded programs on campus. The lab has been ramping up since last fall.

The new lab also is heavily focused on augmented reality (AR)...

“Augmented reality is an incredible way to interact with the real world,” said Rajesh Gupta, a UC San Diego computer science professor who raised the public and private money needed to open the lab.

“Ten years from now you might been somewhat crippled without AR glasses.”

See the full story here: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/sd-me-virtualreality-ucsd-20170405-story.html

6Apr/17Off

‘Pokemon GO’ CEO Says VR is So Good It’s a “Problem for Society”

las-vegas-nv---january-05--quark-virtual-reality-headsets-are-on-display-during-ces-2017-at-the-laNiantic CEO John Hanke thinks VR is great. So great, in fact, that it might actually ruin our lives. Hanke, whose company debuted the wildly-successful Augmented Reality game Pokémon GO, sees virtual reality escapism as a potential issue for his children’s psychological health.

“My thing about VR is I’m afraid it can be too good, in the sense of being an experience that people want to spend a huge amount of time in,” Hanke said at the Mixed Reality Summit in London on Tuesday, according to a report by GamesIndustry.biz. “I mean, I already have concerns about my kids playing too much Minecraft, and that’s a wonderful game.”

The solution, Hanke says, is augmented reality, the technology that Pokémon GO uses.

“With AR, there’s a huge amount of potential to do things that really do have a positive impact on people,” he told the conference. “I think there’s a ton of good that can be done.”

See the full story here: https://www.inverse.com/article/29981-virtual-reality-vr-augmented-reality-ar-pokemon-go

6Apr/17Off

New HTC Vives Weigh 15% Less Than They Did at Launch

htc-vive-pre-caption-680x451HTC has managed to shave 15% off of the original 550 grams (1.21 pounds), bringing the headset’s weight in line with the Oculus Rift.

See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/htc-vive-weight-15-percent-lighter-than-original-headset-vs-oculus-rift-comparison/

5Apr/17Off

EON Reality’s AVR Platform makes Virtual reality and Augmented Reality application development easy and strengthens the man and machine connection

avr-update-1-ed8493e9ba689c16be777a749df1668b_originalSee the full story here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/eon-realitys-avr-platform-makes-130000246.html
Hardware agnostic AR VR Publishing Supports More Than 30 Systems allowing applications to scale from "Phone to Dome." AVR content can be privately or publically published on tablets, smart phones (iOS, Android), VR Mobile Devices (Google Cardboard, Zeiss ONE, Samsung VR Gear, Google Tango, etc.), AR Glasses (ODG, Epson, HoloLens, etc.) and other EON Reality Immersive Products.

Add-On Modules

5Apr/17Off

Launch of augmented reality project set to bring new life to historic Bath and other UK sites

heritagecity_bathapp‘England’s Historic Cities’ app, a ground-breaking AR experience, was launched on 31st March to celebrate English Tourism Week and will transport the user back in time to unveil the hidden lives of some of history’s most fascinating characters at The Roman Baths.

The premise of the app is to capture significant historic moments in time whilst providing tourists the opportunity to explore England’s most historic cities.

In Bath, the latest technology will help you unravel the history of the Roman Bath’s gradual discovery and evolution. With the app you can unearth the fascinating past of the Roman Baths and rediscover the ancient curiosities that lie just beneath the surface by joining one of the Bath’s most remarkable architects – Major Charles Edward Davis.

The exciting new project is one of a number of projects to benefit from the by the £40 million Discover England Fund –  a central government funded programme of activity administered by VisitEngland supported by match-funding from private and public partners.

See the full story here: http://www.bathecho.co.uk/news/community/launch-augmented-reality-project-set-bring-new-life-historic-bath-72073/

5Apr/17Off

Project to walk schoolkids through troubled black orphanage in virtual reality

hal201_20170330397602.jpg;w=630Gerry Morrison's childhood memories of life in the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children are painful, but he has agreed to relive them so a groundbreaking virtual-reality project can ensure future generations will never forget.

The 64-year-old is one of three narrators who will take students wearing Oculus Rift headsets on simulated walks through the now-vacant orphanage on the eastern outskirts of Halifax, once the pilot project is prepared for four Grade 11 classrooms by the fall of 2018.

Morrison said Nova Scotians need to hear his voice and imagine how children struggled with isolation and a sense of neglect in the underfunded home where hundreds of black children spent their childhood.

See the full story here: https://www.localxpress.ca/local-news/project-to-walk-schoolkids-through-troubled-black-orphanage-in-virtual-reality-580366

5Apr/17Off

Naval officers bring virtual reality to Harrison Central High

13540285_G"It was crazy. I did not expect it to be that hard at all. It blew my mind. I learned from it, so now, I can take what I learned and move forward," Deniya noted.

"In the simulator, students can take a boat and operate it through virtual reality. They then extract the SEALS, go through a debrief, and get a grade on their performance throughout the situation," said Reynolds.

See the full story with video here: http://www.wlox.com/story/35069530/naval-officers-bring-virtual-reality-to-harrison-central-high

5Apr/17Off

HTC Unveils Subscription Service for Vive VR Headset Users

Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC has rolled out its anticipated monthly subscription service for virtual reality content, including video games and short interactive films. For a $7 per month fee, users can download up to five VR titles a month from the online Viveport store. HTC is positioning the new service as a way for customers to try out an app before they decide to purchase it. The service is only available to owners of the HTC Vive VR headset. Among the titles initially available are “Everest VR” and “Mars Odyssey.”

See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/htc-unveils-subscription-service-for-vive-vr-headset-users/