Kevin Westcott, vice chairman and U.S. media and entertainment leader at Deloitte, told CNBC that bundling seems to be a huge deterrent for cord cutting.
While the percentage of consumers who pay for at least one streaming service has climbed from 10 percent in 2009 to 49 percent in 2016, those with TV subscriptions have remained relatively stable over the same period.
cognitiveVR provides 3D spatial analytics and user feedback tools for VR/AR, enabling organizations to quickly and easily display analytics on their users’ sessions and collect deep metrics on user behavior and feedback.
Construct Studio is a bilingual independent studio dedicated to creating interactive narrative experiences for VR. Construct has recently created their first interactive VR narrative “The Price of Freedom”, based on the real events of CIA mind control program Project MK Ultra.
Created by founders of Phosphor Games, the studio behind the worldwide hit VR shooter ‘The Brookhaven Experiment’, Forbidden Mechanics was formed with the single-minded passion to create the greatest competitive online multiplayer shooter for VR.
HyperfairVR is a SaaS web-based social VR solution for enterprises. It allows businesses to self-build and easily customize their own branded VR environment, and quickly publish to multiple platforms to engage with customers and employees in VR via avatars.
Limitless is a cloud-based platform that aims to make it easier to create VR content. Using the Limitless VR Creative Environment, creators can animate characters directly in VR using motion controls, simplifying the animation process for newcomers and professionals alike.
Mindesk developed the first immersive interface for commercial CAD software in the world. With Mindesk, engineers, architects and designers can build their models naturally in VR, while collaborating in real time in the cloud.
Realiteer develops and distributes immersive and evidence-based programs in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which has been clinically shown to treat substance abuse, anxiety, and depression. It is working closely with world-class academic researchers to design and build these programs.
The Rogue Initiative is a new VR and Digital Media content studio, creating AAA cinematic interactive entertainment. The Rogue Initiative collaborates with established Hollywood talent to co-create and co-own new intellectual property in VR that can be further developed into various franchises.
Subdream is a social VR gaming studio founded by serial gaming entrepreneur Jikhan Jung. Subdream plans on releasing quality multiplayer games that can be played at VR arcades and at home.
Vertebrae is a native advertising platform for VR and AR. The headset-agnostic tech stack connects advertisers with developers and publishers to deliver immersive, native VR/AR/360 video advertising experiences.
Beijing
Mint Muse develops immersive audio technology and innovations, providing market-leading capture devices, immersive audio workstations, rendering SDKs and live broadcasting solutions for the VR community.
Hexa is changing the way we experience our planet by making it easy to create and scale 3D content. Hexa automatically converts 2D photos into 3D assets and enable online retailers to create virtual equivalents of their collections and display them online.
Vito, a pioneering VR education game studio, inherits the philosophy of Ge Wu Zhi Zhi, which encourages learning through exploration. Its series of original content includes Nature and Science discovery, Historical and Social stories, and Physical environment simulations.
Invrse Reality aims to fuse physical and virtual reality. Our unique interface design and touch input will bring meaningful user experiences to your fingertips.
PlusOne is an AR + AI startup creating interactive intelligent human holograms which can be used by enterprises to train their employees to interact more effectively with customers.
Multiverse is a world-class VR studio founded by game industry veterans from places like Wevr, Disney, Riot, Ubisoft, Com2us, and CJ E&M. Multiverse is poised to create industry-defining content and help bring VR to the masses. Multiverse’s previous game, Reveries: Dream Flight, is one of the highest-rated VR games worldwide, and a top selling title on the Oculus Store.
Red Accent is a game creator with a strong track record developing games for console, PC and mobile. Red Accent is currently working on sports and adventure titles and is based out of Shanghai and San Francisco.
Byond is a cloud-based VR publishing platform empowering brands, media companies and agencies to create their own personalized interactive universe in VR. Using Byond’s tools, VR applications can be easily created and published across all platforms.
OVA’s StellarX it’s the best tool out there for non-programmers to develop their own VR environments in VR—and through simple grab-and-drop creation.
Shenzhen
Transmind offers more than just a fun multiplayer game. Players can assume different identities in a virtual world and socialize with others, while watching videos, playing games, casually chatting, and even finding their significant others.
Aurora AR’s goal is to be the leader in augmented reality glass optics and device design. Our first product is a 135-degree field of view augmented reality glass that works under daylight, and is cost-effective for consumers.
Kiwi Technology specializes in providing consumer products with detecting and tracking technology through an RGB camera, along with 3D graphics and visual effects. KiwiFace mobile and VR SDK have been widely adopted by over a dozen major live-streaming/short video/VR products, reaching hundreds of million devices by the first half of 2017.
Shengda provides VR solutions and training for vocational and K-12 education to replace hazardous experiment/training for employees, such as working with high- voltage engines in electrical vehicles. Shengda also helps local governments build up VR education centers in Shenzhen, Sichuan, Chongqing, and Jilin.
Brokencolors builds and integrates head-based sensing technologies that bring the users’ gaze, facial expressions, and mindsets into the virtual world. Our sensing technologies are creating a more immersive experience for VR users.
bHaptics enables users to enjoy VR with visual, auditory, and haptic feedback. Our distinguished haptic devices and haptic authoring software are the ideal solution for conveniently adding appropriate haptic feedback to various VR content.
SoccerDream is a VR football training technology that helps clubs and academies make their players smarter, and keep them highly motivated, just as the world’s top clubs do.
Taipei
Opaque Space is a premier developer of consumer and simulation VR experiences. Opaque Space is developing the acclaimed VR game Earthlight and collaborating with NASA to develop VR training tools for the next generation of astronauts.
Snobal builds tools to enable businesses to better collaborate and engage via interactive, photo-realistic 3D virtual experiences. Snobal aims to extend and enhance existing customer, partner and workplace engagement and co-creation experiences in roles responsible for leading growth, strategy, marketing, communications, and research and development.
Memora is a global leading 360-degree camera manufacturer that provides a new way to communicate and archive moments in 360VR and AI.
Xikaku develops AR technology for applications in industrial and medical fields. Our first product, the X-Visor, is an analysis and visualization system allowing factory personnel do precise and efficient machine inspection using an overlay of real-time sensor data. Our systems provide a platform to dramatically enhance the capabilities and skills of human resources in mission critical applications.
Appnori Inc. is a sports-focused VR game development company, developing games such as baseball and table tennis, which can be enjoyed by all users regardless of age.
VRANI’s goal is to provide VR’s fantastic experiences to users by focusing on interactive VR characters. Through four core-playing experiences, Easy-Play, Extreme-Play, Interactive-Play and Multi-Play, we create fun and easy casual VR content.
TEGway is a manufacturer of flexible thermoelectric device (F-TED). TEGway developed the world’s first high performance F-TED. Based on F-TED technology, TEGway is introducing “ThermoReal”® solution which enables players to feel temperature and pain in the game/VR/AR environment.
Each accepted company gets an undisclosed investment and hands-on mentorship from HTC. Although part of HTC, the company says Vive X investments do not include “onerous deal terms that would exclude other platforms,” so that devs remain free to put their VR/AR wares where they see fit.
From lazing on a tropical beach to exploring a city destination, shopping for duty-free goods to meditating, the immersive experiences virtual reality (VR) can offer could transform the onboard experience for airline passengers. The technology is there already, but are airlines, passengers and inflight entertainment (IFE) providers ready to make the leap?
This entire movie is filmed with the use of virtual reality technology to create a more realistic experience. It all goes down in the Dignitas clinic, a Swiss facility specialized in assisted suicide. It is also quite an interactive experience, as the player’s “partner” will ask if the player has any last words.
The Last Moments is also designed to provide players with an ethical question. During this movie experience, the player sees the text “Death, is it your right to choose?” flash on the screen. Viewers will undoubtedly make a decision to see how the rest of this scenario plays out. This is by far one of the most impressive VR experiences the world has seen so far, and rest assured it will bring some people to tears as they go through the motions.
The Swiss Dignitas clinic was not too amused by this VR concept at first, although they are pleased with the end result. The Last Moments is a very gripping VR experience, even if the characterization leaves a lot to be desired.
Lines of people crowded the Hannah’s parking lot on Saturday for a virtual reality chocolate experience through cartoon Papua New Guinea.
Tony St George, owner of Polytronik VR, and Gabe Davidson, co-owner of Wellington Chocolate Factory, debuted their VR “showcoaster” after two years of development.
After putting on an Oculus headset, users are taken on a guided tour through a cartoon Papua New Guinea chocolate farm run by little birds called the OooEee.
According to SuperData, sales of high-end VR devices were slow in 2016, with Oculus and Vive selling less than 700,000 total. Oculus recently stopped doing demos in many department stores for lack of interest. And while the mid-range Samsung Gear VR leads the pack with nearly 5 million units, that’s still a fraction of the 100 million or so Samsung smartphones the headset was designed to work with. All this strongly suggests a lack of viral growth or a killer app to drive it.
In the short to medium term, at least, we’re more likely to see social VR embraced by a small contingent of core users, leaving the rest of us behind.
This takes me to a related and even more difficult problem for social VR:
Social VR arrives in the market at a time when broadband and mobile devices have totally remade our model of media consumption. Where it was once appointment-based, in which families and friends would regularly meet in person whenever their favorite TV show was on, we largely use DVRs and streaming services to time shift.
I believe the way forward is thinking about social VR embedded in a larger social experience that transcends VR. Or to put it another way: Once one of your friends puts on a VR headset, what do the rest of you do?
To have any chance at succeeding in a similar fashion, virtual reality developers must devote themselves not just to creating powerful 3D experiences, but also powerful bridges to decades of 2D content, the devices they were built for — and just as key, the people still connected to them.
Robin Rhode's `Gusheshe', loosely translated as acceleration, invites viewers to burrow their heads into a drawing of a BMW E30 and step through the fiery trail the car leaves behind.
Rhode's work was one of five virtual reality (VR) pieces on display at Art Basel in Hong Kong this week.
The VR works were the outcome of a collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, whch invited artists selected by Art Basel, to residencies in Beijing and Paris.
In Virtual-Virtual Reality, a satirical Google Daydream VR game released today, a melting slab of butter orders you to smear toast on his unctuous body. When he demands more toast, 32 toasters appear. Toast is burning, popping out onto the floor. The butter is unhappy; he yells at you to “cover his butter body,” but it’s impossible to rub all of the toast on him in time.
“This was only a modicum of indulgence,” butter later writes in his three-star review of your services. “The attendant clearly displayed human deficiency in coordination competence.”
It’s a game with a lot of layers. The deeper in you go, the more impossible tasks you’re given; and the more “immersed” you get in V-VR ’s virtual service tasks, the more your ratings drop. You feel alienated by the gap between what services you can provide and what’s being asked of you, and, consequently, from the VR technology. That’s when you’re contacted by a human labor union—fitting for when you miss human reality most.
V-VR nails its mockery of corporate VR and the “immersion” buzzword so well that the only medium capable of conveying its many themes is VR itself.
In response to littering and damage at Chicago's Loyola Dunes Restoration Site, an Illinois state representative introduced “Pidgey’s Law"—named for a Pokemon character—which would fine app developers if they do not remove checkpoints within two days of receiving a complaint. The short turnaround time and the cost of the fines ($100 per-day per-infraction) means developers would have to expend resources to vet every one of their checkpoints; in the case of Pokemon Go, that's more than 4 million worldwide.
The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors last month approved an ordinance requiring companies to obtain the equivalent of an event permit before introducing location-based augmented-reality features that would draw users to local parks. Fees range from $100 to $1,000 and would require developers to estimate how many people are expected to be using the app in the park each day.
In New York State, Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, threatened to introduce even tougher legislation that would hold companies like Niantic liable for user safety, citing accounts of distracted Pokemon Go players using the app while driving or while walking in the middles of the street.
"Entertainment and technology have gone together for a long time," says Andrea Belz, the vice dean for technology innovation and entrepreneurship at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. "L.A. is a great place to do that. There's a lot of talent here to support it."
"Investors from other parts of the country go to Silicon Valley because they can access a much deeper talent pool," USC's Belz says. "That same pool exists here in L.A. Talent here tends to give investors a lot of options."
From lazing on a tropical beach to exploring a city destination, shopping for duty-free goods to meditating, the immersive experiences virtual reality (VR) can offer could transform the onboard experience for airline passengers. The technology is there already, but are airlines, passengers and inflight entertainment (IFE) providers ready to make the leap?
Lines of people crowded the Hannah’s parking lot on Saturday for a virtual reality chocolate experience through cartoon Papua New Guinea.
According to SuperData, sales of high-end VR devices were slow in 2016, with Oculus and Vive selling less than 700,000 total. Oculus recently stopped doing demos in many department stores for lack of interest. And while the mid-range Samsung Gear VR leads the pack with nearly 5 million units, that’s still a fraction of the 100 million or so Samsung smartphones the headset was designed to work with. All this strongly suggests a lack of viral growth or a killer app to drive it.
In Virtual-Virtual Reality, a satirical Google Daydream VR game released today, a melting slab of butter orders you to smear toast on his unctuous body. When he demands more toast, 32 toasters appear. Toast is burning, popping out onto the floor. The butter is unhappy; he yells at you to “cover his butter body,” but it’s impossible to rub all of the toast on him in time.
"Entertainment and technology have gone together for a long time," says Andrea Belz, the vice dean for technology innovation and entrepreneurship at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. "L.A. is a great place to do that. There's a lot of talent here to support it."