philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

HTC set to bring VR to ‘thousands’ of arcades in Asia by end of 2017

HTC wants to bring the arcade back to America with a modern VR twist by focusing efforts on movie theaters where people are already used to paying a premium for a quality entertainment experience.

Even while looking to a future in American markets, there’s quite a bit of work to do with the Chinese market in terms of getting large and small entertainment centers onboard with a way to easily purchase commercial licenses for games. Viveport Arcade is initially launching in China and Taiwan and will roll out to thousands of locations by the end of 2017.

“Viveport Arcade will represent a more than $100 million market opportunity for VR developers in the next two years,” said Rikard Steiber, President of Viveport and SVP of Virtual Reality at HTC. 

VR arcades are already a reality in China and across Asia and that presents a huge market for HTC as they build up brand loyalty and a user base for future systems.

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/03/htc-set-to-bring-vr-to-thousands-of-arcades-in-asia-by-end-of-2017/

Starbreeze buys presenz – a pseudo light field processing approach

Starbreeze recently acquired Nozon, a Belgium-based VFX studio known for their PresenZVR technology, a rendering technique that allows viewers to move around a little bit with correct perspective while watching VR movies, similar to a light field render.  This providesphoto-realistic experiences on low end hardware, all while maintaining positional tracking.

See the full story here: http://www.starbreeze.com/2016/10/starbreeze-acquires-visual-effects-studio-and-presenz-technology-creator-nozon-for-7-1-meur/

See Presenz here: http://www.nozon.com/presenz

You Can Experience Bacon in Virtual Reality Now

Starting today, heading to BlackLabelBacon.com (preferably armed with a Google Cardboard and your mobile device, but desktop works fine) puts you at the apex of the Salty Sea, The Vastness of Variety, Jalapeño Volcano and the Cherry Woods. Pick one, and prepare to experience bacon like you never have before.

By making your way through the black-and-white, somewhat spooky worlds, you can experience the sights (and sounds!) of a whole new dimension of bacon. Eventually, you’ll stumble across a strip of the good stuff, creating a bacon explosion that will likely inspire you to head to Hormel’s website and get a few packs for yourself.

However, bacon lovers will be quick to spot that the experience is missing one crucial component: smell.

See the full story here: http://www.extracrispy.com/culture/1320/you-can-experience-bacon-in-virtual-reality-now

Voices of VR – The Art of Dying VR/AR Art Show

Philip Lelyveld comment; the show experience sounds amazing.  The host's experiences with death are powerful.  The webcast is a bit light, though.

Listen to it here: http://www.roadtovr.com/art-dying-vrar-art-show

L’Oreal turns to virtual reality to train hairdressers

The French cosmetics company teamed up with VR software maker 8i to create a new virtual reality curriculum for the Matrix Academy, L'Oréal's training program for fledgling hairstylists. Together, the two developed an immersive, room-scale VR experience where trainees can walk around and observe a virtual hairdresser style a virtual client's hair from every angle. They can even step into the hairdresser's position to get a first-person view of the process.

Prior to teaming up with L'Oréal, 8i was having issues creating virtual hair, especially the frizzy type. But the two managed to find a way to fix that.

See the full story here: https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/02/loreal-virtual-reality-hairdressing-classes/

Google’s big bet on virtual reality is launching on November 10

Pricing info at the link

See the full story here:http://www.businessinsider.com/google-daydream-view-vr-headset-launching-november-10-2016-11

Virtual reality plus treadmill training may help reduce falls linked to aging, Parkinson’s disease

"Falls often start a vicious cycle with many negative health consequences," said Dr. Mirelman. "The ability of older people to negotiate obstacles can be impaired because of age-related decline in cognitive abilities like motor planning, divided attention, executive control and judgement. But current interventions typically focus almost exclusively on improving muscle strength, balance and gait.

"Our approach helps improve both physical mobility and cognitive aspects that are important for safe walking," Dr. Mirelman continued. "We found that virtual reality plus treadmill training helped to reduce fall frequency and fall risk for at least six months after training -- significantly more than treadmill training alone. This suggests that our use of virtual reality successfully targeted the cognitive aspects of safe ambulation to reduce the risk of falls."

The TAU-TASMC team, in collaboration with partners across Europe, collected data from 282 participants at five clinical sites in Belgium, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK between 2013 and 2015. The participants, all aged 60-90, were able to walk at least five minutes unassisted, were on stable medications and, critically, had reported at least two falls in the six months prior to the start of the study. Nearly half of all participants (130) had Parkinson's disease, and some (43) had mild cognitive impairment.

Participants were assigned to treadmill training with virtual reality (146) or treadmill training alone (136). The virtual reality component consisted of a camera that captured the movement of participants' feet and projected it onto a screen in front of the treadmill, so that participants could "see" their feet walking on the screen in real time.

The game-like simulation was designed to reduce the risk of falls in older adults by including real life challenges such as avoiding and stepping over obstacles like puddles or hurdles, and navigating pathways. It also provided motivation to the participants, giving them feedback on their performance and scores on the game.

While the incident rate of falls was similar in the two groups prior to the intervention, six months after training the rate of falls among those who trained with VR dropped by almost 50%. In contrast, there was no significant reduction in the fall rates among subjects who did not train with the VR.

"Treadmills are widely available, and the additional cost of treadmill training plus virtual reality is only about $4,500.

See the full story here: http://www.news-medical.net/news/20161101/Virtual-reality-plus-treadmill-training-may-help-reduce-falls-linked-to-aging-Parkinsons-disease.aspx

Paper or digital? The hybrid Slice Planner gives you the best of both worlds

Do you drive yourself a little bit bonkers switching back and forth between digital and paper planners? That’s a common problem with people who want the syncing and flexibility of digital planners and the immediacy and “realness” of paper. The hybrid Slice Planner, currently in a Kickstarter campaign, is designed for people who need to manage busy lives yet want the best of both digital and paper planning tools. In addition to calendar syncing, Slice Planner enhances planning with utilizing computer vision (CV) and augmented reality (AR) technologies.

A key to Slice Planner’s concept is using a clock-face diagram on the paper side of the hybrid planner. According to the designers, 65 percent of the population are visual thinkers, so a clock face helps them focus on tasks and time. The radial clock-face diagram also enables the AR and CV features.

See the full story here: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/slice-planner-uses-augmented-reality-122829638.html

Michael Eisner-Backed GoMeta Promises Pokemon Go-Like Augmented Reality for Everyone

The Halloween scavenger hunt was being produced by San Diego-based augmented reality startup GoMeta, which officially went out of stealth mode Monday night. GoMeta is being led by serial entrepreneur Dmitry Shapiro, who until recently worked on Google's social media projects.

The startup is being backed by some high-profile angel investors including former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, former Myspace CEO Mike Jones and others, who have invested a total of $2 million in the company.

With that money, GoMeta now wants to take augmented reality to the next step: The company released a new version of its app Monday that allows anyone to take part in existing scavenger hunts or other augmented reality experiences, as well as create simple experiences themselves.

GoMeta competes in many ways with Niantic Labs, the company behind Pokemon Go. Niantic, which was originally incubated at Google, has also been working on ways for companies to build their own experiences. "Our ultimate goal is to build a platform," Niantic Labs CEO John Hanke told Variety last year.

See the full story here: http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/geek/20161031_Reuters_tagreuterscom2016newsmlMT1VRT1201905320_Michael_Eisner_Backed_GoMeta_Promises_Pokemon_Go_Like_Augmented_Reality_for_Everyone.html

Meet 3 Latinas Leading in Virtual and Augmented Reality

Cecilia Abadie, Senior Customer Success Engineer at Meta

Gemma Busoni, Head of Community at Discovr Labs

Discovr Labs brings Virtual reality to education by building VR applications and the systems to use them.

Cathy Hackl, Founder of Latinos in VR/AR, content strategist for VR Salon, contributing author at VR Scout.

VR Salon is an international community of VR & AR creators, influencers, actors, producers, and directors connecting talent, stories, and funding. VR Salon's current project is a SocialVR documentary with ERASE Childen Trafficking and Zeality VR.

Hackl, 37, started her professional career as a journalist. Of Costa Rican descent, she says that when she first attended the Journalism Interactiveconference, she realized Virtual Reality was the future of storytelling.

See the full story here: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/meet-3-latinas-leading-virtual-augmented-reality-n656361