Alum, Pokémon Go creative designer talks future of augmented reality
Raza Ahmad said he didn’t expect augmented reality games to be the success they have been. But Pokémon Go and other games he helped develop proved him wrong.
Ahmad, a UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television alumnus and member of the Niantic Labs creative team, presented his role in developing augmented reality technology at a FuturizeX event Thursday evening.
He joined Google as the company was developing Niantic Labs. Niantic Labs later parted from from Google and became its own company, he said.
He said he did not expect Ingress to be as successful as it became, because the game requires players to walk to different locations to find the portals while people were used to playing games indoors.
See the full story here: http://dailybruin.com/2016/10/16/alum-pokmon-go-creative-designer-talks-future-of-augmented-reality/
Augmented Reality to mirror harsh reality of our society
In the winter of 2015, Ram Devineni, the creator of the hugely popular comic book series, Priya’s Shakti, met the acid attack survivors, Laxmi and Sonia at the Delhi Comic Con. Soon after interacting with the entire team of 'Stop Acid Attacks' initiative, he decided to chronicle their tales of battling the odds of the society and retaining their identity, to make people "look beyond the scars" and delve deeper into the problem.
To create powerful and long-lasting impact in the minds of people, the filmmaker and publisher chose to develop augmented reality (AR) elements in the comic series. He approached Blippar, the provider of a visual discovery app that uses augmented reality and machine learning, to breathe life into the characters of the new edition titled “Priya's Mirror”.
Devineni's initiative that sheds light on the positive stories of rape and acid attack survivors has been funded by the World Bank. In addition, Priya’s Mirror, which mainly focuses on acid attack survivors, is also being premiered at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center from September 30 to October 16 this year. It will also be launched in India on October 22 at the Mumbai Comic Con.
“By blending the old-fashioned mythological characters with high-tech tools, we can make people understand the toxic masculinity and patriarchy that make men do this kind of violence,” continued Vohra.
Though this comic series cannot heal the psychological, physical wounds of the survivors, it acts as a cathartic relief and boosts their confidence levels.
“These women love the fact that there is a comic book where they are made heroes. They are not just superheroes, they are also social activists,” said Devineni.
See the full story here: http://www.asianage.com/technomics/augmented-reality-mirror-harsh-reality-our-society-896
Nottingham’s caves get virtual reality treatment
The tour will take in Mortimer's Hole under Nottingham Castle and King David's Dungeon - caves some people would not be able to access.
The city has more than 500 man-made sandstone caves which have been used for dwellings and jail cells.
He said the new virtual reality tour would allow visitors who were unable to descend the steep steps into the caves to experience them.
A series of caves has been found in the past six years due to funded projects such the Nottingham Caves Survey, which mapped and laser-scanned many of them.
See the full story here:
How Lenovo Phab 2 Pro (Project Tango Phone) Will be Different From Other Smartphones?
Phab 2 Pro is the world’s first smartphone to include Tango – a new technology from Google that enables augmented reality (AR) gaming and utilities. Tango looks like complete magic – when you look through the Phab 2 Pro you’ll see objects and information overlaid onto the real world – pretty much like Pokemon being embedded onto the real world!
There are a number of wonderful and useful things that you can do with the power of Tango. You can measure objects with just your phone. Or even visualize furniture – new table or sofa – to see how it fits into your home ambiance. Tango also enables you to play with your “virtual” pet. The new augmented reality technology from Google literally turns the real world into a futuristic virtual fantasy world by combining augmented reality and real world information.
Raise
This game by Iguanabee lets you pick a pet from 3D library and take him wherever you go. If you don’t own a puppy and always wished you had one, Tango can help you train your virtual puppy. You can even teach him where his food is. Instagram freaks can share photos of the puppy as he grows into a dog. Fun, isn’t it?
Lenovo Phab 2 Pro Features and Specs
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 Processor
- 4GB RAM, 64GB storage space
- 6.4-inch 1440×2560 resolution QHD display
- 16MP rear camera, 8MP front camera with 0.3 seconds super-fast focus
- Dolby Atmos 5.1 Audio Capture, 3 mics with 360 voice, Noise-cancelling
- 8.9mm aluminium unibody
- Fingerprint scanner (on the rear)
- 2.5D Curved Glass
- 4050mAh battery with 2.4x turbo charging
Priced at $499, the phone is expected to be released anytime this month.
See the full story here: https://www.mobipicker.com/lenovo-phab-2-pro-project-tango-phone-will-different-smartphones/
Boise Man Creating A Virtual Reality Fitness Program
Boise native,Ryan DeLuca, who started the super successful Bodybuilding.com, is in the final stages of rolling out a virtual reality platform that just might change the way you look at working out.
He started a new tech company called Black Box that has an idea to create a full-body fitness program you use with a virtual reality headset. A game that will allow you to play with others online or alone right from your home or office.
They decided the best way to test it to make sure it’s ready is to quit the gym and only going to work out inside virtual reality to make sure it gives the results they want and expect.
They aren’t looking to put actual gyms out of business. But hope that they will get on board with the idea too and that people can enjoy doing both.
See the full story here: http://mix106radio.com/boise-man-creating-a-virtual-reality-fitness-program/
Virtual Reality Is Just An Over-Priced Gimmick, Nothing More
When you take all of this into account, it’s hard to justify a VR purchase. The combination of expense and the lack of compelling content, paired with the uncomfortable nature of the headsets themselves and various side effects, all makes VR a promise without a delivery.
Sure, VR can be fun. It can be amusing. It can even, at times, be awe-inspiring. Those feelings just don’t last, and what we’re left with is a headache and an empty bank account.
This is why I’ve argued that the future of VR is mobile, and that Google’s Daydream platform is much more likely to spark any kind of mainstream virtual reality adoption than high-end goggles, or even PlayStation VR.
See the full story here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/10/15/virtual-reality-is-just-an-over-priced-gimmick/#50b359482e0a
Facebook’s Oculus Just Bought This Startup To Improve Virtual Reality
Startup InfiniLED specializes in a low-power display technology.
InfiniLED specializes in a technology called Inorganic LED Display, a variant of traditional LED technology that displays light when it absorbs an electrical current. An MIT Technology Review articledescribes the display technology as being “bright and longlasting” but costly to manufacture, thus it’s used in only a few products like the electronic billboard displays in sports stadiums.
The startup was originally spun out from the Irish technology research lab Tyndall National Institute in 2011.
See the full story here: http://fortune.com/2016/10/14/facebook-oculus-virtual-reality-infiniled/
Google’s Daydream Keyboard app will make typing easy in virtual reality
“an on-screen virtual reality keyboard for text entry in Daydream applications.” It also mentions that uninstalling the keyboard app may cause other Daydream-based apps not to work anymore.
See the full story here: http://vrsource.com/googles-daydream-keyboard-app-4943/
Virtual reality experience attracts huge numbers
Created by UK-based, transmedia artist Simon Wilkinson, The Cube is in Hastings as part of the Harcourts Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival. Audience members enter a shipping container one at a time where they are fitted with the latest in virtual reality technology and transported to the centre of an unsolved mass disappearance from the 1950s.
Wilkinson says Hastings is by far the smallest place The Cube has been to, yet our audience numbers have far exceeded those in large cities around the world.
The cost of The Cube has been covered by the Hastings City Vibrancy Fund in keeping with the fund’s key goal of raising the vibrancy of the central city.
“People were queuing to see The Cube and those coming out were absolutely raving about it”, she says. “The place really is buzzing; it’s fantastic to see.”
See the full story here: http://www.hbaf.co.nz/news/virtual-reality-experience-attracts-huge-numbers/
Dosing distraction in the world of augmented-reality (2 car accidents related to AR)
Two recent case reports are among the first in the medical literature of augmented-reality application-related injuries requiring acute intervention in a trauma center. The first incident involved four passengers in a single vehicle rollover accident, in which the driver, a 19-year-old male was “hunting Pokémon” while driving and found one across the road. In an attempt to “flick his Pokémon ball to capture the Pokémon”, he lost control of his vehicle, rolling it, and ejecting the three other passengers from the bed of the pickup. Luckily a CT scan of the head identified only a small focus of subarachnoid hemorrhage with no evidence of increased intracranial pressure and a Glasgow coma scale of 15, as well as a small laceration of the liver involving the caudate lobe. The second incident was caused indirectly by a Pokémon Go user, as a driver swerved off the road to avoid the distracted pedestrian player. The driver was a 58-year-old woman who presented to the emergency department with multiple pelvic fractures that were treated non-operatively. Two other potentially dangerous scenarios may arise in which distracted users either directly cause injury to non-users (i.e. an accident involving a distracted driver and a pedestrian), or where a non-user may inadvertently injure a distracted user (i.e. an alert driver unable to stop in time when a distracted user rushes out onto a busy street).
Five years ago, only one in three Americans owned a smartphone, and that number has since doubled. Now 46% of all smartphone users say their device is something they “cannot live without.” These applications and mobile devices improve our lives, yet the potential to be consumed by their never-ending distractions might outweigh their benefits, at least until we maintain a digital equilibrium between work and play. Further research is yet to be done on what measures can be taken to ensure the safety of mobile augmented reality applications that promote ambulatory activity and to prevent distraction-related morbidities.
See the full story here: http://blog.oup.com/2016/10/distraction-safety-augmented-reality/