48 Crazy Ideas Coming From The $2 Billion Stealth Startup Magic Leap
[Philip Lelyveld comment - this nearly 2 year old story shows that Magic Leap is filing patent on everything that they can think of regarding augmented reality and user experience design.]
See the full story here: https://www.fastcodesign.com/3041174/48-crazy-ui-ideas-coming-from-the-500-million-stealth-startup-magic-leap
Virtual reality looks to its adolescence
...based on how Sony has sought to market and frame this device it’s clear that they’re playing a different game than Oculus and HTC.
PlayStation is in the business of making expensive toys that you play with, and it’s clear that Sony is marketing PS VR as less of a visionary metaverse access point than as a new, cool way to experience gaming.
For the time being, virtual reality needs to move away from being billed as some sort of transcendent awakening wrapped in an ethical enigma, instead of what it is right now, just some really cool shit. In other words, shut the fuck up if your job title has the word futurist, evangelist, visionary or wizard in it.
Google Daydream is one of the most important platform launches for VR thus far. The platform gives smartphone users a chance at their first “real VR” experience beyond Cardboard, while giving manufacturers of Android phones a clearer path to success in entering the VR space without having to completely rethink the virtual wheel. Daydream also gives developers access to a much wider base of potential users through the Play Store.
[Samsung] was listed as one of the initial partners for Daydream and will likely be showing off their own headset designed for the platform soon.
With the VR mode in Android Nougat, Google has pretty much dropped a blanket upgrade to Android devices so that low-latency VR can be a reality across manufacturers for devices with low persistence displays.
Positional tracking, the nifty technology that allows VR users to move around in virtual space, is pretty essential to actually feeling immersed in a VR experience.
Mobile inside-out positional tracking is certainly on its way but in the meantime I think it would behoove developers to see fixed point head-tracking as less of a deficiency than a necessary challenge. ...once the honeymoon period is over and laziness reigns, it’s not unrealistic to imagine that seated experiences become the norm for most.
Sony and Google have the benefit of releasing their platforms on systems that they largely control. This raises a lot of questions for how Oculus and HTC are going to expand their horizons on mobile and console VR without just building a bunch more headsets.
Whether or not Microsoft’s 4K Project Scorpio Xbox One specifically taps the Rift to be its go-to compatible HMD, it’s difficult to imagine a VR future for Xbox in late 2017 that doesn’t at least incorporate Oculus.
Growing social
Virtual reality has a lot of potential to expand (and redefine?) social interactions, but other than simple telepresence with other headset wearers, not too many people know what that all looks like.
Sony is experimenting with an interesting concept for PS VR called social screen, where VR headset wearers can play games with other people in the same room on the same system.
Refocusing
For companies in the virtual reality biz, this is going to be the month where things either become much clearer or much blurrier in terms of how your startup operates.
The VR hype cycle may currently be wading through the trough of disillusionment but with so many high-profile announcements on their way from powerhouses in the space, the end of 2016 may finally have a chance to live up to some of the hype.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/29/virtual-reality-looks-to-its-adolescence/
Auschwitz war criminals targeted with help of virtual reality
"It has often been the case that suspects say they worked at Auschwitz but didn't really know what was going on," Jens Rommel, head of the federal office investigating Nazi war crimes, told AFP.
"Legally, the question is about intent: must a suspect have known that people were being taken to the gas chambers or shot? This model is a very good and very modern tool for the investigation because it can help answer that question," Rommel added.
See the full story here: http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Auschwitz-war-criminals-targeted-with-help-of-virtual-reality-469289
Experience the Clifton Suspension Bridge in 360 Video
https://virtualrealityreporter.com/152-years-old-suspension-bridge-in-360-degree-vr/
[philip lelyveld comment; with or without VR, its a lovely bridge!]
https://virtualrealityreporter.com/152-years-old-suspension-bridge-in-360-degree-vr/
9 Best Augmented Reality Smart Glasses 2016
[Philip Lelyveld comment - the author picked the usual suspects plus a few oddities, and omitted the ODG glasses!]
See the full story here: http://www.appcessories.co.uk/best-augmented-reality-smart-glasses/#comment-43165
HTC Just Launched a Virtual Reality App Store With $1 Content (48 hr flash sale)
A visitor tests the new 'Vive steam VR' virtual device at the HTC stand on the second day of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 23, 2016.
The world's biggest mobile fair, held from February 22 to February 25. / AFP / JOSEP LAGO (Photo credit should read JOSEP LAGO/AFP/Getty Images)
HTC’s app store for its Vive virtual reality headset expands globally Friday after launching solely in China earlier this year. It’s called Viveport, and HTC says that for the next 48 hours (from 12:00 a.m. PT September 30), it’s marking “several marquee titles” down to a buck a piece. That includes stuff like Mars Odyssey, a normally $8 NASA Lander and Rover infused romp across the red planet, as well as Firebird – La Peri, an otherwise $10 visual fantasy set to French composer Paul Dukas’ ballet.
But isn’t Valve’s Steam already the Vive’s de facto app store? Sure. And it’ll stay that way for enthusiasts, with or without Viveport. But it’s also the opposite of Apple’s App Store or Google Play: not the place nontraditional-gaming VR neophytes might think to go rummaging for experiences like The Music Room, or The Grand Canyon, or Everest VR.
See the full story here: http://time.com/4514494/viveport-app-store/
Virtual reality cinema and arcade opens in Salt Lake City
Instead of entering a giant theater with a lot of seats and a big screen, there are rows of rotating chairs of Virtualities where a viewer will sit at and put on a virtual reality headset.
“Since virtual reality is normally super expensive, this was a way to make it accessible to people who normally don’t have the means or space to access it,” Burningham said in an interview with Deseret News.
According to Burningham, there are a few virtual reality cinemas and arcades in the world already, including the VR Cinema in Amsterdam and Zero Latency in Australia. A pop-up virtual reality cinema opened in Toronto for a few months this summer, according to the Toronto Sun, and the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that IMAX is planning to launch a half dozen virtual reality locations around the globe this year.
Currently available at Virtualities are various short movie and gaming experiences including a sci-fi film, roller coasters, skydiving, swimming with sharks and hunting zombies. Viewers also have the option of creating artwork in virtual reality and printing it off using 3-D printers.
There are also various humanitarian videos available to watch at Virtualities.
Burningham said he views the current cinema and arcade as just a starting point.
Virtualities is on the second floor at The Gateway, across from Discovery Gateway and next to Zumiez. Pricing starts at $10 for 10 minutes for the arcade and $10 for 15 minutes for the cinema. For additional information, visit the company's website at virtualities.co.
See the full story here: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865663667/Virtual-reality-cinema-and-arcade-opens-in-Salt-Lake-City.html?pg=all
Industry of Virtual Reality Alliance
The Industry of Virtual Reality Alliance (IVRA), instructed through Electronic Information Division of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology directives, is a industry coalition made possible through the efforts of China Center for Information Industry Development, State key laboratory of virtual reality technology and system of Beihang University, HTC, GoerTek and Wisesoft among the top virtual reality industry leaders and institutes. The alliance dedicates its resources in providing solutions to the VR industry's key unsolved questions, such as the ecosystem priorities, industry standardization, industrial chain agreements, transference of technology results, and the critical support of innovation, it also serves to advise governmental institutes in directing further developments in the near 3-5 years.
The IVRA vows to uphold principles of 'openness, cooperation, equality, reciprocation' in its mission to bring down industrial obstacles and stimulate developments in areas such as hardware, software, content, platforms along the industrial chain. Nine directives are put in place which includes: VR industry standardization, laying down the "VR Industry Development Instruction", cultivating a VR industry research base, advising key application, establishing industrial investment funds, training and education for VR industry talents, introducing global forums and exhibitions, as well as global VR developer events.
See the website here: http://www.ivra.com/about-us-en/
How Virtual Reality Is Changing the Way the UN Thinks
While politicians were making bold speeches about a proposal that may or may not be enforced, the first ever United Nations Creative Director Gabo Arora was quietly introducing delegates to the new media technology that is changing how the 71-year-old institution makes decisions.
When I visit Arora's team on the first day of the General Assembly, they're tucked into a corner of the UN Headquarters' ornate entrance hall greeting delegates with virtual reality goggles. Representatives from all over the world—the Netherlands, Nigeria, Jordan—load up the UNVR app and follow. In the back, there's a full-scale two-way video chat screen Arora calls the Portal, allowing the powers that be to talk to refugees in real time.
In just two years, Arora's advocacy for VR has proven to be a powerful tool for the UN. It's well-documented that charities can make a lot more money by incorporating VR experiences.
When measuring a subject's likelihood to compromise during negotiation, researchers at their Virtual Interations Lab found that, of 842 participants, "those who experientially learned about the other party’s perspective felt more positive about their relationships and made greater concessions during the negotiation than those who were simply provided information about the other party’s perspective." Pamphlets, YouTube videos, and hard stats—the evidence shows—just aren't as good at raising money as VR.
When I ask if he thinks virtual reality is more effective than other mediums, he excitedly cuts me off—"Of course. It makes a really positive impact on the whole crisis because it shows how people live... They can get into the story better than the usual videos and photographs."
Arora wants make the UN a place where people from all over the world can document their lives. He's currently developing an ultra cost-effective VR film kit to make the medium available to artists in every member state. "The Scorsese of virtual reality could be living in Uganda," Arora says excitedly. If his plan succeeds, UNVR could simultaneously spawn an international VR film boom and give artists a chance to bring their problems directly to the people who can solve them.
See the full story here: http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/virtual-reality-unvr-refugees