philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Weeview Eye-Plug Transforms Your Smart Phone Into Your Personal 3D VR Camera Lens

Key features

Capture your story in 3D, and share it with your friends and family anywhere, anytime.

• Easy Viewing: After you’ve captured your video using the Eye-Plug 3D app, relive your moments in 3D with any 3D Viewer. Record your 3D videos to share with your friends.
• Photo Editor App: The App allows you to adjust your point of focus or control background blur after the fact to achieve the creamy bokeh effect, just like high F-stop lens cameras, or get creative with our unlimited filters.

• Simple & Compact: Plug the Eye-Plug into your Android phone and you are ready to shoot, anywhere, anytime.

Specifications

• Dimension 20mm x 39mm x 13 mm
• Weight: 6 grams
• Lens Construction: 4 elements (3 plastic + 1 filter)
• Object Distance: 0.9mm to infinity
• F-stop: F/2
• Field of View: 75.7 degrees
• Pixel Array: 1280×720 (HD)
• Optical Format: ⅕”
• Resolution: HD 30fps / Output Format: JPEG/MP4 (30fps)
• Operating System: Android 4.4 or higher
• Interface: Micro USB
• Power: via Micro USB
• Material: ABS + PC
• Aperture: 2.0

How it works

Three simple steps:

1. Attach the Eye-Plug to the micro-USB connector on your Android device.
2. Launch the Eye-Plug 3D app to capture your moments in 3D.
3. Watch your creation with any compatible VR Viewer, edit your moments and share them with a touch of a button.

See the full story here: https://virtualrealityreporter.com/weeview-eye-plug-transform-your-phone-into-your-personal-3d-vr-camera/

Crazy Camera Rig Captures Volumetric VR Video with 14 Cameras and LiDAR

[Philip Lelyveld comment; after a long period in stealth mode, HypeVR is finally showing something.]

HypeVR is working to bring live-action volumetric 360 video to VR. The company’s crazy camera rig, built to capture the necessary data, is a mashup of high-end cameras and laser scanning tech.

HypeVR recently shot a brief demonstration of the output of their rig, which they say can capture ‘volumetric’ VR video that allows users to move around in a limited space within the video, similar to Lytro’s Light field capture which we saw the other day.

Fortunately, HypeVR says that this massive camera platform is not the only option for capturing volumetric VR video. The company’s purportedly patent pending capture method is camera agnostic, and can be applied to smaller and more affordable rigs, which HypeVR says are in development.

See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/crazy-camera-rig-captures-volumetric-vr-video-with-14-cameras-and-lidar/

Qualcomm announces an ambitious, risky all-in-one VR headset

Chip maker Qualcomm has revealed a reference platform for a standalone virtual reality headset, which it’s calling the Snapdragon VR820. The VR820 was created in partnership with Chinese electronics company Goertek, built on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 mobile processor and software development kit. Qualcomm says the headset can be quickly adapted into a product by other companies, despite promising features that remain cutting-edge for virtual reality — like a self-contained form factor and "inside out" tracking that can measure head position without external cameras or feedback systems. The VR820 is supposed to be available by the end of 2016, with commercial devices based on it coming out "shortly thereafter."

Perhaps most notably, the headset is supposed to have "inside-out" tracking capabilities, using cameras mounted on the device to track head motion instead of relying on external sensor systems. Inside-out VR tracking is theoretically achievable, but it’s rarely been spotted in a workable state, especially on a headset that’s supposed to be so close to release.

It’s hard to say exactly what a commercial version of the VR820 would look like, though, and where it would be sold.

See the full story here; http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/1/12734482/qualcomm-snapdragon-vr820-virtual-reality-standalone-headset

When Technology Sets Off a Populist Revolt

[Philip Lelyeld comment - Wow! This is phase 2 of the so-called sharing economy. Now that a few have captured huge chucks of wealth by convincing millions that they are adequately compensated independent contractors, let's protect these 'special' disrupter elites so the general population doesn't rise up against them.]

...how to create the conditions in which a minority of hyperproductive people can do their work.

a new social contract, in which an undisrupted few assume new obligations to the disrupted many, in order to be freed to go back to their disruptive works.

“To put it crudely, it’s bribing the population to be well-enough-off,” Mr. Khosla said. “Otherwise, they’ll work for changing the system.”

See the full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/30/us/vinod-khosla-silicon-valley-disruption.html?_r=0

Augmented Reality for kids is here in the form of the Egger

the Egger claims to be “a safe and friendly way for kids to explore their creativity, imagination, and gain digital literacy in a more interactive manner.”

While staring at a small screen for hours on end can be problematic for young (and old) eyes, the Egger allows characters and lessons to quite literally jump off the screen. The interactive apps loaded on the Egger allow children to actually play with what’s onscreen, helping to develop hand-eye coordination and cognitive learning skills. With apps like Tool2, Magic Painting Game, your kids can create pictures that come to life, dancing and moving on the projection.

Featuring an onboard camera, the Egger can also document the time your family spends together. Or, if parents want to conference in grandma or grandpa for the fun, that’s an option too via the Wi-Fi calling function. And because the Egger is compatible with all common media file formats, you can play movies, music, and show photos simply by plugging in a USB drive.

Achieving its Indiegogo funding goal in just four hours, the Egger has already raised nearly $50,000 from over 100 backers, and still has a month to go in its campaign. While all the early bird packs have already sold out, you can still get your hands on an Egger for the price of $299, with units expected to ship in November.

See the full story with video here; http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/egger-ar-projector/

Roller Coasters Ride Into Dizzying Realm of Virtual Reality

The idea started in early 2014 as a class project to reduce the dizziness that stationary VR users often feel because the brain sees motion but doesn’t feel it. Mr. Wagner approached Michael Mack, a top executive at family-owned Mack Rides who oversees its Europa Park theme park in southwest Germany. Intrigued, Mr. Mack let Mr. Wagner’s team ride coasters before and after park hours through that summer, using laptops and bulky VR goggles to perfect synchronization.

The first rough prototype eliminated VR-induced vertigo thanks to physical motion and wowed everyone involved, but faced problems. “People doubted it would work in the real world,” recalled Mr. Wagner.

Wireless VR technology wasn’t mature and computers couldn’t be mounted on roller coasters because the vibrations would destroy microchips. Wiring headsets to riders’ seats raised safety concerns about snagged cables.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/roller-coasters-ride-into-dizzying-realm-of-virtual-reality-1472571058

78% of AR/VR Developers Not Planning Platform-exclusive Content

While Oculus and Valve/HTC continue to take two different approaches to stoking the development of VR games and applications—Oculus providing funding to developers in exchange for platform-exclusivity; Valve/HTC opting to let devs go it alone—the VR/AR Innovation Report survey published by VRDC suggests that the great majority of developers expect their next AR/VR development projects to be platform agnostic.

http://www.roadtovr.com/survey-78-of-arvr-developers-not-planning-platform-exclusive-content/

Singularity University Global Summit

Kate McCallum recorded my SU talk.  It goes from sideways to normal about 2 minutes in.  SU said that they will be posting their professional recording of it soon.

https://www.facebook.com/katemccallumc3/videos/10154771475833352/

My China TV interview on VR

http://video.87870.com/shipinnr-13034.html

Augmented reality has surgical application

Catherine Chan Po-ling, a surgeon in Hong Kong and co-founder of MedEXO Robotics, says that the use of augmented reality technology in keyhole, or minimally invasive, surgery can solve one of the biggest problems for surgeons performing these procedures.

South China Morning Post

Currently, surgeons in keyhole procedures must create and view two images simultaneously. In Chan’s example, when checking for cancerous cells in the liver, the surgeon operates a regular camera showing a view of the surface of the liver, and at the same time operates an ultrasound probe to check beneath the surface of the liver.

The two images are shown simultaneously on separate screens which the doctor has to monitor and track, while operating the two probes separately. As Chan said, “The doctor has to look at two images on two screens a while maneuvering two probes at the same time. This requires a lot of hand-eye coordination. This has long been the biggest problem regarding minimally invasive surgery.”

The new process pioneered by Chan uses augmented reality technology to layer one view over the other, allowing the surgeon to review both types of images on the same screen at the same time. Images from the regular camera and the ultrasound probe are combined using computer tracking technology.

The augmented reality software was written by engineers at Imperial College, but Chan and her team are the first to provide a medical application for it. The surgical application for augmented reality is still in the testing phase, and requires work on image stability, but Chan believes that it will be implemented for widespread use in keyhole surgeries within two years. “In the future, this AR technology can be applied to all minimally invasive surgeries in the same way as the Da Vinci robot arm surgical system.”

MedEXO, the UK robotics company that Chan co-founded, recently won acclaim and a $2M HK prize for the creation of an exoskeleton glove that minimizes shaking and hand tremors of patients with Parkinson’s disease.

https://thestack.com/world/2016/08/26/augmented-reality-has-surgical-application/