‘Bigscreen’ Launches on Oculus Home, Update Brings Custom Avatars and More
Bigscreen, the social VR app which brings you and your computer’s desktop into VR with your friends, is launching on Oculus Home today and getting an update with new features and better performance.
The free title is still in beta, and is receiving regular updates. The latest of which brings enhanced features and better performance.
Perhaps the biggest change to this version is a new character builder for creating custom avatars.
Other enhancements include the much-requested desktop audio streaming, a new user interface, and performance improvements.
See the full story here:http://www.roadtovr.com/bigscreen-launches-on-oculus-home-rift-update-brings-custom-avatars-and-more/
Hands-on: Crytek’s ‘The Climb’ with Oculus Touch Feels Like an Entirely New Experience
Traversing the mountain face was easy, and while it left my arms tired (as I was constantly grasping for handholds) the results are so much more satisfying when you’re mimicking the movements of reaching and grabbing, instead of craftily manipulating a gamepad and craning your neck for purchase.
Moving your arms to reach for a new grip changes your point of view in the direction of the next hand hold, so even though your head is fairly immobile, you feel like you’re traveling left, right, up or down depending on your chosen direction. While this doesn’t sound technically appealing (any undue movement is usually a bad thing in VR), it felt more like I was pulling the world with me, and that I had a tight control over my locomotion even if it was exaggerated to help me move from handhold to handhold. Even making a risky jump to a next handhold felt like a natural movement, if only because I was engaging more with the physicality of the game than I would have otherwise.
See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/crytek-the-climb-oculus-touch-feels-like-an-entirely-new-experience/
Is virtual reality the future of online pornography?
Kiiroo is just one of many companies whose future success rests on the increasing popularity of virtual reality sex.
Based in Amsterdam, the team launched their business with interactive sex toys for long-distance couples.
But they soon realised their products would be compatible with the new breed of virtual reality porn films.
Their devices enhance virtual reality pornography by adding physical sensation to an already "immersive" visual experience, according to Maurice Op de Beek, the firm's chief technology officer.
Pornographic videos are shot from a first-person perspective. They are then coded so that the images seen on-screen correspond with movements made by the toys.
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"If someone just wants to see a girl be naked, there are many, many ways they can do that for free basically," she says.
"What this [cam modelling] offers is human connection and virtual reality exponentially increases that connection."
But Ela acknowledges that the relationship between her and her clients can lack balance.
"I've had a couple of people at this point who will experience my VR chatroom and they start to feel comfortable and safe," she explains.
"Do I feel safe and trust them on the same level that they feel that with me?
"Certainly not. I don't actually know these people, I don't have the same experience they're having. I'm not in their virtual bedrooms with them.
"On that level there's definitely a skewed reciprocity.
Psychosexual and relationship therapist Sarah Calvert says she has grave concerns about the repercussions virtual reality pornography may have on viewers.
"Your self-esteem can have a really big knock if you're in these virtual reality experiences and you're looking down and seeing ripped abs, big penis and then you come back to reality and that's not the case," she explains.
Without pornography, the internet as we know it today, would not exist.
See the full story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/37057814/is-virtual-reality-the-future-of-online-pornography
Will immersive virtual reality be too much for kids and their parents?
Spoiler: The bunny dies in one tested ending. And in VR, that triggered much stronger feelings than it would have done in a regular movie.
Killing the bunny triggered much stronger feelings than it would have done in a regular movie. You are in the story; you are the bunny’s companion, yet there is nothing you can do to save it. You can see how this must be much harder on children — and adults, for that matter— I cried watching “Pete’s Dragon”! — than a traditional screening, even a 3-D one.
See the full story here: http://www.recode.net/2016/8/18/12537956/virtual-reality--kids-parents-psychological-emotional-immersive
Forget Pokémon GO – these are the augmented reality experiences that’ll soon be invading your life
[Philip Lelyveld note: this is a nice collection of AR apps for work, sports, vacation, and home.]
Despite augmented reality (AR) being around for many years, Pokémon GO has thrust it into the limelight. The game has been an inescapable force of nature taking the concept of overlaying our everyday lives with digital information and making it mainstream.
Here's how AR will be cropping up in your everyday life.
See the full story here: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/forget-pokmon-go-augmented-reality-8659104
Sony Debuts Immersive Video to Promote Movie on Snapchat
Wahle says the goal was to give viewers the sense of “being in the dark and feeling claustrophobic,” and that “a stranger with super human abilities is coming at you.” He reports that “initial tests show people spend an average of two minutes with the ad,” and that the use of technology in the campaign is “how movies should be marketed in today’s social media age.”
Making the case to use 360-video was a challenge, says Whale, but he believes that, “there is currently a transitioning happening from regular video to 360 video to VR.” “Because Google and Facebook have been doing such a good job of making 360 video and VR a priority, it’s now seeping into mainstream [culture],” he said.
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/sony-debuts-immersive-video-to-promote-movie-on-snapchat/
‘VR Noir’ Is A Great Example Of How Virtual Reality Will Change Television
VR Noir is a 360-degree film with interactive elements created by the Australian studio Start VR. The experience hits all the necessary beats of its namesake genre: the rumpled ex-cop P.I., the mysterious femme fatale and an even more mysterious murder to unravel. However, all of these familiar beats seem fresh and innovative in this immersive new medium.
Let’s be clear: if VR Noir was a standard television show it would not be considered that great.
As events unfold in VR Noir, you’re given agency within the narrative. You can choose to ask a client more questions, or simply take a case. You get to take control of a spy camera as you stake out a mark on a rooftop. And above all you get to experience a story as the main character, as opposed to simply watching from the sidelines. In this way, it carries forward the torch that GONE lit before it.
VR Noir is available now to download for free on Android and iOS for Google Cardboard and on the Oculus Store for Samsung Gear VR.
See the full story here: http://uploadvr.com/vr-noir-great-example-virtual-reality-will-change-television/
MIT Media Lab sponsors hackathon pushing limits of VR and AR
The hackathon theme is consistent with the Media Lab’s purpose: “The MIT Media Lab goes beyond known boundaries and disciplines, encouraging the most unconventional mixing and matching of seemingly disparate research areas. It creates disruptive technologies that happen at the edges.”
Participants from MIT, other top universities, and the VR and AR communities around the United States will form teams to develop innovative software solutions that will unlock the technology’s potential in new categories, some never attempted before.
Up to 400 participants will learn and build new apps during this hackathon using their own, and sponsor-provided, AR and VR platforms. This is the first VR/AR hackathon ever run at this large a scale.
See the full story here: http://www.networkworld.com/article/3109125/events/mit-media-lab-sponsors-hackathon-pushing-limits-of-vr-and-ar.html
THE MAKERS OF THE DEUS EX: MANKIND DIVIDED VIDEO GAME HOST A BIOETHICS CONFERENCE
Human X Design Conference, August 3, 2016.
The high points of Human by Design came when Steven Sanchez, who suffered a spinal cord injury, and Cathrine Disney, who was born with a congenital amputation, spoke about how their prosthetics changed their daily lives. Disney described her experience with prosthetic arms as a child. “They're not only offensively ugly in their attempts to mimic human hands, they’re heavy, clunky, and ultimately useless,” she said.
Sanchez and Disney eloquently described how mechanized prosthetics changed theirs. Disney designed herself a new robotic arm with Open Bionicsand Deus Ex. “Instead of being the elephant in the room, all eyes are on us for the right reasons,” she said, describing how the new arm affected her self-esteem.
See the full story here: http://www.popsci.com/augmented-reality-or-augmented-humanity