Six Flags coaster to use virtual reality to plunge riders into gargoyles game
Riders, who must be at least 13 years old, will wear Samsung Virtual Reality headsets. They will "fire" on the gargoyles based on their head movements.
That will allow riders to keep their hands on the lap bar as the roller coaster zips along the tracks.
The experience will send riders "twisting, turning and diving through the hazardous city streets — flying over battered skyscrapers, plunging underneath twisted bridges and dodging falling debris, all while shooting to repel these lethal demons and conquer the vicious master gargoyle," according to Six Flags.
"Rage of the Gargoyles" will replace a virtual reality experience called the "The New Revolution" previously unveiled at six Six Flags parks across the country.
See the full story here: http://www.nj.com/ocean/index.ssf/2016/08/six_flags_coaster_to_introduce_virtual_reality_exp.html
TheWaveVR raises $2.5M from KPCB and others to bring the concert experience into VR
TheWaveVR is about to have one of its biggest tests, hosting a “silent rave” at Los Angeles’s VRLA conference where attendees will sport headphones and headsets and jam to DJs while looking like idiots alongside one another in VR.
TheWaveVR gives users a platform where they can have a communicative relationship with onstage artists in VR, raising a digital lighter in the air or bobbing their head all while the onstage artist reacts accordingly. The experience is particularly suited, at lease early-on, for EDM music, as a large part of the experience involves the crazy digital light shows taking place onstage behind the artist. The whole situation may just be playing out with avatars at the moment but this is just the first step in the future evolution of users transporting themselves into digital live concert experiences.
The six-month-old, Austin-based company just raised $2.5 million in an oversubscribed Seed funding including KPCB Edge, Presence Capital, Rothenberg Ventures, RRE Ventures, The VR Fund, Boost VC, Luma Launch, Seedcamp and angels including Mike Fischer and Joe Kraus.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/05/thewavevr-raises-2-5m-from-kpcb-and-others-to-bring-the-concert-experience-into-vr/
Intel shows off mystery depth-sensing virtual reality accessory
At least visually, the sensor seems somewhat similar to the designs of previous Intel RealSense developer kits that’s symmetrically designed with six sensors tracking the area in front of the headset.
He told us an accessory like this could track hand movement as well as IR-tracked controllers. The system could also scan the environment in real-time. This opens up the potential to detect obstacles automatically.
Leap Motion already has a developer kit out there which helps devs mount their sensor to the Vive and track user hand movement. It’s pretty great but there are some limitations with the scope of capture which works best when the hands are generally positioned right in front of the user.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/03/intel-shows-off-mystery-depth-sensing-virtual-reality-accessory/
AUGMENTED REALITY IN THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY
On February 18, David Doral of AERTEC Solutions, Jim Novack of Talent Swarm, and Raul Alarcon of the European Space Agency joined Paul Davies and me to discuss the status of Augmented Reality in their companies and client projects.
Each participant described the use cases and drivers for Augmented Reality adoption. For Boeing, the key metrics are reduction of errors and time to task completion. Use cases include training and work assistance. AERTEC Solutions, which works closely with Airbus, and Talent Swarm are both focusing on use cases where live video from a head-mounted camera can bring greater understanding of a technician’s context and questions, and permit more rapid analysis and resolution of issues.
The European Space Agency sees a variety of use cases on Earth and in space. Inspection and quality assurance, for example, could benefit from the use of Augmented Reality-assisted systems.
To learn more about the state of AR in the aerospace industry, please watch the webinar archive.
See the full story here: http://thearea.org/augmented-reality-in-the-aerospace-industry/
Facebook open-sources its $30,000 360 camera design
The camera rig is comprised of 17 cameras and was designed with a focus on reliability. A rugged aluminum chassis ensures that images are stable and well aligned, and the industrial cameras can run for hours without overheating.
Our seamless automated stitching technology reduces post-production retouching effort and time. After shooting your video, you can use a Samsung Gear VR headset to view the output as a 3D-360 video with no intervening hand processing or fixing.
The Facebook Surround 360 is not available for purchase, however it can be built using the design specifications found on GitHub with off the shelf components.
Provided you have all the parts ready for build and the assembly manualon hand, we expect the Facebook Surround 360 to take around 4 hours to assemble and a further couple of hours to set up the operating system.
We encourage you to join our Facebook Surround 360 Facebook Groupto learn more about the camera, get support and meet with other interested people in the growing 360 community!
See the full post here: https://facebook360.fb.com/facebook-surround-360/
New MIT tech lets you mess with objects in pre-recorded video
[Philip Lelyveld comment - this is amazing technology! It appears to also capture and fill in background information, although that may just be an illusion from the object not moving very far.]
The system, called "Interactive Dynamic Video" (IDV), needs less than five seconds of footage to track movement possibilities. It does so by analyzing how it shifts when intentionally jostled: In the video example below, a researcher slams the table on which a humanoid figure is resting, which lets the system see how it vibrates across different frequencies. Then it extrapolates how the item should behave when viewers reach in with their cursors and jostle the object in video.
See the full story here: https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/03/new-mit-tech-lets-you-mess-with-objects-in-pre-recorded-video/
Porn meets virtual reality, and sparks fly
For Kink.com, San Francisco’s chief outpost of the porn-tech industry and the host of the conference that featured about a dozen other adult video companies, virtual reality may be a lifeline of sorts.
VR could be huge for the industry. Last year, the research firm IBISWorld projected that 2020 revenues for the U.S. porn industry should reach $3.3 billion, which means essentially flat revenue growth. Subscription websites “declined significantly” when free, user-created videos began proliferating, the IBIS report said — though higher-quality VR porn could revive subscription services.
For companies like Kink, which depends on revenue from subscriptions to its trademark bondage and other sexual fetish videos, the hope is that virtual reality becomes the premium experience that gives viewers a reason to pay more.
History is on the side of the porn industry, which has always paved the way for new entertainment technologies, from film to home video tapes to online streaming.
See the full story here: http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Porn-meets-virtual-reality-and-sparks-fly-9012415.php
New York Lottery launches new scratch-off paired with augmented reality app
“Once you scan it, there’s going to be a dragon that comes in and shows you a castle, and you can hold your phone over the ticket and go through the different windows of the castle, and behind those windows are the results of the ticket,” Gurney said. “It’s the same result if you scratched it off traditionally, it’s all preplanned, preprogrammed, but just an additional way to reveal whether you have a winner or loser and cash it in.”
“We’re seeing an average every day of 8,500 people who are interacting with the lottery through their smartphone, and that compares to the number of people who are coming into traditional retail when they have a winning ticket to about 13,500, so it’s achieving a goal in that we’re trying to interact with people differently and we can see that happening.”
See the full story here: http://statescoop.com/new-york-lottery-launches-new-scratch-off-paired-with-ar-app