philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

‘Pokémon GO’ Is A Terrible Pokémon Game, But An Augmented Reality Home Run

Am I having fun? Yes. Is this a very good Pokémon game? Absolutely not.

Pokémon GO is weird.

It’s simultaneously a huge disappointment and also something that has exceeded my expectations. Those two things sound mutually exclusive, but I’ll try to explain why that isn’t actually the case. I’ll start with the bad.

Pokémon GO is a pretty awful Pokémon game. It lacks everything everyone likes about Pokémon other than the existence of the Pokémon themselves. Everyone knew the game would be simplified to some degree for AR gameplay, but what we’re left with is just…such a bummer.

The only one of these points I’m willing to concede is the capture system. Given that the game is about walking around (hence the “GO”) if I had to stop and fight every single one of the 80 Pokémon I’ve caught in the last day with my Poke-team, that would have been a lot of standing around in the middle of sidewalks for an extremely long time. To keep things moving, I think the “headshot them with a Pokeball” system is actually not all that bad as a compromise.

Also unforgivable is what Pokémon GO has done with battling. Turning Pokémon battles into a button-mashing tap-fest is just embarrassingly bad.

And yet, the game is crazily addicting, a lot of fun, and possibly the most significant advancement in the battle against obesity in recent memory. I’m not kidding.

But for all the health benefits, I worry about a few of the health risks as well. For as much cardio as you may get from Pokémon GO, because the game essentially forces you to keep the app open and check it constantly, you are really not paying attention to where you are much of the time. Add in headphones, and the game can feel downright dangerous because of how much it engrosses you.

See the full story here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/07/08/pokemon-go-is-a-terrible-pokemon-game-but-an-augmented-reality-home-run/#50aedce55b1c

Pokemon GO launches in Liverpool as augmented reality characters appear on city streets

Users will be abkle to see the character projected on the street via their smart phone and can catch it by 'throwing' a Pokeball. The game also includes strategically placed 'training gyms' for the Pokemon and other power ups scattered around the city.

The game means Pokemon will appear in Liverpool city centre and surrounding areas, including famous landmarks and heritage buildings. Some Pokemon will be exclusive to this part of the country.

The creator of the game, Niantic Labs, says: "Some wild Pokémon appear in their native environments—for example, Water-type Pokémon may appear near lakes and oceans. Once players have encountered a Pokémon, they can catch it by using their smartphone’s touch screen to throw a Poké Ball. Poké Balls and other special items can be found at PokéStops located at interesting places, such as public art installations, historical markers and monuments."

The game, which includes in-app purchases, is currently ranked number in the App Store and has users across the world playing.

However, it has attracted criticism due to its high battery usage, with many users taking alternate power sources on their 'Pokemon hunts'.

See the full story here: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/pokemon-go-launches-liverpool-augmented-11585417

Unconscious goal pursuit primes attitudes towards technology usage: A virtual reality experiment

[Philip Lelyveld comment: Using VR as the test technology, these researchers found that subjects are more likely to like and use a technology if the technology's features were aligned with a primary goal of theirs, even if the alignment is only recognized on an unconscious level.]

Abstract

Several approaches in technology adoption, such as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), ask future users to provide evaluations of technology. Such evaluations are expected to predict actual use behavior. For example, users’ evaluations in terms of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are considered meaningful indicators of intention to use the technology, and future usage. However, these approaches still show limited reliability and do not consider other critical aspects, such as situated, unconscious goals and the tendency to perceive related affordances. In order to test the hypothesis that technology evaluation may be influenced by unconscious goals, forty participants were split in two groups. The experimental session included two phases. In the first phase, each group explored a virtual environment that primed a specific goal. In the second phase, participants were asked to evaluate the usefulness and the easiness of use of two versions of the same technology (a mobile devices interface). Results showed that each group evaluated as more useful the version of the technology which featured an affordance related to the respective primed goal. Discussion deals with the possible unconscious influences on attitudes towards technology adoption, and provides operative guidelines to account for them in technology adoption research.

See the full study here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563216304721

HOW VIRTUAL REALITY COULD SAVE PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Regardless of what is and isn’t available at Planned Parenthood, this is just not how to act toward people, McDonald-Mosley says, and her organization made the film—and chose to make it in virtual reality—to help people see what it’s like to be treated that way. “Imagine how you would be if you were in a vulnerable situation just going to see your health care provider,” she says.

Jeremy Bailenson, founder of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, sees virtual environments as psychological states in which individuals can perceive themselves in new ways. Along with perfecting the technology, he wants to get a greater handle on its psychological effects. His is the first lab to study the effects of VR over the long term, with approximately 1,000 people participating in a wide range of scenarios that deal with prejudice, bullying and other social ills. At his lab, researchers create and manipulate VR representations of users in an attempt to fool their brains into changing their behaviors.

In one experiment, researchers altered college students’ avatars to look like their 65-year-old future selves and found those students were willing to put away twice as much money in savings than those whose avatars were unchanged. Bailenson told PBS NewsHour the visceral experience of seeing yourself older as opposed to just thinking how one day that will be true creates a “deep connection to your future self.” If VR can build that kind of connection in other cases, it could be a powerful tool.

See the full story here: http://www.newsweek.com/2016/07/15/planned-parenthood-virtual-reality-across-lines-478230.html

Virtual reality: It’s what’s for dinner

The way it works: You put on the headset and you're transported to an interesting location, which is probably the most normal element of this exercise.

Also on the table are several other devices. One is an "aromatic diffuser," which has a tube sticking out of it that blasts food aromas at you. Another is a "bone conduction transducer" that wraps around the back of your head to mimic the sounds and vibrations of chewing. There's a cup for drinking. Finally, there's a utensil shaped like tweezers. For eating.

Put all those items together, and you could be eating sushi in Japan, or be having a simulated food experience totally foreign to this world.

"There is no demand for an application like this, nobody will use it, and I'm shocked that it will attract any funding at all," said Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities.

Or maybe it's so weird it just might work.

Eating too much chocolate? Try Project Nourished.

"Flavor is about 80 percent aroma and 20 percent taste," said Robert McGorrin, department head of Oregon State's Food Science and Technology department.

So, could Project Nourished help kick-start a new Willy Wonka-like magical food revolution? It will need to convince a lot of people.

Project Nourished is still working on its recipes, whose ingredients An said are "massaged" every day. The starter kit, available for preorder online for $59.84 and shipping this summer, is a "smell module." The devices that replicate the sensation of eating will follow in the latter part of 2016.

See the full story here: http://www.cnet.com/news/virtual-reality-its-whats-for-dinner/

Snapchat hires top Hollywood special effects guru to work on ‘augmented reality’

Raffael Dickreuter joined the Venice-based company in June as a "Concept and Augmented Reality Designer". On LinkedIn, he describes himself as "virtual reality specialist, director and creator of VR content".

His hire, though, fits into Snapchat's push into augmented reality. Snapchat has been working on secret AR sunglasses project for several years, and its CEO Evan Spiegel was photographed wearing an early prototype last fall. The app as most people know it now is also a "quiet introduction" into the world of augmented reality, thanks to the popularity of the Snapchat lenses.

See the full story here: http://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/1986515/snapchat-hires-top-hollywood-special-effects-guru-work-augmented

5 Best Augmented Reality Games Like Pokemon GO

1. Ingress

2. SpecTrek

3. Life is Crime

4. Zombies, Run!

5. Parallel Kingdom MMO

See the full story here: http://www.mobipicker.com/games-like-pokemon-go/

Pokémon Go has already taught me so much

Hilarious review; sample - Catching Pokémon at a busy intersection definitely makes you look super weird

See the full article here: https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/06/pokemon-go-an-education/?ncid=tcdaily

Disney CTOs Talk Virtual Reality

At a recent event hosted by The Walt Disney Studios’ Technology Innovation Group (TIG), employees from across the Company gathered at its headquarters in Burbank, California, to discuss the impact VR has had and will continue to have on Disney experiences.

Disney|ABC Television Group Senior Vice President (SVP) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Skarpi Hedinsson talked about innovations from his side of the business, as they are focused on making news and programming even more immersive.

“Our angle with VR is on cinematic storytelling,” The Walt Disney Studios SVP and CTO Jamie Voris said during the panel. The Jungle Book was the studio’s latest experiment with VR, and the team created four different experiences for a variety of platforms.

In the global marketplace, Walt Disney International SVP and CTO Emmanuel Frenehard expressed that VR will play an important role in bringing the magic of Disney in new ways to virtually ever corner of the world.

The panel agreed that close collaboration between Disney’s businesses would continue to be a catalyst in creating even more VR content to share stories in never-before-seen ways. Frenehard summarized the momentum on the technology at the Company best by saying: “We are all working as one company, in unison, toward looking at VR.”

See the full story here: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-ctos-talk-virtual-reality/

Post Dives Into Virtual Reality With Fruity Pebbles Pre-Roll Push

What truly sets Pebbles' effort apart from other marketers' attempts at VR marketing is that it's a more guided, deliberately organized experience. Whereas many VR experiences "drop the user into an environment and let them explore" for an unlimited amount of time, Pebbles created an edited ad featuring 360 visuals, according to Brian Hurley, creative lead at agency Public Works. Few other brands have limited themselves to shorter VR ads in order to complement users' real-life experiences, Mr. Hurley claimed.

Pebbles' Senior Brand Manager Oliver Perez said, "A bowl of Fruity Pebbles creates this kind of overload sensory experience, and VR does that exactly. That was kind of the parallel for us."

the ad's two distribution platforms -- applications called VirtualSky and StartApp -- require the user to wear a VR headset before the pre-roll content launches. Upon opening the apps, users are instructed to tilt their phone and place it into the a VR headset. Only then will the VR content be "triggered," Mr. Klein said.

Both VirtualSky and StartApp use heat-tracking technology that records exactly where in a VR ad viewers are looking at a given time, allowing publishers to use that information as they further develop ads.

See the full story here: http://adage.com/article/media/post-dives-virtual-reality-fruity-pebbles-spot/304806/