You’ll Soon See Michael Bay Explosions in VR
The Hollywood director, known for his explosive set pieces in action-packed movies, has this week revealed a collaboration with a VR production studio named The Rogue Initiative. Together, the pair will create original content that spans both VR and other interactive platforms. According to a press release, projects will feature the “gritty, danger-close action” that Bay has become known for thanks to his Transformers series alongside other blockbusters. Bay will also join the Initiative as a strategic advisor.
Joining him will be veteran film and television producer Lynda Obst and advisors like Cliff Plumer, Matthew Cohan, and Cody Simms.
See the full story here: http://uploadvr.com/youll-soon-see-michael-bay-explosions-vr/
VR motion sickness alleviated with field of view alterations
The approach changes the FOV in a way that many participants found imperceptible. "I was aware of work on change blindness--a concept in perceptual psychology that explains why people sometimes do not notice what would seem to be an obvious change in a scene," explains Fernandes, who himself has suffered from VR sickness. "So I wondered if this could be applied to VR: could we change a participant's FOV without them noticing?"
The team specifically targeted scenarios in which users move in the virtual environment in a way that intentionally differs from how they move in the real world.
These include games in which they are physically standing or sitting on a couch in their living room, while walking, running, driving, or flying in the virtual world.
Most of the participants who used the more subtle restrictors did not notice them, and all those who did notice them said they would prefer to have them in future VR experiences.
See the full story here: http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2016/jun/vr-motion-sickness-alleviated.cfm?utm_source=MIT+TR+Newsletters&utm_campaign=bf505b2c66-The_Download_2016_06_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-bf505b2c66-153894145
6 of the Hottest Virtual Reality Companies Out There
In order to find the hottest virtual/augmented reality companies out there, we started with a chart from our friends at CB Insights that shows who the biggest players are when it comes to investing in AR/VR startups. We took the top-5 investors in this space and then had one of our on-staff PHDs come up with a sophisticated algorithm to determine which companies are the hottest as seen below:
(X means two VC firms have invested, not that they don't exist anymore.)
See the full story describing each one here: http://www.nanalyze.com/2016/06/6-hot-virtual-reality-companies/
It’s a Good Thing the F-35’s $400K AR HMD Helmet Is Stupid Cool
Lt. Col. Christine Mau, 33rd Operations Group deputy commander, puts on her helmet before taking her first flight in the F-35A on Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., May 5, 2015. Mau, who previously flew F-15E Strike Eagles, made history as the first female F-35 pilot in the program. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Marleah Robertson)
The pilot can see through the base and walls of the aircraft, thanks to six cameras mounted outside the F-35. The “Distributed Aperture System” provides a 360-degree view of the plane’s surroundings, stitching together feeds from the corresponding external cameras based on where the pilot’s looking. It labels objects in her field of view with distance, bearing, speed, and altitude.
If the pilot feels that something she sees should be hit by a missile, or just wants a closer look, all she has to do it look at it to lock on, then flip a switch to zoom in, or fire away. Even when she’s looking elsewhere, the plane’s sensors are constantly looking for threats and keeping track of nearby wingmen, projecting relevant info onto the inside of the helmet’s visor.
...helmet-mounted displays since the 1980s. The key difference with this dome protector is the way it collates and visualizes info from all the plane’s systems.
See the full story here: https://www.wired.com/2016/06/course-f-35-comes-400000-augmented-reality-helmet/
Univ of Washington Students demonstrate their HoloLens apps after a quarter of VR and AR design
It’s just about impossible to get your hands on Microsoft’s impressive mixed-reality HoloLens platform these days — unless you’re a computer science student at the University of Washington. Then you get to play with them whenever you want.
At least that’s the case for the students in CSE 481V, in which, according to the course description, you will “learn a ton about Virtual and Augmented Reality, get familiar with the latest technology and software, and build an app in 10 weeks.”
This is the first time the course has been offered in this fashion, with generous underwriting by local VR/AR players Microsoft, Oculus and Valve/HTC. The 36 students in the course had access to the HoloLens dev team and all the major headsets — there were 25 HoloLenses involved, which is probably more than have ever been in one place.
The class culminated in a sort of open demo day at the UW campus, where students could show off their work to the general public and serious players like Microsoft Research’s CVP Peter Lee.
See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/10/students-demonstrate-their-hololens-apps-after-a-quarter-of-vr-and-ar-design/
‘Heroes’ star and ‘Lion King’ music producer invest in Limitless virtual reality character startup
Limitless, a virtual reality startup created by a former Pixar and Bungie character designer, has closed its first round of seed funding from investors including music and film producer Jay Rifkin, who worked on “The Lion King” film’s original score; and Masi Oka, a game startup leader and former Industrial Light & Magic digital effects artist better known as the character Hiro from the NBC series “Heroes.”
Limitless debuted its technology at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, along with a VR experience produced on its platform by the company’s first publicly-announced customer, the VR film company Motional. In the experience, a character named Gary the Gull asks questions and, using Limitless technology, understands user responses, reacting based on a preset script, depending on what users say and do.
See the full story here: http://www.geekwire.com/2016/limitless-vr-character-platform-closes-805k-funding-round-heroes-star-masi-oka-investor/
Augmented reality in the enterprise – moving from pipe dream to use cases?
For Hand, building a good AR business cases involves three steps:
- Proving the bottom line – compare the new AR process with existing one – how will it save resources and time?
- Tell a story the business can understand – give the business a story from the point of view of the service tech or factory worker, describing how their job will change for the better.
- Demonstrate the tech in action – show the business and service techs the technology. Demonstrate it in action to show the ease of learning/ramp-up.
What are the barriers to AR adoption?
The panel acknowledged barriers to adoption. Jay Wright, SVP and GM Vuforia, asserted that the technology is ready. Hand, thinks the AR tools are ready for pilots now. But VR tools aren’t ready yet. Vuforia Studio supports VR, but Hand sees a “lack of really good VR tech.”
VR/AR, he says, needs to be as unobtrusive as a pair of glasses, rather than a bulky distraction to those wearing the gear (and those around them). He’s “eagerly awaiting” better VR tech.
Culture change is another barrier. Hand pointed out that “cool” technologies can create their own barriers to acceptance.
See the full story here: http://diginomica.com/2016/06/08/augmented-reality-in-the-enterprise-moving-from-pipe-dream-to-use-cases/