philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Spaces – new VR start-up by ex-Dreamworks VR experts

The Santa Monica, California-based Spaces is headed by chief executive Shiraz Akmal and chief technology officer Brad Herman, two veterans who worked on DreamWorks Animation’s early VR experiences through 2015. Comcast Ventures led the funding for the company, which will VR and “mixed reality” experiences. Spaces is already working with such companies as Microsoft, NBCUniversal, Big Blue Bubble and The Hettema Group, among others, to develop and produce a wide range of projects across all VR and mixed reality platforms.

Herman also said, “In every respect, VR is creating new horizons, and we’re eager to help companies explore them.”

Other investors included Boost VC; Canyon Creek Capital; Colopl VR Fund; Gree Inc.; Kai Huang; The Venture Reality Fund; the Sinovation Fund; Youku Global Media Fund; and CRCM VC.

The Spaces advisory team includes Dan Offner, attorney, angel investor and former general counsel for Oculus; Keith Boesky, former president of Eidos Interactive and the principal of Boesky & Company; and Indian film actor and entrepreneur Rana Daggubati, star of Baahubali: The Beginning, the highest-grossing film in India’s history.

See the full story here: http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/18/dreamworks-animation-veterans-create-spaces-vr-startup-with-3m-in-funding/

Myer, eBay Launch World First VR Department Store

“Our customers can now immerse themselves in the experience of shopping inside a Myer store from wherever they may be, with product information updated in real time to ensure everyone can keep up with the latest offers from Myer.”

From today, eBay and Myer are offering customers the opportunity to receive their own shopticals (specially designed virtual reality viewers) to start their VR shopping experience. 15,000 shopticals will be available free of charge from www.ebay.com.au/VR

How it works

• Download: the eBay VR Department Store app is available for download from today, with the experience accessible using eBay shopticals or another VR device.
• Personalise: at the beginning of the experience the shopper selects the product categories of most interest to them. As you browse products and categories other products that might be of interest are suggested. As you explore the VR world, your shopping habits are analysed and the experience personalised to your profile.
• Browse: using eBay Sight Search™, the shopper views a product in the store. By holding your gaze on it, the product is selected and automatically floats towards you. Fully rendered 3D product images are available for the top 100 available products. Product departments are easily accessible and browsable.
• Research: Product details and other relevant information — like stock levels, delivery options and returns policies — are easily accessible with just a turn of the head.
• Purchase: shoppers just hold their eyes on the ‘Add to Basket’ icon to complete their purchases via the eBay app.

“The feedback we’ll be getting over the next few months will come from interviewing our customers. We’ll be seeing analytics behind how long they spend in the experience, what they looking at, what they’re buying. All these data points will help inform what comes next.”

Physically building the VR environment has also been challenging. While the majority of the 12,500 available product images have been pulled straight from the Myer eBay store in 2D, the top 100 available products have been fully rendered in 3D, which is particularly complex and time consuming.

Social shopping is another huge possibility, being able to digitally shop with friends via virtual reality.

“Imagine shopping a boutique in London from your sofa in Sydney with your sister who lives in New York,” said Brennen.

True personalisation and contextual relevance is another exciting possibility. Brennen talks of a personalised VR store that only shows relevant products and brands in the right size.

See the full story here: http://www.powerretail.com.au/news/myer-ebay-vr-store/

Real Virtual Show: Creating the Virtual Reality Industry with Reverend Kyle

Google I/O 2016: Google Set To Introduce Its Own Virtual Reality And Artificial Intelligence

Today, Google is about to unveil an advanced technology of virtual reality. Peter Rojas, an expert tech journalist, revealed that Android VR is prepared to be presented as an exclusive, standalone headset that won't need a smartphone to work.

The Analysts Findings About Android VR

However, Peter Rojas added that the upcoming Android VR will be not as vigorous compared to Vive or Rift. But, Android VR can give its users a much better virtual reality experience than the Gear VR.

"This year's focus will be virtual reality, no doubt," Jeff Kagan, an analyst, said, as per Computerworld. "I believe Google wants to be a leader in virtual reality and, in this marketplace where there are no leaders yet, I think they will try and secure their place in the front of the line."

See the full story here: http://www.parentherald.com/articles/44011/20160517/google-i-o-2016-google-set-to-introduce-its-own-virtual-reality-and-artificial-intelligence.htm

Singapore testing augmented reality to cut noise in public areas

The Nanyang Technological University and Housing Development Board are creating a system to simulate noise in the city. Housing designers will be able to listen to the simulated sounds and “see” how different noise sources interact with each other using a pair of AR headsets.

The proposal has received funding from the Ministry of National Development and National Research Foundation to develop the project, along with four others. A total of S$14 million was awarded to five research projects under the Land and Liveability National Innovation Challenge.

See the full story here: https://govinsider.asia/smart-gov/singapore-testing-augmented-reality-to-cut-noise-in-public-areas/

VRidge Streams VR from PC to Google Cardboard, Gear VR

For those looking for an affordable VR alternative, RiftCat has been busy developing an app called VRidge that streams virtual reality games from a PC to a smartphone over Wi-Fi. The beta is currently available for Android, but the company is also working on an iOS version. The most recent update added support for SteamVR and Razer’s open source OSVR project. The implications could be significant, especially when considering the cost of investing in a high-end VR headset, such as the $600 Oculus Rift or $800 HTC Vive, both of which still require a powerful PC starting in the $1,500 range.

The VRidge app works with more affordable VR headsets such as the $20 Google Cardboard and Samsung’s $99 Gear VR. However, one downside is that the platform does not yet support all games. Another involves problems with latency, since it is streamed wirelessly. The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive do not support wireless.

“And there’s a good reason for that, since there’s a considerable delay to factor in,” reports Digital Trends, noting that this has not yet “become a viable solution for commercial products.”

According to The Verge: “There’s already one company doing this, Trinus VR, but VRidge claims to have a ‘complete runtime replacement’ for VR titles, ‘with low level hooks that emulate Oculus.’ Right now VRidge can only do rotational tracking, not positional (basically, the same limitations as Google Cardboard and Gear VR), but these ‘low level hooks’ should give VRidge a theoretical way to do positional tracking with a phone.”

See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/vridge-streams-vr-from-pc-to-google-cardboard-gear-vr/

​UK’s first virtual reality centre in Lincoln needs special agents to find the stolen Magna Carta

Players will have to use their best team-work and problem solving skills to think outside the box and save the world from imminent disaster, in just one hour.

Tension is the virtual reality company who is bringing the brand new type of entertainment not just to Lincoln, but to the UK.

Owners have spent £200,000 kitting out the former church on Croft Street in Lincoln and making it fit for the virtual reality centre.

Downstairs will be 'Tension Exit Games'. These are the games where groups work together in a virtually reality to save the world in under an hour and 'exit the game' – such as the Magna Carta mission.

Upstairs will be 'Tension Virtual Reality'. It's split into four rooms for individual players to explore any virtual reality they choose.

See the full story here: http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/8203-UK-s-virtual-reality-centre-Lincoln-needs/story-29275052-detail/story.html

First Look: Visit Albuquerque goes VR to attract tourists (Video)

Visit Albuquerque, which Thursday said that it would retire the Albuquerque Visitors and Convention Bureau name, also used its 35th annual meeting to announce a “Visit Albuquerque Viewfinder.”

The viewfinder project is slated to showcase Albuquerque’s people and places via 360-degree, immersive video, and will be set up in strategic locations across the country, including malls, airports and plazas in targeted cities like Dallas, Phoenix, San Diego and Chicago. It will also travel to trade shows and sales conferences.

CEO and president Tania Armenta said Visit Albuquerque is the first destination in the country to launch this type of viewfinder initiative. They plan to work with Owlized, a San Francisco-based startup that uses outdoor virtual reality viewers to connect people to the future or history of a place.

See the full story here: http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/news/2016/05/13/first-look-visit-albuquerque-goes-vr-to-attract.html

The Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Relationship

This week, Datamation offered an overview of the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality (SVVR) conference. The overall theme was upbeat.

A key question with which industry insiders must deal is the relationship between virtual reality and augmented reality (VR and AR). It’s a bit difficult because the two overlap but are distinctly different in terms of what they offer users, use cases and business models. Datamation’s David Needle found that SVVR creator Karl Krantz thinks that the two are far different:

The SVVR conference had only a few augmented reality exhibits. Krantz says he’s kept SVVR “hyper-focused on VR” because a lot of other conferences do both, but he thinks AR is a very different community, that tends to be more conservative and backed by big companies, where VR is more bottom up and accessible as evidenced by the many Kickstarter VR projects.

Krantz told Needle that the two eventually will merge, but in the interim VR will outpace AR. The latter, he said, is more difficult and VR is evolving more quickly.

See the full story here: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/data-and-telecom/the-virtual-realityaugmented-reality-relationship.html

Google I/O 2016: Android N, Chrome OS, virtual reality, and what else to expect

Android VR: here's something new. Google appears to be planning a new virtual reality platform based around Android. There are enough leaks — including from Google itself — to make this seem like a sure thing. The question is, what exactly will it look like?

The Wall Street Journal reported nearly a year ago that Google was working on new virtual reality features for Android. Then in February, the Financial Timesreported that Google was working on a Gear VR-style headset — something you'd be able to slide a phone into. Google already makes its Cardboard headsets, but this one would seemingly be more advanced.

Bloomberg reports that Tango will be used to assist virtual reality apps. If that's the case, it's easy to imagine this somehow tying into the Android VR announcement. (The Verge's Dieter Bohn floated that very idea not too long ago.) Point being, this could get very interesting.

See the full story here: http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/16/11676324/google-io-conference-2016-preview-android-n-cardboard-keynote