philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Augmented reality-reveal for Expo 2020 master plan

Using augmented reality, Dubai Expo 2020's organising team offered visitors of Arab Media Forum a glimpse of how the Expo 2020 site will "look and feel" upon completion.

The event is to be held between 20 October, 2020 and 10 April, 2021.

Spanning 2sqkm, the Expo site will revolve around the Al Wasl meeting plaza.

The Expo's pavilions have been planned along the sub-themes of opportunity, mobility, and sustainability.

Reem bint Ibrahim Al Hashemi, Minister of State for International Cooperation and director-general of Expo 2020 Dubai, said the Expo 2020 Dubai’s master plan "truly reflects the theme of ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’".

See the full story here: http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-38993-augmented-reality-reveal-for-expo-2020-master-plan/

VR – consumer’s intent to purchase

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3974401-wearables-revolution-himax-technologies-buy-dips-sell-rips

Toward natural interfaces – AR at NGRAIN

NGRAIN is an industrial augmented reality [AR] and virtual reality [VR] company.

Use cases;

Familiarization. For a novice technician who needs to work on a piece of equipment, our technology will provide access to information about individual parts that the technician might have never seen or touched before.

Automated damage assessment and visual inspection. This capability is particularly useful in manufacturing situations where products require very tight levels of tolerance.

[AR through tablets today, smart glasses later.]

For AR to take off, the ability to rapidly create, manage, edit, and deploy 3-D content is one of the problems that should be addressed.

Our authoring solution, NGRAIN Vergence, allows you to create and deploy AR and VR content without writing any code.

There has been some work in the use of gesture interfaces in AR and VR, such as the six degrees of freedom input or multidimensional input methods. But the problem of building an interaction language that can be used on a device that works in the real world is not fully solved yet. In addition, the solution must be robust enough to work in a general-purpose setting, including low light or bright light, indoors or outdoors, and so on.

I believe we as an industry will evolve to a point where interface isn’t necessarily about an interaction language. Instead, we will create systems that are smart enough or intelligent enough to interpret the context in which you’re working. The system will know what you are doing, and it will anticipate what you will do next. This capability will move the interaction from deterministic to probabilistic scenarios.

Ultimately, the deterministic and probabilistic will combine, so the system will rely on not just gesture alone, but a combination of context, voice, gestures, touch, and so forth as the means of rich interaction. The interactions will become truly natural. I think such technology is on its way.

Today we have the ability to do what is called optically transparent AR—the ability to use the tracking technology in conjunction with our rendering engine to overlay graphics on top of the physical pieces of equipment.

See the full story here: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/technology-forecast/augmented-reality/interviews/barry-po-ngrain.html

Fully-funded Research Doctoral Scholarship: The role of visualisation and augmented reality in increasing energy efficiency in the built environment

Teesside University - Technology Futures Institute
A stipend of £15,000 per annum is offered to a strong candidate for this full time PhD scholarship in the Technology Futures Institute at Teesside University.

The studentship will be part of the Doctoral Training Alliance (DTA) in Energy, a new postgraduate training initiative which builds on the research strengths and industry-focused ethos of the University Alliance. The DTA aims to develop independent, highly-employable researchers with knowledge, expertise and skills in strategically-important research areas and is the largest multi-partner and only nationwide initiative of its kind.

People spend 90% of their lives in buildings, being responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO₂ emissions in the developed countries. Efficient consumption of resources, particularly the use of energy, represents a major challenge in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Therefore, the strategic priorities of the European Union for 2030 include a reduction in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by 40% (compared to 1990 levels), an increase of energy efficiency of at least 27%, and the implementation of renewable energies of at least 27%.

See the full post here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ANQ668/fully-funded-research-doctoral-scholarship-the-role-of-visualisation-and-augmented-reality-in-increasing-energy-efficiency-in-the-built-environment/

The ‘point and shoot’ Vuze 3D VR camera is coming this fall for $799

Though bigger than a Theta or or Samsung's spherical Gear 360, the Vuze is still small enough to pocketable (depending on the size of your pockets, at least). It has eight full HD cameras, two on each side, each with 120-degree horizontal / 180-degree vertical fields of view. That setup allows it to capture stereoscopic 360 videos in 4K resolution at 30fps. An accompanying iOS / Android app is used for controlling the camera.

HumanEyes is touting the Vuze's "point and shoot" capabilities and that extends to post-production. The company says it will have "near real-time processing" (i.e., about one minute of processing per minute of footage) through its Vuze Studio app, that stitches the footage together using a variety of techniques, including a proprietary algorithm it calls adaptive blending. Based on the test footageavailable, the Vuze's stitching isn't quite seamless —

Originally shown at CES, the full kit is now available for preorder for $799, with an estimated ship date of sometime in October.

VR documentary Nomads arrives on Gear VR

Oculus VR wants you to know that virtual reality can be a medium for serious film and documentaries, and it's first high-profile project, Nomads, is ready for public viewing on the Gear VR. Created by Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël, the duo behind Montreal-based VR studio Felix & Paul, Nomads takes you to three distinct parts of the planet to embed viewers in the fabric of a foreign lifestyle. You can explore the Mongolian steppes with a group of yak herders, visit the Maasai tribe in Kenya, and travel the Malay Archipelago with Borneo's Bajau tribe.

Chapters of the trilogy, each of which are around 12 minutes in length, have already screened at film festivals like Sundance and Tribeca. But the full series is available now as an exclusive on Samsung's Gear VR headset.

See the full story here: http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/11/11657358/oculus-gear-vr-nomads-documentary-felix-and-paul-studios

Hollywood’s special effects industry is cratering, and an art form is disappearing along with it

From 2003 to 2013, 21 visual effects companies closed or filed for bankruptcy, according to the short documentary Life After Pi. The respected studio Rhythm and Hues declared bankruptcy 11 days before collecting an Academy Award for best visual effects for the 2012 film Life of Pi. When special effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer tried to call attention to the industry’s plight in his acceptance speech, producers cut his microphone off.

Survivors have found ways to adapt. The practical effects company Amalgamated Dynamics (ADI) won an Academy Award in 1992 for its work on the film Death Becomes Her. ... “ADI has gone through really lean times when we’ve turned to other fields—medical modeling, government work (I know that sounds mysterious, but that’s all we can say about it), architectural models,” said Woodruff.

See the full story here: http://qz.com/674547/hollywoods-special-effects-industry-is-cratering-and-an-art-form-is-disappearing-along-with-it/

Virtual reality’s new frontier: peacekeeping, Iraq War therapy, and digital paradises

Om takes me on a tour of her daily life in Palestine. I meet her husband and children, ride around in the husband's taxi, watch the kids play on the carousel. I watch Om fold laundry and go through the weary steps of preparing to give birth while dealing with the loss of two of her children in the 2014 airstrikes, when Israeli forces bombedseveral United Nations schools. She meets with a support group of other women who also lost children in the conflict.

I watch her begin and end her day with her family, praying that no one will ever have to experience her own levels of loss and devastation. I’m able to do everything but reach out and touch.

Vrse.works. My Mother’s Wing is a short 360-degree film that recently debuted online and on the Vrse mobile app.

It’s the third of a series of VR films that the UN has commissioned to take viewers into the daily lives of people impacted by the UN’s work. Previous films have introduced viewers to Syrians living in a Jordanian refugee camp and a Liberian Ebola survivor.

The Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) at Stanford, which studies human interactions in immersive environments, has conducted numerous studies illustrating that virtual reality can significantly increase empathic responses in its subjects.

In one study, participants who experienced the simulated experience of being colorblind in a VR environment spent more time helping someone who was actually colorblind after the study ended. In another study, virtually turning people into superheroes made them more likely to help others in real life.

Ana Serrano is the chief digital officer at the Canadian Film Centre. She notes that what we have instead mostly consists of 360-degree films instead of other forms of immersive VR, like the meditation I participated in, or more fully interactive VR.

To accelerate the process of inventing the medium, it would be good to get over the delusion that this is a 360-degree movie screen, so we can take better advantage of the possibilities for active navigation and interactivity," she told me.

The use of VR as a tool for therapy is also expanding. Among Serrano’s projects at the CFC Media Lab is a virtual reality meditation piece that builds on biofeedback from the user to build its interface in real time.

See the full story here: http://www.vox.com/2016/5/10/11651938/virtual-reality-expanding-therapy-art-journalism

Reggie Watts to appear live in virtual reality this May

Reggie Watts is one of the most unique and innovative comedians of his generation. On May 26, he is taking his forward thinking approach to comedy to the next level by appearing live in virtual reality, free of charge.

The comedian is teaming-up with AltspaceVR and JASH to perform in 3D on Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. There will also be a 2D version of the show available on Mac or PC for those who don't have 3D capability.

Another dream of mine comes true: I’m going to perform in #VR May 26th LIVE in AltspaceVR,” he said. “Check it out: http://altvr.com/reggie #Vrcomedy.”

See the full story here: http://www.axs.com/reggie-watts-to-appear-live-in-virtual-reality-this-may-83818

Wayfair announces a virtual reality lab for home furniture

[Philip Lelyveld comment: A recent study found that the consumers say the #1 use for mobile VR is viewing online products before they buy.  http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2015/consumerlab/ericsson-consumerlab-10-hot-consumer-trends-2016-report.pdf ]

Wayfair announced the opening of its Wayfair Next Research and Development Laboratory here, developing virtual reality and other technologies that will help customers see that sofa in the home before they touch the "buy" button.

The center at the home furnishings e-commerce retailer's headquarters, is “dedicated to accelerating the shift to online shopping by improving the visualization of products through first-party technologies that will drive innovation in home furnishings and décor,” the company said. It’s currently exploring 3D scanning techniques to digitize its product catalog to be used for augmented reality, virtual reality and 2D rendering.

The Wayfair Next lab also hosts the “Wayfair Virtual Reality Experience,” a hands-on demo that allows users to transform a room by customizing the model, material, color and layout of furnishings and décor. The company offered a taste of this to attendees at the High Point Market and indicated virtual reality brick and mortar shops may not be too far off in its future.

See full story here: http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/531406-if-wayfair-announce-virtual-reality-lab-does-it-really-exist

and here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160511005150/en/Wayfair-Announces-Opening-Research-Development-Laboratory