philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Teach-U: VR uses virtual reality to let anyone learn piano or drums

Kelly and Shi used Google’s Cardboard VR device with an infrared sensor from PMD added to enable hand gestures into the virtual environment. So beyond merely observing via Cardboard, users can reach out, touch and play their virtual instruments. They also adapted the setup — which was developed using Unity, Carnival’s SDK and good ol’ fashioned tinkering — to allow two concurrent users in the same virtual reality space: the teacher and the student.

HTC banks on new phone, virtual reality as sales plunge

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC said Monday its first-quarter revenue plunged by more than half, but that losses in its struggling business should end later this year as it banks on a new flagship product.

...the company touts its new HTC 10 to have the best smartphone camera on the market. It carries a new feature that gives users more options to personalise home screens than many Android phones.

HTC has been pouring resources into virtual reality, as have its rivals including Samsung and LG.
Chang declined to comment on reports that HTC is looking to spin off its virtual reality business, only emphasising that it is a "very high potential market."

See the full story here: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/htc-banks-on-new-phone-virtual-reality-as-sales-plunge/articleshow/52187627.cms

The Void opening VR Theme Park in Times Square

The New York attraction is being called "Ghostbusters: Dimension" and will open on July 1st, just ahead of the film's July 15th debut.

It uses a VR headset powered by a supercomputer backpack to allow for untethered walking. Participants wear a haptic suit that tracks their movement and provides a sensory experience. Moving podiums, fog machines, and heat lamps give the VR world a physically convincing atmosphere. The sales pitch is that this is not just virtual reality, it's hyper reality, and all the reviews so far have testified to an experience that lives up to this moniker.

The company's business plan is to create entertainment centers around the world, small-scale versions of what it built in Utah powered by the same tech. ... If you go to see Star Wars in theaters and you love it, you can pay an additional $10 or $20 to spend 15 minutes actually walking around in the universe interacting with its characters and environment. Today it announced the launch of its first public experience, a partnership with Sony Pictures around its new Ghostbusters film.

NextVR is teaming up with music promoter Live Nation to offer hundreds of concerts in virtual reality.

Virtual reality producer NextVR has struck a deal with concert promoter Live Nation to broadcast hundreds of upcoming concerts in virtual reality. The five-year deal will kick off with a yet-to-be-announced event this summer.

"This agreement actually spans from what you might consider an intimate performance to very large music festivals," NextVR co-founder Dave Cole told Recode. The effort will begin with free events, with the possibility that some will be pay-per-view as the audience grows and technology matures.

Concerts are a good candidate for VR for another reason: There is really only one key spot where you want to be.

One of the advantages of the long-term Live Nation deal is that NextVR will be able to work with the musicians ahead of time, designing camera positions into their staging.

See the full story here: http://www.recode.net/2016/5/5/11634242/live-concerts-could-be-just-the-ticket-for-virtual-reality

The New Yorker releases its first augmented reality cover

[Philip Lelyveld comment: Watch the video at the link.  The biggest news is that the New Yorker has an annual Innovation Issue.  Who knew?]

See the full story here: https://news.fastcompany.com/the-new-yorker-releases-its-first-augmented-reality-cover-4006426

Will Virtual reality change real estate?

[Philip Lelyveld comment; Some USC undergrads with a $350 Theta have been hired by realtors around LA to do this for a few hundred dollars a house. There is a lot of room for competition in the market.]

VR Global, a New York based company, films apartments and turns them into a virtual walk-through, where potential buyers can experience a home from anywhere in the world.

Sam DeBianchi, founder of DeBianchi Real Estate is more skeptical, however.

"I think it's a great tool, but that's where it stops," she said. "It's virtual, it's not reality."

The cost to turn an apartment into a virtual listing doesn't come cheap, however.

Serhant said he has some Manhattan apartments completed for $3,000, while a recent 3-bedroom apartment in Manhattan that CNBC visited, costed $15,000 in total.

See the full story here: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/05/will-virtual-reality-change-real-estate.html

Nashville School Uses Augmented Reality (AR in 2,500 classrooms worldwide!!!)

Letters alive utilizes 3D technology to animate 26 animals, each representing a letter. The animals jump to life and interact with students once a letter card is held under a special camera connected to a PC or Mac. The curriculum teaches letter naming and sound, spelling and sentence building and comprehension.

Alive Studios, based in Dacula, GA, provides reading and math progress assessments digitally, which is designed to make it easy for instructors like Smedley-Warren to monitor their students’ progress.

Each Letters alive kit costs $795. If a district buys eight copies or more, Alive Studios will provide free on-site professional development and a one-year subscription to online student assessments...

Letters alive is used in over 2,500 classrooms nationwide and worldwide, including Australia, the United Kingdom, China, Japan, Turkey and India, Ricketson said.

See the full story here: https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/05/05/nashville-school-uses-augmented-reality.aspx

Terragon Group to make Augmented Reality (AR) mainstream in Africa

Terragon Group, Africa’s largest digital media company, recently announced its capabilities to create Augmented Reality (AR) solution in Africa.

Terragon Group has partnered with Blippar Inc., a leading technology company in AR globally, to bring the solution to the African market.

“The opportunities for AR are endless to any organization as it seeks to enhance our real world experience. By superimposing digital information on real life objects, individual customers are given a personalised and rich user experience that enables them to easily connect to a brand’s offerings. With the use of AR, Brands have an in-depth understanding of their customer behaviour that will increase affinity, user engagement and interaction with their various product/service offering," Esan said.

See the full story here: http://pulse.ng/tech/blippar-terragon-group-to-make-augmented-reality-ar-mainstream-in-africa-id4996566.html

Adding a level of reality to online shopping

In a rather bland office above the Copley Place mall, Shrenik Sadalgi is doing a little redecorating. He installs a $1,000 chandelier in the ceiling in a matter of seconds, without a drill or a shower of plaster dust. Then, without breaking a sweat, he places an upholstered armchair beneath it.

Sadalgi’s only tool is a small tablet computer outfitted with an “augmented reality” app that he and his team at Boston-based Wayfair are developing. Because the chandelier is merely a digital object overlaid atop the real environment, with a click he can move it to another part of the ceiling, and with another click he can turn it on to see how it would illuminate the space.

The first step is creating a three-dimensional digital model of the furniture the site sells. That involves putting an item onto a turntable that rotates it as four high-resolution digital cameras mounted onto a vertical pole snap about 3 gigabytes’ worth of still photos.

Wayfair cofounder Steve Conine talks about using this technology to “close the gap,” so that shopping for furniture on the Internet appeals to people who haven’t done it before, and makes Wayfair more competitive with brick-and-mortar retailers where you can sit on a sofa before you buy it.

See the full story here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/05/05/adding-level-reality-online-shopping/wXRlzWBdGIo7j5LO8sOg5K/story.html

Virtual reality: The Next Big Thing for college creatives

[Philip Lelyveld comment: Featuring my USC VRSC friends!!!]

Among the bigger showcases for the technology took place last month, when the University of Southern California’s Virtual Reality Club (VRSC) hosted its first annual Virtual Reality Festival and Demo Day, a showcase of projects and panels with The Walt Disney Company as its title sponsor.

Students traveled from the University of California-San Diego, UCLA, Chapman University, Loyola Marymount University and the University of Colorado-Boulder to attend the fest. The judges were industry professionals from companies including NVIDIA, Google, Maker Studios and Industrial Light and Magic’s X Lab.

Some $25,000 in prizes were split among winners in four categories: 360 Live-Action Videos, 360 Animation, Interactive VR Games and Immersive Technology/Augmented Reality (AR). VR/AR categories ranged from health care to games, journalism, interactive design and interpretive dance.

“I encourage all virtual reality creators to say ‘no’ to things like Grand Theft Auto,” Townley says. “Make something worthwhile. That should be the No. 1 priority. That needs to be the future.”

See the full story here: http://college.usatoday.com/2016/05/02/virtual-reality-college-campuses/