philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

‘The Jungle Book’: Creating Virtual Reality Experiences with VFX Supervisor Keith Miller

In September, Disney invested over $60 million in the Virtual Reality start-up company Jaunt, another sign that the once-dormant format was back on the upswing. It wasn’t too long ago that VR was considered a joke, a relic from the 90s as kitschy and outdated as The Lawnmower Man. But the VR movement has now come back full circle into the limelight. Last year, ILM released the ‘Trials on Tatooine’, a short VR piece in conjunction with Star Wars: The Force Awakens and just this month, Disney released two short The Jungle Book VR experiences. In King Louie: Cold Lairs, you see through Mowgli’s eyes as he comes face to face with titular Great Ape.

See the lengthy interview here: http://collider.com/the-jungle-book-vfx-supervisor-keith-miller-interview/

IS VIRTUAL REALITY THE FUTURE OF MUSIC VIDEOS?

But one experience might spearhead an entirely new genre: the virtual reality music video. In “Old Friend,” creator Tyler Hurd, who cut his teeth as a video game animator, drops you into the center of a psychedelic dance circle set to Future Islands' song of the same name. As the tune’s high-pitched synth hook kicks in on your headphones, you’re confronted by an almost psychotically happy drum major who twirls his baton, lip syncs, dances like a madman, and makes it all but impossible for you not to do the same.

All around you are colorful elastic characters shaking their colorful elastic limbs with the kind of liberated abandon that’s only possible on a virtual dance floor in an imaginary universe hidden behind an actual, real-world curtain. Beyond your dance circle, big anthropomorphic mountains shake and shimmy, and every cloud smiles the instant you look at it. And, what’s this? Your own arms (which move via the HTC Vive’s controllers) are long and wavy and seem re-designed for the sole purpose of indiscriminate virtual dancing! Look down, and your feet are wiggling in uncontrollable joy. In other words, you’re not just listening to the music; you are the music.

By the time the video ends, just about everybody who exits those curtains looks like they just got a free trip to space—and when they got there it was just one giant rave, thrown in their honor.

“I modeled all the dance moves after my friends,” says Hurd. “I was like, ‘Just come over and we’ll all get wasted and make some videos!’” Once he had his material, Hurd played the videos back frame by frame and made his virtual dance troupe pull off the same moves. “Old Friend” took Hurd nine months to complete (he did all the animations and coding himself). But it was a labor of love, he says, because once he got a glimpse of what was possible with VR, the one-time 2D-only animator was hooked.

See the full story here: http://www.popsci.com/is-virtual-reality-future-music-videos

Verizon’s AOL Buys Virtual Reality Video Specialist RYOT

PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS

Verizon Communications Inc.’s AOL has agreed to acquire virtual reality and 360-degree video company RYOT Corp., the companies announced Wednesday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition comes as marketers and digital media organizations are investing heavily in virtual reality and 360-degree video to publish to platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat in addition to their owned-and-operated properties.

RYOT and its 25 staffers will form a new unit under AOL’s The Huffington Post, and will also work with other publications across AOL’s portfolio of properties including TechCrunch, Engadget and Autoblog. RYOT’s capabilities and services will also be offered to clients of AOL’s Partner Studio division, which creates branded content for marketers.

“RYOT will work on big editorial projects, but also with brands. It will work across everything we’re doing at The Huffington Post,” said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.

See the full story here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/verizons-aol-buys-virtual-reality-video-specialist-ryot-1461153651

Kaleidoscope festival is a whirl through virtual reality

Billing itself as a showcase for "the best in virtual reality film, art, and immersive experiences", the Kaleidoscope World Tour is the VR equivalent of a travelling film festival.

After starting in Paris last month, the showcase embarked on a whistle-stop tour of the world: 10 cities in just 42 days. It wrapped up in Melbourne, Australia, where I got to have a look at some of the 30-plus experiences on offer.

Kaleidoscope is not only the name of the festival, it's a community of visual artists, developers, filmmakers and anyone else working on VR experiences. Nick Ochoa is the global VR evangelist for Kaleisoscope, a role that also seems to include a lot of community wrangling.

See the full story here: http://www.cnet.com/news/kaleidoscope-vr-virtual-reality-festival-world-tour-is-a-whirl-2016-winners/

Embedding Virtual Reality Across the Web with VR Views

Here is a skilled-consumer guide to posting 360 videos.

http://www.sitepoint.com/embedding-virtual-reality-across-the-web-with-vr-views/

Google’s VR View works on the latest versions of the following browsers on both desktop and mobile:

• Chrome on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
• Safari on iOS and Mac OS X.
• Firefox on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
• IE 11 and Edge on Windows.

With desktop versions, your “virtual reality” experience is mostly a panorama experience where you drag the view around with your mouse.

What Marketers Need to Understand About Augmented Reality

In order for the potential of AR to be realized, though, companies have to resist the urge to hastily create AR apps (that risk appearing gimmicky), and instead focus on better understanding how consumers will interact with the technology. Based on research I have been conducting on consumer responses to AR over the past four years, I have found that designing and implementing valuable AR apps requires the following: a better idea of how consumers would use such technology; more collaboration among computer scientists, designers, and marketers; and a strategy for integrating the applications into the existing consumer journey.

When I started working on AR as the topic for my PhD, almost no established knowledge about it existed in the marketing field. However, computer science and human-computer interaction research have been tackling AR for years, and borrowing insights from those fields can greatly help marketers understand what this technology will mean in commercial contexts.

Working with professor Yvonne Rogers from the UCL Interaction Centre and AR designers Ana Moutinho and Russell Freeman from the AR agency Holition, we conducted one of the first studies of how consumers use AR to “try on” make-up in a store. The app we used allows people to put on virtual lipstick or eye-shadows that moves with their faces.

...when the AR app was integrated in a familiar retail setting as a part of the shopping experience, people not only thought highly of the technology, but they also positively related to the products. They were more likely to buy them and view the app as a convenient tool for shopping, not just for playing around.

Marketers should remember that AR is not about creating a completely new reality; it’s about enhancing what already exists. ... This is one of the reasons why people like Snapchat’s AR feature, where users can play with different visual effects to transform ordinary videos into shareable stories.

The crucial part of the AR experience is whether the technology adds real value.

See the full post here: https://hbr.org/2016/04/what-marketers-need-to-understand-about-augmented-reality

Spirit Aerosystems deploys Airbus augmented reality tool for composite fuselage brackets

[Philip Lelyveld comment: I assume the humans will be replaced by computers when computer vision is adequately precise.]

Airbus Group Innovation (Ottobrunn, Germany) developed MiRA technology to reduce the inspection time for tens of thousands of brackets that hold hydraulic pipes and wire bundles in place and attach them to the composite fuselage sections of the latest production aircraft.  Using a tablet-based interface equipped with a camera for visual inspection, operators superimpose a digital mock-up over “as built” reality. In other words, workers access the 3D model of the aircraft and compare the built and installed assemblies to their digital designs to inspect for missing, wrongly positioned or damaged brackets. At the end of the inspection, a report is automatically generated that includes details of any non-conforming parts which can be replaced or repaired quickly.

See the full story here: http://www.compositesworld.com/news/spirit-aerosystems-deploys-airbus-augmented-reality-tool-for-composite-fuselage-brackets

Grindex unveils Augmented Reality digital tool

It’s fair to say that bauma 2016 might feel like Augmented Reality for Grindex.

Among world leaders in electric submersible pumps, the firm is this week unveiling a digital tool based on Augmented Reality technology – offering an X-ray vision of the firm’s products.

“Simply point the tablet’s camera at a pump and a cut-away image will be added on the screen, providing the user with buttons that explain and/or animate certain features,” Grindex sales manager Peter Uvemo explained.

See the full story here: http://www.worldhighways.com/event-news/bauma/2016/news/grindex-unveils-augmented-reality-digital-tool/

VR porn is coming to hotels on the Las Vegas strip

Sin City is about to get a bit more sinful, as VR content platform VR Bangers and headset maker AuraVisor are teaming up to offer in-room adult experiences (via virtual reality) at hotels on the strip in Las Vegas.

What makes this partnership particularly interesting is that users who purchase the in-room AuraVisor will be viewing content that was filmed in a hotel room that looks similar to the one where they’re staying, making the fantasy that much more immersive.

Interested hotel guests simply pay $20 on their credit card to have an AuraVisor headset in the room. This headset is pre-loaded with sexy-time content, and all the user has to do is specify the preferred gender of their virtual partner.

See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/19/vr-porn-is-coming-to-hotels-on-the-las-vegas-strip/

YouTube rolls out 360 live stream and spatial audio support

By Phil Lelyveld for ETCentric.org

YouTube has begun supporting 360-degree live streaming video and spatial audio on its service.  Google has supported 360-degree video since last year and spatial audio in the Cardboard since January in their VR platform.  This announcement broadens that support to the main YouTube platform.  For YouTube creators, all that’s required to take advantage of this new feature is a camera that captures 360 video. From the end-user perspective, there’s no extra technology or headsets required to watch 360-degree live streams. The 360 videos will play on any device, including desktop, tablet, iOS or Android.  One of the first videos to take advantage of this more immersive format will be this year’s live stream from music event Coachella, where select performances from the festival will now be live streamed in 360 degrees.