Virtual Reality Lets MMA Fans Feel the Punch
Bellator MMA, the mixed martial arts league owned by media giant Viacom. But where other sports are using VR to capture live action, Bellator plans to go behind the scenes and let viewers experience fighters’ pre-bout rituals, practice rounds and training regimens.
Jason Jordan, the league’s chief operating officer, professes himself underwhelmed with the current state of VR game footage—a sentiment widely shared by analysts and sports fans, who say the experience is little more immersive than conventional broadcasting.
"Everyone is throwing a lot on the walls to see what sticks," Jordan says.
That’s why Bellator isn’t bothering with the fights at all. MMA fighters don’t represent cities, colleges or nations in the way that teams do. So the leagues have capitalized on individual personalities, turning fighters like Ronda Rousey and Kimbo Slice, the YouTube street fighting sensation, into household names. Jordan says VR could bring fans exponentially closer to experiencing what a fighter goes through.
At a recent fight in Houston, the challenges of shooting in VR were painfully clear. A VR videographer strapped into a complicated camera rig had to jostle for space amid dozens of traditional broadcast cameras. As Kimbo Slice strode across a narrow runway, enshrouded in fog, cameramen jogged backward to capture his movement, leaving little room for the VR guy, who trailed behind. It wasn’t much easier in the training room, where the VR camera got in the way of pre-fight sparring and grappling.
See the full story here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-02-25/virtual-reality-lets-mma-fans-feel-the-punch
Virtual reality hype runs amok at MWC 2016, as mobile industry crowds onto bandwagon
[Philip Lelyveld note - lots of pictures in the story]
The mobile industry obviously believes VR is way more than just hype. They are behind it in a big, big way.
That could mean one of two things, I think.
Either this is going to create an unstoppable momentum that pushes VR into the mainstream this year.
Or the mobile industry is chasing fool’s gold and is going to be in for a huge disappointment.
Either way, at long last, consumers will get to cast the deciding votes with their attention and their wallets.
4D VR experience video - https://vine.co/v/ir6MPMdnAB9
See the full story here: http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/25/virtual-reality-hype-runs-amok-at-mwc-2016-as-mobile-industry-crowds-onto-bandwagon/
These Two School Districts Are Teaching Through Virtual Reality
Students in the San Francisco Unified School District and Polk County Public Schools in Florida are the first to use Nearpod VR virtual reality lesson plans. Using branded Google Cardboards, teachers can send classes on over 25 virtual field trip lessons that will offer first-person tours of the ancient pyramids of Egypt, the caves on Easter Island, the marine biomes of the Great Barrier Reef, Mars, patriotic landmarks across the U.S., and the tallest buildings in the world in Dubai.
“In addition, teachers can create their own VR lessons by searching for thousands of interactive panoramic images within the Nearpod content tool,” Nearpod co-founder and CEO Guido Kovalskys says. “The possibilities are endless.”
Brandon Farwell, partner at Rothenberg Ventures, which invested in Nearpod, believes virtual reality is a platform that influences numerous verticals broadly across enterprise and consumer.
See the full story here: http://fortune.com/2016/02/25/school-districts-teaching-through-virtual-reality/
Men are unlocking the virtual reality of being a woman. Get ready
Recent research has looked beyond how the technology could be used to increase Facebook’s profits. In one mental health study, by UCL and the University of Barcelona, patients entered the virtual world where they were asked to talk to a child and stop them from crying.
After a few minutes they were transferred to the child’s POV, and replayed the comforting words they’d given a few moments earlier. And thus, self-help takes on a whole new meaning.
“Virtual reality could remove the cognitive biases that we face in our day to day lives in the professional world” explains Liv Erickson, VR Developer and Evangelist at Microsoft.
“When we start to see a wider adoption of avatar technologies, I'd imagine that we'll also see a corresponding drop in cognitive bias around race, age, and gender.”
Right now the VR industry itself is enjoying an almost utopian, discrimination-free existence, according to a number of women I spoke to (though the majority of tech workers are male, of course).
See the full story here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/men-are-unlocking-the-virtual-reality-of-being-a-woman-get-ready/
Netflix is going big on 4K but no virtual reality
Netflix is ramping up the production of ultra-high definition 4K and so-called "high dynamic range" (HDR) content this year but the streaming service isn't jumping into virtual reality anytime soon.
Netflix will have 600 hours of 4K content on its platform by the end of the year and the company is also gearing up to launch HDR support. Season 1 of "Marco Polo" and season 2 of "Daredevil" will be the first shows available in HDR.
"We think there's a great opportunity for VR in gaming and the gaming space is going to be an interesting place for them to explore it. We don't see an opportunity right now in the near-term for Netflix and VR, but we do want to watch how great story tellers use this technology, because at the end of the day, what you really see is when consumers really engage with great storytelling there's a great opportunity and that's what we really want to see," Jaffe said.
See the full story here: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/25/netflix-is-going-big-on-4k-but-no-virtual-reality.html
Virtual reality turns Alton Towers flying coaster into intergalactic spaceship
Set to debut in April, the first VR coaster experience at the theme park in Staffordshire, England, will take riders on an intergalactic journey aboard the existing Air flying coaster.
Riders wearing Samsung Gear VR headsets will encounter molten planets, frozen tundras and newborn stars as they travel 45 mph along the twists, turns and loops of the 2002 Bolliger and Mabillard coaster.
After boarding the Air train, riders put on Samsung Gear VR headsets, and the virtual adventure begins. A ground crew of service droids prepares the jetpack flight vehicle for space travel as an artificial intelligence robot named Eve goes over the cosmic flight plan.
During the 80-second journey, riders pass through the clouds of the Great Orion Nebula, over the lava lakes of the fictional volcano planet Nero 5, across the frozen landscapes of frost-covered Keplar 9, and they witness the birth of a new star.
This summer, a new Ghost Train attraction combining virtual reality technology with special effects and magical illusions will debut at Alton’s U.K. rival Thorpe Park outside London.
See the full story here: http://www.latimes.com/travel/themeparks/la-trb-alton-towers-galactica-virtual-reality-coaster-20160224-story.html
Augmented Reality for Your Ears
Building on their knowledge of audio signal processing, Arkamys has designed the “3D Advanced Driver Assistance System” (3D-ADAS) system for installation in the cabin of automobiles that “spatializes” the alert sounds that your car makes – using multiple speakers within the car’s cabin to indicate the position and motion of the potential danger causing the alert.
While I was confused and searching the cockpit for some indication of what the alarm was, a car with 3D-ADAS would have lead me to the potential danger through a normal reaction to a sound coming from that direction.
The 3D Advanced Driver Assistance System is not currently in any vehicles but Arkamys has been speaking with car manufacturers about enhancing the functionality of their safety alert systems with 3D-ADAS.
See the full story here: http://geekdad.com/2016/02/arkamys/
Virtual and Augmented Reality: The Players and the Game
There is a very useful infographic and this link that brings together a number of VR/AR Market research graphics. Much of this is a republication of an infographic from last quarter, but it is still useful.
https://www.equities.com/news/virtual-and-augmented-reality-the-players-and-the-game
LG’s new virtual reality headset has a problem: too much reality
Philip Lelyveld comments: You can see a good, short video review of the LG VR HMD here: http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/24/11100776/lg-vr-360-headset-announced-mwc-2016
The title refers to the fact that the headset plugs into the phone, rather than contains the phone. It is light on your face, but it also lets you see the real world out the sides. They consider that a shortcoming and call it 'slightly underbaked.'
They somewhat unfairly also compare it to PC-based HMDs. "The second big problem is lag. I tested a few different bits of content on the 360, including a roller coaster ride through the ocean, some 360-degree photos from a mountaintop, and footage from a cafeteria full of dancing tweens.... But whenever I turned my head the picture blurred. "