THE CLIMB IS CRYTEK’S NEW VIRTUAL REALITY GAME ABOUT MOUNTAIN CLIMBING
With that, The Climb was born. It's a game about scaling up a mountain from a first-person point of view. The gameplay is deceptively simple: holding down the left or right triggers causes your in-game avatar to grab any viewable, in-distance ledge with their left or right hand. You "aim" at new ledges simply by looking, craning your neck, shifting your body weight when necessary. If the nearest ledge is too far to reach, you can attempt to jump for it, but you'll need to look well above where the ledge is actually located.
It's a simple base from which to build, and Bowman says that was the key for Crytek as it looked for a virtual reality idea that felt right for the company.
The single mountain face I scale in The Climb is the first and easiest in the game. It's a slow introduction. My first five minutes are spent learning the ropes, moving ledge by ledge.
What sticks with me is not only how different this is from Crytek's wheelhouse, but how slowly and elegantly the mechanics expand — in a way that doesn't seem normal for this ambitious developer.
...prevent what Erjavec calls "simulation sickness."
To achieve this, Crytek has The Climb running at a continuous 90 frames per second and a resolution of 2160 by 1200.
While the game will be single-player only, it will have scoreboards for competing against your friends.
The Climb is planned for release as part of the Oculus Rift's "launch window," which will be some time during the first quarter of 2016. It will debut on Rift exclusively, but Bowman says that Crytek owns the intellectual property, and future versions could come to other platforms.
See the full story here: http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/12/15/10181740/the-climb-crytek-oculus-rift-virtual-reality?curator=MediaREDEF
Virtual Reality Livestreams Come to the Porn Industry
According to Piper Jaffray research analyst Travis Jakel, adult entertainment will be the number three driver of all virtual reality content behind games and movies, and the porn virtual reality business will grow into a $1 billion industry by 2020. Piper Jaffray does not break out livestreaming from the rest of the adult entertainment business.
Jakel forecasts that 3% of virtual reality users will pay on average $35 for adult content in 2016, accounting for $13 million of the total market—compared to 5% of virtual reality users spending an average of $56.66 on games, accounting for $35 million of the market, and 15% of VR users spending an average of $8.19 on movies, accounting for $15 million of the market.
Daron Lundeen, president of CamSoda, says the six live high definition streams are fed into a super computer that stitches them together to make a 360-degree video feed. The free stream is accessible on any virtual reality device, including Google Cardboard GOOG -0.07% , Samsung Gear VR, Facebook Oculus Rift FB 0.56% , and HTC Vive.
Lundeen says that while “live sex” searches are roughly one-tenth the size of “free porn videos” searches, livestream patrons tend to be more sticky.
See the full story here: http://fortune.com/2015/12/16/vr-livestream-porn/
CastAR will return $1M in Kickstarter money and postpone augmented reality glasses shipments
The CastAR glasses can project 3D holographic images in front of your eyes so that you can either feel like you’re seeing a virtual layer on top of the real world or feel like you’re immersed inside a game world. It works with glasses and a reflective sheet-like material called “retro-reflective.” While you could theoretically use the reflective sheets to animate an entire room, CastAR has decided to focus on using smaller sheets for tabletop gaming.
“We are shifting out of Kickstarter mode into a more professional mode,” Henkel-Wallace said. “Not everyone manages that properly. We are doing this out of a position of strength. We still plan to ship a consumer product in 2017. That’s different from the original Kickstarter timeline.”
See the full story here: http://venturebeat.com/2015/12/16/castar-will-return-1m-in-kickstarter-money-and-postpone-augmented-reality-glasses-shipments/
How This Startup Hopes to Improve Virtual Reality Video Delivery
Pixvana has raised $6 million to develop virtual reality video cloud production and a delivery platform for a 2016 launch.
...And yet when he began researching this new medium, he discovered no company was developing software that will help deliver high quality 360-degree video content through the cloud.
“Pixvana is a set of platform capabilities that will work with clouds such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and others to deliver great VR video experiences on major VR and AR headsets such as Valve’s Steam VR platform with HTC Vive, Oculus VR, Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, and those that we expect Apple, Amazon, and Google are also building,” Key says.
“The industry is going to deliver these VR headsets and they are going to be great,” Key says. “The real question is will the software/content be as marvelous as we think it has the potential to be, and that’s where VC capital is flowing (into software and content).”
Key says Pixvana does not see a distinction between live and pre-recorded video, which are both important markets for the company. This opens up additional livestreaming opportunities for companies like NextVR, IM360, and LiveLike VR, which have been exploring how VR can enhance viewer experiences for everything from sporting events to the MTV Video Music Awards.
The Seattle-based company received its initial $6 million investment led by Madrona Venture Group with participation from Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, as well as angel investors.
Key says this seed round will be used to expand the company’s engineering team and get its first products ready for market.
“We have quite a bit of core technology and systems working in the lab—this is our ‘get Version 1 to market’ funding,” Key says.
Key has assembled a team of executives from the technology and entertainment industries, including chief product officer Bill Hensler from Apple AMZN 1.53% and Adobe ADBE 1.68% , as well as CTO and creative director Scott Squires from Industrial Light and Magic, and vice president of product management Sean Safreed from Red Giant.
See the full story here: http://fortune.com/2015/12/14/prixvana-vr-video-delivery/
MIT’s Reality Editor App Lets You Reprogram the World With Augmented Reality
[Philip Lelyveld comment: this is a cool concept piece. Use an augmented reality app to mix and match the components of your appliances to create appliances with greater functionality. Its a virtual 'maker' app. It will, of course, require coming up with a whole appliance product line that accommodates the app.]
Heun is a researcher at the MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group where he’s building an app that he hopes will effectively turn the one-dimensional objects in our lives into a library of parts whose functionalities can be mixed and matched via an augmented reality interface.
A more concrete example: If you wanted your food processor to have a timer, all you’d have to do is look at the object through the Reality Editor interface and drag a line from the toaster’s timer knob to the food processor’s motor; the two would then automatically be connected over the Open Hybrid server.
Using Reality Editor to reassign functionality from one object to another could not only declutter a physical interface, it could also ultimately free us from the shackles of our smartphones, instead letting us rely on the physical world to manipulate our devices.
Interestingly, Heun’s app assumes that users want more control over the objects in their lives, which isn’t always the case. Smart objects are attractive if only because they cater to our laziness—we don’t think about them simply because we don’t want to. Reality Editor requires active participation—at least at first. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
See the full story here: http://www.wired.com/2015/12/mits-reality-editor-app-lets-you-reprogram-the-world-with-augmented-reality/
Augmented Reality ‘VisitPalmSprings’ App Now Available on iTunes
[Philip Lelyveld comment - this is Virtual Reality, not Augmented Reality. Its a nice little travel brochure with 360 prerecorded look-around and interaction capabilities.]
Civic Resource Group (CRG) and the Palm Springs Bureau of Tourism of Palm Springs, Calif. today announced the availability of the Augmented Reality "VisitPalmSprings" App on iTunes.
"VisitPalmSprings" includes key functional features covering the latest information for those looking for what to do and how to get around the city using public transportation in Palm Springs. Users will be able to find accommodations, events, dining, attractions and more; get exclusive access to local deals; use bookmarks to help plan a journey. The app includes interactive maps and compass view. Users can virtually "move" to another location to see what's waiting for them at the next point of interest. The app also includes Augmented Reality features such as geospatial search, pointing, and pointing- enabled search. The app works offline - meaning no surprise roaming/data charges for the users. The City's newest addition, the BUZZ Trolley, shows real-time route information.
See the full story here: https://www.send2press.com/newswire/augmented-reality-visitpalmsprings-app-available-on-itunes-2015-1215-01.shtml
The Business of Virtual Reality workshop – the report
On Nov. 17, 2015 I produced a workshop on the business aspects of virtual reality. 104 executives from 72 organizations attended this half-day event.