5 world-altering virtual reality art installations
1. Enter.wonderland
This free digital exhibition at the National Theatre in London, running from 2 December 2015 to 30 April 2016, provides attendees with specially created digital experiences through an array of virtual reality technologies including Oculus Rift, Kinect, Google Cardboard.
It is based on the upcoming musical by Damon Albarn, Moira Buffini and Rufus Norris, which is the National's first virtual reality based production and focuses on blurring boundaries between our online and normal lives.
A virtual reality music video called fabulous wonder.land based on the musical is also set to premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in the US.
See the full story here: http://www.cbronline.com/news/internet-of-things/smart-technology/5-world-altering-virtual-reality-art-installations-4745456
This Augmented Reality App Reveals the ‘Truth’ Behind Political Campaigns
Hack De Patria (HDP), a project developed by a Venezuelan experimental activist group and Berlin-based media artists Refrakt, attempts to reveal the "truth" in the campaign ads for Maduro’s Chavismo government and its allies. Point the phone's camera at a particular campaign logo, and the app reveals more sinister meanings: one logo suddenly reads "Obey" and another "Fraud."
Not surprisingly, in creating HDP the groups were also influenced by the subliminal message-destroying glasses worn in John Carpenter's 1988 science-fiction satire They Live. The glasses allowed John Nada, the main character, to see the truth behind seemingly innocuous advertising, revealing an alien conspiracy to control the masses through capitalism.
As HDP proves, the use of augmented reality for political and electoral ends is still in its infancy, but has some interesting potential to convey messages and influence voters. Apart from HDP, augmented reality has been used in Lee Leffingwell’s campaign for mayor of Austin and in Pilnu Bildi, or “The Whole Picture,” an app developed by Latvian magazine ir and startup Overly, which allows anyone to hack political ads with more information on politicians. The iOS app, ir said, reached the third spot on Latvian App Store charts.
The simplicity of HDP, Acosta hoped, will eventually extend far outside the borders of Venezuela, to allow artists to respond to political advertising globally. For this to happen, activists and political operators will have to make the augmented reality experience easy to use, even for non-tech savvy folks—and not dorky. Let the political augmented reality games begin.
See the full story here: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/augmented-reality-hack-de-patria-app-venezuela
Exploring Virtual Reality Data Visualization with Gear VR
Oculus has done some amazing work setting up tools for developers. For example, to build full-fledged interactive VR apps, one can use two of the most popular game engines (Unity and Unreal). That’s probably the way to go in the long run for VR visualizations since they allow for much more interactivity, but Oculus also has included a very nice little app in the form of Oculus 360 Photos that allows you to view static 360-degree images. “Static” or “non-interactive” are perhaps not great terms here since a static image in VR wraps completely around you.
See the full story here: https://civisanalytics.com/blog/data-science/2015/12/04/exploring-virtual-reality-data-visualization-with-the-gear-vr/
The PlayStation VR Games Sony Announced Today Look Amazing
During its PlayStation Experience (PSX) event in San Francisco today, Sony unveiled some new information about the PlayStation VR and showed off some new titles. Unfortunately we’ve gotten no more information on dates aside from early 2016. However, the games we saw during today’s keynote look fantastic.
Sony showed off new titles like Eagle Flight from Ubisoft, Rez Infinite, Modern Zombie Taxi Co. from their Santa Monica studio, Job Simulator, Golem from Highwire Games, 100 foot Robot Golf, Psychonauts 2, and Bandai’s Ace Combat 7. Naturally, none of the games have release dates either, but I’m guessing they’ll be launch titles for the PlayStation VR.
See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/05/playstation-vr-is-very-real-and-the-games-sony-shared-today-look-amazing2/
I/ITSEC 2015: USMC sees future in augmented reality
‘We want something that has limited contractor support,’ he said. ‘We need simple devices that can go to where the marines are… we need equipment that is pretty indestructible.’
Another requirement includes working with common software architecture.
AITT will display virtual indirect fire effects, aircraft, vehicles and role players onto actual terrain.
At the moment, marines are unable to see simulated battlefield effects such as these during force-on-force training and have had to use their imagination to simulate targets and the pressures of combat.
See the full story here: https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/training-simulation/iitsec-2015-usmc-sees-future-augmented-reality/
ASTRONAUTS ARE GETTING AUGMENTED REALITY HEADSETS THIS WEEK
PHOTO DATE: 05-06-15
LOCATION: Ellington Field - NASA C-9 Aircraft
SUBJECT: Reduced Gravity Office's JPL research flights. Flight 3
PHOTOGRAPHER(S): BILL STAFFORD
This week a resupply mission will carry two Microsoft HoloLenses to the International Space Station (ISS). The devices will be used by astronauts like real-time instruction manuals, part of a NASA project called Project Sidekick. The idea is to facilitate closer communication between astronauts in space and ground control. A technician in Houston could see what an astronaut wearing the HoloLens is seeing in real time. The person in ground control could then draw a circle around a particular piece of hardware or button on the space station, pointing it out to the astronaut and making instructions for repairs or experiments even more clear than relying on written or vocal instructions.
See the full story here: http://www.popsci.com/astronauts-are-getting-augmented-reality-headsets
3D amplifies emotions evoked by facial expressions
In a new study, researchers in Aalto University and University of Helsinki found that 3D facial expressions evoke stronger emotions than their 2D counterparts. Due to the illusion of non-mediation, natural depth levels create the strongest emotional amplifications. In this experiment, depth magnitude was manipulated by varying the distance between the two cameras providing the left and right images for the 3D presentation.
See the full story here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151124082228.htm