It’s Official: Asus Plans Augmented Reality Headset Launch In 2016; Microsoft Hololens Rival?
Asus is looking to enter the augmented reality scene by planning a launch of its own AR headset sometime in 2016.
No less than Asus CEO Jerry Shen revealed the plan during an earnings webcast earlier this week.
"It should be next year when we come out with a product," Shen told CNETadding, "we think AR (augmented reality) will be very important for people's lives."
"While the exact price of the headset is still unknown, a low-cost offering could change the landscape of augmented reality, and bring it to people who might not be able to afford the premium HoloLens," Popular Science said.
See the full story here: http://www.franchiseherald.com/articles/44263/20151114/asus-augmented-reality.htm
300,000 High-Res Photos Used to Create the Ultimate Virtual Reality Everest Climb
The studios created an ultra-realistic “definitive” 3D model of Mount Everest using over 300,000 high-resolution photographs of the famous mountain. Wearing an immersive VR headset, virtual climbers will feel like they’re actually standing and moving through the locations.
“The premise of EVEREST VR is simple,” writes Sólfar. “Preparing for your expedition at Basecamp, you will traverse the Khumbu Icefalls, scale Lhotse Face, ascend the Hillary Step, and finally conquer the summit of Everest.
EVEREST VR is expected to land on virtual reality platforms sometime in 2016.
See the full story here: http://petapixel.com/2015/11/14/300000-high-res-photos-used-to-create-the-ultimate-virtual-reality-everest-climb/
Using Virtual Reality to Save the White Rhino
The American scientists and the Kenyan rangers aren’t the only people working to preserve the white rhinos. Kel O’Neill and Eline Jongsma, a pair of American-Dutch filmmakers, are also hoping to save these animals, not via test tubes or guns, but rather through a virtual-reality headset. The Ark, as their project is known, is a virtual-reality documentary that follows the lives of the last remaining four northern white rhinoceroses, as well as the scientists and rangers working half a world away from one another to preserve the creatures.
“We’re working with a 10-camera GoPro array,” explains O’Neill. “We want the viewer to feel as though they’re a floating ball of consciousness while they watch the piece.” This means that, when the viewer looks down, rather than seeing the tripod on which the 360-degree camera stands or a virtual-reality company’s logo, one instead sees the ground.
Digital discovery for Māori & PI youth at Park Jam
At the Awhi World Augmented Reality workshop, tamariki designed their own strange creatures and used an app to make them "come to life".
"The kaupapa for Park Jam rings so close to home for myself having worked in Technology for 15 years. It's no secret that we need more of our people both Māori and Pasifika in the industry and Park Jam is committed to bridging that gap," explains Anna Brown (Ngāti Maniapoto), a member of the Park Jam organising team.
She continued to say, "With digital skills now just as important for getting a job as reading, writing and maths, these Māngere kids now have a "foot in the door" by taking part in local digital workshops."
Accelerated Aotearoa, Accelerated Auckland and this Park Jam team in particular, hope to expose more South Auckland youth to the range of disciplines within the Technology sector, with the team committed to closing the gap between locals and the pathways to technology careers.
See the full story here: https://www.maoritelevision.com/news/regional/digital-discovery-maori-pi-youth-park-jam
Storytelling in Virtual Reality: A Starter’s Guide
For the first time since the creation of motion pictures, a new medium of storytelling is being built: virtual reality. As with any new medium of art, the rules are being established, language being developed and devices being explored. As it stands currently within the realm of virtual reality, anything goes. Well, almost anything.
Consider your Viewer
Choosing Plot
Presence
Using Theater as a Tool
Guiding Viewer Attention
Experimentation
See the full story here: http://www.vrdribble.com/allthingsvr/2015/11/4/storytelling-in-virtual-reality-a-starters-guide
Researchers Are Turning Individual Drones Into A Hologram That You Can Touch
See the full story and watch the short video here: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/104080/20151106/researchers-turning-individual-drones-hologram-touch.htm
According to the university, the problem with augmented reality is that the picture that a user is viewing is airborne, however, physical objects are bound by gravity. To try and surpass that issue, the team has developed what it calls BitDrones, which are a set of small flying drones that serve a number of purposes.
The first type of BitDrone is called the PixelDrone, which essentially has a basic LED display and is there to show certain information. ShapeDrones are cubic objects that work together to form a 3D display, and DisplayDrones offer the user a touchscreen interface. All of the drones can be tracked using 3D motion-capture sensors.
The system currently supports as many as a dozen large drones, however, researchers are aiming to end up building a system that works with thousands of drones, essentially acting like individual pixels to form objects in real life. Of course, while it would be cool to see a swarm of drones making augmented reality in real life, it might simply be easier to put on an AR headset.
New York Times Virtual-Reality Documentary Is Moving But Occasionally Nauseating
There were many other striking moments. But some were marred by the limitations of the technology. When the camera put me inside Chuol’s canoe as he pushed it out of a bank of reeds into a swamp the scene was beautiful, but I felt motion-sick. The sensation returned when the camera rode along with 11-year-old Oleg in Ukraine and his friends on their bikes.
Those scenes might have been less biologically troubling had I been using higher quality virtual reality hardware. The Oculus Rift headset launching next year is better at minimizing the lag between the motion of a virtual world and that of your head, which is one cause of motion sickness. But badly chosen or design content can make you sick, too. Filmmakers have much to learn about what kind of footage they can get away with. I’d say that at 11 minutes the New York Times documentary is slightly too long for the current state of mobile virtual reality technology and the art of immersive 3-D filmmaking.
The new VR video footage I tried on YouTube didn’t make me feel so woozy, even when, for example in this clip, you are placed on a ferry moving away from a city. In that case, Google employees working on virtual reality told me that they carefully chose a clip in which the ferry moved with a constant velocity. Most people are okay with smooth motion, they said; it is changes in speed that cause problems.
See the full story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543216/new-york-times-virtual-reality-documentary-is-moving-but-occasionally-nauseating/
A Rube Goldberg Machine Reveals the Secret to Virtual Reality
One of the most difficult things to do when we lose the flat rectangles of film is to tell people where to put their eyes. In film it's easy—just point the camera in that direction. Yet, when the camera is pointing in every direction, the content has to dictate where the eye moves. Masters of cinema already accomplish this within their frame, but within the VR orb the challenge is greater and more necessary.
Spence uses the Rube Goldberg Machine trope to guide the audience through a complete 360 degrees. It doesn't matter if they're spinning around in an office chair or bumping into stuff with their VR headsets, that's the magic of virtual reality.
See the full post here: http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/a-rube-goldberg-machine-reveals-the-secret-to-virtual-reality
Virtual Reality Video Just Went Mainstream
Two different news stories slipped under the radar yesterday. Both of them point towards virtual reality video making its mainstream debut.
First up is the New York Times, which unveiled its first foray into the world of virtual reality journalism in the form of the NYT VR app. Available on both iOS and Android ...
The other announcement yesterday was that YouTube now supports VR uploading and viewing. Not to be confused with the 360-degree video support, which has been enabled since March of this year, the new announcement applies to YouTube's Android smartphone app, which now offers support for Google Cardboard. These open source cardboard viewers offer an inexpensive alternative to the bigger, significantly more expensive rigs like those from Oculus and Samsung, and they're built to work with just about any smartphone on the market.
The coolest thing about this announcement is that you can actually use the Google Cardboard option on any video on YouTube, not just the VR ones. Though it's technically not VR, it could be a way to make the experience of watching videos on your phone a bit more immersive and enjoyable. I, for one, have never liked watching videos (and certainly not movies) on my phone.
YouTube also released a slew of new content to accompany the announcement.
See the full story here: http://nofilmschool.com/2015/11/virtual-reality-just-went-mainstream