Five Entertainment Tech Trends You Need to Know
Virtual Reality
Augmented Reality
High Dynamic Range
Real-time cloud rendering
Light field
See the full story here: http://variety.com/2015/digital/spotlight/five-entertainment-tech-trends-you-need-to-know-1201593243/
Democratic presidential debate to be live-streamed in virtual reality
CNN said Thursday that it will live-stream the October 13 debate from Las Vegas in full 3D immersive virtual reality. The Atlanta-based television news network is offering viewers a "front-row seat" to the debate through a partnership with NextVR, a virtual-reality company that broadcasts sporting events in virtual reality via Samsung's Gear VR headset.
See the full story here: http://www.cnet.com/news/democratic-presidential-debate-to-be-live-streamed-in-virtual-reality/
How Netflix works in virtual reality, and why it’s not HD
It's true, the Netflix VR app is ready for your compatible* Samsung phone and Gear VR headset (if you don't see it, try uninstalling and reinstalling the Oculus app), and has a virtual living room for you to chill in. Oculus CTO John Carmack worked with Netflix on the app, and in a post to the tech blog explained how it all comes together. Besides the technical details of how the app creates a screen inside a virtual environment, and includes controls for use while browsing or viewing, Carmack also explained one more thing: the streaming video in VR is limited to standard definition (720x480). According to Carmack, because the area you're actually looking at is only composed of so many pixels, 720p is the highest res video you should consider for VR right now. The reason he can't hit that mark? Content protection, aka DRM.
So after all the pixel counting is done, the real question is -- how did it look? I gave it a shot on a Galaxy Note 4 plugged into the original Gear VR headset, and it was surprisingly good. The video stream was clear, and the virtual world actually did help settle me in. The resolution wasn't nearly as much of an issue as you would expect. While it's not the sharpest or highest quality looking stream, I saw very little artifacting, and decent color reproduction.
See the full story here: http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/25/how-netflix-works-in-virtual-reality-and-why-its-not-in-hd/
Get ready for virtual reality coasters to become a real-world reality
The 360-degree 3-D VR experience synchronizes to the motion of the coaster to fully immerse riders in a virtual world of nonstop action. The trick is syncing the steep drops, airtime hills and G-forces of the ride with the visuals on the screen. So far, the tests have found that coaster riders don’t experience motion sickness while wearing the VR headsets.
How The Creators of Monument Valley Are Writing The Rules of Virtual Reality
Land’s End is a puzzle game—much like Myst—in which you hop spot to spot to interact with new, staged brainteasers. It’s built to be gorgeous and meditative, to allow the player to almost window shop their way through the game, never thinking about controlling it. What the Land’s End team is trying to accomplish—instead of outright commercial success—is a creative long con: Can they use this game to create some of the fundamental ways that people can interact with a VR world?
...there’s one interaction that all VR headsets will share: Your gaze. And so Land’s End is a game you can control purely by turning your head to look at things.
"[Gaze control] is the one thing that took us the longest to figure out," Pashley says. "We’ve been working on this game from this time last year. And the majority of that time has been iterating on level design, and the best way of letting the player interact with this world...you don't want people to feel like they’re using their head as a joystick."
The team’s first breakthrough was to eliminate the crosshair.
ustwo also built levels with classic attention grabbing techniques, like leading lines and placing things in silhouette, to pull your attention to the right spot. This means that while Land’s End lets you turn in your chair to appreciate the 360-degree view, as you absorb the horizon, you’ll naturally be drawn to the next stage of your journey. A glowing beacon—which you look at to walk to—just serves as confirmation and reinforcement of this core design.
Solving the actual puzzles—which require you to connect constellations across rocks—requires two main gaze techniques, pioneered by ustwo. The first is what the company calls Starlines. You point your head at a notch in the rock, look to another, and the two are connected by a laser-like trail. Meanwhile, all sorts of little bits of visual flourishes reinforce the behavior, from slowly building sparks when you’re in the right spot, to a crescendoing electronic sound track as your gaze ignites the pixels. It’s satisfying and reassuring; It all just feels so good.
The second breakthrough was telekinesis. By holding your gaze on a giant rock (marked with a certain symbol), it lifts into the air. Moving your head drags it through the air, as if your neck is not a joystick, but a crane.
See the full story here: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3051273/how-the-creators-of-monument-valley-are-writing-the-rules-of-virtual-reality?curator=MediaREDEF
DISNEY LEADS $66 MILLION INVESTMENT IN VIRTUAL-REALITY STARTUP JAUNTVR
The Walt Disney Company is among the lead investors in virtual-reality startup JauntVR’s $66 million Series C round of funding. It's the latest evidence that Hollywood wants in on VR before the technology is widely available.
Silicon Valley-based Jaunt has developed an end-to-end cinematic virtual-reality content-creation platform that includes a custom camera capable of shooting high-end, professional-quality 360-degree footage, software for stitching the footage together, a distribution system, and a Los Angeles VR production studio. It announced the funding today.
CAA-backed Evolution Media Capital and China Media Capital joined Disney as lead investors in the round, which brings Jaunt’s total funding to more than $100 million.
Last week, Disney-owned ABC News unveiled a VR storytelling "experience,"produced in conjunction with Jaunt, that takes viewers to Damascus, Syria, where they can see a 360-degree view of life on the streets of that war-torn country. According to Christensen, that project was unrelated to the new funding.
With its new funding, Christensen says Jaunt will continue to focus on its hardware; the "hardcore computational photography software pipeline" its partners use to process their footage; apps for any VR device, from the Oculus Rift to mobile headsets like Samsung’s GearVR; and its Studio program.
He added that the company plans on scaling up all four areas as VR hardware edges closer to mainstream adoption.
Jaunt is also planning on using its new funding, particularly with the help of its Chinese investor, as well as European media companies ProSieben and Axel Springer SE, to broaden its reach into those parts of the world.
"Jaunt has distinguished itself as a true leader in the field of cinematic virtual reality, an emerging medium with incredible potential across all sectors of entertainment," Kevin Mayer, senior executive vice president and chief strategy officer for the Walt Disney Company, said in a statement. "Jaunt’s unique end-to-end solution for producing and publishing high-quality VR experiences is cutting edge, and we are excited about its future potential."
See the full story here: http://www.fastcompany.com/3051252/tech-forecast/disney-leads-66m-investment-in-virtual-reality-tech-and-content-company-jauntv
Virtual Reality Startup Jaunt Raises Massive New Round of Funding
Virtual reality startup Jaunt is about to announce a massive Series C round of financing, Variety has learned. Exact numbers weren’t available ahead of the company’s official announcement, but multiple sources peg the amount north of $50 million.
The raise comes just a year after Jaunt secured a $27.8 million Series B, and less than 18 months after the company’s $6.8 million Series A. Previous Jaunt investors include Highland Capital Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Google Ventures, BSkyB and others.
Jaunt has been a bit of a jack-of-all trades in the virtual reality (VR) world; the company has built its own VR camera, has produced VR experiences and apps for studios and others, and has developed its own software and tools for VR content production.
Jaunt is said to be focusing more on original content, with the goal of becoming more of a full-featured studio. Jaunt has launched a new corporate division called Jaunt Studios that is headed by former Lucasfilm CTO and Digital Domain CEO Cliff Plumer and that includes a physical production space in Los Angeles.
Investments in VR have been heating up in general. In the first half of 2015, VR companies raised a total of $248 million, according to data from CB Insights.
See the full story here: http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/virtual-reality-startup-jaunt-raises-massive-new-round-of-funding-exclusive-1201595977/