MIT Created a Camera That Will Never Overexpose a Photograph
In conventional camera sensors collect photons like buckets collecting raindrops. When a “bucket” gets filled up, any additional “water drops” (i.e. photons) will be discarded, and that information is lost. In the resulting photo, that pixel will show up as pure white.
With the modulo camera, each bucket is emptied whenever it fills up during an exposure. This means that when the exposure ends, all the buckets have some kind of useful information in them. By taking into account the number of resets for each bucket, the camera can figure out the relative brightness for each pixel.
See the full story here: http://petapixel.com/2015/08/18/mit-created-a-camera-that-will-never-overexpose-a-photograph/
Google’s New Project Is So Insanely Advanced It Will Blow You Away
Google’s Project Soli has invented a new interaction sensor using radar technology that can capture motions of your fingers at up to 10,000 frames per second.
This chip is actually a miniature gesture radar that captures even the most complex hand movements at close range, at unbelievably hyper speeds and replicates hand gestures. Given the micro size of the chip, it can almost be fitted into literally anything. This technology, if the project is successful, can make the need to touch a device to operate it redundant.
See the full story here: https://www.facebook.com/richard.saul.wurman?fref=ts
The reality of marketing a VR game in a 2D world
Experiential is obviously the way to go? Well yes, and now that we’re fast approaching launch expect the major headset players to attend the main consumer shows such as EGX or Paris Games Week in a big way, or set up their own hands-on events, such as HTC’s current tour of the Vive in North America. These experiential opportunities will be the key focus for the hardware manufacturers to get headsets on as many heads as possible, and create the evangelists and desire for their product.
However experiential isn’t going to be an available option for everyone, especially your smaller studios.
In reality, once VR has become a part of all our lives and everyone is interacting with content on a daily basis, much of the marketing will be done within the headset where it’ll be at its most effective and where viewers can interact with what you’re selling to them. Technology will have figured out a way to do this cheaply and effectively – as we do now with our 2D assets – and the next thing you know we are all Wade Watts living in a virtual world…
In the meantime: Stick to your 2D trailers, maybe do a bit of picture-in-picture if it works for your product and you have the resource. Otherwise, don’t worry, the VR early adopters will get it and it’ll come down to how good your content looks, not how fancy the marketing is. Then cross your fingers that the first parties do a great job with their experiential events and come this time next year everyone is a virtual reality expert.
VRstudios raises $1.3M, quietly looks to build virtual reality powerhouse in Seattle
We’ve heard about part of the company before, called VRcade. But there’s more to the story. VRstudios is a larger organization that has three product lines: VRcade, which focuses on video games, VRdesign, which is for architects, and VRsolutions, which offers custom services for VR deployments.
Jamie Kelly and Dave Ruddell, who co-founded VRcade, are listed as VRstudios president and CTO, respectively.
See the full story here: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/vrstudios-raises-1-3m-as-it-quietly-builds-virtual-reality-powerhouse-in-seattle/
Here’s Why Google Should Buy Vuforia From Qualcomm
As Re/code’s Ina Fried wrote yesterday, Qualcomm is thinking about spinning off or selling its augmented reality platform, Vuforia.
That would be a big deal for the nascent community of software developers making applications for AR, which is expected to grow to a $120 billion market by 2020. In May, Apple bought Vuforia’s biggest competition, Metaio, shutting down the public face of the company and bringing its team in-house. Vuforia now claims to have more than 175,000 developers registered on its platform.
According to several executives working in augmented reality, if Qualcomm is going to sell Vuforia to another company (and not spin it out into an independent entity as it did with Gimbal), the best home for Vuforia would be Google.
Other possible acquirers active in the AR space include Intel, which has a computer vision platform called RealSense; HP, which runs an AR platform slightly smaller than Vuforia called Aurasma; or Microsoft, which is exploring how Windows 10 might support augmented reality — and its close cousin, mixed reality — via the upcoming HoloLens glasses.
That might be Apple, but it’s something Google has proven it can do. In addition, Google has the market clout of Android and the technical expertise of initiatives like Project Tango and Google Glass, the latter of which is said to be getting an overhaul behind closed doors under the leadership of Nest CEO Tony Fadell.
See the full story here: http://recode.net/2015/09/05/heres-why-google-should-buy-vuforia-from-qualcomm/
Marines Explore ‘Augmented Reality’
While virtual reality puts the user in a completely computer-generated environment, augmented reality superimposes computer-generated elements — say, a tank, a helicopter, or a building — on the real world. That lets troops go through the actual, physical motions of the skill they’re training for and build muscle memory, without restricting the targets and support units.
The system tested in Quantico, the Augmented Immersive Team Trainer (AITT), is primarily meant to train troops to call in airstrikes and artillery barrages. That’s one of the hardest kinds of training to do live. Real aircraft and artillery batteries are expensive and often unavailable when other units want to train with them. Real bombs, missiles, shells, and targets can be used only once. Augmented reality training replaces all these costly components while keeping the crucial one — the human being — with his boots on the actual ground.
AITT could be used for other training in the future. After four years of development and testing, the service will conduct “a large-scale demonstration [and] assessment” this October. The project will move from the Office of Naval Research to the regular Marine procurement system, which will decide whether to buy augmented reality in bulk.
See the full story here: http://breakingdefense.com/2015/09/marines-explore-augmented-reality-training/