Virtual Reality Isn’t Just About Games
The thing that’s especially difficult to convey about “room-scale” VR—the kind enabled by the HTC Vive, where you can actually walk around with a headset on, exploring a virtual environment in exactly the same way you would experience a real one—is just how compelling it is. “Any VR experience is so much more engrossing than any you’d have on a flat screen,” says Patrick Hackett, senior user interface designer at Google for the Google Cardboard VR headset.
That has potentially huge implications for education.
“Any application that has high liability, where teaching students has a high cost of insurance, and is high risk, we’re seeing people ask for VR training,” says Mr. Rubin.
But the ultimate goal is much bigger than that, says CEO Bill Brown. “Two-dimensional photography and video is going to cease to exist,” says Mr. Brown, adding that they will be replaced by immersive captures of entire spaces and events, gathered by conventional and 3-D cameras.
See the full story here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/virtual-reality-isnt-just-about-games-1438558372
VFX Studio Hive Division Shows off Their Custom VR Camera Rig ‘Panoptikon’
The Panoptikon rig not only creates quality stereoscopic videos, but does it in a unique way that lets them power the device and transfer video through two centrally located USB hubs—completely eliminating the time-consuming need to remove the cameras’ SD cards or charge them separately.
Although there are third-party stitching solutions available, VFX Supervisor Erik Caretta says that they “…prefer to go with a manual approach [because it] allows us to reach a far better quality.” CEO Giacomo Talamini told us that the processes of stitching the videos, which at times even involves rotoscoping elements as they cross the stitches, is a delicate and time-consuming process that must be handled on a case-by-case basis to get the best results.
Hive Division’s next step is to create a short sci-fi film with Panoptikon, an effort that will ultimately show what is possible when a small and flexible team come together to create film for VR. Talamini maintains that Panoptikon is an internal project only at this point, but support for it may persuade the team to potentially create a limited run for a hypothetical crowdfunding campaign.
See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/vfx-studio-hive-division-shows-off-custom-vr-camera-rig-panoptikon/
Virtual reality, cryotherapy chamber highlights new tech Saints use during training camp
The cameras don’t interfere with the plays. The technology is small, lightweight and easy to take on and off the field.
“If you wanted to take any of the young Mike linebackers, you can put that headset on and they can see every one of those formations just like it was at their eye level,” he said. “They can turn to their right and actually see the outside linebacker. They could turn around and see the safeties.”
Payton said the team used it on the offense, too.
Players who have worn the gear, including Luke McCown, said the cameras and headset are unique tools that can help shape a player better than looking at traditional 2D film.
“The game is about visualization from a practice standpoint, especially for quarterbacks,” McCown said. “What virtual reality allows you to do is visualize in real time and how it feels in real space. …
See the full story here: http://www.wdsu.com/sports/saints/virtual-reality-cryotherapy-chamber-highlights-new-tech-saints-use-during-training-camp/34476498
With ‘Henry,’ a cinematic leap into world of virtual reality
On a recent afternoon in sparsely chic offices here, the people making the virtual-reality animated short "Henry" convened to watch footage of their cutting-edge film.
The group of about a dozen — mostly young and many of them with Pixar backgrounds — gathered in a semicircle as the director, a gregarious filmmaker named Ramiro Lopez Dau, engaged in what appeared to be a tribal ritual. He dropped to the floor, strapped on a headset and began crawling around an area rug, extending his head this way and that in the manner of a disoriented cat.
A heartfelt piece of animation that would fit nicely on any Pixar slate, "Henry" is notable as much for what it isn't as what it is. VR content to date has mostly steered clear of traditional narrative — it's tended instead to be a marketing offshoot of a studio movie, a snippet of live-event footage or a branded "experience" mainly designed to produce a sensation in the viewer. Or it's been a video game.
"Henry," on the other hand, tells a clear story with a conventional beginning, middle and payoff-y end. The difference is that it does so in the new medium of virtual reality. Rather than see a traditional frame, the headset-clad viewer occupies the entire space, able to swivel his or her head all the way around and see every corner of the world, as in real life.
"A lot of comedy in animated movies, like slapstick, is actually based on sad things — you know, someone falls on their face or gets a bad break," said Story Studio Chief Saschka Unseld. "When that sad thing happens in a traditional film, it can be funny, because there's some distance. But when you have as much empathy as you do in a VR film, it can be super sad."
"The experience of going from Pixar to making this film is really similar to moving from Germany to the U.S.," he said. "In the beginning, you miss all the stuff you used to have — in the case of filmmaking, the camera editing and everything else. And then once you start living somewhere else, you find things you never had before and begin to embrace them."
"In VR, we're learning you don't need a character to do as much to be interesting."
The effect is paradoxical. Digital culture is making everything move faster as it begins to match the speed of real time. But this technology is becoming so lifelike that it now has to slow down again.
(A similar dynamic, incidentally, is at work with how a character moves in VR. The conventional wisdom has been that, without the edits of traditional filmmaking, you can't go from one place to another in the bat of an eye. The truth is, you can--technically. But when "Henry" filmmakers tried it, putting Henry in one part of the house and then quickly in another, they realized it looked like teleportation. They quickly scrapped it.)
Part of why virtual reality feels so different is because viewers themselves can move — certainly with their heads and, within limits, their bodies, walking or crawling toward various spots of an environment. That has a kind of democratizing effect, turning film from its long-held status as a director's medium, with well-curated shots, to something looser and more participatory.
short video here: https://vimeo.com/134754691?utm_source=VR+Digest&utm_campaign=75337a97f4-VR_Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_54068a0706-75337a97f4-74843441
Kaplan Early Learning Company Introduces New Augmented Reality Learning Tool for PreK and Elementary Classrooms
Letters alive®, Storybooks alive® and Math alive® are full-year, supplemental solutions that support reading and math development through augmented reality lessons and activities. Each task utilizes kinesthetic, visual and auditory modalities, which apply to a broad range of learning styles and abilities. From letter naming to sentence building, each program is aligned to Common Core State Standards and serves as a supplemental solution to existing curricula.
Dr. Tamara Ogletree, Associate Professor of Reading at the University of West Georgia, recently conducted an independent study on improved student outcomes as a result of using the Letters alive® program. According to the study, “[…] Students in the full implementation of Letters alive® experienced greater gains in emergent literacy skill development than the students in the classroom using no parts of the Letters alive® curriculum,” states Ogletree.
See the full press release here: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/07/prweb12857537.htm
GoPro Announces New Premium Video Content Licensing Portal
GoPro unveiled its new premium content portal that allows content creators to license videos to brands and media companies for a profit, similar to services available through photo communities such as Flickr and 500px. The new platform, designed with the professional in mind, requires that both the seller and buyer apply for content access. Once accepted, users can download files, preview videos, and search for specific content through the portal. Videos start at $1,000 each, and the terms of the license last six months.
The GoPro site describes key features of the licensing in three categories: Discovery, Download and License.
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/gopro-announces-new-premium-video-content-licensing-portal/
A Light Bulb Goes On, Over the Mall
Using a combination of LEDs and big data technology, public lighting is the potential backbone of a system that could use billions of fixtures to collect data about traffic congestion at an intersection or a consumer walking down the cereal aisle, to name just a couple of applications.
Sensity Systems, a small start-up that builds and manages smart-lighting networks, is announcing on Monday that it has attracted money and partnerships from a group of major businesses, including Simon Property Group, the leading mall developer; General Electric; Cisco; and Acuity Brands, a leading maker of LED lighting.
Simon has begun adding cameras to read and analyze traffic and pedestrian patterns in its parking lots and plans to design and test a parking spot locator, said Tim Earnest, executive vice president for mall operations.
Simon recently ran a test with Swirl and its own beacon network, Mobiquity, that showed that a relatively high proportion of customers would move from the common areas of the mall to Lord & Taylor if they received an offer for a deal there. For executives at Simon, the addition of Sensity’s network will allow them to have contact with customers as they come into the properties until they leave.
Executives say they are excited by the prospect of broader adoption of these tracking abilities, but privacy advocates have raised concerns about the technology racing ahead of considerations about how to use it responsibly. Mr. Reece acknowledged that concern, saying that most retailers were designing their programs so that shoppers would opt in.
See the full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/technology/a-light-bulb-goes-on-over-the-mall.html?_r=0
Step Into THE VOID: The World’s First Virtual Reality Theme Park
Virtual Entertainment Centres (VECs) merge haptic feedback with the ambient visuals to bring you a new mode of entertainment
By combining haptic feedback and body tracking wearable tech with custom-sculpted, interactive environments, the team behind the Virtual Entertainment Centres (VECs) brings you THE VOID. As the first virtual reality theme park, THE VOID will soon be in the business of transporting minds and bodies to alternate (and admittedly more electrifying) universes.
The primary culprit behind the fruition of this trans-environmentalist state is the Rapture HMD (Head Mounted Display) equipped with the following specs:
· Dual High-Density Curved OLED Displays (1080p per-eye, initially)
· Quantum Dots (nearly doubling perceived resolution color range)
· Custom Optics (proprietary lens-in-lens design)
· High-Quality THX Headphones (featuring in-game binaural sound design)
· Super-Gain Inline Microphones (for in-game communications)
· Proprietary Global Head Tracking Sensors (running at 120Hz)
Supplementary to the headset is the Rapture Vest (as VRScout‘s Eric Chevalier models next to below), which enables players to experience the sensation of being touched by objects or creatures in the virtual world.
Rigged with tactile reflex proponents, the vest casts your body to the same dimension as your mind, substantiating the adventure a hundredfold.
To complete the outfit, VECs decided to integrate Rapture Gloves into the equation, effectively tracking your hands in 3D space and enabling participants to go beyond perception with actualized interaction of surroundings: touching buttons and picking up objects only seen in respective virtual realities.
With these three components operating simultaneously, virtual realities become just that: reality.
With plausibility being the name of the game, The VOID’s out-of-home underpinning offers many implications as to the future of virtual reality, chiefly the concept of employing corporeal structures against computerized stimulation to ensure authenticity. The introduction of motion simulators, couch like models that move relative to commands executed in virtual space, offer further excitement and diversity of experience in THE VOID. Those who aren’t particularly nimble or simply can’t walk can still enjoy the virtual experience of piloting a spaceship or steering a tank.
Aspiring to echo the likes of IMAX theaters, a recent VOID blog entry released an announcement targeting fans concerned with waiting in lines, stating that the arena is subject to reservations: you must buy a ticket to experience the magic.
Fans eager to immerse themselves in THE VOID will have to wait until summer of 2016, when the space will open in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
See the full story here: http://www.psfk.com/2015/07/virtual-reality-theme-park-the-void-virtual-entertainment-centres.html