Des Moines Register Adds a Bit of Virtual Reality to News Report
Newspaper Incorporates Technology of Oculus VR, Computerized Game Platforms to Tell Story
Last week, Gannett gave a preview of the virtual-reality news report. It includes familiar elements, such as a written article, photos and straightforward video. But it also takes a viewer into a computerized world of cows, soybeans and grain silos that gives the feeling you're roaming around a farm in Page County, Iowa.
After strapping on Oculus's virtual-reality headset, viewers can explore the farm grounds and interact with 3-D data graphics to learn more about the Dammann family and how demographic and economic changes have affected their lives. For example, viewers can walk up to the family's machine shop and click an icon that places them inside a 3-D video feature about maintaining high-tech farming equipment.
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Mr. DeBarros says Oculus can be the next big innovation for newsrooms. "It is equal parts a journalistic endeavor and R&D effort," he says.
Beyond using the Oculus technology to advance storytelling, he says, Gannett also could sell ads to run within the virtual environment. The company may apply the various technologies used to produce the farm report in other articles at the 81 newspapers it owns, he said.
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Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, says new digital elements can enhance reporting, but they can't replace the value of strong narrative storytelling.
"Although we call it multimedia, most of these stories are hybrids that use the visual elements to amplify the underlying narrative," he says. "You can take a virtual tour of a building where an event occurred but that is a different thing than having characters who are fully explained."
See the full story here: http://online.wsj.com/articles/des-moines-register-adds-a-bit-of-virtual-reality-to-news-report-1411358642
Oculus Reveals Its New “Crescent Bay” Prototype With 360-Degree Head Tracking And Headphones
During the 10 minute demo, I hung out with a tyrannosaurus rex, perched on top of a skyscraper, stood by a fire with some woodland creatures in a polygonal field, floated over a SimCity, shrunk down to microscopic size to look at giant dust mite, and watched a SWAT team fight a giant battle mech.
The headset is remarkably light, causing no neck strain. The goggle portion feels like mid-quality hollow plastic, though overall it feels pretty durable for its weight. The field of vision is significantly wider than the Samsung Gear VR, which is a bit like looking through binoculars because you can see the frame around the screen. ...
The best part was how quick and accurate the motion tracking was. At one point in the demo, I was in a dressing room in front of a mirror with a floating mask mimicing my movements. No matter how fast I turned or spun around, I couldn’t detect any real latency in the mask. The motion tracking always kept up.
...The way it does the motion tracking is with an array of tiny LEDs layered over the outside of the Crescent Bay headset. Unlike the DK2 which just used LEDs on the front, there’s a back panel to the strap that goes around you head which holds LEDs that can also be tracked with a camera so Oculus knows when you turn all the way around.
Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe announced that over 100,000 Rift developer kits have shipped to over 130 countries. He said “If you love sci-fi, this is your holy grail....
To do that, Oculus needed to nail “Presence” or feeling like you’re actually in the virtual world. That means nailing every component of a VR rig so that no step causes motion sickness. These components are tracking the motion of your head, CPU, GPU, display, photons, optics.
Iribe went on to explain that Oculus sees VR as dividing into two categories, and that it needs to win at both:
- PC-based: Where computers can drive the most immersive experiences.
“With positional tracking, high frame rates, low persistence, and strong GPUs, you can create unbelievable worlds, you can create believable worlds.”
- Mobile-based: Where affordability, accessibility, and mobility will bring VR to a mass audience.
See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/20/oculus-connect-announcements/?ncid=tcdaily
The “Oculus Platform” Marketplace For Virtual Reality App Launches This Fall
The Oculus Platform sits you in a blue holodeck-style space with floating tiles of different games you can play. You can look around and use your gaze to select an app or experience, then tap on the Gear VR’s touchpad to enter it. By turning your head around, you can see different sets of tiles for games, art apps, social, and other types of VR experiences.
Oculus will release some of its own apps in the Platform, including the Oculus Cinema and Oculus 360 Photos and Videos where users can watch films, and check out images and video clips shot for VR. Oculus will also open source these apps to help developers learn how to build for the marketplace. Platform will act as sort of a launcher for Oculus headsets, allowing people to quickly jump around and try different experiences.
...when Oculus Platform debuts as the Oculus homescreen of the Samsung Gear VR this fall, it will not allow for payments. Instead, developers will only be allowed to "give things away for free", says Mitchell. "We want to offer developers a way to get feedback on their content as soon as possible." This way, by the time Oculus is ready to have them sell their games for money, they'll be worthy of the consumer's dollar.
See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/20/oculus-platform/?ncid=tcdaily
Nielsen is Finally Going Electronic, Diaries on Their Way Out
The ratings service is beginning to replace paper diaries with new electronic devices it’s developed that will track viewing by “listening” to the audio portion of TV shows watched and a Nielsen “audio watermark” embedded in the signals transmitted by stations. It is starting with 14 of the 154 markets that still use diaries.
“The devices — or ‘code readers,’ as Nielsen is calling them — are about the size of a Roku or Apple TV set-top box. The new system will enable the diary-based markets to obtain Nielsen viewership data 12 months a year, instead of just the current four sweeps months (February, May, July and November).”
Nielsen also plans on expanding the audience sample size in each converted market. The company hopes that eliminating the paper-based system will help make future measurements easier, especially as multichannel factors have become a concern.
See the full story here: http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/79400/nielsen-diaries-finally-on-the-way-out
Vrvana tosses its Totem headset into the VR ring
[Philip Lelyveld comment; since Oculus has said they want to develop the Rift with AR capabilities including cameras, the issue is can a start-up build a community that can overpower the Facebook marketing machine. See Vrvana's home page for tech specs]
The Totem separates itself from the pack by having onboard cameras and acceleration tracking to replace the need for an external tracking camera. The front-facing cameras also open up interesting possibilities like integrating augmented reality and tracking the users actual hands. It also sidesteps the tedious problem of needing to remove the snugly-adjusted headset whenever you need to deal with the analog world.
The headset features powerful onboard processing and control emulation to offload a lot of the work that is often left to another device, increasing the range of compatible systems, which includes tablets, PCs, mobile phones, and gaming consoles. Oversized, individually focused lenses allow for crisp, legible text and negate the need for wearing glasses, though the foam-cushioned headset still leaves enough room for most specs if the user prefers.
The company was formed by French Canadian engineers in 2005 as True Player Gear and have been gradually developing the technologies necessary to achieve their VR dream ever since. Boutique PC maker VoodooPC’s founder and CEO Rahul Sood makes an appearance in the video and on their advisory board for a bit of high profile endorsement.
See the full story here: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/vrvana-tosses-totem-headset-vr-ring/
Samsung Gear VR Heads to Hollywood
Samsung is the latest huge company to commit to virtual reality. Oculus VR has spent the past 12 months working with Samsung on the just-announced Gear VR. But Hollywood studios like DreamWorks Animation has also been experimenting with the Oculus Rift DK2 technology. In Berlin last week Samsung, Oculus and DreamWorks unveiled new mobile VR experiences that will be available this fall.
See the full story here: http://www.alistdaily.com/news/samsung-gear-vr-heads-to-hollywood
Notion: Be home, even when you’re not.
[Philip Lelyveld comment: Notion is a great example of the Internet of Things. It senses multiple this in its environment, and uses your personal secure network to notify you of changes in the environment that you have asked to be notified about.]
Home intelligence is a concept that hasn’t been possible until now. For years, security systems have only detected things like doors opening, windows breaking or alarms going off. These alerts only skim the surface of what Notion is capable of.
With Notion, you can know things like how full a propane tank is, when your child returns from school, the second there is a water leak, if a gun safe has been accessed and much more. In fact, this is exactly why we built Notion; to allow you to monitor what you want in a way that makes sense for you and your family.
See the full story here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1044009888/notion-be-home-even-when-youre-not