Hands-on: Gear VR is better than smartphone VR has a right to be
As someone who has logged dozens of hours on Oculus Rift development kits and prototypes, I was immediately struck by how much more comfortable the Gear VR was on my face. It lacks the thick, heavy cable that can weigh a device down and throw it off balance. The rigid, cushioned straps on the top and back of the device allowed for nice support without forcing the screen too tightly against my face, as the Rift dev kits do. The device didn't seem overly heavy, and I was able to wear it for an entire hour without feeling any pressure to take it off (except to occasionally scratch a facial itch underneath the device).
One big leg up Gear VR has over previous phone-based virtual reality systems—and even over current Oculus development kits—is its impressive resolution. The 1440p, 515 PPI display on the Galaxy Note 4 doesn't totally do away with the problem of visible pixels, but it's above or equal to most any other consumer-grade VR product on the horizon.
Gear VR also offers the kind of smooth, jutter-free screen refreshing that you just have no right to expect from cell phone hardware. Samsung and Oculus are advertising latency of less than 20 milliseconds between the time you move your head and the time the scene updates on Gear VR, thanks in part to additional head-tracking hardware in the holster itself.
The only thing that really breaks this immersion is the lack of any lateral head tracking on the Gear VR. Unlike the Rift DK2, which uses an external camera to figure out when your head changes position, Gear VR has no way to account for any head movements, aside from angular direction. Very quickly, you learn not to lean in to look more closely at a virtual object unless you want to feel your stomach drop.
For those looking for the best quality VR experience, the Gear VR seems likely to be a mere stopgap on the path to the eventual consumer version of the Oculus Rift. Gear VR will likely be available in a matter of months, and only for a few hundred dollars on top of a cell phone you might want anyway. It seems more than good enough to provide a solid, proof-of-concept virtual reality experience that will be easy to show off to friends.
See the full story here: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/hands-on-gear-vr-is-better-than-smartphone-vr-has-a-right-to-be/
Oculus Rift in the classroom: Immersive education’s next level
Aaron E. Walsh, director of the Immersive Education Initiative, a 7,000-member non-profit consortium of colleges, universities and companies developing standards and best practices for virtual reality-based learning, says though the first virtual reality headsets came about in the 1990s, “[for] every one of these immersive technologies, it takes decades of refinement and enhancement before it gets to a point where it’s actually viable.” He believes the arrival of the Oculus Rift and Sony Morpheus, both expected to be priced at a few hundred dollars, signal the crossing of that threshold for headsets. Over time, they could be more cost-effective, than, say, field trips.
Because Kansas City is one of the cities to enjoy Google Fiber’s 1 Gigabit-per-second Internet service, the library project is meant to showcase the capabilities of Internet that’s 100 times faster than average broadband. It uses the combination of Oculus Rift and Minecraft (unofficially dubbed Minecrift) to allow the students to re-imagine their neighborhoods. The idea for the project came out of a discussion between Marcus Brown, the digital youth engagement associate, and a student who was wondering why his neighborhood didn’t have the sort of upscale restaurants or shopping he saw in other areas of town.
But ultimately, how well educators are able to take advantage of virtual environments remains to be seen. “I could imagine a dystopian world in which only the rich kids go on field trips, whereas the have-nots are forced to view things in virtual environments,” says Ratan. On the other hand, he can envision a utopian world in which virtual field trips make education more accessible to everyone. As technology advances and the obstacles of bandwidth and price fall away, we’ll see what happens next.
See the full story here: http://www.zdnet.com/oculus-rift-in-the-classroom-immersive-educations-next-level-7000034099/
Con-Tech: 4K Production, Color Gamut and High Dynamic Range
Higher dynamic range in both the cinema and CE viewing experience was a recurring message yesterday at Con-Tech: The 2015 Preview Seminar. The NAB Show and the International 3D and Advanced Imaging Society held a seminar on content and technology trends including 4K production, color gamut, HDR and new workflows. The event, hosted by Paramount Pictures, featured panelists from companies such as Barco, CableLabs, Disney, DreamWorks Animation, Film Magic, Lionsgate, RealD and Technicolor.
See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/con-tech-4k-production-color-gamut-and-high-dynamic-range/
Explore Hawaii’s beaches without leaving the city! Hotel’s virtual reality ‘teleporter’ booth lets travellers see, feel and smell holiday locations without booking a flight
The future of virtual reality took a very real - and large - step forward yesterday in an unlikely corner.
Marriott hotels has unveiled a new travel booth in New York where guests can explore the black sand beaches of Hawaii or the top of London's Tower 42, without buying so much as a bus ticket.
In one of the first premium virtual reality applications outside of the gaming and entertainment industry, Marriott is taking the immersive experience to new heights by allowing users to feel sensory elements such as heat, wind and mist as well as seemingly 'seeing' new locations in front of them.
Framestore did the work for Marriott - http://www.framestore.com
Data From a Century of Cinema Reveals How Movies Have Evolved
[Philip Lelyveld comment - file this under interesting but useless.]
Shorter shots
The average shot length of English language films has declined from about 12 seconds in 1930 to about 2.5 seconds today, Cutting said.
[Philip Lelyveld comment: this is both good data visualization and art.]
The color palette of Inception changes as the movie switches among dream worlds. Each vertical line represents the colors present averaged across several frames. Time moves from left to right. 
James Cutting
See the full story here: http://www.wired.com/2014/09/cinema-is-evolving/