philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

What are the challenges of designing virtual reality experiences?

There are technical, physical and experiential challenges to designing virtual reality, augmented reality or mixed reality experiences.

The technical challenges are easier in that we know what a right answer looks like. The devices need to be smaller, lighter, wireless and higher resolution, as well as have a wider field of view, improved tracking, lower latency and so forth. That's all engineering. And, while it isn't easy, at least we know what the targets are.

Physical challengescenter around two main areas: exterior and interior comfort. Exterior comfort plays on some of the technical challenges: The gear needs to be lighter, not have wires and be comfortable enough for long-term use -- i.e., hours. At some point in the future, people will likely work in some form of augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR), so eight-hours-a-day use needs to be viable.

Interior comfort refers to issues around motion sickness, cognitive and emotional overload, and possible long-term side effects. There is a rough estimate that about 10% of the population is highly susceptible to motion sickness -- I'm one of them. There are technical parameters that can ameliorate some of the effects: Tracking needs to be fast and accurate; frame rates need to be high -- no or low latency; and the experience needs to be designed in such a way that it avoids certain interactions that can exacerbate motion sickness.

This leads to the longest tent pole in the room: experiential challenges of designing virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality (MR) experiences.

We are exceptionally good at telling stories on screens, as we're building on centuries of experience, dating back to the Greeks first creating the proscenium arch, which effectively put content within a boundary. Paintings, movies, television -- all are forms of narrative bounded by a screen border. VR, AR and MR remove those boundaries, and with it, a lot of our narrative forms lose efficacy. ...

See the full story here: https://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/answer/What-are-the-challenges-of-designing-virtual-reality-experiences

56% Have Heard Of Virtual Reality, Only 23% Can Explain It

[PhilNote: I asked the story's author Chuck@MediaPost.com if there is a link to the source study for this data.]

While most (56%) people have heard about virtual reality, they’re not able to explain it. More significantly, fewer than a quarter (23%) of people are familiar with it and could explain it to someone else. That’s down 13% from 2017, when more than a third (36%) of people were very familiar with it and could even explain it to a friend.

Brands take a hit here as well. Just over a quarter (28%) of people can name a VR industry leader, which is 17% fewer than in 2017.

The good news is that the majority (62%) of consumers have a positive attitude about virtual reality.

See the full story here: https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/334007/56-have-heard-of-virtual-reality-only-23-can-ex.html

Tate and an augmented reality street art application are among the 2019 Webby Awards nominees.

photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
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...many of this year’s Webby nominees defy traditional barriers between art and science to demonstrate the possibilities for digital innovation in the arts.

Storied institutions including Tate and the Metropolitan Museum of Arthave been nominated for innovative social media campaigns—the Met for #HaveWeMetYet, an Instagram campaign featuring different employees at the museum and Tate Modern for its savvy use of Instagram. In the category for net art, nominees include artists such as Nikolaus Baumgarten and Sophia Schomberg—whose Arkadia takes users into a dizzying digital landscape—and forward-thinking creators at MIT’s IBM Watson AI Lab, whose WonderNet transforms digital networks into sculptures.

See the full story here: https://www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-tate-augmented-reality-street-art-application-2019-webby-awards-nominees

5 ways augmented reality apps are changing the game on college campuses

1. Researchers in Penn State University’s Department of Geography created an augmented reality app to give users more background about one of the oldest and best-known monuments on the school’s University Park campus. The Obelisk was constructed in 1896 from regional rocks and minerals, and its 281 stones are arranged in order by geologic time period. “There’s a database connected to each stone, so whenever you touch any stone in the app, you can see where it came from, how old it is, and other information,” says Arif Masrur, doctoral student in geography. “Eventually our goal is to also include 360-degree photos of the actual environment from where each rock was excavated.”

See the full story here: https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/04/02/augmented-reality-apps-changing-game-college-campuses/

Edgybees’s new developer platform brings situational awareness to live video feeds

San Diego-based Edgybees today announced the launch of Argus, its API-based developer platform that makes it easy to add augmented reality features to live video feeds.

The service has long used this capability to run its own drone platform for first responders and enterprise customers, which allows its users to tag and track objects and people in emergency situations, for example, to create better situational awareness for first responders.

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/02/edgybeess-new-developer-platform-adds-situational-awareness-to-live-video-feeds/

How The Big Five Tech Companies Make Their Money, Visualized

See the full story here: http://digg.com/2019/tech-companies-main-revenue-stream-data-visualization?fbclid=IwAR0v380R9zw2fMHRqAj8pNTl2t6mz16Pyoxql3jKs0LH7h15fezTZgFeJKI

Skills gap? Augmented reality can beam in expertise across the enterprise – PTC Vuforia

Hives of subject matter experts could man augmented reality switchboards, transferring knowledge to field.

"We are excited to offer industrial enterprises a new way to use AR to leverage the tribal knowledge of subject matter experts (SMEs) and help alleviate the skills gap crisis threatening today's industrial enterprise," says Mike Campbell, EVP, augmented reality products, PTC.

See the full story here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/skills-gap-augmented-reality-can-beam-in-expertise/

Google employees are lining up to trash Google’s AI ethics council

The newly-launched independent council was meant to help guide the ethics of Google’s AI projects. But the blowback shows just how fraught—and politicized— AI is becoming, writes Will Knight.

What’s happening: Almost a thousand Google staff and other workers in tech have signed a letter protesting the makeup of the council. One member of the council has also declined an invitation to take up the role.

Specifically: They’re worried about two members. One is Dyan Gibbens, CEO of Trumbull, a company that develops autonomous weapons system. But they're particularly unhappy at the inclusion of Kay Coles James, president of the Heritage Foundation, a thinktank which opposes regulating carbon emissions and takes a hard line on immigration. There has also been criticism at the board’s lack of any civil rights activist who has expertise in the ways that AI can neglect or harm minorities.

See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613253/googles-ai-council-faces-blowback-over-a-conservative-member

PTC Improves Workforce Efficiency with Launch of Breakthrough Vuforia Expert Capture Augmented Reality Solution

Vuforia Expert Capture provides up-to-date, relevant information when and where workers need it most – in the real-world context of their daily work environment. Knowledge can be captured on-the-fly as needs arise, without causing disruption to high-value workers. No advance preparation or development efforts are required to easily create step-by-step instructions for hands-on training and task guidance.

Captured procedures can be fine-tuned in a secure, SaaS-based environment and then dynamically delivered on RealWear HMT-1, Microsoft HoloLens, and mobile devices to front-line workers across the enterprise. Spatial intelligence from HoloLens’ location-aware functionality can be leveraged to safely guide front-line workers through multi-step procedures at different locations without compromising speed and accuracy.

Vuforia Expert Capture is a valuable solution in manufacturing environments where existing service/maintenance/changeover procedures for equipment are unavailable.

See the full story here: https://www.nonpareilonline.com/ptc-improves-workforce-efficiency-with-launch-of-breakthrough-vuforia-expert/article_8fab6e5c-a52d-5429-b65c-4977cb27922c.html

The Top 5 Virtual/Simulated Characters and How They Foretold the Future

Virtual Character #3: Virtual Influencers: Kizuna Ai and Lil Miquela

This spot goes to two (real life?) virtual characters that never existed on TV or in the movies. They are among the biggest YouTube stars – in fact, the days of YouTube celebrities being human may be a thing of the past.

The trend stated In Japan, with Kizuna Ai, an anime-inspired character who looks cartoonish, is a major star in Japan. In 2018, the character has not one but two YouTube channels and has over 2 million subscribers. She was known as the first “virtual YouTuber” and later, Mattel launched virtual Barbie as a real character. Today YouTube estimates over half a billion views that have been attributed to virtual influencers on the platform.

See the full story here: https://variety.com/2019/tv/features/the-top-5-virtual-simulated-characters-and-how-they-foretold-the-future-1203176886/