VRScout
MARCH 23, 2017
This is the first piece in an ongoing series about writing, storytelling, and critique in VR, in partnership with Galatea , a writing and narrative design management tool for immersive stories. We’re nearly a half-decade into this new Immersive Renaissance—somewhere in the neighborhood of half a decade depending on who you talk to—and we’ve learned a boatload of lessons about producing virtual reality experiences.
Road to VR
MARCH 12, 2017
Google launched the Daydream View headset late last year, the company’s first virtual reality hardware product. As a smartphone clip-in headset, the View is a relatively simple device which leaves the bulk of the work up to the host smartphone. A slew of recent job postings however suggest significant new AR/VR hardware in the works from Google.
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UploadVR Between Realities podcast
MARCH 6, 2017
Developed by Epic Games and with a budget that nearly matched the original Gears of War , Robo Recall [ Review: 7.5/10 ] is probably the Oculus Rift’s biggest exclusive so far. But a new mod is making sure HTC Vive owners don’t miss out. You may well have heard of CrossVR before. He’s one of the developers behind Revive, a hack that allows Vive owners to play games available on Oculus Home, including exclusive Rift content funded by Oculus itself.
VRScout
MARCH 6, 2017
Patients can explore new worlds away from the hospital thanks to VR. VR is being put to use at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse with the help of Samsung Australia and Start VR. Chemotherapy patients at the Australian not-for-profit cancer treatment center, many of whom are no longer physically able to travel, now have the chance to go to a far-off, exotic destination through the use of a Gear VR headset.
Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions
To avoid awkward and sometimes disastrous learning content, instructional designers must use authentic translation in the right context to get optimal results. For example, even a simple phrase like “got milk” translates to “are you lactating” in Mexico. Can you imagine what a straight translation might do to your course? With over 317 million people in the US and over 6.7 billion potential customers in the world, personalizing training seems logical.
VRScout
MARCH 22, 2017
For the first time in Norway, students at a primary school have experienced one of the Microsoft HoloLens’ greatest applications — education. The science lesson, presented by Pointmedia , took kids at Åssiden Elementary School to outer space to learn about our Earth and Solar System. “It was a little strange,” student Casper Hansen said. “I could see asteroids.
Virtual Reality Pulse brings together the best content for VR professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
VRScout
MARCH 8, 2017
The Samsung Gear VR app features 360 photos and videos. As Facebook continues to emphasis video within the newsfeed, the tech giant has also made a commitment to embracing new formats like 360° photos and video. Now Facebook is doubling down on the immersive medium with the launch of the Facebook 360 app for Samsung Gear VR. The first dedicated VR app from Facebook, you can download it now to start exploring 360° photos and videos posted to the platform.
VRScout
MARCH 21, 2017
You may want to answer this call. Have you ever dreamed of strapping on a proton pack and letting your charged particle beam loose? Maybe give that troublemaker Slimer a taste of his own medicine with a strategically placed trap to the Containment Unit? Well now you finally can—in VR. Sony has answered our call, bringing the first in a series of VR Ghostbusters episodes to PlayStation VR today.
VRScout
MARCH 28, 2017
This post is part of an ongoing series about writing, storytelling, and critique in VR, in partnership with Galatea , a writing and narrative design management tool for immersive stories. The trailer for Rose-Colored , Adam Cosco’s upcoming 360° film, just dropped—and one glimpse offers an immediate understanding of why Adam Cosco has become one of the most distinct and compelling voices in virtual reality today: I first encountered Cosco at VRTO last summer, where Knives was on debut.
Road to VR
MARCH 8, 2017
In a reverse engineering exercise, two students at Utah State University have hacked positional tracking onto a Gear VR headset using SteamVR Tracking technology. Mobile VR solutions like Samsung’s Gear VR currently employ rotational tracking only. The popular forms of mobile VR headsets, such as the Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream View and Cardboard, are currently limited to rotational head tracking, meaning that you can look around comfortably from a single vantage point, but movements of
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With a rapidly changing economy, Avangrid Renewables looked to virtual reality to develop a standardized form of immersive training in order to onboard and upskill technicians faster than ever before.
Road to VR
MARCH 24, 2017
Today’s most immersive virtual reality systems, like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, rely on a bothersome tether to send power and high fidelity imagery to the headset at low latency. But everyone agrees a dangling cable is not only annoying, it’s an immersion detractor. The demand for a solution to this issue has spurred the creation of no less than seven solutions (and counting) hoping to make a wireless link between the high-end host PC and the headset.
Road to VR
MARCH 19, 2017
In a new report from IDC (International Data Corporation), the market research firm predicts a near 10 fold increase in the shipments of augmented and virtual reality headsets in the next 4 years, bolstered by a plethora of new devices and “expanding array of content for both consumer and enterprise users.” Lets be honest, the last few years have seen some pretty wild speculation from industry analysts whilst the excitement and hype surrounding the most recent renaissance in immersiv
Road to VR
MARCH 18, 2017
Despite its major role in the growing VR space, HTC’s overall business continues to struggle financially, posting significant losses over the last two years. Working to turn things around with a restructuring of assets and priorities, the company is facing the sale of a smartphone factory in Shanghai. The proceeds from the $91 million sale will largely funnel toward the company’s Vive VR business, according to China Daily.
Road to VR
MARCH 24, 2017
Education is widely expected to be an area where AR and VR will see major play, but we can’t start at zero and immediately arrive at a world of immersive, transformed education. It takes stepping stones. MyLab is one such stepping stone, which, using Microsoft’s HoloLens headset’ offers up a touchless, interactive periodic table for chemistry students.
Speaker: Nik Gowing, Brenda Laurel, Sheridan Tatsuno, Archie Kasnet, and Bruce Armstrong Taylor
With 191 country signatories to the Paris Climate Agreement now hard at work in the race to zero carbon by 2050, much of the heavy lifting in ecosystem sustainability falls on the shoulders of the world's densely populated urban centers. This conversation considers how today's AI-enabled simulation media, such as AR/VR, can be effectively applied to accelerate learning, understanding, training, and solutions-modeling to sustainability planning and design.
Road to VR
MARCH 13, 2017
A recently published Google’s patent application describes an ‘ Integrated mobile device packaging and virtual reality headset ’. The concept is to provide a ‘relatively low cost’ VR headset solution by shipping the smartphone in packaging that doubles as a VR viewer. Google introduced Cardboard, their inexpensive VR solution to the world in 2014, producing a VR viewer enclosure for smartphones made from Cardboard.
Road to VR
MARCH 12, 2017
CNN has officially launched CNNVR, a new immersive journalism unit and virtual reality platform with CNN Digital. Capturing major news events in 360 video, the global team will produce weekly virtual reality experiences and live streams. News organisations have tested the VR waters over recent years, for instance CNN’s work with NextVR on a live presidential election debate, ABC News’ collaboration with Jaunt VR exploring Syria, and The New York Times’ work with Within on Walking New York , and
Road to VR
MARCH 15, 2017
While it’s been possible to run basic benchmarks on VR-capable GPUs for a rough understanding of performance, NVIDIA’s new FCAT VR tool allows detailed logging and analysis of runtime data captured from any VR app on any GPU. We’ve thrown the latest VR Ready GPUs at the tool to see what we find. While the FCAT VR tool is developed by Nvidia, the company insists it is headset and GPU agnostic, and meant only to capture data.
Road to VR
MARCH 20, 2017
Researchers from Disney use a virtual reality headset and a real ball tracked in VR to understand the perceptual factors behind the seemingly simple act of catching a thrown object. The researchers say the work sets a foundation for more complex and meaningful dynamic interaction between users in VR and real-world objects. Disney Research, an arm of The Walt Disney Company, does broad research that applies across the company’s media and entertainment efforts.
Speaker: Richard Goring, Director at BrightCarbon
Remote meetings are here to stay - and many are BORING. If you are trying to engage your learners (or any audience), compelling content is critical. But trying to create stimulating content with the same tools you’ve always had is hard, right? Thankfully, wrong! Terrific tools in PowerPoint along with visual assets help you create the kind of dynamic content you need to capture your remote audience’s attention, with functions that allow for interactive sequences and navigation.
Road to VR
MARCH 18, 2017
Qualcomm’s latest VRDK headset is a reference design that the company has positioned to act as a foundation for consumer electronics makers to create their own headsets based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon VR hardware. Now with manufacturing partners on board, the first consumer headsets based on the VRDK reference design are expected to launch in the second half of 2017.
Road to VR
MARCH 6, 2017
Among other additions to the console’s base experience, the forthcoming PS4 System Software Update 4.50 will bring improved tracking and 3D Blu-ray playback to Sony’s PlayStation VR headset. In time for the launch of Farpoint and the PSVR Aim controller, the PS4 System Software Update 4.50 will launch with tracking improvements that apply to objects tracked with the PlayStation Camera, including the Move controllers and the Aim controller.
Road to VR
MARCH 10, 2017
Qualcomm has debuted an updated version of their VR Headset Reference Design now with Leap Motion’s new 180-degree hand-tracking to bring gesture control to mobile VR headsets. The new headset and Leap Motion tracking module was shown off during last week’s GDC 2017. Qualcomm’s VR Headset Reference Design has been upgraded to the company’s new Snapdragon 835 mobile platform.
Road to VR
MARCH 20, 2017
THE VOID, the untethered mixed-reality park, is opening a new location in Dubai, UAE. The new Dubai-based park is the company’s second public location, and will be hosting their Ghostbusters: Dimension experience—the same currently running at their first location at Madame Tussaud’s New York. The makers say the new park, located on the high-rent shopping area of The Beach on the Dubai Marina, is however a “limited engagement” with a presumably finite amount of slots avai
Speaker: Treion Muller, Chief Strategy Officer at ELB Learning
Since when has learning and development (L&D) become such a negative experience with its intended learners? Could it be because learners have been conditioned by very poor learning experiences over the past two decades, combined with the kinks of technological innovation? Or is it because learning has typically been designed as a one-size-fits-all solution, despite the fact that humans are not clones?
Road to VR
MARCH 21, 2017
It seems the Ghostbusters franchise isn’t done capitalizing on the video game market just yet, because the first installment of a new Ghostbusters experience is heading to PlayStationVR today. The experience (read: not game) was developed by CreateVR and Sony’s in-house VR production studio, and is entitled Ghostbusters VR – Now Hiring, Act 1: Firehouse.
VRScout
MARCH 13, 2017
Pollutants become monsters in this HTC Vive clean water educational game. It seems like there’s been a surge in environmental awareness VR Content recently, but it’s never been done quite like this. Non-profit organization Water is Life, known for creative campaigns including Hashtag Killer and Kenya Bucket List, has taken activism VR to new heights with brand new game, Hidden Dangers.
Road to VR
MARCH 16, 2017
NVIDIA’s latest GPU is here and it offers a big performance bump, but what exactly does that power deliver the VR gaming enthusiast? We pit the new Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti against the GTX 1080 to see just how far each card can enhance VR image quality through supersampling. It’s frightening the pace at which the GPU industry moves. Here we are, less than one year after Nvidia launched its brand new line of 10-series ‘Pascal’ architecture graphics cards with the GTX 1080, back
Road to VR
MARCH 13, 2017
The Guru 360° is the first 3-axis gimbal designed specifically for 360-degree cameras. Adding to the flexibility of the MOZA interchangeable gimbal system, the unit works with all lightweight 360-degree cameras with minimal obstruction to the field of view. 360-degree or spherical video has played a significant role in the growth of modern VR, introducing the concept of ‘free-look’ to the mainstream consumer through social media, thanks to 360 video support on platforms like YouTube and Facebook
Speaker: Micah Eppler, Account Executive for Rehearsal of eLearning Brothers
Did you know that companies such as Paychex, 3M, and Honeywell are getting better results by incorporating video-based practice and coaching within their L&D strategy? From sales pitches to soft skills, learners are becoming top performers by applying and validating knowledge transfer using the unique benefits of video. Whether used as a stand-alone application or integrated with a learning platform, video-based practice and coaching platforms give learners the ultimate opportunity to repeatedly
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