Enlarge / Look all you want... in VR, this kind of view of the Sun is completely safe to stare at.

I've been told that being present for a total eclipse of the Sun is a life-changing experience. But I wasn't able to get my act together to travel to the path of totality for today's event. Luckily, I am part of the first generation to be able to experience an eclipse vicariously through the magic of virtual reality. While seeing a total eclipse in VR wasn't exactly a life-changing experience, it was one of the best examples I've seen of the power and promise of live, 360-degree video.

I first tried to view CNN's 360-degree Facebook Live video coverage of the eclipse on my Oculus Rift. Despite numerous tries, though, the livestream never showed up as a choice on the list of "New" or "Top Pick" videos available on the Oculus Video app. Without a built-in search function or any way to navigate to a specific URL or some such, viewing the eclipse on the Rift was a bust.

As a backup, I dug out the latest Samsung Gear VR headset and a Galaxy S7 Edge. While I waited for some necessary updates to download, I was able to watch CNN's "VR" coverage in a simple Web browser window. I used the mouse to tilt the virtual camera between the people on the ground and the Sun in the sky. Having control of the viewpoint was nice, but watching through a small window on a laptop screen didn't really feel all that different from watching similar coverage on TV.

I finally got the stream working on the Gear VR in time for the eclipse to hit Wyoming, the third of seven eclipse locations CNN was covering in VR. The video started out extremely grainy, but it got a bit sharper as the bandwidth caught up with itself. Even with the highest-quality stream from the 4K cameras, though, the relative image I saw on the Galaxy S7's 1440x2560 screen was much blurrier than the same stream viewed on my Macbook Air screen.

In VR, facial features of people are hard to make out if they were more than a few feet from the camera, and details on the horizon almost completely lacked definition. There was also none of the "stereoscopic 3D" effect you usually get from most other apps in virtual realitythis was more like looking at a 2D video projected on a 360-degree dome surrounding me.

This adorable Girl Scout group in Missouri was looking up at the eclipse with me in VR (all these images are taken from the Facebook Live 360 video feed on a laptop, but the same content was viewable in the Gear VR).

A few onlookers in Wyoming look up with me just before totality.

While the Sun was just a small dot in the VR sky, CNN's zoomed-in "eclipse cam" gave me the detailed crescent Sun view I craved.

That tiny white dot is all I could see of the Sun in VR during totality.

A cloudy Nashville main street a few minutes before totality.

The same Nashville street lit up during the total blackness of the total eclipse.

The VR image also had a fair share of compression artifacts, especially when the sky grew dark and the streaming algorithms struggled to differentiate between the small gradations of black. While people live on the ground started talking about seeing individual stars and even planets in the darkened sky, I could only see large, color-banded blobs of different shades of black. It reminded me of nothing so much as watching grainy RealVideo streams in the early 2000s, only with a viewing "window" that surrounded me completely.

What the VR experience lacked in sharpness, it made up for in its overwhelming, all-encompassing nature. Watching the eclipse in VR, I could really get the sense of the sky darkening quickly all around me as totality approached. I got the sense of a rapid dawn when the Moon's shadow started to recede. It was incredible being able to turn in place and see a virtual, eclipse-generated "sunset" in all directions on the horizon from the comfort of my own kitchen. Hearing the whoops and hollers of onlookers alongside the confused chirping of birds and crickets picked up by the microphones only increased the immersion.

I also appreciated the variety of eclipse locations CNN was able to cover over a two-hour span, from a wide-open field in Idaho, to a neon-covered street in Nashville, to the seat of a helicopter floating above Charleston. Through it all, a variety of hosts and guests rambled, repeating themselves quite often about the "once in a lifetime" grandeur of it all and the way ancient humans were awed by what is now an utterly predictable astronomical occurrence. CNN also superimposed some ethereal "space music" on top of pretty much any eclipse moment, which was a bit distracting.

The rest is here:

I was one of the first humans to see a solar eclipse in virtual reality - Ars Technica

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This lab animal VR platform allows scientists to study animal behavior in more controlled and dynamic environments.

Lab animals can now enter immersive virtual reality environments thanks to researchers in Andrew Straws lab at the University of Freiburgin Germany. Dubbed FreemoVR, the system resembles the holodeck fromStar Trekand monitors the movements of common lab animals like mice, zebrafish, and fruit flies, projecting photorealistic environments onto a screen to simulate movement in the real world.

To understand how an animal responds behaviorally to visual stimuli, I always wanted something like the holodeck in Star Trek, Straw, a neurobiologist at the Vienna Biocenter, told Digital Trends. Gradually, it dawned on me that a lot of the bits and pieces I had built over the years could be extended and combined to achieve what we now have done.

Straw and his team arranged as many as 10 high-speed cameras to track the position of the animal as it ventured around the space. Within seconds, the FreemoVR software projects a new image, from digital pillars to checkerboard floors, and even Space Invader aliens. Unlike human VR systems, there is no need for the animals to wear special garments or headgear.

This might sound like a bunch of fun and games but the researchers hope the system will help them study animal behavior in new and unique ways.

Straw and his team found that the animals often responded to the various environments as though they were real. Mice demonstrated caution when the environment depicted a scene suspended up high. Flies flew around the digital pillars, as seen in the video above. And zebrafish showed a propensity to swim after a photo-realistic virtual fish when the digital model matched its swim direction.

If we do not put the animals visual sense in strong conflict with other senses, we do not find any differences between behavioral responses to real world versus VR stimuli, Straw said.

The virtual worlds were not all realistic. Along with Space Invaders, the researchers intend to experiment with more cartoonish and gamified environments, including one that simulates teleportation animals.

We could test stimuli that would be impossible to create in the real world, Straw said. So far fish seem OK with being teleported virtually!

A paper detailing the study was published this week in the journal Nature Methods.

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Zooculus rift lab animals get their own virtual reality system - Digital Trends

Scientists have devised a virtual reality platform for lab animals. Let that sink in.Zebrafish have swum with the aliens from the video game Space Invaders, mice were afraid of virtual heights, and fruit flies circled illusory obstacles.

This new holodeck for animals can help researchers see how freely-moving animals respond to a variety of illusionswork that could help scientists better understand human genes and brain circuitry, researchers say. The researchers, from the Vienna Biocenter in Austria, detailed their findings in todays edition of the journal Nature Methods.

FreemoVR, immersed animals in arenas where the walls or floors were computer displays. Each screen depicted photorealistic images that accounted for each animals perspective as it walked, flew, or swam.

Up to 10 high-speed cameras monitored the precise 3D position of each animal. FreemoVR then updated its video imagery within milliseconds of each animal's movements to create the 3D illusion that they were moving in environments that changed in response to their actions.

The researchers compared FreemoVR to the holodeck, a fictional environment in [the TV show] Star Trek in which humans enter a computer-controlled virtual world, says Andrew Straw, a neurobiologist at the Vienna Biocenter who was co-senior author of a paper detailing the study. They can freely move, have no need to wear special clothing or headgear, and are immersed in a computer-controlled environment, which can be made completely realistic or arbitrarily unrealistic.

The researchers tested FreemoVR on mice, fruit flies, and zebrafish, three species commonly used in lab research. The virtual landscape with which these animals interacted included vertical pillars, floating rings, checkerboard floors, virtual plants, and a swarm of digital aliens from Space Invaders. They even had distinctive portals that could instantly alter the virtual environments to make it seem as if zebrafish swimming into them had teleported elsewhere.

The animals apparently found the illusions realistic. For instance, fruit flies circled virtual pillars just as they did real ones placed in the platforms. Moreover, mice generally avoided tracks that looked as if they were suspended at great heights, just as they would in real life.

The animals also changed their behavior in response to illusory animals. For example, zebrafish normally circled the periphery of their fishbowl near the screens, but when teleported into settings with swarms of Space Invaders, the zebrafish tended to move toward the middle of the fishbowl.

We wanted to study collective behavior because that is something incredibly difficult to do with real animals or with robots, Straw says. "We wanted to show how real fish respond to the motion of a swarm of simulated agents and to show that we could create a hybrid biological-computational swarm.

In addition, the researchers developed a photorealistic model of a swimming fish, and showed that real zebrafish most reliably followed the digital fish when the virtual animal matched its swim direction to the real fish. The fact that researchers can vary the appearance of virtual animals from cartoonish to realistic will allow experiments to test how important the exact visual appearance of other animals is as opposed to, say, the pattern of motion, Straw says.

This new platform will let scientists investigate animals as they behave relatively naturally and unrestrained by conventional VR gear in realistic virtual environments they can manipulate extensively. By tinkering with animal DNA or brains in such experiments, the researchers can learn what role certain genes or brain circuits play in these animals, and potentially in humans as well. Brains evolved in the real world, and to understand how and why neural circuits process information in the way they do, we need to understand them in this context, Straw says.

Straw notes that humans would notice several imperfections with FreemoVR. Primary amongst those is that our system does not create two distinct views for the two eyes, and thus the stereo cues important for depth perception would be gone, he says. However, Straw notes this is not a major concern with the animals they are experimenting with; the eyes of these animals are so close together that the differences between the view from each eye are limited.

Straws lab is now conducting experiments where they can silence the activity of single brain cells in fruit flies and examining the roles these cells play in the insects behavior in virtual erality.

IEEE Spectrums biomedical engineering blog, featuring the wearable sensors, big data analytics, and implanted devices that enable new ventures in personalized medicine.

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Excerpt from:

Virtual Reality Platform Created For Lab Animals - IEEE Spectrum

For those who have experienced a traumatic even such as a tragic car accident it can sometimes be difficult to move on.

Virtual reality (VR) is giving therapists a new tool to help patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Dawn Jewell, Ph.D., a psychologist based in Greeley, Colorado, is using virtual reality tools to help some of her patients who are suffering from PTSD return in a virtual setting to the scene of an accident or other location where a traumatic event in their lives may have occurred.

Im using it primarily as exposure therapy, Jewell said, in an exclusive interview with R&D Magazine. So a lot of times with PTSD there is a tendency to avoid any triggers, reminders, events that can bring on those memories of the event.

So using exposure therapy in session I can go to a triggering place with a patient in the comfort of the therapy room and it can provide that exposure in a way that is less aversive, less frightening, she added. I know there is research in other areas like autism disorders, training, public speaking and a bunch of different areas.

Jewell is one of a handful of psychologists using VR tools from Limbixa Silicon Valley start-up that allows patients to experience exposure therapy by incorporating Daydream Viewa Google headset that works in coordination with a smartphone application.

According to the Limbix website, the VR environments are built with real-world footage that allows the patient to experience authentic exposures and feel a true presence in genuine environments.

By gradually exposing patients to phobias and sources of distress, therapists can control exposure thresholds in each VR environment and help patients face increasingly stressful situation.

The app is made specifically to use for therapy and Jewell said she primarily uses the tools to treat patients suffering from PTSD due to a car accident.

Ive gone to the intersection where an accident took place with one patient in particular because that person hasnt been that intersection since the accident and they are avoiding it. They were doing everything they could to drive around town and not go there, she said. So we were able to go to that intersection and it was helpful.

They can see that their anxiety about it was overblown and that they could tolerate it.

The app is a perfect match for vehicular related problems as it uses Street View, a Google platform that includes an online database of photos of panoramic scenes of roadways and other locations around the world.

According to Jewell, a patient will have to attend a number of more traditional therapy sessions before she suggests gravitating towards VR.

Ideally you have to have a handful of sessions before bringing the virtual reality in, you have to build a rapport and make sure this is something that they want to do, she said. Also you want them to develop some tools so that they can manage the anxiety that is likely going to occur during the VR.

She said her patients thus far have been receptive towards the tool, with and only one or two have been apprehensive since she began using Limbix. The ones that did go through the experience were impressed by the realness they saw in the virtual world.

According to Jewell, she was approached about using the new therapy tool by a friend who was working with the National Behavioral Health Innovation Center at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora and jumped at the opportunity.

Since she began using the program, she said representatives from Limbix have been receptive towards updating the applications as different situational needs arose, including adding medical scenario to the virtual reality experience.

I recommended to the Limbix guys that lets do an MRI because I have a lot of patients that are fearful and become claustrophobic, so they can get that exposure before they go to the hospital, Jewell said. I recommended that maybe we should do more medical and within two weeks they had the material available and I think that is a great technological advancement we have now.

Jewell said she can see the tools being expanded to include other forms of anxiety, including agoraphobia where someone can be put into a virtual crowd for short periods of time. Other patients the tool may help include those suffering from a fear of public speaking or those suffering from white coat syndrome, a disorder where a patients blood pressure rises above the normal range in a clinical setting.

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Virtual Reality for the Treatment of PTSD - R & D Magazine

Millions of people will watch as the moon completely blocks the sun during a rare total solar eclipse set to traverse the United States on Aug. 21. The eclipse will begin in Oregon at 9:05 a.m. PT and move across the country, ending at 2:44 p.m. ET near South Carolina.

If you can't catch the eclipse in person , we have a way to make it feel like you are practically there. Along with LIFE VR , TIME is producing a 360-degree virtual reality livestream of the eclipse. You can watch live beginning at about 11:30 a.m. on TIME's Facebook and YouTube pages, in partnership with Mesmerise Global.

Through the stream, you'll see on-the-ground views of the total eclipse from Casper, Wyo., as well as skygazers who have gathered for the event. TIME's editor-at-large Jeffrey Kluger will narrate throughout the livestream. An edited version of the 360-degree livestream will also be available in the LIFE VR app for iOS and Android , and on LIFE VR's Samsung VR channel immediately following the eclipse.

TIME will also host a separate livestream of the eclipse hosted by popular space personality Amy Shira Teitel starting at 12 p.m. ET on Aug. 21 on Time.com , as well as its Facebook and YouTube pages.

Read the original here:

Watch Live: The Total Solar Eclipse in 360 Degrees - TIME

On Monday, August 21 at 1PM ET, CNN presents 'The Eclipse of the Century.' Live and in virtual reality, our show will transport you across the country for the best eclipse moments. Here's how you can make sure not to miss it... ON YOUR COMPUTER... On your laptop or desktop computer at CNN.com/Eclipse, you can look around the scene using your mouse . Once the livestream starts, click and drag the screen to take it all in. Make sure you're using Chrome or Firefox. ON YOUR PHONE...

Be proactive -- download the CNN app now. It's the best way to watch the eclipse on the go.

On Monday at 1PM ET just open the CNN app and you'll be able to watch live. All you have to do: tilt your phone to see all around you. It's called 'magic window' mode - and yes, it's pretty magical.

However you decide to watch, we look forward to joining you for this rare and exciting solar eclipse. Remember, it's been 99 years since a solar eclipse crossed the entire US. You don't want to miss this one.

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How to watch the eclipse in virtual reality - CNN

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Starting a new job anytime soon? Your training might well involve slinging on a VR headset.

Just as businesses are exploring the possibilities offered by drone technology, many are also finding uses for another emerging platform:virtual reality (VR).

Take delivery giant UPS. It recently revealed how its about to start using VR headsets such as the HTC Vive to train new drivers to spot and deal with road hazards likely to be encountered during their delivery runs.

Developed by UPS IT experts, the VR training modules will be installed at all nine of its so-called Integrad training facilities across the U.S., and will replace the touchscreen devices that UPS currently uses for driver training.

A UPS video (above) highlighting the technology shows a trainee wearing a VR headset while driving a van using the kind of steering wheel avid gamers will be familiar with. The teacher can see the trainees driving decisions play out on a couple of screens in the room, enabling them to analyze their skills.

Virtual Reality offers a big technological leap in the realm of driver safety training, said Juan Perez, UPS chief information and engineering officer. VR creates a hyper-realistic streetscape that will dazzle even the youngest of our drivers whose previous exposure to the technology was through video games.

UPS has shown before how it likes to embrace new technology in an effort to drive its business forward. Earlier this year we heard that it was looking into the idea of using drones to make some of its deliveries. It has even built a prototype system featuring a UPS van with a roof that slides open to allow the package-carrying flying machine to zip off and make a delivery before returning for another package a short while later.

If UPS can perfect the design and gain permission from the Federal Aviation Administration somewhere down the line, it envisions using its system in rural locations where there might be, say, two delivery addresses several miles apart. In such a scenario, the van driver would make one of the deliveries while the drone would make the other, saving the driver time and, in theory at least, ensuring a speedier service for waiting customers.

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Virtual reality helps new UPS recruits hone their driving skills - Digital Trends

SmartNews Keeping you current A screenshot of William Wheeler's VR creation showing a barren, sandy landscape to explore (Essex Flowers)

smithsonian.com August 18, 2017 4:29PM

There's only so much space in a gallery to hold art, but one New York venue has figured out a clever way to get around this problem,reports Benjamin Sutton forHyperallergic.

For its latest show, the Chinatown gallery Essex Flowers is showcasingthe work of 15 artists in a400-square-foot space. How? Thanks to some virtual reality wizardry. Rather than having theworks physically occupy the space,the exhibit, titled"The Sands,"lives entirely in the VR headsets thatvisitors don when they enter the exhibit.

The innovative solution allows the works on view to be rotated through an endlessvirtual space. Visitors can reach out andinteract with, and even walk through, the curateddisplays.

"The works in this show...simply share the same space and time in ways that are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and occasionally even discordant," the gallery writes in a description of the exhibit.

The show's name draws inspiration from the legendary Las Vegas hotel and casino of the same name, where Frank Sinatra and many other stars of the mid-20th century could often be found. Even though it was demolished more than 20 years ago, the casino lives on strongly in the American cultural memory today, serving as ashorthand for agolden era of Las Vegas inthe 1950sfull of ambition, glamor and arrogance.

"It was a place both physical and imaginary, where fantasies came true and where realities transformed into myth," the gallery writes.

Essex Flowers isn't the first artistic venue to make use of burgeoning virtual reality technology. Last year, The Dal Museum inFlorida allowed visitors to literally step inside a surrealpainting, while London'sTate Modern museum plans to employ VR technologyto simulate the early 20th-century Paris in an upcoming exhibit on the career of artist Amedeo Modigliani.

The Sands will run in Essex Flowers, located inNew York City's Lower East Side, until Sunday, August 20.

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Reach Out and Touch This Virtual Reality Art Installation - Smithsonian

The delivery company announced Tuesday that it will add virtual reality tests to its driver training program starting next month. UPS expects virtual reality will make its drivers safer and smarter.

"It's a game-changer for training." Laura Collings, UPS training and development manager, told CNN Tech. "Nothing can really replace real-world training, but virtual reality complements it in a way that engages our employees."

During the virtual reality tests, new trainees will experience trips around city environments. They'll have to identify hazards along the way by shouting out "hazard left" or "hazard right." The virtual reality tests last about three to six minutes.

UPS (UPS) wants its drivers constantly scanning roadways to be aware of potential trouble ahead. Virtual reality allows UPS to include a heavy dose of hazards in training, that a driver might not otherwise see when practicing in the in real world.

For example, in one instance a ball rolls out onto the street ahead of the virtual driver. UPS wants its drivers to immediately watch for a child that may dart into the street to recover it. The drivers are also taught to identify other problems, such as a billboard, tree or building that blocks their view.

Related: UPS drivers may tag team deliveries with drones

With virtual reality, drivers have a chance to learn lessons and make mistakes without doing any damage.

Drivers of UPS package delivery trucks spend a month training. The first week is spent at a driver training center, followed by three weeks in the field shadowing an experienced driver.

UPS drivers used to train by having to identify hazards in virtual environments that were displayed on computer screens. But UPS executives wanted the more immersive experience that virtual reality provided.

The company told CNN it sees additional chances down the road to use virtual reality, such as for training mechanics on how to service an engine.

CNNMoney (Washington) First published August 15, 2017: 11:24 AM ET

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UPS is training drivers with virtual reality - CNNMoney

Meike Muzzi isnot dressed for travel.

Hospital bracelets in all three primary colours encircle her wrinkled right forearm,a goldbangle onthe left.

But she says she's ready for today's trip the promise of an escape from the Toronto palliative care ward in which she's spent the past five weeks waiting to die.

David Parkeris there to fulfilthat promisewith the help of his virtual reality goggles.

"What you've brought me so far has been beautiful," Muzzi says, settling the soft black material of the goggles into the creases around her eyes.

David Parker shoots his own video or edits together video shot by others to take patients around the world or into the heart of their own city. (CBC)

The pair has alreadytravelled together through the plains of Africa. And Muzzi reminds her guest that she would have liked to linger longer with the elephants.

Parker already knows this.

He listens to her stories,interviewing Muzzi and all the patients he visits at BridgepointHealth in Riverdale, so he can storethe information away and use it to help them revisit the moments of particular meaning in their lives.

Parker's idea to offer virtual reality therapy began at Christmas.

The IT consultant received the headset as a gift. He first used them to take his wife's grandmother to Venice, gliding through the canals on a gondola. Then herealized he could offer the same experience to those in hospice or havinglong-term hospital stays.

That idea has bloomed into both a pilot project at Bridgepointand a passion project for Parker. Right nowhe donates his time and the equipment, but says that even thoughhe runs a creative agency he can see this becoming his life's work.

Virtual reality therapy grants final wishes to terminally ill6:09

He's taught himself to shoot 360-degree video and to edit other video so that it gives viewersan immersive experience. Parker doesn't just want to show someone a video of the Great Wall of China; he wants them to feel like they're getting on a plane, riding a taxi to the hotel, wandering the hot and crowded markets, before seeing the final wonder.

"I'm not just dumping a headset on them," he said. "I'm actually sort of progressing it so they get the feeling that they're doing a trip or doing something that's special.

"How can we virtually start to cross items off [the patient's] bucketlist?"

Most of Muzzi's days are spent inside this hospital room, decorated with photos and the flowers she used to grow in her garden (CBC)

To Parker's knowledge his pilot project is the only of his kind in Toronto.

There's limited data about the efficacyof virtual reality as therapy, but both he and Dr. Leah Steinbergthe palliative care physician who has supported the projecthope to change that.

They've already cleared several hurdles simply in starting the program. For example, they've ensured that the headset can be sterilized so that it doesn't bring in any bacteria to vulnerable patients.

It's not a typical medical tool, but the escape of virtual reality can helppatients cope after learning they have a terminal condition, Steinberg said.

"One of the things that patients really struggle with when they get a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness they can often lose their sense of who they are, sort of lose the sense of what's meaningful to them in their life," she said. "So a big part of what we do in palliative care is help them reconnect to who they are."

It can also help take them out of their pain, at least according to Parker and Steinberg.

The physician hopes at some pointto have her patients rate both their mental well-being and their pain, both before and after "travelling" with Parker.

David Parker and Meike Muzzi chat about her latest trip using the videos of Toronto he shot for her to watch through a virtual reality headset. (CBC)

At 83, Muzzi is a seasoned traveller. She's met at least five times with Parker andthis time he takes her to the heart of the city: Nathan Phillips Square on a summer day. The sun glimmers off the pond, creating a rippled reflection of the iconic Toronto sign.

She lovesseeing the waterespecially. She remembers the warmth of the sea off Corsica, a rainbow of fish and coral gliding beneath her.

"Those were beautiful that you had," she said of an older video of scuba diving among coral Parker immersed her in during another virtual visit. "They were so red and so orange and so beautiful.

"I did do a lot of those" she mimes a mask.

"Snorkelling," Parker interjects, helping her find the English word she's forgotten for her native Dutch.

"Every single week I'm going to bring you something and ask, 'Is it as good as the coral? And then one time, you're going to go, 'That was better.'"

"Oh, I don't know," she says, her face creased in a smile.

It's a challenge and one Parkerhopes they're given the time tofulfil.

See the original post:

How a Toronto hospital uses virtual reality to grant dying patients a last wish - CBC.ca

A patent application released Thursday shows Facebook (FB) is planning to implement some high-tech breakthroughs in the virtual reality glasses it wants to create.

The VR glasses will let users see virtual objects in the real world using a "waveguide display with two-dimensional scanner." The display will use computer-generated elements to "augment views of a physical, real-world environment." Wearers will be able to use the glasses to display images and videos or connect to speakers and headphones to play audio. Business Insider first reported the news.

The waveguide technology Facebook is using is similar to Microsoft Corp's (MSFT) HoloLens AR headset and the VR glasses Magic Leap, an Alphabet-backed (GOOGL) startup, is producing.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called VR the next major computing platform that could replace smartphones and even traditional personal computers. Facebook plans to spend billions of dollars on VR in the coming years.

Facebook and Alphabet are holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio . Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells FB and GOOGL? Learn more now.

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Details Emerge About Facebook's Virtual Reality Glasses - TheStreet.com

As technology improves, more employers are saving money on overhead costs by forgoing an office and giving employees the opportunity to work from home.

This not only lowers the cost of running a business, but allows companies to pick the best workers available with no concern for where they live.

Different industries are taking advantage of the chance, as is exemplified by the three Islanders that spoke about challenges and benefits of working from home.

Joshua Biggley is an engineer based in Charlottetown, Leigh Sheppard works in technical support for an accounting firm and Angela Douglas works for multiple environmental groups.

Leigh Sheppard's home office in his basement. He has been working from home for almost 2 years now. (Submitted by Leigh Sheppard)

Achieving a good work-life balance is a challenge for many people whether they work in a workplace or from home, but it seems to be an especially difficult aspect of working from home.

"When you're at home I think it's really easy to kind of slip back into work mode when, maybe you should be you know being a dad or being husband," said Sheppard.

"Because my office is just down the stairs and I know certain things will only take a moment, I tend to kind of escape and start working on those things."

Joshua Biggley says that he doesn't think every occupation is fit for remote work, and not every person would be able to do it. (Submitted by Joshua Biggley)

"One task can easily grow into multiple tasks and before I realize it I've lost control and I'm working longer than I anticipated."

Douglas said that she deals with the same problem with her work.

"I don't leave the office at fiveand forget about work until the next morning," she said.

"I'm usually answering emails and working on project proposals at all hours."

Biggleysaid that making sure he isn't letting work bleed into his personal life is difficult, not because he is working from home, but because he isn't in the workplace.

"Unfortunately you almost have to overachieve compared to your in-office counterparts because they are seen, and the only thing that you are is you're heard and the results from your work are there, so that's a challenge," he said.

"Those who tend to work remote, we tend to be overachievers, we tend to push very hard and so the danger of us working an excessive number of hours is a very real challenge for us, it's a very real risk."

Battling perceptions of what a remote worker is also contribute to Biggley'sdetermination to be productive.

"Remote workers have the challenge of working too much, than the rumoured, 'Hey you know I'm at home watching CNN or ESPN with my feet up, eating chocolate cake and not wearing pants,' or something."

Sheppard said that being out of the office is also tough because you don't interact with colleagues.

"You can feel isolated, and I think that's another thing you struggle with at the beginning," he said.

Douglas said that aspect of remote work is particularly tough for her.

"A lack of co-workers is a challenge for me as I'm a very social person," she said.

"My hamster doesn't laugh at my puns."

Angela Davis says that one of the difficult aspects of working from home is not having colleagues to speak with. (Submitted by Angela Douglas)

Sheppardsaid that the company he works for has been trying to alleviate some of this with online meetings that are not focused on work.

Biggleysaid that he works hard to stay connected with communities online through various social media platforms.

He also makes a concerted effort to bring his personal life into work whenever he can.

"I will always try to share some personal tidbit about myself," he said.

"Those are things that people look for when you're in the office, and as a remote worker you have to make sure you share those things with people understanding that they're not going to ask you because you're not sitting next to them."

Biggley said that another challenge is making sure to get out of the houseso his wife will often ask him torunerrands with her.

"I almost feel like I'm the family pet that they need to take me out and exercise me just a little," he said.

Sheppard said that getting out of the house is even more difficult during the winter months, when going outside is less appealing.

"You can get a little stir-crazy," he said.

Among the benefits of working from home are the lack of commute, and the flexibility of schedule.

Douglas said that even though she has to stay connected she can run out and get groceries, or work on dinner while at work.

Sheppardagreed, and said he had just returned from a working vacation in Halifax where he was visiting family.

Leigh Sheppard says that one of the benefits to working from home is being able to take breaks with Lucy, his 9-month-old daughter. (Submitted by Leigh Sheppard)

Biggleythought that being out of the office was beneficial to his productivity because colleagues can slow down the pace of work sometimes.

"For those who enjoy putting their head down and getting some serious technical work done there's a great advantage to that," he said.

"You know I can close the door, I can put my headphones in and no one's going to come knocking at my door stick their head over my cubicle wall and want to interrupt me to talk about the latest episode of whatever show was on TV last night."

Douglas said that because she works for NGO's, she doesn't think she would be returning to an office anytime soon because of the cost to her employers.

For Sheppard, who is nearing the two-year mark of working remotely,going back to the office is not something he sees happening.

"Not purposefully, no I don't think so," he said.

Biggleyis a little more open to going back to working in an office, but thinks that remote workers will become more popular among companies.

"There may be an opportunity that will arise in the future that will demand that I go into the office," he said.

"But I think that employers of the future will learn how to measure their employees and trust them in such a way that we don't have to go into the office everyday of the week."

"If people embraced that type of culture I think a lot of people would be a lot happier and probably a lot more productive as well," added Sheppard.

Excerpt from:

A virtual reality: Remote workers reflect on life after the office - CBC.ca

When the legends of opera were composing their works, it is unlikely they ever envisaged a time when intricate sets made by mans hand would be replaced with virtual reality. But that is just what the Wales National Opera is doing this summer. The company has created two virtual reality accompaniments letting those who are new to opera step inside the performance.

The Magic Butterfly pop-up installation features two short experiences based on songs from Madame Butterfly and the Magic Flute. The viewer is able to direct and orchestrate the characters, immersing themselves in the music and environment.

This is just a taster of the potential that VR has for stage productions, but it is also a sign of things to come. These days, theatre is less about sets built to mimic different places on stage, but more about representation. Boundaries are constantly being pushed beyond the structural confines of the boards. And for a discipline that is constantly in search of new spaces, virtual reality offers nearly unlimited potential.

Since the 1990s, theatre has been experimenting with virtual reality, and inviting the audience to play an active role in immersive, site-specific performances. Brenda Laurels Placeholder in 1993 was one of the first to use VR through head-mounted displays. Three-dimensional graphics, character animation and integrated sounds and voices allowed two participants to explore the simulated Canadian Rockies with a local mythology narrative.

Since then, VR has been used in increasingly creative ways. Char Daviess Osmose in 1995 added interactivity to the installation, experimenting with real-time motion tracking based on breathing and balance, together with interactive 3D sound.

In Sharir and Gromalas 1994 production, a dancer who entered the virtual environment interacted not only with other dancers present in the cyberspace, but also with a digital puppet capable of mimicking movements as well as dancing alone.

When virtual reality is used interactively it opens up whole new worlds to be explored. The traditional relationship between space-actor-spectator becomes a space-spectactor relationship. The audience is no longer in a passive role. Dramatic action is substituted by a real action, and how it plays out is shaped by the spectators.

I personally have used the Second Life metaverse a free 3D virtual world where one can build avatars, buildings and objects to create performance spaces for both teaching and professional theatre.

While I was teaching scenography at University of Rome La Sapienza, I took the virtual platform one step further. It was used not just to build sets and performances, but to create an audience of guests avatars. People from all over the world could virtually attend and interact with the performance using their avatars.

In addition, my students built their sets in this new virtual learning environment under my supervision, interacting with my avatar in real time during all the process.

This virtual reality-based theatre allowed us to design limitless environments and sets. Virtual avatar-actors could interact with the scenery and with others during the performance in real time. They could use the space in any way they wished: walking, running or even flying around it.

We later furthered this work with the performance @nts, a multi-dimensional theatre performance inspired by Philip K. Dicks The Electric Ant. This was staged at the same time in parallel universes: the real world of a real theatre space and the cyberspace of Second Life.

For this show, avatars performed live in the virtual set on Second Life to an audience of avatars while, at the same time, real actors performed live in a theatre space with a real audience. The theatre space was captured by video cameras and projected onto the virtual Second Life set while at the same time this virtual set was projected on the real set. This connection created an unusual spatio-temporal link between the two spaces, their audiences and performers.

As technology continues to develop especially as new platforms such as Facebook Spaces are made available the possibilities and potential for virtual theatre performances will only continue to grow. Its only a matter of time before we start using VR headsets for things like watching Netflix movies, or 360 videos on social media. It will mean that anyone with a VR headset would have access to performances that might otherwise be out of reach.

The world is experiencing a personal theatre revolution where video games, film, music and stage performances are blending together. What has been a theatre performance for hundreds of years is changing. It is no longer just focused on the here and now, but the here, now and everywhere.

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How virtual reality is changing the way we experience stage shows - The Conversation UK

Image: Sergey Dolzhenko/Epa/REX/Shutterstock

If you've always wanted to visit the abandoned location of the Chernobyl disaster, you'll be able to do that from the safety of your home soon with PlayStation VR.

The Chernobyl VR Project is coming to PS VR "in the near future," according to a PlayStation Blog post, sending people into the abandoned area of land around the site of the Chernobyl disaster.

In 1986, there was a disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine, resulting in more than 30 deaths and sending radiation into the air. The area was evacuated and has been largely abandoned by humans ever since.

The Chernobyl VR Project is an "interactive journey" to the abandoned area of Ukraine, allowing players to experience the surreal scene that has gone largely untouched since the '80s.

Here's a glimpse of the game, which is already available on Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

The game takes a tour through the nuclear power plant, the iconic amusement park, a school, a hospital, and more.

"The Chernobyl exclusion zone, filled with a vast number of abandoned buildings, offers stories at every turn," developer Dawid Biegun said in the blog post. "You can spot everyday objects left behind by the populace during the evacuation, as they were told theyd return in a few days. 30 years later we came across rooms that seemed frozen in time, untouched since they were originally vacated."

While capturing footage for the project, the developers carried a Geiger counter to make sure they didn't step into radiated areas. They saw some of the structures falling apart while they were there, which further instilled their desire to document the area.

Link:

Visit Chernobyl in virtual reality on PlayStation VR - Mashable

When Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) bought Oculus in 2014, Samsung released Gear VR in 2015, and HTC released the Vive in 2016, it seemed like the world of virtual reality was upon us. Soon, we would all have VR headsets and we could live in a world of our own with the convenience of being at home. But Oculus Rift, Gear VR, and HTC Vive haven't exactly become household devices, and there are signs companies are starting to realize the disappointment.

Facebook recently lowered the price of its Rift headset from an original $800 to $399 for a short-term sale, ultimately settling on $499 recently. You don't discount a product that's selling like hotcakes, indicating that Oculus's flagship product isn't living up to expectations. According to SuperData, HTC Vive isn't selling much better. Is VR doomed to disappoint, like 3D TV did, or is the industry just setting up for growth?

Image source: Getty Images.

Rather than becoming a big business, VR has thus far been a small hobby for VR companies. According to Venture Beat and data from SuperData, the immersive VR systems of HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are selling fewer than 100,000 units per quarter. And while Gear VR and Alphabet(NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL)subsidiary Google's Daydream are selling more units, they're less expensive and less advanced and may be given away for free.

Data source: SuperData via VentureBeat.

To attract developers and content creator, hardware companies need to increase adoption rapidly. And they're not doing that today.

The problem with early VR systems is that they're either not powerful enough or so powerful they're difficult to use. Samsung VR uses common Samsung headsets, as does Google Cardboard, which limits their processing power. Sony (NYSE:SNE) Playstation VR requires a console and Oculus Rift and HTV Vive require high-powered computers, which aren't exactly items the average person has in their home today. The hardware dynamic doesn't make VR easy to adopt, even for early adopters.

Compounding the problem facing VR is that content is very limited. There aren't a plethora of immersive games people can spend days playing, like you could do on a console, or video content that would make movies a viable reason to go VR. And this is where we get into the chicken-and-egg challenge VR companies will face going forward.

If there was either amazing hardware or amazing content in VR, it may drag the other along, creating a virtuous cycle of adoption. But hardware isn't amazing yet and content that could attract users hasn't emerged yet.

The two biggest video game content creators haven't even gotten into the game. Activision Blizzardand Electronic Artshave looked into VR, but aren't developing much content yet. EA CEO Andrew Wilson recently said:

People seem to have come to terms of the fact that VR while an unbelievably wonderful innovation for how you consume interactive entertainment and all forms of entertainment for that matter is going to take a couple of years at least to going to get to a point where it is truly a mass-market consumer opportunity.

In other words, content creators think VR will be big someday but not today. And they're not going to take a chance investing on the bleeding edge.

VR is definitely an interesting technology, but hardware costs need to come down and content and quality need to improve to grow the industry. I think the early phase of growth will be in location-based VR, much like arcades were the home of the video game industry in the 1970s. Once computing power catches up, maybe it will make sense for VR to be something everyone has in their home.

The bottom line is that VR just doesn't move the needle for most big companies yet -- and it may not for years to come.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. Travis Hoium has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends ATVI, Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Facebook. The Motley Fool recommends EA. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Is Virtual Reality the Future or Another Disappointing Technology? - Motley Fool

Virtual Reality (VR) is one of those technologies that's been promised for years, but has -- until recently -- failed to live up to the hype. There's plenty of evidence pointing to a bright future for VR, but investors need to know a few things first -- like how big the market will be, what the risks are, who the key players are, and why they should to play this strategy out over the long term. So, let's take a look at six things you should know before investing in VR.

Grand View Research estimates that that the global VR market will be worth $48.5 billion by 2025.That's the top-end of some estimates and others range from$7.5 billion and $22.5 billion.The VR market was worth just $1.8 billion last year, which means virtual reality is poised for huge growth no matter which estimate is more accurate.

Image source: Getty Images.

VR investors need to keep in mind that this technology will likely need more time to get off the ground, mainly because of virtual reality's expensive hardware costs. Consider that when Facebook's (NASDAQ:FB) Oculus launched its high-end Rift headset. It priced the device at $599 and its Touch controllers at $199. That's a hefty price tag for most consumers and Oculus ended up dropping the price of its VR package twice to its current $399 price tag for both the headset and controllers.

But most consumers still don't have an extra $400 to just spend on VR equipment, and these price points are going to keep mainstream consumers away from high-end VR tech for a while.

Additionally, high-end VR equipment requires lots of processing power to deliver high-quality graphics with low latency (so that the virtual world moves smoothly as a user looks around). NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) noted last year that less than 1% of PCs were capable of running high-end VR, and while that percentage has likely gone up this year, investors need to remember that most consumers won't be using high-end virtual reality for many years.

One of the great things about VR investing is that there are several avenues investors can take in order to benefit. If you're interested in chipmakers, then you can invest in NVIDIA, which makes graphics processing units (GPUs) that are the go-to high-end chips that PC makers choose for their graphics processing needs. NVIDIA makes about 53% of its total revenue from the gaming segment (chips for gaming processing), which makes the company a keyer in the VR space.

If you're looking for a solid hardware and software VR play, then there's Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google. The company has focused its attention on the mobile VR market, and it's already getting far out ahead of its competition. Google's Cardboard and Daydream View headsets are by the far the best selling mobile VR headsets on the market, accounting for 69% of mobile VR headsets sold last year.

Additionally, the company's Daydream platform -- where users can download more than 100 VR apps -- is one of the first, and only, of its kind. Google is quickly building its mobile VR dominance in the same way it did with Android and is already figuring out how to earn money from VR through advertising.

I've already mentioned Facebook, NVIDIA, and Google, but plenty of other technology companies are looking to virtual reality for more growth. Sony (NYSE:SNE) has an advantage in the console market after the company released its PlayStation VR headset that works on current versions of its PlayStation 4. The company has already sold 60.4 millionPS4s to date and has already sold more than 1 million VR headsets since its launch last October.

The sheer number of PS4 consoles on the market make Sony an attractive VR hardware play, and considering that the company's Game and Network Services segment (which includes its console sales) accounts for the majority of its total revenue,then Sony could certainly benefit if headset sales continue to expand.

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has also made several moves indicating that the company wants to be a serious virtual reality player. Most recently, the company has started hiring engineers that can build high-end graphics processors. The company may still be a few years away from fully realizing those ambitions, but in the meantime Intel is working on a VR headset, called Project Alloy, that can has all the internal processing power built into it. This means that the headset doesn't need to be tethered to a PC in order to deliver a high-end VR experience.

One thing VR investors should remember is that many companies that are betting on VR are also making plays in the augmented reality (AR) space as well. Augmented reality is the digital overlay of information onto the real world and its so entwined with VR that investors may end up benefiting from both.

For example, I mentioned earlier that Google is doing quite a lot in VR, it also just relaunched its Google Glass device, which is being tested out by healthcare professionals, factory workers for General Electric, and package distribution for DHL. Because VR and AR share similar tech (like headsets, displays, 3D digital information, and graphics), there'slots of overlap between the two that could end up being a hidden benefit for VR investors. IDC expects the combined total spending for AR/VR products and services to skyrocket from $11.4 billion this year to $215 billion by 2021.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that VR could take at least five to 10 years to truly take off.It's worth remembering that this timeframe is coming from one of the most forward-thinking tech billionaires of our time. So if Zuckerberg is playing the long game with his company's VR investments, then you can expect that you'll probably have to do the same.

And as with any investment, picking a good VR stock starts with finding a solid business that you can stick with over the long-haul. All of the companies listed above have lots of potential in VR, but none of them are betting on it entirely or even earning significant profits from it right now. Rather, each company is creating a long-term strategy right now so that they can benefit from VR later -- and investors should take a similar approach.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Chris Neiger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A and C shares), Facebook, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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6-Point Checklist for Investing in Virtual Reality - Motley Fool

Related Coverage

(CNN) New UPS drivers will have to prove themselves in virtual reality before they can get behind the wheel of one of the companys 10,000-pound trucks.

The delivery company announced Tuesday that it will add virtual reality tests to its driver training program starting next month. UPS expects virtual reality will make its drivers safer and smarter. Its a game-changer for training. Laura Collings, UPS training and development manager, told CNN Tech. Nothing can really replace real-world training, but virtual reality complements it in a way that engages our employees.

During the virtual reality tests, new trainees will experience trips around city environments. Theyll have to identify hazards along the way by shouting out hazard left or hazard right. The virtual reality tests last about three to six minutes.

UPS wants its drivers constantly scanning roadways to be aware of potential trouble ahead. Virtual reality allows UPS to include a heavy dose of hazards in training, that a driver might not otherwise see when practicing in the in real world.

Related Content:Virtual Reality Headsets Should Be Used in Moderation by Children, Doctor Says

For example, in one instance a ball rolls out onto the street ahead of the virtual driver. UPS wants its drivers to immediately watch for a child that may dart into the street to recover it. The drivers are also taught to identify other problems, such as a billboard, tree or building that blocks their view.

With virtual reality, drivers have a chance to learn lessons and make mistakes without doing any damage.

Drivers of UPS package delivery trucks spend a month training. The first week is spent at a driver training center, followed by three weeks in the field shadowing an experienced driver.

UPS drivers used to train by having to identify hazards in virtual environments that were displayed on computer screens. But UPS executives wanted the more immersive experience that virtual reality provided.

The company told CNN it sees additional chances down the road to use virtual reality, such as for training mechanics on how to service an engine.

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UPS is training drivers with virtual reality | WTNH Connecticut News - WTNH Connecticut News (press release)

An emerging technology and its challenges

As AWE is preparing its second conference in Munich Germany in October, the momentum of its Silicon Valley conference is still percolating.

This year AWE in Silicon Valley was the first conference on AR/VR/MR to give Tech for Good an exclusive focus. There were several talks and panel discussions that dealt exclusively with this emerging theme. As VR/AR/MR are maturing and finding varios use cases, its positive potential in the mental/digital health arena is becoming clearer. Its positive role for the enhancement and support of human connection is evident as well.

VR and AR are unique platforms in the way they affect the brain and the visual networks. The sense of presence, the sense of embodiment that is generated through the activation of specific brain networks makes both AR and VR unique platforms for a wide range of applications. In its ability to generate feelings of empathy, in its ability to work with pain, its possibilities as a support for graceful aging and in its ability to support anxiety and depression therapy it is truly unique and versatile.

The segment on AR/VR for Good at AWE was coordinated by the Virtual World Society which was founded by Tom Furness, the grandfather of VR, as he is affectionally called. The DigitalRaign community converged with VWS to invite producers and consumers for VR for Good to witness its new social outreach program. This outreach program is to further the adoption of an ethical and empowering Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality platform.

One full day was devoted entirely to speakers in the area of VR/AR. Many different aspects of the platforms were examined, as well as shortcomings, technological difficulties and barriers to entry and current as well as future possibilities for building a better world. This is also the core of VWSs mission.

A first snapshot from the two days-

William Barry, (adjunct professor at the University of Notre Dame de Namur and founding director its VR/AR immersive learning support lab) used Glassers five basic human needs (Glasser, W. (2000). Reality therapy in action. New York, NY: Harper & Row) to analyze the difficulties and the barriers to entry existing in trying out Virtual Reality for the first time. The five needs of Glasser are survival, love, power, freedom, fun. Dr Barry examined the reluctance of people to try VR. What were and are the motives for the reluctance to experience an immersive adventure? Dr Barry found in his research that the block revolved around the role of self-identity in the VR world. The questions addressed in his research were:

When people come to VR what is their identity?

Who are we really really anyways? was the question that was brought up in conjunction with the usage of this new technology.

Is ones identity then different once in VR? How is this existential anxiety triggered in Virtual Reality? Where is the actual divide with the real world? Dr Barry found that the Ontological weight of the experiences in VR can actually be added to a persons reality. Besides this people are also free to choose experiences and thus create their own profile and further add to their ontological weight. The question: what part of you do you want to experience?

In conclusion, VR can be used as a tool to meet the basic needs listed by Glasser. The user can explore himself/herself in the context of her/his needs: survival, love, power, freedom, fun. In this way VR can support people in understanding and exploring their very own identity. If we understand who we are as a personality we can also understand how to relate with the world in a connective and constructive manner.

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Virtual Reality, Mental Health and Identity - HuffPost

Most reports on virtual reality tend to focus on gamers battling invisible enemies while wearing VR headsets or hi-tech cinema experiences such as the VR pods coming to iMax cinemas. But the impact of this technology on business could be even more powerful affecting everything from training to sales or even recruitment.

Simon Willies, head of commercial, Currys PC World Business, says: Although frequently touted as the future of entertainment, there is an increasing groundswell of support in the idea of applying VR technology to a wider range of industries. Educational institutions, for example, can use VR to provide students with immersive classroom experiences.

VR makes it possible for engineers and manufacturers to experience their creations before theyre builtMark Miles, managing director, RenderMedia

For retailers, VR could revolutionise the in-store experience and from an e-commerce perspective the potential impact is even bigger, allowing sellers to deliver catalogues and products straight into customers living rooms.

The ability to catapult someone directly into a job means VR is also an extremely effective training tool as well as highly useful for manufacturers, which can use VR headsets to design and show off products in 3D before they need to start making a prototype. It is clear that VR holds a lot of potential for many industries, including these five.

Thomas Cook has been investing in virtual reality in the travel industry, using it to enhance the sales experience, says Jo Allison, behavioural analyst at Canvas8. One in 10 users of the technology at its Bluewater [Kent] store is booking a holiday there and then. A VR helicopter tour of Manhattan boosted revenues for the real thing by 190pc.

For engineers and designers, the technology offers a way to show off goods and services to potential clients something that would have been impossible before.

Imagine a situation where any number of trainee surgeons could be in the room with the consultant performing a procedureAlex Guillen, go-to-market manager, Insight UK

Mark Miles, managing director of VR agency RenderMedia, has already partnered with a number of engineering businesses, including aerospace company Airbus.

He says: VR makes it possible for engineers and manufacturers to experience their creations before theyre built. We have developed applications that allow people in different countries to appear next to one another on an oil rig and interact. It creates that heightened sense of reality.

Estate agents are already using virtual reality to show people round properties, with Rightmove trialling VR tours last year. The technology is also having a huge impact on architecture and even home improvements, with Ikea now trialling VR in stores.

Adam Blaxter, co-founder of the lettings app Rentr, says: In architecture and construction, the ability to turn designs into virtual models is already becoming part of a normal workflow. In residential property we have already seen Ikea coming forwards with virtual makeovers for your home.

VRs most powerful impact may well be on training with the technology already used across a huge range of industries.

Alex Guillen, go-to-market manager at Insight UK, says: Imagine a situation in healthcare where any number of trainee surgeons could be in the room with the consultant performing a procedure. To get multiple people that close to the experience is extremely powerful.

The potential uses of virtual reality may soon transcend all industries and become ubiquitous in all workplaces

And it does not stop there. The Holovet company is already creating 3D guides to animal organs using Microsoft Hololens headsets; Samsung employs virtual reality to train its sales teams in how to deal with customers; firefighters in Britain are already training with Oculus Rift headsets, allowing them to gain experience of hostile and possibly deadly environments; and footballers at Arsenal use Oculus Rift headsets to review their moves on the pitch.

The ability to expose people directly to what it is like to do a job means that VR is also a highly powerful recruiting tool, which is already being used by the British Army.

Nick Terry, of Capita Army Recruitment, says: Virtual reality helps us bring the British Army experience to life for young people. Potential recruits can experience the type of training they might receive, such as the exhilaration of parachute jumping or the skills needed for urban combat training.

The potential uses of virtual reality may soon transcend all industries and become ubiquitous in all workplaces. Ms Allison says that VR headsets can turn the computer desktop into a space that workers can enter.

She says: The app Breakroom lets officers turn their VR headsets into multimonitor systems. The idea is that you can be working anywhere; a beach, a mountain, even space.

This seems great for workers who are sick of being chained to a desk, transporting them to tranquil places free from distraction.

This means that employees could one day hold meetings in virtual environments, allowing them to be anywhere they want, with anyone, regardless of geographical boundaries. It seems the opportunities are indeed endless.

As Europes leading specialist electronics provider, Currys PC World Business is on hand to help you find the right technology for your business. Visit curryspcworldbusiness.co.uk for expert tips on how to transform your business today.

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Small business - Telegraph.co.uk

What is dead in VR may never die, perhaps?

Social VR startup AltspaceVR may not be shutting down after all.

The company, which raised more than $15 million in funding from GV, Comcast Ventures and others, announced last month that it was unexpectedly closing its virtual doors after a funding deal fell through at the last second. But oddly, less than a month later, the startup has shared that its not going anywhere thanks to new interest from third parties.

We are now in discussions with third parties to develop a sustainable solution to continue development and growth for the future. We look forward to communicating more as details solidify over the coming weeks and months, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch in an email. The company said it will be revealing more details in the coming weeks and months, AltspaceVR CEO Eric Romo did not offer further details when reached for comment.

For now, the service is available to users thanks to askeleton crew at the startup keeping things going.

Last month Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey sent a message to his Twitter followers polling them on whether or not he should save the startup.Today, soon after a blog post detailing AltspaceVRs continued operation went live on the companys site, Luckey tweetedout a link to the story.

We have reached out to Palmer Luckey on Twitter for comment.

The startup had initially announced it would be shutting down the social network earlier this month and hosted a large community event to mark the sunsetting, but that day came and went with its CEO latertweeting Im thinking we keep the lights on a little longer. Just in case Sound ok to you?

Its honestly unclear what to make of the sudden shutdown and un-shutdown announcements and whether they were just efforts to grab attention and put together a last minute deal, but it is apparent that AltspaceVR still has their work cut out for them as they look to carve out a niche in a crowded social VR space that still has Facebook to compete with.

The startup has also laid off several of its employees and has shut down the majority of its servers, a source close to the company tells TechCrunch. The company revealed last month that its service had just 35,000 monthly active users, despite its presence on most major VR headsets as well as a desktop web interface.

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Social virtual reality startup AltspaceVR may not be dead after all - TechCrunch