The charming fox Lucky wont just be trapped on virtual reality headsets anymore, as Super Luckys Tale is coming to the Xbox One this November.

Luckys Tale, developed by Playful, was originally published by Oculus as a launch title for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The platformer aped Nintendo 64-era games with its cheerful design and colorful environments, and also used virtual reality features like head tracking as game mechanics.

Super Luckys Tale looks like it will take those same vivid worlds and puts them on a flat screen. Lucky is attempting to rescue his sister and the Book of Ages artifact from the evil Jinx, according to Playful.

Super Luckys Tale is due out on Nov. 7 for Xbox One and Windows 10.

E3 2017 begins on June 13, with press conferences starting June 10. For the big announcements, make sure to check out our one-stop shop for the show's streams.

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Super Lucky's Tale brings the virtual reality franchise to Xbox One - Polygon

Trish Dromey learns of the Waterford virtual reality firm that started with a moon shot product, and is now aiming even higher

David Whelan, the chief executive of Immersive VR Education.

WATERFORD startup Immersive VR Education is preparing for the launch of Titanic VR an immersive experience which allows users to see the events of the doomed ship through the eyes of a survivor, and also to virtually explore the wreck on the seabed.

This follows the release in 2015 of the companys first offering, the Apollo 11 VR a recreation of the 1969 moon landing which now sells on all VR platforms including Playstation VR.

Immersive VR Education has sold 70,000 copies and has also collected seven international awards.

Company co-founder David Whelan said that although these VR experiences are effective showcases for Immersive VR Education, they only form a small part of the companys plan, which is to use VR and augmented reality to revolutionise education globally.

We have created a VR education platform capable of giving hand on lessons anywhere in the world, he said, explaining that the platform called Engage is the first of its kind to use VR in this way.

By creating a virtual classroom you can allow people for all over the world to interact and engage. In a virtual environment you can hold a marine biology class on a sea bed floor or even drop in a dinosaur.

Mr Whelan and his wife Sandra set the company up in 2014, and used Kickstarter funding to develop the Apollo 11 VR which was launched in early 2016.

Signing up for the New Frontiers programme and establishing Immersive VR at Waterford Institute of Technology, Mr Whelan shifted the focus to the development of a distant learning educational platform for universities in 2016. Discovering that a large percentage of people who participate in online education dont finish their courses, he saw an opportunity to create an experience which would be as engaging as a real classroom.

During 2016, the company became an Enterprise Ireland high-potential start-up client and raised just over 1m securing funding from Kernel Capital and Suir Valley ventures. Immersive VR Education has since grown its team from four to 17.

This month it moved to Cleaboy Industrial Park in Waterford where it plans to employ an additional 10 people by the end of this year.

While working on developing the Engage platform, the company has collaborated with Oxford University, New Haven University in Connecticut, and the University of Washington.

Engage allows educators and trainers to create their own immersive content using the tools provided on the platform, said Mr Whelan, explaining that the companys projects include a VR medical training course which simulates the resuscitation of stillborn babies. He says the success of Apollo 11 VR has helped the company attract the skilled developers it needs for current and future projects.

We won the Time Warner Future of Storytelling award which was huge for a small company in South-East Ireland, he added.

The second showcase project, Titanic VR, is an even larger project, for which a Kickstarter campaign was held earlier this year. Mr Whelan says the publicity generated by this campaign is as important as the funding.

Titanic is set for an early release in the summer while the full version will be launched before Christmas. The company has already released an alpha version of the Engage platform and is developing language programmes which will be released early next year.

Offering the Engage platform to universities free of charge, Immersive VR will use a revenue-sharing model and charge a percentage when the universities begin charging for the content next year.

In 2016 there were just half a million high-end VR headsets in the world this is now set to grow to 4m this year and 12m next year, said Mr Whelan, who believes there are vast opportunities in this space for Immersive VR Education.

Plans for 2018 include the commercial launch of the Engage platform, and the company is now looking at options for a third showcase virtual reality experience.

Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

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TRISH DROMEY: Titanic to put Waterford virtual reality firm on the map - Irish Examiner

IMAX VR: Tilt Brush allows you to use an entire room to create three-dimensional drawings.

I flew over the Eiffel tower, fought off swarms of attacking mummies and made an entire room my canvas, all in the same day. Sounds impossible? Not with the new Imax Virtual Reality arcade that offers an immersive, lifelike experience, and it's coming soon to a movie theater near you (if you're in one of the initial test markets).

Imax's VR arcade combines the features of video games and roller coasters into 10 very different experiences that involve both sitting, standing and, in some cases, walking around. That's the appeal of VR, you don't just get the 360-degree, 3D vision with the headset, you also vividly hear and feel every moment, and once the game starts it really does feel like you've stepped into another world.

I've tested out other virtual-reality simulations before, and some of the hardware used here is similar to what deep-pocketed consumers can buy (such as the HTC Vive). But being able to feel the vibrations of a helicopter, the fast-paced motion of sliding down a steep hill, and the shaky sensation of falling on hard ground -- along with their accompanying sound effects -- made these simulations feel close to real life.

I mustered the courage to test out the Mummy Prodigium Strike VR option, despite popular belief that this demo (held in a small cubicle called a "pod") was the scariest one there. I'm usually the one laughing during a scary scene, but as screaming zombies, giant spiders and herds of crows started coming at me at super speed from every angle, I let out more yelps than I'd care to admit and found myself clutching my headset just to remind myself that it's only a game.

I also couldn't help but wonder how strangely funny I looked to the outside world and what my closest friends would be doing in these moments. I'd bet they'd most definitely be pulling out their phones ready to capture me in entertaining action.

That's exactly what Imax CEO Richard L. Gelfond says he had in mind with these Imax VR centers, intending to make it a social experience that can be enjoyed by people both inside and outside of the game. That's the difference, according to him, between the Imax experience and setting up an HTC Vive at home, which can play most of the same games, but costs an substantial amount to set up. In Eagle Flight Multiplayer, you can be a bird flying over Paris while your friends joke about your bizarre head and arm gestures as they wait for their turn.

What's better is that this all takes place in a movie theatre, making this a twofold entertainment experience. The Mummy VR experience and the film, in particular, were intentionally launched simultaneously, so people can watch Tom Cruise intensely battle against armies of mummies and, later, reenact an actual scene from the movie and test out his moves for themselves.

The VR arcade is currently only available in Los Angeles and New York locations, but 10 pilots are expected to launch by the end of the year in Imax movie theaters.

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Imax brings virtual reality to movie theaters - CNET

Welsh National Operas Magic Butterfly, a virtual reality installation in a shipping container will open in Cardiff in July. Photograph: Welsh National Opera

Cutting-edge visual technology is pushing its way into the hallowed halls of culture this summer. New 3D replicas of missing artworks have been installed at the home of the 18th-century writer Horace Walpole, while Welsh National Opera is going a step further, creating a virtual reality performance.

Authenticity was once key to the value of a work of art, as well being a crucial notion in the world of entertainment. Yet soon it is likely that even experts will be unsure what they are looking at.

Many of the paintings and artefacts collected by the gothic author Walpole, son of the first prime minister Robert Walpole, are being gathered for display in Strawberry Hill House, the villa he designed in Twickenham, south-west London, ahead of the 300th anniversary of his birth in September.

Some pieces, however, are either missing or judged too fragile to transport and have been replaced by 3D replicas.

Last summer a first facsimile of a double portrait of Walpoles parents was hung in the Blue Bedchamber at Strawberry Hill. The original was first displayed there in 1754 but is now in the Lewis Walpole Library in Connecticut and is too delicate to travel.

Three weeks ago, 34 other works, including a 1765 portrait of Walpoles nieces and a series of studies of Henry VIIIs courtiers, were also brought to the villa after 3D technicians at Factum Arte, based in Madrid, recreated them. The work, funded by an anonymous donor, will form part of an exhibition next year.

The value of fakery is not an alien concept at Strawberry Hill, its curators point out, as the building is a reproduction of medieval architecture and the portraits of Henrys courtiers were George Vertues copies of Hans Holbein originals.

Welsh National Operas virtual reality experiment Magic Butterfly is installed in a shipping container, and will allow visitors to step inside scenes from two operas, Mozarts The Magic Flute and Puccinis Madam Butterfly.

The experience, created with Google Daydream technology, will open in Cardiff on 14 July before touring to Birmingham, Liverpool, Llandudno and London through the year.

Virtual reality was also used at last months Cannes film festival, where the Oscar winning director Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu premiered his innovative Carne y Arena Mexican refugee experience.

The technology is also being widely adopted across marketing and business. It has been used to recruit into the armed forces by giving potential submariners an idea what it would be like to live underwater.

Excerpt from:

Step inside Butterfly's house in virtual reality opera night - The Guardian

Jeremy Vine: menaced by graphics. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex Shutterstock

The winners on the night? Sky well resourced and very competent. ITV with Bradby, charm and some ace guests (especially George Osborne, who may have made the biggest career mistake of his life and grimacing as though he realised it). And Dimblebys last hurrah on the BBC, with only a few bumbles through a long, practised evening and early morning before Huw Edwards, looking almost as weary, took over the baton.

Special plaudits to Emily Maitlis, in total charge of the results board. Slightly less applause for Jeremy Vine, doing his Peter Snow memorial turn on the swings and future-extrapolation roundabouts.

Actually, its not eager Jeremy who grits any teeth here: more the surrounding oppressive edifices of virtual reality the corporation surrounds him with. Its all too much like Alien as you wait for a monstrous Farage to burst from Vines chest and start eating the studio.

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Never mind the election vote what's up with the virtual reality? - The Guardian

A scene of a classroom from the VR and Autism project, showing the perspective of the child diagnosed with autism. The user wearing the VR headset would experience the sights and sounds of the classroom from a different perspective, highlighting the perceptions of a child with autism. Photo: Joseph Camilleri

We were all children. We think that as adults we are able to understand children because we have experienced childhood ourselves. But not many of us have experienced autism or growing up with a family who felt it safer to traverse treacherous countries and seas illegally in the hope for a better and safer future. Nor can many of us boast being able to walk in these childrens shoes while understanding and empathising with them.

The University of Maltas Department of Artificial Intelligence, in collaboration with the Department of Digital Arts, has embarked upon two projects using creative arts and virtual reality (VR) technology to develop two VR apps designed to support empathy. Both apps have been designed as experiences to empower users through authentic multisensorial experiences captured in 3D.

One of the VR experiences has been created to mimic the world surrounding a child who has been diagnosed with autism. For this project, parents, teachers and learning support assistants provided sources of information about the childs reactions and about stimuli that might disturb the child during the daily motions of life in the classroom.

The experience, which was filmed in a real school setting, makes use of sounds and 360 visuals to provide a realistic immersive setting. This immersive VR experience can then be used as part of the training of new teachers and other people who interact with such children. It can be used as a key to the development of an empathic understanding, which will help users to resonate with the learner who is in some way affected by the condition.

The same principle is applied to the second VR app aimed at addressing multicultural situations in the classroom.

The phenomenon of migration has increased drastically in this past decade. People are driven out of their homes by war and terrorism, seeking safer locations. Most often, we have heard harrowing stories of migrants arduous journey as they travel from their native country to other countries promising safety and refuge.

In this project, the virtual reality experience exposes the migration experiences and how these might come out in daily classroom life. Users are once again transported to a realistic classroom setting, where actions that might be meaningless to teachers and students trigger a series of immersive flashbacks in migrant children.

The VR experience is not only intended to highlight the plight of migrants journeys, but also to get a glimpse into the hopes and aspirations of these voyagers.

Dr Vanessa Camilleri is a lecturer with the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the Faculty of ICT, University of Malta.

Engineers are using soft robotics technology to make light, flexible gloves that allow users to feel tactile feedback when they interact with virtual reality environments. The researchers used the gloves to realistically simulate the tactile feeling of playing a virtual piano keyboard.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170530140713.htm

Researchers are using VR to teach the principles behind string theory, which posits that the universe is built not just from three spatial dimensions (up/down, side/side, forward/backward) and the single dimension of time, but at least six other dimensions. These other dimensions would be too small for humans to detect, but according to the theory, the six dimensions play a major role in controlling particles. VR is used to explain these concepts which might be otherwise too difficult to demonstrate.

https://www.wired.com/2017/06/string-theorys-weirdest-ideas-finally-make-sense-thanks-vr/

For more soundbites listen to Radio Mocha on Radju Malta 2 every Monday at 1pm and Friday at 6pm.

https://www.facebook.com/RadioMochaMalta/

Virtual reality technology creates a stereoscopic 3D image by angling the two 2D images to mimic how each of our two eyes views the world ever-so-slightly differently.

A VR set is able to track your head movement through a system called 6DoF (six degrees of freedom), which plots your head in terms of your X, Y and Z axis to measure head movements forward and backwards, side to side and shoulder to shoulder, otherwise known as pitch, yaw and roll.

Psychological Presence is central to virtual reality, whereby the brain forgets that it is in a virtual space and immerses into the perceptual illusion offered by the VR experience.

Google designed a cardboard head mount for smartphones as a low-cost VR system. Instructions to make your own cardboard head mount can be found online.

Virtual reality is used in many sectors, including in medicine for things like surgical training and drug design. Nowadays, through VR technology, it is also possible for a surgeon in one location to perform a surgery through a robot in a different location.

The first research towards VR was in 1938 when Charles Wheatstone demonstrated that the brain processes the different two-dimensional images from each eye into a single object of three dimensions.

For more trivia see:www.um.edu.mt/think

Link:

Virtual reality technology and empathy - Times of Malta

This is a 360 video experience. Use your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard to see the entire 360 view.

Grab the bar! Leap out of your comfort zone and through the air with a troupe of trapeze artists in Brooklyn, NYC. USA TODAY NETWORK

IMAX VR in the lobby of the AMC Loews Kips Bay 15 in Manhattan.(Photo: IMAX)

NEW YORKThere are numerous reasons why virtual reality has gotten off to a shaky start at home: cost, complexity, slim content, and the fact that you must wear this contraption on your head. Will VR fare better at the multiplex?

IMAX and AMC Theatres have just opened a series of experiential VR pods in the lobby of the AMC Loews Kips Bay 15 theater in Manhattan, the second of ten such VR centers that IMAX plans to launch worldwide this year, and the first in a multiplex. IMAXs initial pilot VR venture was in Los Angeles. Others are coming to Toronto, Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai, Manchester and elsewhere.

Each pod features a different virtual setupwith either an HTC Vive VR or StarbreezeStarVR headset. The VR content also varies from pod to pod, with choices such as Ubisofts Star Trek: Bridge Crew, Skydances Archangel, and an experience I tried, Starbreezes Mummy Prodigium Strike.

Sort of like a modern-day arcade, each pod alsohas a screen so that while youve got a headset on your noggin, your pals can watch what youre doing (though it will cost a lot more to play). And some experiences are multiplayer, so you can compete against pals in another pod or eventually, another location.

Though there are obvious tie-ins to a movie that might be playing in the same theater as The Mummy was, AMC and IMAX are treating these separately. Youll have to buy a ticket to see a movie; youll pay to wear the VR headsets.

The VR experiences last between sevenand 10 minutes; IMAX VR charges $10 to $15 to play a VR game. So if youre also planning to see a movie, munch on popcorn and buy a soft drink the price can add up fast, especially if youre bringing the family.

AMC and IMAX may experiment with bundled pricing.

One of the reasons why this is in the lobby of the theater is you dont actually need to buy a ticket to see the movie to enjoy the IMAX VR experience, says Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Theatres. And we actually think the IMAX VR experience is going to be a standalone attraction. In that regard, I dont think a $10 price point is that expensive.

Virtual reality parlors are one of a slew of upgrades and features movie theaters have planned as a bid to stoke attendance in an age when more consumers can watch movies at home and on the go using increasingly varied streaming options and unlimited data plans.

Movie attendance was close to flat last year, though box office sales reached a record thanks to rising ticket prices.

The hope: customers will hang out and spend money longer at the theater just to have a go at VR.In early tests, around 70% of the people whove tried IMAX VR have experienced virtual reality for the first time.

IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond also hopes to draw in people from outside the multiplex, especially during hours when the theater is less busy.

We have to recognize over the long term, this has to coexist with the home, he says. So what were trying to provide here is something more premium, something more social and the first place you can see the hottest new content. Our idea is not only to get a head start, but to maintain a permanent advantage.

A player tries The Mummy VR experience at AMC Kips Bay theater in Manhattan.(Photo: Edward C. Baig)

AMC has 650 theaters in the U.S. and another 350 or so in Europe. According to Aron, the VR experience will work well in theaters with a lot of public space, where we can afford to steal some of it. At Kips Bay, IMAX VR takes up about 2900 square feet of a lobby that is about 6900 square feet.

If the consumer response is strong enough, Aron envisions placing VR in between 50 and 200 theaters in the blink of an eye.

The Navy wants to recruit you with Virtual Reality

Weapon in hand, I had fun blasting away nasty creatures during my Mummy VR experience. That is, until the screen went dark and I hit technical snags. AMC and IMAX will have to have staff in place to service consumers and deal with any problems. In the early going, IMAX saysunder 1% of customers have faced problems.

Yet another potential issue is that some consumers might get queasy or frightened during certain VR adventuresonescary option at Kips Bay is to virtually experience The Walk along a wire some 110 stories above ground between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Customers do have to sign a waiver. And experiences are open to 7-years olds on up, with some better suited for an older audience.

As joint venture partners, AMC and IMAX share in the price of the content and share in the investment and proceeds. It cost between $250,000 to $400,000 to deploy IMAX VR at Kips Bay, not factoring in the tech or the content. In L.A., the most popular VR attractions so far have been for Star Wars and John Wick.

An IMAX VR player in Los Angeles has a go at Star Wars.(Photo: IMAX VR)

The results of L.A. are encouraging. The early results of (Kips Bay) are also encouraging. And Im changing my mindset from `does it work? to a different question which is `where does it work?, Gelfond says.

For his part, Aron says, Im almost as certain as I can be that fast-forward a year or two and were going to have a lot of installations.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter

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Can virtual reality find an audience at the multiplex? - USA TODAY

Jaunt co-produced "Invisible," a six-part supernatural drama series created by "The Bourne Identity" director Doug Liman's 30 Ninjas company that premiered on Samsung's VR service before being shown on Jaunt's VR app, YouTube, Facebook and co-producer Conde Nast's "The Scene" digital video platform. "Invisible" tells the story of a powerful New York family with the supernatural ability to make themselves invisible.

In January, Jaunt announced a slate of five new series to be produced at its 10,000-square-foot Santa Monica, California, studio, including a six-part stoner comedy series "Bad Trip" and a series based on the 1992 cult horror movie "The Lawnmower Man." Klaivkoff won't say when the shows will be making their debut.

The company is also building out the distribution network for VR content with commercial-like programming, like the Land Rover video, that it makes for companies that want to use virtual reality video to promote their products. Jaunt has made videos for more than 50 "brands," the company says, including those for Budweiser, Google and Mattel.

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The company made a four-minute VR short starring Danny DeVito and other cast members of the FX sitcom "Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which took viewers along a ride on a smoke-filled motorcycle stunt or allowed them to swivel in another direction to watch a scantily clad young woman who stopped just short of a doing a striptease. The VR segment played on FX's site as well as Jaunt's VR app and Facebook.

Sky TV used Jaunt's equipment for some of the programming when it introduced its SKY VR app. Among the shows were "Sky Sports: Closer," hosted by soccer legend David Beckham, and a performance of the English National Ballet's production of "Giselle." The satellite service also gave away thousands of Google cardboard headsets.

Kliavkoff says Disney, which in September 2015 led Jaunt's $65 million Series C round, will soon offer its fans a 360-degree online trip to Pandora, the mythical planet in James Cameron's film "Avatar," which is also the backdrop for the media giant's new "PandoraThe World of Avatar" attraction at its Disney Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida.

"We constantly strive to create standout experiences for our customers through our partnerships," said Mark Cameron, Jaguar Land Rover's brand experience director of global marketing, in a statement about the America's Cup video. "By using Jaunt's cutting-edge VR technology, we were able to give unprecedented access to the team and America's Cup sailing in a thrilling firsthand experience."

The big prize, of course, will come if virtual reality takes hold with consumers who want to immerse themselves in the action on the big screen. That's coming slowly. IMAX, which operates a chain of giant-screen movie theaters, is rolling out a dozen IMAX VR centers in major markets, including Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo, for goggle-wearing consumers to watch shorter-form VR content for about $1 a minute.

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Disney and other media giants are betting VR is the next big play in entertainment - CNBC

You are soaring high above the Manhattan Skyline, feeling the cool breeze on your face. Looking down at the rooftops of thousands of buildings, your muscles begin to ache from flapping your wings, but the view is so beautiful and the experience so mind-blowing, you cannot help but continue your flight.

Suddenly, as Manhattan Beach comes into view, the words Simulation is Over, appear before your eyes. Removing your headset, you prepare to visit the other stations at the digital experience lab that is Reboot Reality.

Opened on May 26 as a permanent exhibit at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Reboot Reality contains several virtual reality (VR) simulations created by technology companies such as Google and Adobe, with the help of artists and researchers.

In addition to Birdly, which simulates flying, Reboot Reality includes Wetbrush by Adobe, which allows you to create 3D paintings on a screen; Tilt Brush by Google, where you use a headset to create 3D art pulled from your imagination; and Medium by Oculus, where you experience 3D sculpting with digital clay. Each of these interactive simulations are intended for people 13 years of age and older, but Reboot Reality includes others for younger children.

The purpose of Reboot Reality is to bridge the gap between the public and tech companies, to ensure that the public has access to new innovations they cannot afford. The Tech hopes that this influences the younger generations to take up careers in the STEM industry.

Our mission is to inspire the innovator in everyone and a big piece of that is making sure every kid has access to STEM education and feels confident to pursue a career in STEM. We also hope to inspire people to use technology to solve big problems, said Marika Krause, The Techs public relations manager.

A Reboot Reality goer, Ying Liang, 24, believes that children would benefit from this lab because it would put them in touch with their creative side and inspire them to work in the technology industry. Liang said that an exhibit such as Wetbrush by Adobe is particularly accessible to kids since they simply use a digital brush to make realistic paintings.

Liang added that while virtual reality could be treated simply as a toy, it could also become a valuable tool.

Krause agreed. She pointed to The Diridon Project by Gensler, which allows you to walk into a world where you can see the blueprints of a building translated into 3D before construction begins. Krause said a simulation such as this can improve the life of architects because they would be able to virtually step into a building before it is physically created.

Neesha Pammi, 44, also a museum-goer, said that she can see how a virtual reality system could be used in the workplace, as her husband is an architect and is beginning to work with a system similar to The Diridon Project.

Simulations can also improve communities by helping people develop their sense of empathy, said Clarissa Buettner, a gallery program specialist. She pointed to Stanford Universitys Human Interaction lab, where Reboot Reality visitors can live the life of a homeless person and experience the struggles they go through on a daily basis.

In the simulation, you sit at your desk, staring at the few valuables still in your possession. Your landlord knocks, asking for the rent money you owe, moments before evicting you. After selling whats left of your valuables, you begin to sleep on an overnight bus, dealing with sex offenders, thieves, and the anxiety of getting back on your feet.

Pammi can attest to how real the simulations feel. In addition to The Diridon Project, Pammi also tried flying with Birdly. She said that the experience actually made her feel dizzy afterwards. During her first ride on Birdly, her husband encouraged her to take a dive from the skyline, down to the streets of Manhattan and she said, You can go all the way down, but theres no way Im going to do that.

Sophia Rodriguez, a graduate ofAndrew Hill High in San Jose, is a 2017 Mosaic staff writer.

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Virtual reality exhibit bridges gap between tech and public - The Mercury News

(WXYZ) - Why ride a regular ole roller coaster, if you could kick it up a notch with some virtual reality technology?

Cedar Point has added a bit more amusement to its park with virtual reality and augmented reality offerings.

Starting today, fans of the Iron Dragon will get to experience the ride using special VR headsets. The park began testing out the feature last year.

Now, Iron Dragon: VR will be available to coaster fans starting at 6 p.m. each day through September 4. Just a note: you have to be 13 or older to be able to participate in the VR experience, according to a news release from the park.

And if you need some entertainment while waiting in line, you can check out the park's revamped "Battle for Cedar Point" mobile game. The free game can be played through the Cedar Point app.

Cedar Point says it has augmented reality features, and lets guests virtually battle with other visitors and unlock interactive billboards around the park.

Check out more here.

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Virtual reality returns to Iron Dragon at Cedar Point - WXYZ

BBC News

Virtual reality: Welsh firms increasingly using VR tech - BBC News BBC News It has been more traditionally associated with the games industry, but businesses are increasingly switching on to the benefits of virtual reality. With the cost of ... and more »

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Virtual reality: Welsh firms increasingly using VR tech - BBC News - BBC News

True virtual reality has quickly captured the imagination of content owners, tech vendors and fans. However, capturing and holding the attention of fans with an immersive experience does have its challenges .Those who seek to redefine pro sports viewing will need to overcome core tech and network infrastructure obstacles.

Last week alone, the MLB and NBA announced deals with VR vendors to deliver a weekly game of the week to fans in virtual reality. The NFL last year provided game highlights and an original series in VR on-demand but has yet to stream live content such as game casts

The NFL worked with NextVR to create highlights and commentary packages available after three games last season. Source: NextVR

VR's promise to provide immersive, super high-resolution images from advanced cameras of live sports can spell trouble for bandwidth pipes to the home. Tech vendors are feverishly working to find ways to deliver more content using advanced streaming methods and encoding over current broadband pipes. Read

Long-used for online gaming, virtual reality promises to put sports fans front and center in the game without being at the game. VR calls this immersion, with "experiences" ranging from a single camera view to watching the action through a number of cameras placed at different vantage points in the venue. Individuals need the prescribed vendor's headset and to download the accompanying app to their smartphone to get going.

Virtual reality becomes real for a young Tom Brady fan. Source: Patriots.com

"I don't think the home has the bandwidth to handle live VR so it would have to be on demand," said one NFL source. That was the league's approach last year when it partnered with vendor NextVR to produce short highlights packages for on-demand access (as in after the game concluded). It also partnered with Google to co-create a nine-part original series in VR and available on demand. Read

Unlike other sports leagues, the NFL has to date, focused squarely on short-form content creation for use after games conclude or with the VR series, at any time via video-on-demand systems.

The NFL and NextVR last season created a series of postgame experiences available on demand. Source: NextVR

When asked if the Now Fun League would continue the projects for the upcoming season, the answer was a bit unclear and lacked detail, but seemed hopeful in terms of continued work and interest in VR.

"The short answer is we liked what we saw across our VR partnerships last year and will look to continue to do more this year to build an NFL VR presence, develop internal capabilities, and test fan interest," commented one league spokesperson.

Pro sports leagues and others have used Intel Corp.'s Voke VR camera to capture captivating content. Intel last week signed a three-year deal with Major League Baseball to do a game of the week in VR. Source: Intel.

The content capture devices, such as VR cameras from Voke, which was bought by Intel last year, and NextVR have already shot live sports action for streaming. It's how that precious payload is delivered to fans that has received little public attention Read

"Live football presents very different challenges from other sports when it comes to a live VR production so we'll continue to test until we feel we have a quality product for our fans," the spokesperson added.

One league source predicted VR streaming of live games is years away, unless a VR company or network paid a huge sum of money for the right to deliver a live NFL football game. Read

While the present is full of talk and marketing opportunities, the NFL has taken what appears to be a more measured and cautious approach with virtual reality. Instead of teaming to broadcast live games on VR, the league last November partnered with NextVR to help create a post-game experience for fans that was available on demand not long after three select games concluded.

The "experiences" were to be about 10 minutes long from the chosen sites and include a combo of expert commentary and game highlights. For each production, press materials said, "NextVR will work alongside the award-winning team from NFL Films, utilizing their experience and access to deploy NextVR's virtual reality cameras throughout each stadium to capture immersive views of NFL action like never before."

The league understands well that virtual reality is a rapidly evolving technology. "This is a great opportunity for the NFL to continue experimenting with the capabilities and distribution of VR experiences," said William Deng, Director, Media Strategy and Business Development at the NFL. Read

Also last season, the NFL produced its first original VR series - a nine-part undertaking it created for launch on YouTube using Google Daydream's headset.The league was quick to say at the announcement last November that the focus here is promotional.

Vishal Shah, the NFL's senior VP of digital media, said of the undertaking when it was announced: "We want to get better acquainted with the technology, the platform, the content we can actually create and how our fans are engaging in the content and viewing it."

NFL Films, an asset other pro leagues lack, produced the 5- to 10-minute episodes which covered players, coaches, executives, cheerleaders and fans

The NFL worked with Google is staff and equipment for the series. Important to note is that the league and Google teamed to develop, and is helping the NFL develop the app for the Daydream View platform. Read

In its quarterly State of the Internet report, Content Delivery Network (CDN) kingpin Akamai Technologies, Inc. reported gains in Internet connection bandwidth capacity. The average bandwidth to homes rose to 18.7 megabits/sec, for the first quarter of this year, while peak bandwidth rose to 86.5 megabits/sec.

Canada finished behind global leader U.S. with an average of 16.2 megabits/sec, and a peak of 78.7 megabits/sec, according to the comprehensive Akamai report.

Intel produces 3-, 5- and 8-megabit virtual reality streams for Major League Baseball, according to CTO of Intel Sports Group, Jay Sankar. "These bit rates are well within reach of a significant number of homes and the experience is good with LTE as well."

The streams also include features including a picture-in-picture of a zoomed in pitcher batter view, stats, scores, and more, according to Sankar.

The VR undertaking also has adaptive bit rate streaming (ABR) tech at its disposal in the app. It has long been used with the delivery of live video over public networks because it enables the switching between bit rates based on the available bandwidth at the time. Capacity is known to fluctuate on the Internet. Read

Conspicuously absent from materials/public discussion/ is any mention of network infrastructure needed to deliver live, multi-hour VR streams to a potentially huge audience. Some ask if networks can survive.

"True VR is super bandwidth intensive and doesn't tolerate latency (delay)," explained Teresa Mastrangelo, Founder of Broadbandtrends LLC, a network infrastructure and service provider market analysis and consulting firm in Norfolk, VA. "Only a small percentage of homes already have the Internet connection needed to handle this experience."

"What's uncertain is whether or not service providers will be willing to spend to upgrade their infrastructure for an application that may prove to be of high value to consumers," she added. "It's a bit of a Catch-22 situation today."

Service providers may be facing spending on data center hubs, optical transport connections, storage and more data centers close to the network edge. Caching tech and products toward the edge could help provide an improved viewing experience, especially for non-live VR content.

The NFL's on demand approach with short-duration (minutes) streams would impose less strain on network and require less service provider network infrastructure spending. Service providers would likely focus on adding storage so the VR programming can be located closer to viewers for a better user experience. Read

As virtual reality is an emerging technology and thus a work-in-progress. The preferred price is free, be it for streams of live games or for on-demand content. While this helps attract fans to the experiences, it's not clear when we will see an actual revenue model in this space.

Models discussed include pay-per-view, inclusion in existing league streaming subscription services and a standalone subscription fee for VR content.

The fan focused NFL's thinking here is clear as day. The NFL's Shah said at the announcement of the nine - part VR series last November: "the project underscores that it's still early in the VR game - with the league tapping the tech as a promotional fan-engagement vehicle, rather than a revenue driver." Read

There is no race to a finish line when it comes to sports leagues deploying virtual reality. Determining how to provide interested fans the optimal user experience they have been shown and heard about is job one. Achieving this lofty goal with a revenue plan would be even better.

For these milestones to be reached all members of the virtual reality ecosystem need to focus on ensuring the necessary network infrastructure and embedded technologies are in place to handle the top-rate delivery of VR streams and what should be a resulting vertical increase in fan demand.

Stay tuned.

Bob Wallace is a technology journalist with over 30 years of experience explaining how new services, apps, consumer electronic devices and video sources are reshaping the wide world of sports. Wallace has specific expertise in explaining how and why advances in technology redefine the way sports teams interact with their partners and fans. He's the Founder of Fast Forward Thinking LLC. Read

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Tackling Tech: A Virtual Reality Check for NFL Fans - Patriots.com

XAutoplay: On | OffThree-day video game nirvana E3, otherwise known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo, kicks off Tuesday, June 13. Expect a slew of announcements from console makers and publishers like Microsoft (MSFT), Nintendo (NTDOY), Activision Blizzard (ATVI) and Sony (SNY) plus a first-ever appearance and live streaming by social media and virtual reality pioneer Facebook (FB).

Investor's Business Daily will have the latest E3 news and product demos right from the show flooras thousands of video game professionals and this year, members of the public flock to the Los Angeles Convention Center.

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E3 2017: Video Games, Virtual Reality, Entertainment News - Investor's Business Daily

HTCs Viveport subscription service launched in April, and HTC has now announced that it has doubled the number of virtual reality titles on offer.

For a monthly fee of 6.99/$6.99/AU$9.99 you can choose five virtual reality apps or games from a curated list to download and install, which is a handy way to test out a range virtual reality games and experiences which are often quite short.

With the inclusion of 75 new titles - bringing the total number of VR titles available on the service to over 150 - the subscription looks like even better value for money, especially if youve been struggling to find games to play.

Included in the new range of VR games and experiences are ROM: Extraction, Knockout League, Overkill, Cosmic Trip, and Sairento VR. A number of the games and apps that have just been added to Viveport weren't available outside of Asia until now.

Rikard Steiber, President of Viveport at HTC Vive, said that we are doubling the number of available titles to over 150 with new bestsellers and a wide range of content available in the West for the first time. We want to offer VR developers the most ways to monetise their content, and they now have an additional channel to reach new audiences and generate more revenue.

We spoke to Stieber about how Viveport was doing, and while he couldnt give us specific numbers, he said that there was a healthy conversion from the free 30 day trial.

While we were excited to hear that the HTC Vive is coming to Macs earlier this week at WWDC, Stieber told us that we have no announcement to make at the moment about Viveport coming to Mac, though he assured us that Mac is a key audience.

He also explained how our ambition is to be platform agnostic so we may see the Viveport service become available for more VR platforms, such as Google Cardboard, in the future.

If you want to check out the range of VR titles, head over to the Viveport subscription website to try a 30 day free trial.

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HTC's Viveport subscription adds over 75 new virtual reality titles - TechRadar

Johnson has been challenging the rules of consumer VR from the beginning -- when virtual reality hit the mainstream last year, he spent 24 hours immersed in a mix of Rift, Vive and Gear VR experiences, setting an unofficial record for longest time in virtual reality. This year, he doubled that effort, recruiting Sarah Jones from Coventry University to join him in two days of extreme VR immersion -- breaking for only five minutes each hour to record vlogs and use the facilities.

The experiment was designed to question the arbitrary limits of VR-use time and help expose virtual reality to a wider consumer audience, but it wasn't a PR stunt for any specific headset manufacturer. "In fact, it was quite the opposite," he says. Every company he invited to participate in the project turned him down. "Mostly because they thought we'd die," he joked.

The fears of the likes of Oculus VR and HTC weren't completely unfounded. Johnson didn't just spend two days watching movies and playing games in virtual reality -- he wore VR goggles while driving go-karts, getting tattoos and walking across the wings of an airplane in-flight. "We wanted it to be as physical as possible," he says. "How extreme do you need to get with the physical additions to VR to make it feel real?" It sounds almost like a silly question, but when you're wearing a headset that partially blinds you to your environment, the influence of your mixed reality could have unexpected results.

Johnson and Jones' wind-walking adventure, for instance, was seen through a GearVR's pass-through camera -- but despite the physical exertion of fighting the wind on the wing of a plane, the experience wasn't completely real. "It still didn't feel real to us with what we were seeing," he says, "but the movement -- the buffeting and forcing yourself against the wind, they were the things that physically added the extra dimension." They just couldn't see well enough through the GearVR to get the full experience. Johnson thinks it might have been better if the headset had been displaying a VR dragon ride. "If everything you were seeing felt real, that would all be amazing."

Go-karting fared a little better -- the limited view of the GearVR's pass-through camera gave the drivers' vision a lower framerate and letterboxing but didn't seem to hamper the experience in the same way. "It's amazing that our brains just corrected and we got used to seeing that view," Johnson says. "We were going pretty quickly around the go-karting track, not hitting anything -- though with really reduced visibility."

These spectacle events are novel, but some of the more interesting results came from the smaller experiments. Johnson wore a VR headset to a tattoo parlor to see if the distraction of a false reality could dull the pain of being branded with a nerdy Apple tattoo in the real world. It did.

After briefly removing the headset to measure his pain threshold in the real world, Johnson spent the rest of his tattoo session playing Gunjack. "If the headset off was my 10 benchmark," he said, giving the pain a number, "It came down to like a six or a seven. It really did seem to have some effect." According to his Apple Watch, his heart rate dropped in VR too, averaging at 74 beats per minute in the headset to 103 without.

Living in VR drastically changed mundane everyday life, too. Having a face-to-face conversation with anybody meant logging into Facebook Spaces or another social-VR app, and sleeping was an altogether different kind of experience.

"When you wake up in VR, you just believe everything," he explains. Normally, virtual reality is a conscious choice, but if you wake up in a simulation, surrounded by dinosaurs and spaceships, you don't' have time to question your reality as you regain consciousness. "It's kind of like waking up in an unfamiliar hotel room. You may not know where you are or what the timezone is, but you just believe you're in a hotel room. Why would you not?"

Despite breaking every VR health-and-safety guideline imaginable, Johnson and Jones walked away from the experiment relatively unscathed. They learned, at worst, that watching a 360-degree movie in a car is a nauseating experience -- but that doesn't mean their extended time in VR didn't have consequences.

Johnson admits his vision without glasses was slightly more blurry for a few days after the experience, but it was the physical pain that bothered him most. "The bridge of my nose got bruised," he said, "And Sarah's cheeks have kind of permanent red marks on them." If the health and safety warnings were right, it wasn't because of the risk of experiencing altered-reality for long periods -- it was because the headsets were never designed to be worn indefinitely. "I think we're just physically glad to be out," he concluded. "If you had done anything for two straight days, you'd just be glad to be out."

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Two people spent 48 hours in nonstop virtual reality - Engadget

A virtual reality headset. Patients are shown computer-generated images of naked children and measured for signs of arousal. Photograph: Eric Risberg/AP

In a maximum security mental health facility in Montreal is a cave-like virtual reality vault thats used to show images of child sexual abuse to sex offenders. Patients sit inside the vault with devices placed around their penises to measure signs of arousal as they are shown computer-generated animations of naked children.

We do develop pornography, but these images and animations are not used for the pleasure of the patient but to assess them, said Patrice Renaud, who heads up the project at the Institut Philippe-Pinel. Its a bit like using a polygraph but with other measurement techniques.

The system, combined with other psychological assessments, is used to build up a profile of the individuals sexual preferences that can be used by the court to determine the risk they pose to society and by mental health professionals to determine treatment.

Not all child molesters are pedophiles (people who are sexually attracted to children) and not all pedophiles molest children, although the terms are often wrongly used interchangeably. In many cases, those who molest children are situational offenders, which means their offense is outside of their typical sexual preference or behavior.

You can have someone who molested a child once but is not a pedophile as such they may have been intoxicated or have another mental health disorder, said Renaud, who also leads the Cyberpsychology Lab at the University of Quebec in Outaouais. We need to know if they have a preferred mode of sexual expression.

Renaud uses virtual reality for two reasons: first, because it does not involve images of real people, but digital ones, and second, because the immersive nature of the medium allows researchers to measure something closer to natural behavior.

The vault itself is a small room with screens on all sides, on to which are projected animations of naked children and adults standing in natural settings. The research team can generate synthetic characters in a range of ages and shapes and can adapt features like facial expression, genital size, and eye and hair color to correspond with the patients victims or sexual fantasies.

The patients sit on a stool inside the chamber wearing stereoscopic glasses which create the three-dimensional effect on the surrounding walls. The glasses are fitted with eye-tracking technology to ensure they arent trying to trick the system by avoiding looking at the critical content.

These guys do not like going through this assessment, said Renaud, pointing out that the results can be shocking for the patient.

Its not easy for someone to discover he is attracted to violently molesting a kid. He may have been using the internet for some masturbatory activities using non-violent images or videos of children which is not a good thing. But being tested in the lab and knowing he is also attracted to violence may be something thats very difficult to understand.

Renaud acknowledges that the use of penile plethysmography, which involves placing a cuff-shaped sensor around the genitals, is controversial. Its not only invasive but there is some disagreement in the scientific community about its reliability in measuring sexual deviancy. Consequently, Renauds team is exploring a less invasive alternative: electroencephalography. This uses a cap that reads activity in the brain related to erectile response and sexual appetites.

Its not easy for someone to discover he is attracted to violently molesting a kid

Renaud believes the same cap could be used to track the persons empathy response to expressions of pain, fear or sadness in the virtual child victim. These inhibit the sexual response of non-deviant individuals.

Some deviant individuals can be attracted to signs of emotional distress.

If we find that the guy is attracted to children and doesnt feel empathy for the fact that the child is in pain, thats good information for predicting behavior, he said.

Renaud and his team assess about 80 patients per year, including pedophiles, rapists and other sexual deviants assigned by the court for assessment.

The lab is under intense scrutiny from ethical committees and the police in Quebec. The computer-generated imagery must be encrypted and stored in a highly secure closed computer network inside the maximum security hospital so that the material doesnt fall into the wrong hands.

However, at a time when virtual reality pornography is on the rise, its not unreasonable to assume that someone will if it hasnt already happened create virtual reality child abuse images designed explicitly to arouse rather than diagnose pedophiles.

Thanks to advances in computer graphics, such experiences could be created without ever harming or exploiting children. But even if no children are harmed in the making of such imagery, would society tolerate its creation? Could the content provide an outlet to some pedophiles who dont want to offend in real life? Or would a VR experience normalize behavior and act as a gateway to physical abuse?

Jamie Sivrais, of A Voice For The Innocent, which provides community support to survivors of rape and sexual abuse, said that people have a long history of blaming technology for human problems. He pointed to VHS tapes being used to create child abuse images and predators using internet chat rooms and smartphones to meet and abuse children.

If the technology exists, there will be people who abuse it, he said.

I think this is a human problem. The same criticisms of VR could have (and have been) made about the internet and smartphones, and they are valid criticisms. So as we continue to push the envelope of technology, lets also continue to expand resources for people who are hurt by abuse.

Ethan Edwards, the co-founder of Virtuous Pedophiles, an online support group for people attracted to children but who do not want to molest them, argues virtual reality could help prevent real-life offences.

Edwards believes that, provided the imagery of children is computer-generated and doesnt involve any real victims, it should be legal, as should life-size child sex dolls and erotic stories about children.

I have a strong civil liberties streak and feel such things should be legal in the absence of very strong evidence they cause harm, he said.

Nick Devin, a pedophile and co-founder of the site, called for thorough scientific research. The answer may be different for different people. For me, doing these things wouldnt increase or reduce the risk to kids: Im not going to molest a kid whether I fantasize or not.

Its a view echoed by Canadian forensic psychologist Michael Seto. He believes that VR could provide a safer outlet for individuals with well-developed self control.

But for others, such as those who are more impulsive, prone to risk-taking, or indifferent about the effects of their actions on others, then access to virtual child pornography could have negative effects and perhaps increase their desire for contact with real children.

Its a risk that concerns Renaud, who describes VR child abuse imagery and child-shaped sex robots as a very bad idea.

Only a very small portion of pedophiles could use that kind of sexual proxy without having the urge to go outside and get the real stuff, he said.

Its not just child sex abuse experiences that are concerning to Renaud, but violent first-person sexual experiences including rape and even entirely new deviances like having sex with monsters with three penises and blue skin.

We dont know what effect these sexual experiences will have on the behavior of children and adults in the future, he said.

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Polygraph for pedophiles: how virtual reality is used to assess sex offenders - The Guardian

Computer-generated images are used (Picture: Shutterstock)

Suspected paedophiles at a maximum security mental health facility are shown virtual reality images of child abuse and pornography.

The controversial practice is used to determine the individuals arousal when viewing the material, and researchers claim it can predict whether they are threats to the public.

People admitted to the Institut Philippe-Pinel hospital in Montreal, Canada, sit with devices placed on their penises to measure arousal, and wear glasses that simulate virtual reality.

Patients rapists, paedophiles and sexual deviants are shown computer-generated images of naked children, and an eye-tracking device means they cannot look away.

Patrice Renaud, who leads the project, told The Guardian: We do develop pornography, but these images and animations are not used for the pleasure of the patient but to assess them.

The project determines the patients sexual preference, which is then used by a court to rule whether they pose a risk to the public or not.

Mr Renaud said: You can have someone who molested a child once but is not a paedophile as such they may have been intoxicated or have another mental health disorder.

If we find that the guy is attracted to children and doesnt feel empathy for the fact that the child is in pain, thats good information for predicting behaviour.

The experiment takes place and the material created must be encrypted and stored in a secure computer network minimising the chance it could spread outside the hospital.

It is also under intense scrutiny from ethical committees and the police.

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Virtual reality is being used to show naked images to paedophiles - Metro

Some worker-training programs take days to imbue in new employees corporate culture and best practices.

But after just 15 minutes under the spell of a virtual-reality headset and spiffy VR program created by Northern Liberties experiential video shop Klip Collective, new hires at the Philadelphia-based Honeygrow fast-casual dining chain are already feeling the company spirit.

Theyre connecting with its HG Engine best-practices philosophy. Learning food-prep techniques. Practically tasting the dishes. So theyre instantly energized, eager to dive into the work themselves, said company executives.

Our goal was to provide a consistent yet unique on-boarding and initial training experience for all employees, regardless of geographic location or who the individual performing the training would be, Justin Rosenberg, Honeygrows founder and CEO, said Wednesday. Klip has really impressed us with taking our ideas and exceeding our expectations by making them a reality.

Back in the early, local-only days of his salad and stir-fry emporiums the first location on 16th Street between Sansom and Chestnut opened exactly five years ago this Thursday Rosenberg could afford to be very hands-on. He would personally welcome all new employees and immerse them in the ways of Honeygrow an upscale fast-food alternative obsessed with personalized orders, fresh ingredients, fast turnaround, and hospitable treatment of guests.

But all thats getting harder to do as the privately owned chain expands. Seventeen Honeygrow locations now stretch south to Washington, D.C., and north to Brooklyn. More are coming to Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Manhattan the latter our first, smaller-footprint Minigrow, said Rosenberg. By the end of the year, well be up to 25 locations.

Enter the VR training solution, as executed by Klip Collective. Its an idea (just dubbed brilliant by Entrepreneur magazine) that first started brewing when Rosenberg got a Google Cardboard with my Sunday Times and I thought, What can I do with this? The answer: a VR experience that allows Rosenberg and team to warm up new trainees virtually, with much better focus than reading a written manual would have, and with more consistency than a local manager would, if having a bad day. The VR experience also is being used for recruitment, to interest potential job applicants. And it impresses our guests, when they walk in and see employees doing it.

Said Klip Collective co-founder Ricardo Rivera: When a new hire puts on the VR headset and presses the start button on the remote, Justin materializes in our virtual-3D Honeygrow restaurant to share welcoming remarks and philosophy how Honeygrow is all about thinking differently, bringing people together over high-quality, wholesome, simple foods.

Then we offer an interactive tour of a Honeygrow that gives a good feel for how and why things are done, with a casual video game at the end thats meant to be both fun and instructive, Rivera said.

No stranger to integrating tech into the operation as new hires (virtually) discover Honeygrow locations also feature a custom variation on the classic split-flap railroad-station sign that communicates the news when customer orders are done.

Restaurant touch screens take a page from the Wawa customer ordering system, though Honeygrow dresses its models with special screen savers still images and videos of neighborhood locations that are a love letter to every market we go into, said Jen Dennis, chief brand officer.

In that game component of the VR experience, participants learn-by-doing how food is best stored on refrigerator shelves for health safety (fish on top, beef below, then pork and chicken on the bottom shelves).

Were finding this gamification really helps people grasp and retain information, said Dennis.

So more will be built into the next phase, Honeygrow VR 2.0, said Kevin Ritchie, a post-production wizard at Klip Collectives sister company, Monogram. Given the ever-improving state of the technology, anything you do in VR is a work-in-progress. When we first got started on the project, we thought it would run on Samsung Galaxy smartphones and Gear VR glasses. Then the Google Daydream-ready phones and companion goggles came out and were so much better in terms of screen resolution and processing power. The new Google Pixel phones dont overheat, as was happening with the Galaxys.

How about mixing VR with AR, augmented reality, which would allow trainees to do hands-on food prep with a superimposed timer and graphic arrows pointing them in the right directions? A nice idea, but the tech is not there yet.

For the sake of future-proofing, Klip Collective lights its sets (in this case, the Honeygrow restaurant in Cherry Hill) like a Hollywood film production, shoots VR with an ultra-high definition $55,000 Nokia VR camera, and processes the footage on a server system so powerful it could run an automated car factory.

If you want to convince VR viewers theyre really in the moment, you cant afford to cut corners, said Ritchie.

Published: June 7, 2017 4:29 PM EDT | Updated: June 7, 2017 4:30 PM EDT

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Virtual reality helps Honeygrow worker-bees acclimate - Philly.com

Engineers at UC San Diego are using soft robotics technology to make light, flexible gloves that allow users to feel tactile feedback when they interact with virtual reality environments. The researchers used the gloves to realistically simulate the tactile feeling of playing a virtual piano keyboard.

Engineers recently presented their research, which is still at the prototype stage, at the Electronic Imaging, Engineering Reality for Virtual Reality conference in Burlingame, Calif.

Currently, VR user interfaces consist of remote-like devices that vibrate when a user touches a virtual surface or object. Theyre not realistic, said Jurgen Schulze, a researcher at the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego and one of the papers senior authors. You cant touch anything, or feel resistance when youre pushing a button. By contrast, we are trying to make the user feel like theyre in the actual environment from a tactile point of view.

Other research teams and industry have worked on gloves as VR interfaces. But these are bulky and made from heavy materials, such as metal. The glove the engineers developed has a soft exoskeleton equipped with soft robotic muscles that make it much lighter and easier to use.

This is a first prototype but it is surprisingly effective, said Michael Tolley, a mechanical engineering professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and also a senior author.

One key element in the gloves design is a type of soft robotic component called a McKibben muscle, essentially latex chambers covered with braided fibers. The muscles respond like springs to apply force when the user moves their fingers. The board controls the muscles by inflating and deflating them.The system involves three main components: a Leap Motion sensor that detects the position and movement of the users hands; a custom fluidic control board that controls the gloves movements; and soft robotic components in the glove that individually inflate or deflate to mimic the forces that the user would encounter in the VR environment. The system interacts with a computer that displays a virtual piano keyboard with a river and trees in the background.

Researchers 3-D-printed a mold to make the gloves soft exoskeleton. This will make the devices easier to manufacture and suitable for mass production, they said. Researchers used silicone rubber for the exoskeleton, with Velcro straps embedded at the joints.

Engineers conducted an informal pilot study of 15 users, including two VR interface experts. All tried the demo which allowed them to play the piano in VR. They all agreed that the gloves increased the immersive experience. They described it as mesmerizing and amazing.

The engineers are working on making the glove cheaper, less bulky and more portable. They also would like to bypass the Leap Motion device altogether to make system more compact.

Our final goal is to create a device that provides a richer experience in VR, Tolley said. But you could imagine it being used for surgery and video games, among other applications.

Tolley is a faculty member in the Contextual Robotics Institute at UC San Diego. Schulze is an adjust professor in computer science, where he teaches courses on VR.

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Play piano with this virtual reality glove - University of California

If youve ever played a virtual reality game, youre probably used to dying at least digitally. But not like this.

Scientists are using VR headsets to create out-of-body experiences that may be able to reduce the fear of death, according to a recently published study. According to Mel Slater, one of the studys authors and a research professor at the University of Barcelona:

My lab has been working for many years on the influence of changing someones body in virtual reality on their attitudes, perceptions, behavior and cognition. For example, placing White people in a Black virtual body reduces their implicit racial bias, while putting adults into a child body changes their perceptions and self-identification.

Here we wanted to see what the effects were of establishing a strong feeling of ownership over a virtual body, and then moving people out of it, so simulating an out-of-body experience. According to the literature, out-of-body experiences are typically associated with changes of attitudes about death, so we wanted to see if this would happen with a virtual out-of-body experience.

The study, published in PLOS One, uses an Oculus Rift headset and a virtual reality simulation known as the full body ownership illusion. In it, researchers created a virtual human body designed to be the participants own. Once the participant assimilated to the illusion, the view shifted from first-person to third-person, creating an experience similar to how some describeout-of-body incidents.

So far, the study has only attempted the simulation on 32 women, 16 of which experienced the out-of-body incident, and 16 more in a control group who didnt experience this phenomena.

After the study, participants in the main group reported lower anxiety about death than the control group, althoughresearchers admit the studyis still in the preliminary stages. Limited as it may be, it should surprise no one that a virtual reality simulation could help overcome fears even the fear of death. It is, after all, being studied in multiple other scientific disciplines as a way to do just that.

A Virtual Out-of-Body Experience Reduces Fear of Death on PLOS

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Study: This virtual reality simulation could reduce fear of death - TNW