RBC Capital marketers released a research note Monday that sets up some challenges and a timeline for the mass adoption of augmented and virtual reality, based on a hosted conversation with author and reporter Reed Albergotti.

"We likely remain 3-5 years away from the mass market consumer being able to go into a Best Buy and pick up a VR/AR headset for easy use most users today remain early-adopters (and largely gamers)," RBC analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a research note published Monday.

Google hopes mass adoption will come a lot sooner. At the Mobile World Congress, Amit Singh, VP of virtual reality at Google, announced that Google's VR platform Daydream will soon become available to hundreds of millions of smartphones, with Project Tango soon to follow.

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There are several challenges along the path to mass adoption. Mahaney notes that today VR and AR headsets require lots of computing power. VR remains immersive and can cause motion sickness if the device doesn't track exterior environments correctly. And setup remains somewhat extensive.

Google is not the only search company focusing on AI. The new wave of experiences built on augmented and visual search put more than $54 million in Blippar's coffers last year to further develop its search engine.

Gaming is only one reason to use AR and VR. Marketers may want to look at VR and AR to create content to create extensive how-to videos when fixing a car or a leaky faucet. Homeowners with plumbing problems can put on a headset and the brand can guide the consumer through fixing the problem, as in one example provided by Albergotti during RBC's conversation.

Some of the major and minor players that Albergotti keeps an eye on include Microsoft's HoloLens; Google's investment in Magic Leap; and Apple when it comes to AR and Osterhout Design Group, which primarily does work for the military. Others include Sony, Facebook, NVidia and HTC.

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Augmented, Virtual Reality Mass Adoption 3 To 5 Years Away - MediaPost Communications

Science Daily

Virtual reality training for 'safety-critical' jobs Science Daily Cineon Training is developing immersive, 360-degree training through virtual reality headsets to prevent accidents and improve the performance of workers. It also uses technology such as eye tracking and physiological monitoring to help understand how ... Virtual reality tech for 'safety-critical' training in BritainManila Bulletin Work in a high-risk industry? Virtual reality may soon become part of ...International Business Times UK all 5 news articles »

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Virtual reality training for 'safety-critical' jobs - Science Daily

Tech evangelists predicted that 2016 would be the year of virtual reality. And in some ways they were right. Several virtual reality headsets finally hit the commercial market, and millions of people bought one. But as people begin immersing themselves in new realities, a growing number of worrisome reports have surfaced: VR systems can make some users sick.

Scientists are just beginning to confirm that these new headsets do indeed cause a form of motion sickness dubbed VR sickness. Headset makers and software developers have worked hard to combat it, but people are still getting sick. Many in the industry fear this will be a major obstacle to mass adoption of virtual reality.

A lot of VR, people today cannot tolerate, says Kay Stanney, a human factors engineer with a focus on VR at Design Interactive in Orlando, Fla. Search for VR sickness on Twitter, she says, and youll see that people are getting sick every day.

Around 25 to 40 percent of people suffer from motion sickness depending on the mode of transport, scientists have estimated, and more women are susceptible than men.

Count me among those women. Im highly prone to motion sickness. Cars, planes and boats can all make me feel woozy. It can take me a day or more to fully shake the nausea, headache and drowsiness. Certain that virtual reality would also make me sick, Ive purposefully avoided strapping on a headset. (Until this assignment came along.)

Women who got sick playing a VR horror game

Men who got sick playing the game

So far, avoiding VR hasnt been much of a loss for me. A lot of the VR industry is focused on video games, vying for a chunk of an estimated $100 billion market. And most of the early adopters who are willing to pay for one of the new premium headsets $400 for Sonys PlayStation VR or $800 for an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive are probably serious gamers or technophiles. I dont fit either category.

But, avoidance promises to become harder as VR moves beyond games. The technology has already begun creeping into other fields. Car companies, including Audi, General Motors Co.and used-car seller Vroom, are building VR showrooms where you can check out cars as if you were actually on the lot. Architects are using VR to walk clients through buildings that dont yet exist. Schools and learning labs are taking students on virtual field trips to both contemporary and historical sites.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees virtual reality as the next big social platform. In 2014, Facebook bought Oculus VR, maker of the Rift headset, for around $2 billion. This is really a new communication platform, Zuckerberg wrote in the Oculus announcement. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures. New VR sites where people can socialize or play games together in virtual spaces, like AltspaceVR and Rec Room, are springing up. And some tech luminaries see a future in which VR is integrated into many more aspects of our daily lives, from movies and entertainment to work and health care.

Nobody knows if the broader public will embrace virtual reality. Sales of the expensive high-end headsets have been underwhelming the three premium systems combined sold an estimated 1.5 million headsets in 2016. But sales of cheaper mobile headsets were more impressive. For less than $100, Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream View, Google Cardboard and others are powered by your mobile phone. But with smaller screens and less computer power, they are far less capable than the Rift or the Vive. Still, they are selling. In January, Samsung reported that it had sold 5 million of the $99 Gear VR headset since its release in November 2015.

But VR may never really catch on if it makes people sick. And while VR companies and developers are confident that theyll find solutions, many motion sickness experts are pessimistic. My hunch is that [the solutions] are extremely limited, says Steven Rauch, director of the Vestibular Division at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston.

In some ways, the very premise of virtual reality makes it an ideal vehicle for motion sickness.

Motion sickness has probably been with us as long as weve had boats. References to seasickness date back to Greek mythology; the word nausea is derived from the Greek naus, meaning ship. J.A. Irwin introduced the term motion sickness in the scientific literature in 1881. Since then, an extensive body of research has accumulated.

The most widely accepted theory to emerge is that motion sickness is brought on by a mismatch between two or more of the senses that help you keep your balance. For example, when youre below deck on a ship at sea, your eyes see a stationary room. But your vestibular system the fluid-filled canals and specialized membranes in your inner ear senses the motion of the ship as it rolls over waves. Youre getting conflicting information on different sensory channels into the balance system, Rauch says. That is believed to be the primary cause of motion sickness.

In virtual reality, the mismatch is there as well, says visual neuroscientist Bas Rokers of the University of WisconsinMadison. But the sensory cues are reversed: Your eyes see that you are moving through the virtual world in a virtual car or a virtual spaceship, or strolling down a virtual path but your vestibular system knows youre not actually moving. That gives you a cue conflict, he says.

While most motion sickness experts think sensory mismatch is to blame, some disagree. Kinesiologist Thomas Stoffregen of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, whos been studying motion sickness for 25 years, thinks instability is the culprit. On a ship, the rolling motion puts you off balance, and that makes you sick, he says. Motion sickness situations are ones in which the control of your body is challenged somehow. If you dont rise to that challenge, then the contents of your stomach may rise.

This idea, known as the postural instability theory, can be applied to VR as well, Stoffregen says. If your eyes convince your brain that youre in the virtual world, your body will respond to it instead of the real world you are physically in, which can throw your balance off. Imagine sitting in a chair in the real world while riding in a car in the virtual world. As the car approaches a turn, youll want to lean into it, which could land you on the floor. The more convincing the virtual world is, the more likely you are to link the control of your body to what youre seeing, Stoffregen says. And in a virtual car, that is a mistake.

While the postural instability theory is outside the scientific mainstream, it offers an explanation for another mystery of motion sickness: why more women suffer than men.

Stoffregen and colleagues have shown repeatedly that its possible to predict who is likely to get motion sick in various circumstances by measuring postural sway the small, subconscious movements people make to stay balanced while standing still. By analyzing several aspects of sway, including the distance, direction and timing of the movements, the researchers have found that people who are susceptible to motion sickness sway differently than those who arent. And postural sway differs measurably between men and women. The difference, Stoffregen says, can be attributed to physical differences between the sexes, such as height and center of balance.

Stoffregens research suggests women are also more prone to VR sickness than men. In a study published in December in Experimental Brain Research, Stoffregen and colleagues measured the postural sway of 72 college students before they were asked to play one of two VR games for 15 minutes using an Oculus Rift DK2. The first game made two of 18 men and six of 18 women feel motion sick, not enough for a statistically significant difference.

But more than half of the students who played the horror game Affected, using a handheld controller to explore a dark, spooky building, reported feeling sick. Of the 18 women playing that game, 14 felt sick. Thats nearly 78 percent, compared with just over 33 percent of the men. When the scientists compared those results against the postural sway data, just as in their previous motion sickness studies, they found a measurable difference in sway between those who got sick and those who didnt (SN: 1/21/17, p. 7).

Rokers has another explanation for the gender difference that fits with the sensory mismatch theory. In a study published in January 2016 in Entertainment Computing, Rokers and colleagues looked at how visual acuity might affect susceptibility to VR sickness. Seventy-three people with either natural or corrected 20/20 vision completed a battery of visual tests and then spent up to 20 minutes in an Oculus Rift DK1 headset watching videos. The videos showed motion from different points of view, such as a drone flying around a bridge or a passenger in a car driving through mild traffic. Of the female participants, 75 percent felt sick enough to stop watching before the 20 minutes had passed, compared with 41 percent of the men.

People who were better at perceiving 3-D motion in the visual tests were more likely to feel sick. And on average, the women in the study performed better on the 3-D motion perception tests than the men.

Its not clear why women would have better visual acuity for 3-D motion, but the results suggest that the more sensitive you are to sensory cues, the more likely you are to detect a mismatch, Rokers says. If you can tell that your senses are providing you different information, then you are more likely to get motion sick.

Just being a woman doesnt necessarily mean youll be highly susceptible to motion sickness like I am. Lots of other factors are likely at play. Some research suggests Asians are more likely to suffer. People who get migraines are also unusually prone to motion sickness. Scientists at genetic-testing company 23andMe reported in Human Molecular Genetics in 2015 that they had found 35 genetic variants associated with car sickness. Age is also a factor: Infants are generally immune, susceptibility increases from age 2 to 15, and although it hasnt been my experience, the problem subsides for many people in adulthood.

Everybodys brain has a different capacity for processing motion, Rauch says. Just like some people are good with languages and some people are good with math, some people are good with motion processing, of doing this complex sensory-integration task. The people who are good at it become figure skaters and divers and gymnasts, he says. But there are other people who throw up if they ride backwards on the metro. That would be me.

Under the right circumstances, though, anyone with a functioning vestibular system can experience motion sickness nearly everyone stranded on a lifeboat in choppy seas will get sick.

Very little motion sickness research has been done on the latest VR headsets available to consumers. But Rauch says the very nature of VR, which is to trick your eyes into telling your brain youre in another world, is inviting a sensory conflict. Theres always going to be some sensory conflict, and so the VR is going to be more successful in people who can tolerate that, Rauch says. For me, he was clear: Its always going to be torture.

Story continues below slideshow

Some games, like theBlu: Encounter(screenshot shown on first slide)and Job Simulator (middle slide), are unlikely to cause sickness because they require little movement around the virtual world. The dinosaur-hunting game Island 359 (last slide)has a teleport option for more susceptible players.

The U.S. military was the first to report, in 1957, that virtual environments could be problematic: Flight simulators were making some pilots motion sick. Since then, many studies have confirmed that simulator sickness is a real problem.

One of the biggest tech hurdles for VR has been the inherent delay between when you move your head and when the display updates to reflect that movement. If the lag is too great, you can end up with a potentially vomit-inducing sensory mismatch. Todays high-end systems have capitalized on advances in displays, video rendering, motion tracking and computing to cut down the lag to the neighborhood of 20 milliseconds low enough to avoid triggering motion sickness. Theyve beaten most of the pure hardware problems, says Steven LaValle, a computer scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a former head scientist at Oculus.

But even with the best virtual reality system, what you do in the virtual world matters. If youre sitting or standing in one place in both the real world and the virtual world, youre very unlikely to feel sick. And as long as a step in the real world results in an equivalent step in the virtual world, moving around is fine too. All three of the premium headsets use external lasers to track the motion of the headset within a limited space up to 3.5 meters by 3.5 meters with the HTC Vive. But to explore further, youll need to use handheld controllers with buttons, triggers and directional touch pads to move your virtual self around, just as in a regular 2-D video game. Thats where things can go wrong.

I like to joke that the controller is like a sickness generator, says LaValle, who worked on reducing motion sickness while at Oculus. Every time you grab onto a controller, youre creating motions that are not corresponding perfectly to the physical world. And when thats being fed into your eyes and ears, then you have trouble.

The people creating the content for VR systems are taking the problem seriously, says Steve Bowler, cofounder of VR game company CloudGate Studio, based outside of Chicago. Developers are really, really focused on zero tolerance for user motion sickness.

On its face, it makes no sense that exposure to motion should bring on disabling nausea and vomiting. But we share this seemingly odd connection between our sense of balance and the gastrointestinal tract with many nonhuman animals, including dogs, monkeys, sheep, birds and even fish. The most often cited explanation is an evolutionary theory put forward by cognitive psychologist Michel Treisman in Science in 1977. Ingesting a poison can also mess with your balance system. So the body interprets the motion reaction as a symptom of poisoning and responds as it would with poison, by vomiting to try to get rid of the harmful substance, he suggested. Although its just an idea and has never been tested, it has some intuitive appeal.

One of the most successful strategies developers have hit on is using teleportation to take short skips around the virtual world. Basically you aim the controller where you want to go and the screen fades to black for a split second, sort of like the blink of an eye. When it fades back in, youre at the new location. This, Bowler says, eliminates motion sickness even for the most susceptible people he knows. But that comfort comes at a cost: The whole point of VR is to convince you that youre physically in this other world; if youre magically teleporting here and there, its not going to feel as real, he says.

Bowler favors a technique known as sprint or dash that aims to reduce the effects of acceleration. Instead of gradually ramping your speed up and back down, a sprint bumps you up to speed almost instantaneously, maintains that speed until you reach your target and then drops you quickly back down to a standstill.

While sprinting doesnt approximate natural movement very well, it does let you see the motion, unlike teleportation. And Bowler says hes had about a thousand people at various events try sprinting in a dinosaur-hunting game his group built called Island 359 with almost no reports of motion sickness. Anyone who feels uncomfortable can switch to chasing dinosaurs using a teleportation option instead.

Oculus seems to have accepted that VR sickness cant be eliminated from all VR experiences at the moment, so most Oculus-approved games come with comfort ratings to let users know if a game or experience is more or less likely to make them sick. Those assessments might help people like me avoid the most nauseating games.

Bowler considers himself an ambassador for virtual reality. After almost an hour of very patiently and enthusiastically explaining how VR works, he somehow convinced me to try it. A few days later I was at UploadVR in San Francisco strapping on the HTC Vive with Bowler looking on via Skype from his office in the Chicago suburbs.

The headset was heavy and awkward, but I otherwise felt fine while creating a virtual 3-D painting or walking around on the deck of a shipwreck as an enormous blue whale swam by ogling me. I even shot at drones while dodging virtual bullets, with no hint of motion sickness. I decided I was ready to hunt dinosaurs.

First I tried teleportation mode in Bowlers game, and as he promised, no nausea. Though the splatters of blood and guts when I slashed some attacking mini dinosaurs was almost enough to make me gag, the strangeness of teleportation made me feel more like I was inside a 2-D video game than on a dinosaur-infested island. I decided to see if I could handle sprint mode. I wanted to know if it would feel more real.

That was a mistake. I could only manage about a half dozen sprints before I felt the first hints of nausea. I had to quit. Once the headset was off I felt better. But soon, a lingering nausea and drowsiness hit, like I sometimes experience after a turbulent flight. I didnt entirely recover until the following evening. Im glad Bowler convinced me to give it a try, and the parts I could handle were pretty fun. But I wont be going back for more anytime soon.

Virtual reality still has lots of room for improvement, but whether it will ever reach the point of being comfortable for everyone is an open question. The VR industry is moving at a pace science cant match, forging ahead with its own grand experiment as millions of users test its products. Much of what we learn about how VR affects people will show up first in living rooms and on Twitter rather than in scientific labs and journals. And though the results of those experiments are still coming in, tech luminaries havent hesitated to declare 2017 as the real year of virtual reality.

A slew of possible solutions for VR sickness most with very little research behind them have been suggested by scientists, developers, companies, entrepreneurs and users.

Here are just a few:

This article appears in the March 18, 2017, issue of Science News with the headline, "Real sick: The immersive experience of the virtual world is not for everyone."

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Virtual reality has a motion sickness problem - Science News

New York Times

Virtual Reality Leads Marketers Down a Tricky Path New York Times Virtual reality videos, which give users a sense of being transported to another place, where they can walk around and interact with that environment, often start at $500,000 each to make, according to Forrester Research. And if a company tries to trim ...

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Virtual Reality Leads Marketers Down a Tricky Path - New York Times

The comedy of man starts like this

Our brains are way too big for our mothers' hips

And so Nature, she divines this alternative

We emerged half-formed and hope that whoever greets us on the other end

Is kind enough to fill us in

And, babies, that's pretty much how it's been ever since

Now the miracle of birth leaves a few issues to address

Like, say, that half of us are periodically iron-deficient

So somebody's got to go kill something while I look after the kids

I'd do it myself, but what, are you going to get this thing its milk?

He says as soon as he gets back from the hunt, we can switch

It's hard not to fall in love with something so helpless

Ladies, I hope we don't end up regretting this

Comedy, now that's what I call pure comedy

Just waiting until the part where they start to believe

They're at the center of everything

And some all-powerful being endowed this horror show with meaning

Oh, their religions are the best

They worship themselves yet they're totally obsessed

With risen zombies, celestial virgins, magic tricks, these unbelievable outfits

And they get terribly upset

When you question their sacred texts

Written by woman-hating epileptics

Their languages just serve to confuse them

Their confusion somehow makes them more sure

They build fortunes poisoning their offspring

And hand out prizes when someone patents the cure

Where did they find these goons they elected to rule them?

What makes these clowns they idolize so remarkable?

These mammals are hell-bent on fashioning new gods

So they can go on being godless animals

Oh comedy, their illusions they have no choice but to believe

Their horizons that just forever recede

And how's this for irony, their idea of being free is a prison of beliefs

That they never ever have to leave

Oh comedy, oh it's like something that a madman would conceive!

The only thing that seems to make them feel alive is the struggle to survive

But the only thing that they request is something to numb the pain with

Until there's nothing human left

Just random matter suspended in the dark

I hate to say it, but each other's all we got

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Father John Misty Questions Virtual Reality And Religion On 'Saturday Night Live' - NPR

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MILWAUKEE -- There are millions of things that make up our reality as we know it. Imagine a world where you can go anywhere, experience anything and be anyone. We have reached the doorstep of this new technology walking through will undoubtedly change the world we live in.

Jeff Fitzsimmons is the creator of a 360-degree video of Milwaukees Polar Bear Club which was featured in The New York Times. Hes also the owner of Custom Reality Services a virtual reality company based in Milwaukees Third Ward.

His business is putting the viewer smack dab in the middle of an alternate reality or virtual reality.

Jeff Fitzsimmons

It gives you the ability to walk through that experience and feel like it is happening to you, said Fitzsimmons.

Virtual reality is a technology that has been tried in the past, but failed a few times over, in fact. This time around though, VR has emerged as a mainstream phenomenon.

Every commercial you see has people wearing VR goggles,and in 2011, virtual reality was jet-pack, flying car, crazy talk and that's a big shift in a short period of time,"said Fitzsimmons.

Jeff Fitzsimmons

There are different levels when it comes to virtual reality headsets on the market. The most basic is Google Cardboard and can be used with almost any smartphone. The next step up is Samsungs Gear VR which can only be used with specific Samsung phones. After that comes the more professional grade models including the Sony PlayStation VR and HTCVIVE.

The HTC VIVE, the controllers, the computers, the software -- we're talking thousands of dollars at that point, saidBen Holt, marketing director of EC Virtual Reality in Waukesha.

Coming here is kind of like an arcade, you know?We have ones where you are playing by yourself. We have ones where you're playing with people here, and like you said, there are experiences," said Holt.

You can try different experiences like swimming with jellyfish or riding to the top of a New York City skyscraper. Holt calls it the perfect place for a conservative adrenaline junkie.

However, gaming and entertainment are just the beginning for this instant escape.

Virtual reality

This is like the invention of electricity, not like the invention of 3D movies. This will impact everything," said Fitzsimmons.

It is already being used in theme parks, on university campuses, for magazines -- even real estate. The Broadway Market Lofts in Milwaukees Third Ward are far from finished, but when a potential renter puts on a virtual reality headset, 'what is' turns into 'what could be.'

Its really hard for a lot of people, including myself, to imagine what the fixtures are going to look like, the finishes, said Lindsey Bortner, property manager for Milwaukee View.

The applications for virtual reality are endless now that the computing power has finally caught up with the vision.

That difference was the difference between 'I want to throw up' and 'wow, this is amazing. I really feel like Im here,'said Fitzsimmons.

There is still a ways to go with the hardware. Fitzsimmons saidthe big, bulky headsets and trailing wires will all eventually go away.

If you want proof VR is here to stay this time, Fitzsimmons urges you to look at those at the forefront of embracing this new frontier.

Any technology people can figure out how to have sex in it will be around forever. Television, VCR, said Fitzsimmons.

Is virtual reality being used now for that purpose?

Oh yes, but dont Google that! saidFitzsimmons.

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It'll impact everything: Applications for virtual reality limitless now that technology caught up with vision - fox6now.com

Retirement strategies

William Clark, Ramona representative for Thrivent Financial, invites area residents to one of four free workshops titled Retirement and Estate Strategies on Wednesday, March 8. Workshops will be at Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, 1735 Main St., Suite A., at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., and at Ramona High School, 1401 Hanson Lane, at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Financial consultant Jonathan Doering will share strategies on how to accumulate and distribute money for retirement, how to pass on money to heirs or charities in a tax-wise manner, increasing the probability of investment success, multigenerational IRA planning, and more. For reservations, call 858-455-5227 or email linda.a.smith@thrivent.com. Refreshments will be served.

Lexi Petelski will present a talk titled Pumice in the Garden when the Ramona Garden Club meets at Mountain View Community Church, 1191 Meadowlark Way, on Wednesday, March 8. The meeting will begin with a potluck lunch at noon.

Firefighters will take to the streets on Thursday, March 9, for the 18th Annual Fill the Boot for the Burn Institute Firefighter Boot Drive. Around the county firefighters will be at intersections with boots in hand to collect donations during morning and evening commutes.

Proceeds benefit the Burn Institutes fire and burn prevention programs and burn survivor support services.

Each year passing motorists help to fill those boots with spare change and dollars. such as Camp Beyond the Scars for burn-injured children.

Ramona Library will offer a PS4 Virtual Reality demonstration Thursday, March 9, at 3 p.m. as part of San Diego County Library (SDCL) systems celebration of Teen Tech Week. The first 20 teens will get to test the Virtual Reality headset and games. The library is at 1275 Main St.

Be the Source of Change is SDCLs theme this year. The county library system says it hopes to attract a wide variety of teenagers and increase teen technology literacy locally by offering a series of programs that include 3D printing workshops, virtual reality demonstrations, robotics, new technologies, MAKER activities, coding, and special programming made possible through partnerships with local organizations.

Teen Tech Week is an opportunity for teens to learn and explore about new technology. It shows how libraries provide meaningful contributions to the development of 21st century digital skills in teens," said Youth Librarian Ariadna Jimenez-Barrios.

Entries in the San Diego County Fair homebrew competition will be accepted at sdfair.com until April 28. The competition offers homebrewers an opportunity to have their beer professionally judged, receive quality feedback, meet other homebrewers, and win ribbons.

The competition is open to all amateur homebrewers age 21 and older. Professional brewers and brewers who have applied for state or federal licensing may not enter. Entries may be delivered on May 7 or shipped to the fairgrounds. Industry professionals will judge the brews in a closed, blind session. Exhibitors will be invited to a private Awards Ceremony and Exhibitor tasting on June 4.

Barnett Elementary School PTA invites the community and former students, teachers, and families to the Birthday Bash to celebrate the schools 25th anniversary on March 10 at 5 p.m. The time capsule that was buried in 1991 at the school at 23925 Couna Way will be opened and a new one will be put in its place, said Michelle Lawrence, Barnett PTA president.

Ace Hardware at 23642 San Vicente Road will host an Electronic Waste and Document Shred event on Saturday, March 11, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Community members may drop off any electronic item that is broken, used, or unwanted that takes batteries or plugs into an outlet. Examples are computers, televisions, and appliances. Secure Document shredding will be provided for a charge. For more information, call contact Joshua Stoltz at admin@recyclingms.com or 619-655-0981.

Ramona ACBL Bridge Club meets several times throughout the week, offering open play and lessons for beginners, at 1721 Main St., Suite 101.

Lessons and practice for open players and a class for beginners are held from 2 to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays.

Open games begin at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesdays, 6 p.m. on Thursdays, and 9:30 a.m. on Fridays.

For more information, call 760-789-1132.

Persons age 18 and older are invited to play Bingo at Ramona Senior Center, 434 Aqua Lane, every Thursday at 1 p.m. Cost to play is $14 per person, with a $5 discount for first-time players. The winnings are said to be substantial. One does not have to be a senior to play.

For more information, visit the center or call Tina Lacey, the centers activities coordinator, at 760-789-0440.

Teams are forming for the 2017 Relay for Life of Ramona, an annual 24-hour event to support those affected by cancer and to raise money for American Cancer Societys cancer research and education efforts. The event will be held at Wilson Stadium, 720 Ninth St., and will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday, April 29, with an Opening Ceremony followed by the Survivors Lap at 9:30 a.m. and Survivor/Caregiver Breakfast at 9:45.

Individuals may join one of the 15 existing relay teams or form a team of their own. The commitment is to have at least one team member walking or running on the track throughout the 24-hour event. For more information or to join/sign up for a team, contact Tori Barlow at 760-522-0661 or toribarlow@gmail.com.

Email editor@ramonasentinel.com.

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News Briefs: Retirement, gardens, virtual reality, more - The San Diego Union-Tribune

OREGON At the top of the stairs in a nearly 110-year old, two-story, red-brick building on the village of Oregons neighborly Main Street, a husband-and-wife team works on cutting-edge technology that has drawn clients from as far away as California and Texas, Australia and Oman.

Arch Virtual founders Kandy and Jon Brouchoud started their company in early 2014, providing customized virtual reality services and tools.

Usually, virtual reality (VR) is associated with games or entertainment. But the Brouchouds are not just interested in playing.

Put on a headset in their office and you could find yourself on an oil rig in the ocean, the drill arm poised on your left and the sun setting at the right.

Or you can wind your way through a model of a home, pressing a button or two to change the floor covering or open a drawer in a walk-in closet.

Were focused specifically on using virtual reality to solve real-world problems, Jon Brouchoud said. For now, at least, that involves creating 3-D simulations for architects and builders, the health care industry, energy-related projects and education.

For instance, Arch Virtual has created VR scenarios for safety training for employees of a sewage treatment plant in Australia; for showing off the Sacramento Kings new basketball arena before it was built complete with a high-five from a player; and for letting users race through the Himalayas in a Suzuki Swift.

The company recently provided the Madison Plan Commission with a virtual reality walk through The Spark, the eight-story building planned by American Family Insurance in the 800 block of East Washington Avenue, featuring StartingBlock Madison, an entrepreneurial hub.

Arch Virtual also created a simulation of a planned $350 million student housing project at Texas A&M University. The Brouchouds were consulting with project participants in six other states, working together, live, on a 3-D model of the complex, which will include bathrooms and walk-in closets in each dorm room and a rooftop recreation area complete with a swimming pool and gas grills.

While its under construction, they can show students what the dorms will look like, Jon Brouchoud said. In virtual reality, you can hear a splashing sound when you (virtually) jump into the water.

Every time we do this, we feel like were in the future. Were inhabiting a building that doesnt exist, he said.

A report last week by IDC projected worldwide spending in the virtual reality and augmented reality (AR) market will hit $13.9 billion in 2017 a 130 percent increase over last year and could reach $143.3 billion by 2020.

Augmented reality is technology that uses computer-generated sound, video, graphics or global positioning data to augment a users actual environment.

On the virtual reality side, producers are quickly moving beyond games to create new content mainstream audiences will embrace, said Tom Mainelli, vice president of devices, AR and VR for IDC, a technology market research firm in Framingham, Massachusetts.

The Brouchouds say, though, that so far they know of few direct competitors in their part of the industry, at least in the Madison area.

Their interest in devising 3-D simulations of buildings is a natural.

Jon, 41, of Manitowoc, and Kandy, 39, who grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, met as graduate students in architecture at UW-Milwaukee. In 2003 they started Crescendo Design, designing homes in an environmentally friendly way, and after moving around the Midwest and spending a year in Berkeley, California, they settled in Oregon, about 10 miles south of Madison, in 2007.

But there were a few pebbles along the way. We found clients sometimes had a hard time visualizing a design in two dimensions, Kandy said.

We were practicing sustainable design principles yet traveling around the Midwest to meet with clients, said Jon.

Then they discovered the virtual world Second Life, which could bring their designs to life and put them in the same virtual room as their clients, even if they were miles apart.

It just seemed like a huge opportunity, Jon said. Arch Virtual later moved on to another technology platform, Unity, and built its proprietary software, Immerse, on the Unity engine.

When the Spark project came before the Plan Commission in December; other presenters at the meeting offered blueprints and slides.

When it came to ours, committee members put on a headset and saw, This is actually what its going to look like, Jon said.

The visuals included video taken by a drone that was flown to the planned rooftop height at The Sparks site to show the view from above. You can see both lakes (Monona and Mendota) up there and the state Capitol, he said.

Brouchoud has set up three Oculus Rift stations at American Familys DreamBank, a gathering place aimed at providing inspiration, at 1. N. Pinckney St. The virtual reality headsets offer exciting and unique experiences, said DreamBank manager Amanda Tillman.

They are a fun DreamBank fly-through, a 360-degree look at the Green Bay Packers Dream Drive, and How to Build a Business. The technology adds a fun, interactive component to the inspiration-filled tools and resources offered at DreamBank, Tillman said.

Virtual reality goes beyond 3-D and lets the user interact with the environment thats visualized in the goggles.

For example, in designing a home or commercial building: If you want to change the height of a ceiling, you can really feel it in a visceral way, Jon said.

Through the Immerse software platform that Arch Virtual has developed for use with Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets, people around a room or around the world can view the same VR vision and can collaborate on changes.

I think this is going to change the industry. Its going to be a new way that architects can visualize (projects) beforehand and make sure all the parties involved understand how a project will turn out, Kandy said.

Jon said when building owners first visit a completed project, they often are surprised about some detail in the design, even after seeing the blueprints and illustrations.

With this technology, we can take all of that surprise away, he said.

Uses for VR technology abound, Jon said.

Arch Virtual has designed virtual medical facilities such as an operating room, that doctors and nurses can walk around and see if equipment is positioned correctly. Theres millions of dollars at stake there, he said.

The company also has scanned real human bodies into the system so medical students can practice performing surgery at the virtual level before they do it in real life.

Manufacturing clients have asked for virtual versions of some of their equipment, Brouchoud said. In one case, a company wanted to show off an industrial tank at a trade show but the two-story tank was too big to transport. So Arch Virtual created a VR scenario complete with animated action showing how the tank operates.

A builder developing $1.5 million townhouses in Florida was handing potential homeowners a thick binder that laid out the many options they could choose, ranging from floor materials and paint colors to plumbing and lighting fixtures. Arch Virtual using manufacturers specifications created a virtual reality scenario that shows the buyers how each of those colors and fixtures would look together, Brouchoud said.

Now, every square inch is accessible. ... The key thing is to see it all together, he said.

Oculus Rift came on the scene in 2014, but it was not until 2016 that the headsets became available in big-box consumer stores, Brouchoud said.

Thats opened up whole new markets for us, he said.

Meanwhile, the technology has improved, largely solving past problems such as inducing motion sickness in some users, he added.

Financially, Arch Virtual has been profitable from the start, the Brouchouds said.

Bootstrapping the companys first years with their own money, the couple raised a small amount from investors, as of Jan. 1, 2017, and added Shannon Lory, of Madison, as a partner to manage sales and marketing.

They are the only full-time employees, but Arch Virtual has 24 VR software developers on contract, half of them in the Madison area, to work as needed.

Its such a new technology, we had to cast a really big net, Brouchoud said.

Lately, inquiries have increased, with potential clients looking for VR to help visualize scenarios ranging from crime scenes to protein molecules.

Brouchoud said Arch Virtual has developed its Immerse Creator platform that can be licensed so others can use it to fashion their own virtual reality experiences.

By the end of this year, Arch Virtual expects to top $1 million in revenue from virtual reality projects since 2014, Brouchoud said.

He said the technology is likely to shake up all sorts of industries, not just architecture but the medical field, as well.

It could be saving lives. Thats an amazing feeling, Brouchoud said.

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Arch Virtual creates real-life success in nearly boundless field of virtual reality - Madison.com

When I tried it in mid-2015, I was blown away by Zero Latency's immersive virtual reality completely wireless, free roaming, warehouse-sized VR, built in Melbourne.

Almost two years on, the fundamentals are the same, but the Zero Latency experience is more refined than it has ever been. And that means new things are possible.

My hands are sweaty. The gun I'm holding is heavy. I'm stressed already. I feel like I've been running for hours. "Where are they?" "I don't know..."

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A lot has changed since I walked in the doors of Zero Latency's warehouse space in North Melbourne a little more than a year and a half ago. Where five or six PCs once sat in a corner, with floorspace to spare enough for a generous boardroom table trestle tables are lined up from wall to wall with PCs and monitors, with staff behind them busily working. Upstairs, an area that was previously storage has become another hub of computers and programmers. There's not enough room. There's not enough space.

What has changed most behind the scenes is the office's bustling activity it's intense now, because Zero Latency is no longer just a backyard operation. It's international, with warehouse-sized free-roaming virtual reality spaces in Tokyo, Madrid and Orlando. The Australian operation is growing, and the team is growing with it too. A new warehouse and office in Melbourne is in the works.

That the company's first office is literally bursting at the seams with coders and operations staff is an apt metaphor for Zero Latency's meteoric rise in barely a year from a bold idea to a proven formula.

Zero Latency's first experience used the entirety of its warehouse-sized free roaming area, but there was never a point where players would have the opportunity to move from one side to the other unimpeded in-game. If anything, the warehouse size was too large for the level design of the VR missions the company put together. In reality, a space half the size can be every bit as effective without players even noticing a difference between the two.

Since August 2015, Zero Latency has opened free-roam spaces in Tokyo, Japan at the Joypolis amusement park. In Madrid, Spain. In Orlando, Florida as V-Play Reality. The company that started in a Melbourne warehouse has expanded to three new continents.

New spaces that the company is expanding into internationally, it's found, are generally around 200 square feet in size rather than the nearly 400 of the North Melbourne warehouse. It's had to adapt its games to suit those new requirements, but it's a challenge the team has clearly risen to with its three new titles.

That's a significantly smaller play area, but it never feels like you're confined to one location both tricks of gameplay and level design, like in-game elevators to re-orient players in the opposite direction, and the complete escapism of virtual reality, both contribute to a complete loss of the sense of where you are in the outside world.

The hardware that Zero Latency uses is more mature in 2017 than it was two years ago. Because each player necessarily has to have their own self-contained VR apparatus to build the game world around them, a backpack with an Alienware gaming PC and hot-swappable battery packs is the heart but that heart has become much smaller and more energy efficient. Zero Latency has swapped out its deprecated Oculus Rifts previously development versions of the headset, now impossible to find for Razer's OSVR HDK2, and a matching Razer surround-sound headset.

Zero Latency's in-house-developed gun has been overhauled, too. It still uses the tried-and-tested PlayStation Move controller to appear accurately and realistically in players' hands in the in-game world, but the design has been redesigned to be more comfortable to use for longer periods and easier to interact with with the barrier of a VR headset in front of the wearer's eyes. The 'Blackbird', as the team calls the new rifle, looks more sci-fi than spec-ops, and it's better suited to the more diverse games that the company has developed.

Because the hardware is newer, it's more powerful despite being smaller and lighter. The custom VR backpack built for Zero Latency by an Australian military supplier has enough graphical grunt to power games that look better and run more smoothly than the first iteration of Zero Latency's Outbreak. The gun's size and weight remains hefty, but it's appropriate for how real the team wants it to feel. The whole experience is more refined.

Zero Latency is introducing three new games as part of its first big overhaul. The first is Singularity, a sci-fi corridor shooter that feels equal parts Aliens and System Shock. In it, you and your team are tasked with shutting down the rogue AI on the space station you find yourselves on, surviving wave after wave of computer-controlled robot attacks both from a distance and up close. It's the most similar in level design to Zero Latency's first mission experience, with tight corners and jump-out scares that make for a constant battle.

The now-classic zombie Survival mode returns, too, but it's been overhauled massively since the undead mission that Zero Latency launched with in 2015. Now, players spend 12 minutes surviving against hordes of zombies, building barricades and dispatching enemies large and small before any surviving team members are extracted at the end of the countdown. It's intense, physical and sweaty work it feels like a much longer game in VR than it does in IRL minutes, and the stress of being attacked up close by a horde of zombies is real. This one is for the adrenaline junkies.

But it's the third game mode that's the largest departure from existing form for Zero Latency veterans, and also the most interesting. Engineerium doesn't use weapons, so players have their hands free. It's a physics puzzler, asking teams to explore a floating stone maze. Despite having their feet on terra firma, virtual reality means players walk on ceilings and through spiraling gravity-defying courses. It has soft lilting ambient music, too a point of contention in VR development that lends a sense of escapism and wonder to the already fantastical ancient Egypt meets Alice in Wonderland environment that players wander around.

Zero Latency's new Singularity and Survival missions are open to the public as of today, and Engineerium will launch next week. Tickets are the same $88 price per person as the experience launched with in 2015, and that gets you anywhere between 45 minutes and 60 minutes in-game. That might sound like a short time, but when you're in VR, holding a rifle to your shoulder and blasting away at androids or zombies, it's more than enough.

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Logan comes out today, finishing Wolverine's story with a film that has the potential to redefine what a superhero movie can be. I went along to a screening with Gizmodo's Amanda Yeo, and after chewing over our thoughts for a couple of days we sat down for a conversation about it. Here's what we think of Marvel's Logan.

Supplies of Nintendo's latest console, the Switch, are extremely limited at the moment and most people aren't lucky to have one. But some who have managed to get their gamer mitts on the coveted item are finding dead pixels on the screen. Nintendo's solution? Just don't consider it a defect.

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Zero Latency 2.0: New Levels In Virtual Reality - Gizmodo Australia

Jillian Cabrera peered down and only a dark space far below greeted him. He glanced to the side and red canyon walls enveloped him. He stood on a wooden bridge, its panels tied together and spaced unevenly apart, that stretched across the canyon mouth as the wind whistled through the gaps. No railing protected him.

The only way to get off the bridge was to step off it.

Maggie Nhan watched Cabrera, who is afraid of heights, stand motionless in the middle of a basement lab in Shaffer Art Building. She glanced at the computer monitor, which displayed the red canyon walls and bridge. He was hooked up to the HTC Vive, playing the virtual reality game Waltz of the Wizard.

Cabrera, clutching the Vive remotes, laughed nervously. Im in a room, Cabrera said, rotating in place. All he needed to do was take one step to the side. Wow, this is hard. My hands are actually sweating.

Cabrera, a junior Syracuse University student, eventually took the step and was transported back to a wizards lab. He and Nhan, a sophomore, are computer art and animation majors who used the Vive to design their own virtual reality games last semester.

Its just one on-campus initiative teaching students how to utilize VR software, as several pockets of the SU community have embraced the technology. SU introduced its first virtual reality course in fall 2014 in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications later introduced its Virtual Reality Storytelling course in the spring of 2015. Theres also a joint course in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and the School of Architecture thats centered around virtual reality.

In addition to curriculum, SUs football team previously used VR software to train its quarterbacks in 2015 and will be integrating another program this spring, said Mike Morrison, assistant director of athletics communications. Other projects include commercialized ventures, like imr.sv, launched last August by Sam Lewis, a Martin J. Whitman School of Management student.

Virtual realitys current popularity began in 2010 with the development of the Oculus Rift prototype. The Rift and other VR systems allow users to interact in a virtual, computer-generated environment, where they no longer see their physical environments. VR differs from augmented reality, which overlays a physical space with digital elements, and 360 videos, which allow users to rotate in a video. These videos can be considered VR, but not all VR can be a 360 video.

Meyer Giordano, an instructor in VPA, taught CAR 230, Topics in Computer Gaming I, the course Cabrera and Nhan took. When Giordano first started teaching it in fall 2014, the software was so rudimentary that it was difficult to get the program running, he said. Now the technology has progressed to the point that he could show someone how to create a basic environment in five minutes.

As the technology has advanced, teaching the class has become a lot more straightforward on the technical side, but because theres more content now, theres a lot of other directions to explore, Giordano said.

Currently the cost of VR is restraining its expansion. Each high-capability system can cost more than $500. But Cabrera and Nhan said they are excited for the future of VR because it will appeal to a greater audience than typical video games. Instead of relying on controllers and buttons, users will be able to use their bodies.

The purpose of experimenting with VR is to have students push the technology to see what they can create, Giordano said. But as VR gets more commercialized, it loses the frontier aspect and he said he might find the technology less interesting. He could switch to teaching augmented reality, he said, which has not been very developed yet.

But Giordano said he is still attracted to the future of virtual reality, such as the idea that VR might limit consumer waste. Instead of buying physical clothes, he said, a user would buy clothes in the virtual world and just wear those.

The more time we as humans spend in VR, the less time were spending trashing this planet, he said.

School of Architecture/College of Engineering and Computer Science

On the second floor of Slocum Hall, 40 students sat clustered in the front of room 224. Their worktables lay abandoned, covered with paper and wooden objects, as sunlight streamed through the windows. Images of sensory experiences, geometric shapes and videos projected onto the wall.

Five students were presenting a virtual reality proposal, part of a joint architecture and engineering class taught by Amber Bartosh, an assistant professor of architecture, and Mark Povinelli, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science. The students are creating a Climate Disruptor Awareness Generator, which will be installed in April in E.S. Bird Library.

The Climate Disruptor Awareness Generator is meant to demonstrate to students the impact of climate change, with virtual reality and augmented reality adding an interactive component to the experience.

The VR/AR team is still in the early design stage for its contribution to the project, said Cliff Bourque, a graduate architecture student on the team. Right now, the group is focusing on the process of creating the elements, rather than the content.

Povinelli said that with the proper amount of real-world prototyping and testing, VR can add to the strength of the design process for engineers. Bartosh said she has been experimenting with VR to visualize things architects cant see easily, like energy and solar radiation.

Its very difficult in architecture to study anything at full-scale, Bartosh said. We do almost everything either through models or drawings, and even in a digital model, its difficult to get a scale or perspective.

Bartosh added later, Im always telling the students that right now VR is largely used for representation of simulation, but its not inconceivable to think of VR as a future material, the way that we think about physical materials.

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

A card swipe protects the entrance to the Alan Gerry Center for Media Innovation lab while the Department of Public Safety monitors it. The room, tucked in the back of Newhouse 2, is stocked with Oculus Rifts, HTC Vives, Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VRs and 360 cameras.

So much new equipment comes into the lab that the glass case in the back is nicknamed the digital petting zoo, said Dan Pacheco, Peter A. Horovitz Chair in Journalism Innovation and spearhead of Newhouses VR courses.

But despite the high-tech equipment, students still sign out VR equipment with a pen and notebook.

The lab is where Asa Worthley, a junior Whitman student, came to work on his 360 video Pale Blue Dot in 360: VR Carl Sagan. The three-minute clip collages images of iconic people in a galaxy skyline, accompanied by a narration by Carl Sagan.

Worthley is a part of 5th Medium, the first virtual reality club at SU that works with The Daily Orange on 360 videos. Students of any major or discipline can join the club, giving students like him who arent in Newhouse support and access to the technology. The club has been working on projects like the Greek Peak Mountain Resort 360 video, where viewers can watch a ski lift and snowboard.

The innovation lab is also a space for students taking one of the two Newhouse virtual reality classes: Virtual Reality Storytelling or Introduction to 360 Video. Pacheco was first exposed to VR in 2012, when he met Nonny de la Pea, the godmother of virtual reality, he said.

Pacheco convinced her to come to SU to demonstrate it. After further exposure over the next few years, he asked his department head to create a VR storytelling class for spring 2015. Pacheco thought no one would sign up, but the class filled within a couple of days.

Now, about 160 students have taken either of the two classes. While mostly Newhouse students enroll, Pacheco said he leaves a few spots open for students from other colleges. The exposure students get is about the same at current media companies, he said.

When Ive taken students down to The New York Times, people at The New York Times are telling me, Yeah, your students are pretty much at the same level as where were at, Pacheco said.

Ken Harper, an associate professor of multimedia photography and design who taught the first 360 video course at Newhouse last semester, said the hardest part about teaching immersive technologies is that he is still learning himself. He said it isnt uncommon to pick up skills on the weekend and then teach them in class the next week.

Harper and Pacheco said they created a faculty group for professors across the university who teach VR.

For journalists, the most promising aspect of VR is its ability to enhance storytelling, educate like teaching students about the solar system and its accessibility for less privileged people, Harper said.

And while there is need for caution about VR, like the possibility for addiction or tricking people into false memories, Pacheco said that in his experience, people dont want to just check out of reality, but rather make reality better. Journalists need to start using immersive technology now, Pacheco and Harper said, because their content will define the ethical boundaries for the medium.

My role in this is to keep the humanity in it, Harper said. I think if we could convey information, and offer up new worlds for people who otherwise couldnt have them, if we could develop the storytelling techniques that further empathy, maybe we can make the world a little bit friendlier.

Sports Editor Tomer Langer contributed reporting to this story.

Published on March 5, 2017 at 10:18 pm

Contact Haley: hykim100@syr.edu

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How Syracuse University is experimenting with virtual reality - The Daily Orange

GDC 2017 is over. As I write this Im sitting on a train heading home feeling thefamiliar mixture of exhaustion, dehydration, and satisfaction that often accompanies the conclusion of a major trade show as a journalist. My brain feels a few sizes smaller than it did at the start of the week but the few neurons that are still firing are sending out one last happy thought: this was an incredible week for virtual reality. In fact, it was the industrys best week yet.

There are a few seven day periods that might vie for the title of VRs best week ever. CES 2016 and the week of the initial Oculus Kickstarter campaign are both strong contenders. None of them however, ended with the VR industry as healthy and exciting as it is now at the conclusion of GDC.

This week VR took huge steps toward becoming more palatable to a wider swathof consumers. Sony kicked off the week by revealing it sold nearly 1 million PSVR headsets, and Oculus introduced huge$100 price cuts to both its Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch hardware. Combine that with the falling price of an Oculus-ready PC and owning one of the most powerful VR headsets in history has gone from prohibitively expensive to tantalizing even for those outside the early adopter base.

HTC doesnt have any plans to drop the price of its market-leading Vive headset, but it is still doing its part to bring VR to more people. This week, HTC announced a payment plan that lets you take home a Vive for just $66 a month for 12 months. This may be even more appealing to the average consumer as it removes the need for a large, upfront expenditure.

Less expensivehardware isnt all that GDC gave the VR community this week. The Game Developers Conference lived up to its name, providing a showcase and launchpad for updates on dozens of exhilarating new titles.Arktika.1, From Other Suns, Sprint Vector and many more new experiences are all reasons to be excited as a VR gamer in 2017. Epic even used a portion of its keynote to officially launch thehighly anticipatedRobo Recallfor free on Oculus Home (with full mod support to boot).

Finally, and perhaps most exciting of all, the post-GDC PC VR landscapewill no longer be a two party system. Before they even launched, Oculus and Vive have defined, and in some ways divided, VR fans. At GDC, however, Microsoft and LG demonstrated new hardware for the very first time. LGs headset in particular is notable for using the exact same tracking system as the Vive. The days of the one true room scale VR headset are numbered.

Just by existing, the LG HMD is making the VR hardware catalog more diverse while also reminding us all that the year we just hadwas only a preview of an industrythat honestlycan, and probably will, change the world.

Whether youve been dreaming of this day for decades or are just joining us now, there has never been a better time to be part of the VR family. As it stands right now, this industry is more powerful, more appealing and more accessible than it has ever been before.

Nothingin this world existswithout controversy or detractors and thats ok. Today, however, VR feels like it is in a stronger place than ever. So soak it in, savor the moment and enjoy the feeling. We have yet to peak, but the view from right here is spectacular.

Tagged with: editorial, GDC

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GDC 2017 Was The Best Week Ever for Virtual Reality - UploadVR

Virtual reality is used in theme-park rides to give people the illusion of sitting in a fighter jet fending off aliens or in a helicopter fighting gargoyles.

But SeaWorld is thinking of emphasizing the reality part of the technology.

This summer, it will equip its Kraken roller coaster with VR goggles, sending riders through an underwater scene. But discussing 2016 earnings with analysts last week, SeaWorld executives revealed they are looking at virtual reality incorporating the companys live animals too.

We also have a version of virtual reality for our animals, where you actually see them live and things that you can't possibly see as a human today and experiences that you can't experience except through virtual reality, Chief Executive Officer Joel Manby told analysts. And so we're testing both the basically ride-based film product as well as with our live animals. Very excited about it, and it could take our (capital expenditures) down over time and we'll monitor it and learn from each execution.

Also during the earnings call, SeaWorld executives gave many details about what theyre doing to move the business in the right direction.

It was a lackluster year, with overall attendance decreasing by about 2.1 percent, or 471,000 visitors. Attendance at Florida theme parks decreased by approximately 547,000 people.

SeaWorld said Latin American visitors comprised 70 percent of the decline about 383,000 visitors.

This year, we are seeing the stabilization, if you will, of Latin America, Chief Financial Officer Peter Crage said. It's not getting worse. But on the other hand, we don't expect it to ramp up very quickly. So we are essentially neutral in our outlook for 2017, neutral that we'll lap on 2016, but without a significant recovery from Latin America.

The drop in Brazilian visitors led to 80 percent of the companys drop in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, Manby said. Brazil has been mired in a recession and political turmoil.

SeaWorld in San Diego has experienced some softness in attendance after its traditional killer whale shows ended in January. The new orca encounter featuring more natural behaviors will not open until May. Company executives are accelerating our marketing spend in the Los Angeles area to let our guests know that they can still experience orcas during the interim period, Crage said.

Manby said hes incredibly confident for the full year in California.

SeaWorld is trying hard to control expenses, and its costs of food, merchandise and other items decreased 3 percent.

Operating expenses for 2016 increased by 4 percent, largely due to wage and merit increases and an increase in equity compensation expense of $10.2 million.

SeaWorld is also changing the way it elects board members.

Beginning with the directors up for election in 2017, shareholders will elect them to a one-year term rather than to three-year terms.

Miss Adventure Falls opening at Disney

Miss Adventure Falls, a family raft ride at Walt Disney Worlds Typhoon Lagoon, will open March 12.

Disney announced the opening date today.

The ride will feature four-person rafts that twist and turn.

It will operate near the Crush 'n' Gusher. It will have a ride time of two minutes and be one of the longest at the Disney water parks.

The ride's back story describes that Captain Oceaneer is a treasure hunter stranded at Typhoon Lagoon after a storm. Visitors will float through the captain's past and see artifacts she collected on her treasure hunts.

Typhoon Lagoon is closed for refurbishment. It will reopen March 12 as well.

JetBlue has new partnership

JetBlue, one of the main air carriers at the Orlando International Airport, has inked a partnership with the Orlando City Soccer Club and the Orlando Pride. It is now the exclusive airline of the club, starting a three-year partnership with the teams.

"This is an exciting day for everyone involved," said Rob Parker, the club's vice president of corporate partnerships. "JetBlue is a company that aligns with our core values of community involvement and commitment to the city of Orlando."

Caitlin Dineen contributed; spedicini@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5240; Twitter @SandraPedicini

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SeaWorld might use animals in virtual reality - Orlando Sentinel

When Davis Magnet School teacher Emily Matthews found out she'd be giving a lesson about the human brain as part of the science curriculum, she figured she should make it a hands-on experience for her sixth-graders.

And it seemed a no-brainer to invite Dr. Robert Louis, program director of the Skull Base and Pituitary Tumor Program of the Hoag Neurosciences Institute, to share with Matthews' class and two others how he uses virtual reality to prepare for surgeries.

Google virtual reality headsets were placed on students' desks at the Costa Mesa school Wednesday afternoon. But before they got to see a "fly-through" of the brain, Louis began with a presentation about his profession.

The Boston native described neurosurgery as a "relatively young field" that still has way to go in advancing with technology.

Before the modern tools used now, patients would be left with dramatic skull deformations because brain surgeons would shave the scalp and then cut the skull apart to remove a tumor. Now, surgeons can discreetly remove a tumor by slicing under a person's eyebrow.

"The goal is to sneak in and sneak out and leave patients as undisturbed as possible without anyone noticing kind of like a cat burglar," Louis said.

A high-definition video showed a real-life example of a brain tumor being dragged out through a patient's nostrils, which instantly brought "ewws" and "whoas" from students and teachers.

Cutting-edge technology

Hoag, based in Newport Beach, is one of the few hospitals in Orange County to treat neurosurgery patients using the Surgical Navigation Advanced Platform, or SNAP. It fuses medical imaging with gaming technology and 3D virtual reality systems to help surgeons practice procedures before performing them on a patient.

To see inside a brain, surgeons can put on Oculus goggles equipped with motion sensors and "fly through" one of the body's largest and most complex organs.

Louis, who specializes in minimally invasive endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery, demonstrated how he would enter a brain through a patient's nose, as a student requested.

The sixth-graders crowded around Louis and shot video as he pulled himself past the brain stem and pushed toward the frontal lobes.

Before SNAP, preparing for brain surgery consisted of drinking a cup of coffee and relying on past knowledge, Louis said.

"Instead of two-dimensional models, we have virtual reality," he said. "I can see where arteries are, critical nerves are, fire pathways and visual pathways. I don't have to guess where they are based on knowledge, and now surgeries have become much safer."

It's a giant leap forward for surgeons, he added.

Inspiring a new generation

Students took their cellphones to class to use with the Google VR headset.

They placed the phones against a suction cup on the headset and then, looking through the headset's goggles, watched YouTube videos of surfers before seeing inside a human brain.

Looking through the headset was akin to peeking through a keyhole and seeing into a new world, according to Kaitlyn McGary, 11.

"It's like wanting to go somewhere, but you can't get there. But you can do it with the goggles," she said. "It was so cool."

Fellow student Grady Starn said trying on VR goggles wasn't anything new for him since he has some at home, but the experience was a "bigger step than watching a roller coaster in virtual reality video games."

Madison Stein, 11, said she was inspired to be a neurosurgeon by seeing how "technology is helping advance surgeries."

Louis said seeing students get excited about neurosurgery and virtual reality technology is the best part of sharing what he does for a living. He remembers being in sixth grade and seeing a neurosurgeon bring a cadaver's brain into the classroom to let students dissect it.

It's how his journey as a neurosurgeon began, and he said he hopes students were inspired by his presentation to do the same.

priscella.vega@latimes.com

Twitter:@VegaPriscella

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Kids take a 'fly-through' of a brain surgeon's virtual reality - Los Angeles Times

PHOENIX - Theres a new weapon in the fight for tourism dollars. The Arizona Office of Tourism unveiling two virtual reality mini movies to Spring Training fans at ballparks around the Valley.

Shot over 6 days, the films take you on adventure trips - skydiving over the Grand Canyon and mountain biking in Sedona.

The Tourism Office is targeting 3 cities in their overall campaign, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco.

The virtual reality goggles will be showcased at select Spring Training games involving teams from those cities.

A home run for us is dont just come to the Valley and spend all your time at spring training games. This beautiful weather is all over the state and theres a lot of diversity across the state too, said Scott Dunn of the Arizona Office of Tourism.

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"Selling Arizona" using virtual reality to market Arizona to tourists - ABC15 Arizona

Virtual reality could be compared to a living dream: being catapulted into a parallel universe without having to first fall into a deep sleep. Virtual reality, in fact, has the ability tofulfill even the most abstract ideas and desires, things that we have always thought about but haven't been able to pursue. Today, this technology is mainly associated with gaming but thats just one of the many areas in which virtual reality has a future.

In medicine, there are many uses for virtual reality. For example, its possible to treat depression or anxiety by gradually exposing the patient to situations that induce panic, increasing their feeling of security regarding their phobia. In addition, it could also help hospitalized children to feel like they are at home by reproducing the image of their bedroom, or even to encouraging handicapped patients to move a little more. Regarding children, one of the latest idea by Brazilian researchers is the possibility of parents meeting their child while it is still in the mothers womb. With the help of 3D software connected to a headset, it could be possible to immerse yourself completely into your childs world right up to until theirbirth.

Below, weve included a video made by a company that specializes in health care who have created a software that allows you to simulate operations that the students will have to carry out (go to 00.30 to find the best part of the video).

Using a headset to receive military information isnt a new idea, but the arrival of virtual reality meansthe possibilities in this area have increased significantly. For example, a Korean company, DoDAAM, has used this technology for parachuting: the participant placed in aharnessand wears a virtual reality headset. With this equipment, they can get firsthand experienceand can carry out movements without being in any real danger. DoDAAM have also developed a software that transforms Oculus Rift into binoculars that can be used bysnipers to spot and communicate the position of their target.

The British company, Plextex is another example. Over the years, they have specialized in sensor technology which allows you to identify medical problems for soldier inthe field,saving both lives andthe government a lot of money. In Russia, the Svarog helmet has been developed,which includes an integrated VR viewer through which you can control a drone simply by turning your head to look at your target.

With this video, youll get an idea of the battlefield environments that can be recreated (go to 1:15 to get to the best bit):

The huge advantage of virtual reality when it comes to architecture is that, through a virtual reality headset, its possible to plunge yourself into created projects. With a 2D or 3D design, its impossible to visualize realistically the proportions and dimensions. As indicated by Jon Brouchoud, founder of Arch Virtual: in education, there will probably be a classroom dedicated to virtual reality where it will be possible to wear a headset and move through the buildings that are being designed, and perhaps to use new interactive tools (such as gloves for handling intangible objects, etc.): its also difficult to imagine what will happen when the point of view is reversed and the architect will be able to design a building while theyre standing in it.

Heres a video that shows the HTC Vive being used by an interior designer:

Whileits now possible for you toplace your finger on a screen to create impromptu and digital art, in the futureit will become more common to createimpressive works of art in 3D. This offersendless artisticpossibilities. Physical barriers will be effectively be removedand individual imagination will becomemore important. With this in mind Google has releasedthe app,Tilt Brush. This includes a virtual paintbrush allows you to paint and design in 3D, and can be bought for around $30. You can see what its all about in the following video:

On October 6 last yearMark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, posted a selfie where his animated avatarheld a virtual tablet which showed his wife, Priscilla Chan, on the screen. The next dayZuckerberg, whilst presenting the Oculus Rift during a developer conference in San Jose, spoke with the avatars for two of hiscolleagues. The concept can be integrated with people, or rather, with peoples avatarsthrough social platforms like Facebook.

How long until relationships between people will be more developed in virtual reality than in real life?

In the not too distant future,students will no longer need to be in classroomlooking at a blackboard or a projector. On the contrary, to get a better understanding of the prehistoric age, they could find themselves in the middle of a herd of dinosaurs with the aid of virtual reality. They could alsostudythe Roman Empire alongside Julius Caesar as he fought theGauls, set sail withChristopher Columbus to discover theAmericas or even studying the human body by getting inside itas if they were red blood cells (have a look at1:40 of the Body VR to see what we mean).

Imagine yourself in an empty room, completely bare. All you have is a tablet and a virtual reality headset. Put them on and it all begins; your colleagues appear beside you and with them there isthe company CEO, who is actually en route to London for a business trip.Then, theres the head ofmarketing manager who's basedin Dubai but isdrinkingcoffee with you in Berlin. Welcome to the virtual reality office (not being able to be in two places at once is no longer an excuse).

To better understand what were talking about, heres a video that shows a home and a business co-existing in the same space:

The New York Times, to recount the presidential election race between Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and John Kasich, used 360 video when all four candidates presented their policy platforms. The public could walk around, enter the physical space where the discussion took place and take a closer look at the candidates. To introduce their 2017 Spring-Summer collection, Christian Diorused a 360 video as it did in 2016 to plunge users into a green grass walkway. The world of information will make it easier for us to enter it, be immersed init and engage with the news of the day, in parliamentary debates, fashion shows or even the development of an armed conflict.

When you watch the video, dont forget to use the mouse move around.

In sport there will no longer be points of view. There will no longer be aims, smashes or movements that you won't be able to see from every angle. You be able to see everygrimace, foulor argument that takes place on a football pitch or baseball field. In the end, everyone will see what is happening during a hockey match, a marathon or a curling match. Youll be able to live the sport through an entirely new dimension.

It's not just the spectators who'll bethe only ones to benefit from virtual reality. For example, its now widely used in NFL training sessions. A quarterback knows exactly how to move on the field because he's been able to try each movement hundreds of times without risking injury caused by impact. Do you remember when vuvuzelas drove the players crazyduring the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? If they had been trained with a VR programthat included a reproduction of this soundthey would have been used to it!

The more adventurous travelers out there, those oneswho love to get down and dirty in the mud or soaked in torrential rain, will probably hate virtual reality. Even though I class myself as one of those people who like those types of experiences, I must admit that I am curious about the idea of exploring places that I am not in a position to visit at the moment.

It's been a while since 2001, but that wasthe year that Google Earth made its debut and we discovered the possibility of being able tolookat the world in 3D from the comfort of our own home. Since then, we have made even more progress. With the virtual reality headset, we can navigate the whole world just like astronauts, admiring the Atacama Desert or even the Colosseum. Face it, this is exciting!

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10 possible uses for virtual reality - AndroidPIT

Photo: Kai Wiechmann/Getty Images

As virtual-reality headsets make their way into the mainstream, a new wave of VR pornography allows viewers to embody porn stars while they have sex with one another. But making this porn presents new challenges starting with the fact that few male performers can maintain erections through stupendously difficult VR-porn shoots.

For this weeks Sex Lives podcast, I watched VR porn for the first time and was, well, horrified. But Vocativ staff writer Tracy Clark-Flory has a more optimistic view. Shes been hanging out on VR-porn sets, and testing VR porn, webcams, and interactive experiences for years. As she tells it, one of the biggest surprise of VR porn is that viewers dont actually want the horrifying stuff they want to be cuddled. Listen to Tracy explain the paradoxes of virtual boners, or read a few tales from the wild world of virtual porn, below.

This is a partial transcript of New York Magazines Sex Lives, edited for clarity and length. To respond with a voice message, call 646-494-3590.

Youve written that the demands of performing with this technology are having some crazy effects on whos able to perform, and the way they perform?

A major issue for people who have ventured into this new territory is theyre finding that tried-and-true male performers who have been in the industry for decades who can literally perform under the craziest circumstances, like, standing in a pool of cold water, perched on a rock in the middle of a baking desert, no problem! but you put a VR camera rig in front of their face, and you tell them that they cant make eye contact with their co-star, and that they cant kiss their co-star, and that they cant touch their co-star with their hands, and they cant maintain an erection. Understandably, because youre totally taken out of the experience and you sort of become this sexual object that someone [else] is performing on. So directors are finding that guys who had been reliable in other situations are no longer reliable. Theres only a handful of guys who are actually able to reliably do this kind of shoot.

Its the ultimate objectification, except the point of the objectification is that they arent an object, right? They become an invisible body, for anyone to project onto.

Its a weird turning of the tables for men in the industry, because theyre used to being the actor. And the women in porn not always, but often are used to being a little bit more passive.

What is it doing, do you think, to the story lines or the type of fantasies that we get from porn?

Everything that Ive heard from directors who are doing VR is that male viewers, in particular, really want more of a girlfriend experience with VR. So they want it to be very intimate. They want eye contact. They want close faces whispering sweet nothings. They want, even, cuddling. I was on a set recently where at the end of the shoot, the director had the woman cuddle up on the guy just lay her head on his chest for a minute and just cuddle.

And gaze up into his eyes? Or the cameras eyes, I guess?

Yeah, exactly, gaze into the cameras eyes. Ive heard porn performers, especially porn performers who are doing like webcamming, and that suddenly their fans are going, Wow, youre a real person. It changes their perspective entirely.

As youve been watching this industry take shape over the years, how has it changed? Have there have been interesting trials and errors or surprises?

In terms of VR, its so new that youre still seeing a lot of trial and error right now. Like, one example, on a shoot I was on, a female performer, without prompting by the director, decided that she was going to experiment with trying to French kiss the camera. So she went up really close to the camera and French kissed the air. And it looked like very bizarre and required a lot of commitment on her part, to really do it. And afterwards she asked the director, Was that weird? Did that work? And the director is like, I think maybe? But so much of it is waiting to see how viewers actually react.

I watched VR porn from a female perspective recently, and there was a blow-job scene. So like, the female performer was performing a blow job, but its so incredibly disorienting for the viewer, because all youre really seeing is the male torso thrusting. And that didnt work.

I dont even enjoy that in reality-reality, when its a male torso coming at you? Why would I want to replicate that in virtual reality? Although I guess one womans nightmare is another womans turn-on, if I have learned anything from doing this job.

[Laughs] Right.

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Virtual-Reality Porn Is Killing Boners - New York Magazine

Haylee Melham, a social studies teacher at New Technology High School, is looking to crowdfunding to pay for virtual reality headsets for her students.(Photo: Megan Raposa, Argus Leader Media)Buy Photo

Imagine an eighth-grade history lecture on Pearl Harbor.

Now, imaginethat same lecture heard fromthe deck of the U.S.S. Missouri. You walk around, looking from the sky to the ship beneath you, and then take off theheadset and you're back in a South Dakota classroom.

Local teachers are looking to make virtual reality headsets, which give users an immersive, 360-degree view of images and videos, the next tech tool in their classrooms.

Related: Coding immersion coming to Sioux Falls schools

And they're not waiting around for school board funding.

Matt Dick, an eighth-grade history teacher at Harrisburg South Middle School, and Haylee Melham, a social studies teacher at New Technology High School, are both crowdfunding for virtual reality headsets.

Both teachers are using DonorsChoose.org, a site that's like Kickstarter for educators, to raise money to buy virtual reality headsets for their classrooms.

"I want to ignite this fire in them to go explore the world they live in," Melham said.

VR glasses(Photo: jimmyan, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

For Melham, the idea came from a conversation with fellow teacher George Hawkins. Hawkins recalled a project students in his government class do where they research and develop a tour through the South that highlights important Civil War landmarks.

"We don't really have the budget to take the kids on those tours," Hawkins said. "What would it look like if we could do it some other way?"

Melham found severalvirtual reality apps like TimeLooper, an app which takes viewers to locations in different eras. She hopes she can take her students to the places they learn about in her geography class.

Virtual reality is also a way to keep students engaged in their learning, especially with subjects that are traditionally lecture- and reading-based.

More education: USD student government considers 'sanctuary campus'

"They just need more stimulus to keep their attention," Dick said. "The attention spans have grown a little shorter."

Many of Melham'sstudents talk about how they play video games after school and on the weekends, and shesees virtual reality as a way to bring the video game feel to their learning.

"It's an effort to keep up with what our kids are experiencing," Melham said.

Both Melham and Dick are looking to fund only the virtual reality headsets, and the cost for a classroom set runs around $600. Donations to their fundraising campaigns can be made at DonorsChoose.org.

That's not including smartphones, a necessary component to virtual reality because it provides the screen, because most students have those already.

"They have these computers just sitting in their pockets," Hawkins said. "So how can we tap into them to do more?"

Follow education watchdog reporter Megan Raposa on Twitter@mlraposaand subscribe toThe Highlighter, an education newsletter for parents.

Watch how one school is using virtual reality:

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Teachers explore virtual reality as a learning tool - Sioux Falls Argus Leader

With virtual reality, Hollywood and Silicon Valley have never been more closely aligned in their desire to push the boundaries of how people emotionally interact with technology. Video games may be drawing in a huge deal of interest but there arealso an army of filmmakers and creatives looking at how they can use VR to draw viewers in and experience something breath-taking.

Today, Tribeca Film Festival shared the list of films and experiences that will be showcased at its Virtual Arcade and Storyscapes exhibitions. There are 29 virtual reality and innovativeexhibitionsin this years batch of immersive filmmaking, including a whole lot of experiences that are being shown off for the first time ever. Im hopingto check out each and every one of these at Tribeca Film Fest later next month, but here are the eight films and experiences that are going to be the toughest for me to wait for.

Link:

The 8 virtual reality films I can't wait to experience at Tribeca Film Fest 2017 - TechCrunch

Forbes

The Hype Around Virtual Reality Is Fading Forbes Technology shows thrive on hype, and for a while it was the virtual reality headsets from hardware makers like Oculus and HTC that grabbed headlines at the world's biggest shows for technology enthusiasts. But at this year's Mobile World Congress, now ...

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The Hype Around Virtual Reality Is Fading - Forbes

As Ive been reminded many times this week, were coming up on the one-year anniversary of PC virtual reality, and both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive are shaking things up to celebrate. The Rift got a $200 price cut, the Vive got a brand-new financing plan.

If we chart the progression of video games from Spacewar and Zork all the way through to 2016, then the HTC Vive is the next logical step towards realism. Read PCWorld's full review

But HTC has much bigger changes on the horizon. One of my favorite aspects of the Vive has been HTCs willingness to experiment with the hardware, post release. The Rift and Oculuss optional Touch controllers have remained essentially the same since 2015.

The Vive, though? First came a new cable, which replaced the launch version's heavy tether with a slimmer 3-in-1 cable that resembled the consumer Rift. And in the future, two further additions are coming to the Vive ecosystem: the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap and the Vive Tracker.

HTC announced the Deluxe Audio Strap and the Tracker at CES, and even stuck a price on the pair earlier this week. Theyre $99 each, with the strap arriving in May and the consumer Tracker towards the end of the year.

I got my first chance to go hands-on with the pair this week at the Game Developers Conference. And while the Tracker is arguably the bigger news, at least in terms of raw potential, its the Deluxe Audio Strap Im most excited about.

Its so damn comfortable.

The Vives incredibly powerful, but its design was rudimentary even at launch. It was basically equivalent to Oculuss second dev kita bulky pair of goggles held on by a three-part elastic strap. Problem 1: Adjusting the straps is cumbersome. Problem 2: The Vive itself is heavy, so the elastic doesnt hold it as still as youd like. Problem 3: If you overtighten the straps so it moves less, it turns your face into mashed potatoes.

Compare that with the consumer version of the Oculus Rift, which uses a rigid plastic band to both offset the weight and keep the headset more stable. Andwell, HTC has borrowed that design for the Vive.

The Deluxe Audio Strap somewhat combines the more rigid designs used by the Rift and Sonys PlayStation VR. It slips onto the head like a baseball cap; the front portion folds down in front of your eyes, and thenand this is the real magicit tightens by way of a wheel in the back, like a bike helmet. No more Velcro straps.

The HTC Vive with Deluxe Audio Strap. It makes a major difference in usability.

It takes mere seconds to get the headset on and adjusted, and it stays adjusted thanks to the more rigid design. Looking down towards the ground is surprisingly difficult with the Vives current elastic bands, because the weight of the headset tends to pull it away from your eyes unless you overtighten. But with the new Strap, theres no movement at all. Its as good as Oculuss headband, or maybe even a bit better thanks to the generous padding around the sides.

And the Deluxe Audio Strap also matches Oculuss other killer feature: the built-in headphones. When Oculus first announced that the Rift would come with built-in headphones it seemed silly. Most people own better headphones than the ones the Rift is equipped with.

It soon became clear that built-in headphones remove a lot of the hassle, though. Theres less weight to deal with, less futzing around trying to figure out where you set them down, less steps between thinking about VR and being in VR.

So again, HTC borrowed an idea and the Deluxe Audio Strap draws its name from the built-in headphones. And again, the Vives seem a bit better than Oculuss solutionmore padding, a less scratchy material on the ears, and easier to move into place.

Now the downside is, of course, that the Deluxe Audio Strap is being positioned as a Deluxe item. An add-on. It doesnt annoy me as much as, say, Oculus positioning Touch as optionalthat has a direct impact on what games developers make and the health of the VR ecosystem. The Vives new strap is a somewhat superfluous item, at least as far as developers are concerned. A person with built-in headphones and a person without still have essentially the same experience.

Butand its a huge butI think the Deluxe Audio Strap will be a must-buy for most people. Even after my brief time using it at GDC, Im already dreading going back to my Vives old elastic bands and cumbersome adjustment process, plus having to grab headphones each time I use it for the next few months.

The Deluxe Audio Strap is more comfortable, more reliable, and probably what the Vive shouldve shipped with to begin with. Well have an actual review up when it releases in May, after spending a lot more time with it, but right now I think anyone who wants the best Vive experience is going to want one of these.

The Vive Trackers a bit more complicated, at least for home users.

I should say up front: Both of the Tracker demos I did during GDC were excellent. First I tried a pair of shooters brought to the show by VRsenal, and then a few rounds of boxing game Knockout League. The Vive Tracker is basically the top of one of the Vives wands, and is position-tracked by the same Lighthouse systembut it can be built into custom peripherals.

And that was the catch with these demos. VRsenal strapped me into one of MSIs backpack computers, put a Vive on my head, and then handed me a gun that wasnt real, but real-looking enough that you might not want to carry it down the street. It also was surprisingly heavy, mimicking the feel of an actual assault rifle.

Theres a Vive Tracker embedded where the rear sight would normally be though, and thus its fully position-tracked within gamesjust like a standard Vive wand. Aiming felt completely natural, and I had a great time crawling around on the floor, leaning over imaginary walls and sniping robots. You can even reload the VRsenal gun, since the battery is hidden inside the magazine. Press a button, pull it out, and youll see the MicroUSB port inside. When its done charging, you slam it back in.

Knockout Leagues Trackers were a bit more conspicuous, drilled and mounted on the back of standard boxing gloves. It worked similarly though, with my real-world boxing gloves mapping 1-to-1 with the boxing gloves I wore in virtual reality, allowing me to (poorly) bob, weave, and throw haymakers at my opponent.

Its really amazing tech and Im fascinated by all the approaches were seeing from manufacturers. There are a few problems though.

A glove with a Vive Tracker attached.

The first, of course, is the age-old question, How many peripherals do you want in your house? Im sure many of you have (or had) a closet full of Rock Band and Guitar Hero gear, and while its great fun in the moment, eventually its just a bunch of stuff you try to store out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

Related: How much are you willing to spend on weird peripherals? The Vive Tracker will be sold to developers for $99 each. Expect peripherals to cost at least $150 to $200, and given the quality of VRsenals gun, I bet that would be even more expensive. Sure, VR is a pricey hobby and some people are no doubt willing to pony up, but its going to be hard for manufacturers to get custom peripherals into peoples homes.

Arcades? Thats the real sell here, I think. HTCs made no secret it wants to expand into arcade-type settings, giving operators a subset of software and charging a flat rate for every hour played. With the bigger spaces afforded by arcades, and the need for a unique and impressive experience, it makes more sense for business owners to buy a few position-tracked guns, some boxing gloves, or whatever else manufacturers imagine.

That audio strap, though. Its so nice, and I cant say it enough. Hopefully there arent any glaring issues with the final releaseas I said, well need to spend more time with it before rendering a verdict or giving an official recommendation. Im excited though, with my Vive experiences this week being way more comfortable over long periods of time than anything Ive done at home.

Well just have to see what developers dream up with the Tracker. There are all sorts of potential applications, and I cant wait for some random genius to generate the next big wave of VR enthusiasm with a custom-built controller.

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Hands-on: The HTC Vive's new VR accessories make virtual reality even more immersive - PCWorld