Category Archives: Virtual Reality

Colin Farrell (The Lobster, Dumbo), whose eclectic acting career underscores a desire to venture off beaten paths, took time during lockdown to share with Variety his thoughts on stepping into virtual reality with Gloomy Eyes, a critically acclaimed series that world premiered at Sundance in 2019.

The three-part animated VR series, which won prizes at the SXSW and Annecy festivals, is being launched Thursday across all VR platforms, including Oculus Quest. Farrell narrated the poetic, visually-pleasing series, playing the role of a lonely zombie boy who falls in love with a young human girl. Their love transcends boundaries in a world where zombies are outlaws. Gloomy Eyes was directed by Jorge Tereso and Fernando Maldonado, the duo behind the animated short Shave It. Its produced by Atlas V and 3dar, and co-produced by Arte, RYOT, Vive Originals and Oculus with the support of the CNC, SACD, the Procirep and the region Auvergne Rhone Alpes Cinema.

What made you want to take part in Gloomy Eyes? What appealed to you?

I was initially shown the artwork and I just thought it was a stunning visual world that the two guys had created, and the story had a simplicity to it; a sweetness that was impossible to deny. I have never done anything that was VR before, so I was interested in the technology. It was a pretty easy decision to be a part of it.

How different was it for you to work on a virtual experience compared to your usual work?

I had done voice work for an animated film called Epic years ago and it wasnt completely dissimilar from that. My involvement all took place in a sound booth. It was nothing like what I am used to doing, which of course involves being on a set; its more physical, with costumes and makeup and that kind of total design of a character. But at the end of the day, I suppose fundamentally if you are an element involved in bringing to life a story which is all I feel I ever am as an actor well, then, fundamentally it was the same thing because I was using my imagination and my voice to be a spoke in this wheel. I felt totally trusting of what they were willing into being. I was both very curious and blown away by the beauty of what they created.

What do you think about virtual reality as a storytelling medium? Do you think this new medium will have a future for the next generations ?

As a fan, not even as someone who was a part of bringing this film to life, Id say yes. I dont even know if it is called a film or a story or what have you. This is not something that Ive had any ambition to be involved in per se or something Ive pursued, but through good fortune it came to me. As a fan of storytelling whether it is literature, fine art, music, theater or film, I think it is astonishing what they were able to do. I was so blown away and moved because essentially the same rules (that) apply to literature, film and stage, apply to this, which is that you have to care about the characters you are observing or you have to be drawn through some invocation of empathy into the narrative. I was really moved by the story; it is very simple but also incredibly moving and magical in many ways.

Would you bring VR into your home?

Sure, I dont see why not. There are so many forms of entertainment that are available right now. As a dad I wrestle with trying to get the kids off the iPad or having a certain allotment of television time. So, I am not sure how much I need to bring another form of entertainment or escapism into the house (laughing). I did get the opportunity to have the guys come by my home when my youngest son, who is 10, was with me. He got the opportunity to see Gloomy Eyes from start to finish and he was totally blown away. It was actually really beautiful to watch him with the headset on because with the shapes his mouth was making, I could literally see how awed he was by what he was experiencing while he was experiencing it the sheer wonder. So yes, I would recommend it. It is fun for kids and fun for the whole family. Its not really age specific; I feel that Gloomy Eyes plays for adults as well as it plays for children.

How was working with Fernando Maldonado and Jorge Tereso? How did they direct you?

They were cool to work with; it was so easy, it was really laid back. They are incredibly passionate creators the two of them. They love what they do. They were incredibly generous in articulating the genesis of this story and also the backstory of my character, the Grace Digger, and we discussed themes such as loneliness and isolation, regret and sadness, hope and young love, and all of these grand events that we deal with in our everyday lives as human beings.

Would you consider participating in another virtual reality project again?

Absolutely. If it was with these guys without a shadow of a doubt. If it was anybody else, I am open to doing anything as an actor. I enjoy my job so any kind of storytelling I am innately interested in; I always have been. But if it was with these guys, particularly, yes, in a second, I would love to do something else with them. I really felt like I snuck in the back door on this one and had to do very little to be a part of something very beautiful and quite profound.

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Colin Farrell Talks Tackling First Virtual Reality Project With Gloomy Eyes (EXCLUSIVE) - Variety

May 27, 2020 Varjo, a provider of industrial-grade VR/XR headsets, has today announced a commercial partnership with MeetinVR, creators of enterprise virtual collaboration software. Through the partnership, MeetinVR will release a dedicated version of its application that supports all headsets in Varjos product portfolio (the VR-2, VR-2 Pro and XR-1 Developer Edition), which will allow enterprise users to experience the level of immersion and visual fidelity provided by Varjos headsets whilst collaborating in virtual reality.

Varjo and MeetinVR have also introduced a new bundle offer where new buyers of any Varjo headset will receive six months of MeetinVR for free for five users.

Remote working is now becoming our new normal and the need to be able to virtually collaborate with colleagues, customers and partners around the world is business critical, said Urho Konttori, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Varjo. As enterprises adapt to a new work environment, were excited to partner with leading industry players, such as MeetinVR, to help build the future of virtual and mixed reality collaboration.

Varjo states that delivering a solution that provides photorealistic 3D quality is essential to creating a true sense of immersion and presence while working together in VR and XR environments. Pairing the human-eye resolution found in Varjos devices with MeetinVRs enterprise-grade software will allow companies to collaborate around key use cases, including the remote sales of high value products such as medical machinery or new vehicles, the launch of new products, and the delivery of remote training to distributed teams.

Varjos photorealistic resolution gives users the ability to see reflections and shadows of their 3D models, as well as read text, all of which create a realistic experience for collaboration amongst meeting participants, commented Cristian Emanuel Anton, CEO of MeetinVR. With this partnership, users dont have to abide by the rules of physics anymore. They are able to merge real and virtual elements seamlessly in our collaborative platform. This sets a new benchmark for remote presence and interaction for professionals.

One of Varjos enterprise customers, Volvo Cars, sees the benefit of enhanced virtual collaboration and is already using mixed reality to transform its workflows:

The high quality and fidelity of what Varjos headsets offer, together with the effective collaboration tools from MeetinVR, bring remote collaboration to the next level, said Timmy Ghiurau, Lead Virtual Experiences at Volvo Cars. From UX evaluation, to hosting virtual workshops to ideating around our products, being able to do so in a realistic virtual environment will make our processes more efficient and collaborative, especially in the current context.

Christian Braun, VP of Visualisation at Volvo Cars, added: VR collaboration is the future, and for that we need the highest possible quality. Varjo is the only headset you can use for automotive design processes and reviewing your designs in detail. We are excited about using Varjos revolutionary technology to collaborate on photorealistic virtual models with our colleagues across continents.

Enterprise users interested in exploring immersive collaboration can view the Varjo and MeetinVR mixed reality solution demo video (above), or can learn more about the joint solution here.

After three years in private Beta with numerous Fortune500 companies as customers, MeetinVR has today launched its open Beta for trial at http://www.meetinvr.com.

Image / video credit: Varjo / Vimeo

About the author

Sam Sprigg

Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he covers news articles on both the AR and VR industries. He also has an interest in human augmentation technology as a whole, and does not just limit his learning specifically to the visual experience side of things.

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Varjo partners with MeetinVR to deliver photorealistic collaboration in Virtual Reality - Auganix

[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource GamesPress.]

Come Over Gaming announce today thatthefirst-person psychological horror game in virtual reality,DreamBack VR, will be released on June 10th for $24.99/24.99on Steam VR, with a launch discount of a10% off. To mark this announcement, Come Over also releases today a new trailer of the game.

In DreamBack VR, you get into the skin of a normal man, mentally and spiritually scarred after a traumatizing experience in an abandonedVictorian mansion. After being called to repair a broken electrical line, you had to spend the night in the eerie Rickfford Mansion. What happened there changed and damaged you forever -- even though you lost yourmemories of that fateful night, the nightmares and hallucinations you have suffered since then convinced you to face your own demons by reviving the night that changed your life through hypnosis. But there are some memories that are best left unearthed...

DreamBack VR's review keysare now available. Are you prepared to survive your own memories?

ABOUT DREAMBACK VR

DreamBack VR is a virtual reality, first-person psychological horror game where you explore the eerie Rickfford Mansion, trying to unravel its mysteries and survive the experience with your sanity intact. Months ago, you were called to repair a downed electrical line in an old abandoned Victorian estate. What happened that night left you in shock and after some time trying to flee from your own self, from the glimpses of memories that torment you in the night, you decide to bring back that accursed night through hypnosis and face your terrors But now you are not sure if you can survive your own memories.

KEY FEATURES

CONTACT

You can contact us at [emailprotected]

ABOUT COME OVER GAMING

Come Over Gaming is a small indie studio located at Hondarribia (Basque Country, Spain) funded in 2014. Its first video game,Dreamback VR, is their attempt at developing a game that sets the tone through the narrative in virtual reality. Dreamback VR will be released late Q2 2020 on Steam VR.

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VIRTUAL REALITY FIRST-PERSON HORROR GAME DREAMBACK VR, TO BE RELEASED ON JUNE 10 - Gamasutra

MBClife/YouTube

Death is universal, but approaches to it may vary. Recently, for example, the coronavirus pandemic has led to a rise in Zoom funerals and accelerated the embrace of virtual interactions and spaces. These changes raise some other possibilities. What if, for example, you could reunite with your deceased daughter in virtual reality?

This idea may not appeal to everyone; many of the people to whom I described this scenario reacted with aversion. But Jang Ji-sung, who lost her daughter to blood cancer in 2016, welcomed the opportunity to see her daughter againeven if it was just in VR. Jang may not have been the first mother to lose a child, but she is perhaps the first who got to meet her deceased daughter as a VR simulacrum, one that took almost a year to create. Their reunion forms the narrative climax in the South Korean TV documentary Meeting You, which aired in February. A clip from the documentary has more than 20 million views on YouTube.

Meeting You was produced by one of South Koreas largest broadcasters, Munhwa Broadcasting Corp, which worked with six different studios to create the VR experience. It introduces Jang Ji-sung, whose daughter Nayeon was just 7 when she died, and Nayeons surviving family: a father, an older brother, an older sister, and a younger sister. The hourlong special aired in February and can be viewed online(unfortunately, only in Korean).

VR technology is still too young (or, at least, too undeveloped) for it to have developed an independent grammar as an art form. But as film scholar Tom Gunning writes, in the 19th century, inventions such as the photograph and motion picture were all greeted as technological responses to the ultimate limit to human life, mortality. They claimed to preserve human traits (expression, movement, voice) after the subject had died and were promoted as an objective form of memory and mans triumph over death.

But it is difficult to square our present-day appreciation of cinema as an art form with our suspicion of virtual reality and its frequently uncanny reproductions. This is particularly pronounced when the reality being reproduced is an avatar of a real person, and more so when the person reproduced is a deceased beloved, much in the way that a Zoom funeral feels more like a travesty while a Zoom job interview is just mildly annoying and sometimes even more convenient, depending on the circumstances.

Technological resurrection as a response to human mortality is a familiar trope in fiction. But tellingly, it is almost always in a dystopian context. Greg Daniels satirical sci-fi comedy Upload, which recently debuted on Amazon, is premised on a future in which humans can have their consciousness uploaded into a virtual afterlife and continue to communicate with the living. Upload joins a populous landscape of similar stories, featuring high-tech and often expensive solutions to death. Another sort of parable re-creates, rather than preserving, the consciousness of the deceased. In the Be Right Back episode of Black Mirror, for instance, a grieving widow takes advantage of a service that uses her deceased husbands social media profiles and online footprints to create an A.I. version of her husband, animated in the body of an android clone of her husband.

Nonfiction projects exist too, albeit in a more contemplative vein. James Vlahos 2017 project Dadbot features his attempt to re-create the essence of his dying fathers personality in chatbot form. The indie game That Dragon, Cancer was designed by a father as a way to process the gradual death of his son, diagnosed with a rare cancer.

But unlike the text-based Dadbot and the stylized game universe of That Dragon, Cancer, the VR daughter in Meeting You is deliberately realistic. This is perhaps one source of the clips popularityits appeal as a novel spectacleas well as a cause of the audiences potential discomfort. My initial reaction to the project was certainly one of unease, particularly once I saw the jerky, puppetlike movements of VR Nayeon: Perhaps these particular puppeteers were acting with the best of intentions, I thought, but ultimately VR Nayeon was wholly controlled by a team of adults. These adults had designed VR Nayeon to act innocent and charming, but I felt manipulated rather than charmed.

In the climactic VR experience that received so much attention in South Korea, the mother, Jang, is shown surrounded by green screens and decked out in her VR accoutrements. The documentary toggles between this studio view and what Jang sees in her headset, and a composite version where Jang interacts with her VR daughter. From the two-dimensional perspective of the documentary audience, Nayeon looks like a computer graphic, if an eerily realistic one. A sobbing Jang attempts to touch her, unsuccessfully. Nayeon says things like Mom, am I cute?

Perhaps once the novelty of VR wears off, its pretenses to realism will no longer be met withsuspicion.

At one point, VR Nayeon has her mother touch her hand, and they float into the sky to a twilight-toned afterlife. There is a flying unicorn and the backdrop is purple. Jang and VR Nayeon sit at a table set with a birthday cake and foods that Nayeon loved, we are toldbirthday seaweed soup and a plate of honey rice cakes. This brief act ends with VR Nayeon falling asleep after telling her mother that shes no longer in pain. I love you, Mom, she says. The purple sky gives way, and were back in the studio as an emotive song plays in the background.

The exchanges between Jang and her daughter are not truly interactive but follow a script. She was quite different from my Nayeon, said Jang in the documentary. At certain moments, when she was far away, I felt a hint of my daughter. When she was running, or sitting. In part, this detachment has to do with the fact that the real Nayeon would have been 10 but was depicted as 7, the age at which she died. None of this diminishes the quality of Jangs emotions, howevernot even Jangs own recognition that VR Nayeon is not her daughter. Her anguish feels real.

To better understand how all these and other considerationscorny lines and emotional resonance, narrative choices and ethical quandarieshad been put together, I conducted an email interview with the director and producer of the documentary, Jong-woo Kim. We emailed in Korean, and I translated Kims comments into English.

According to Kim, the structured rather than interactive nature of the VR experience was due to budgetary and technical constraints. But there are microinteractions, said Kim. For example, extending a hand or patting the VR Nayeons hair might engender a reaction where she extends a hand in turn, or tilts her head, and her facial expression changes. Together, all of this contributed to a more immersive experience. But the immersiveness was not just a technical project. While multiple VR studios collaborated on creating a realistic voice and gestures for VR Nayeon, much of the research came in the form of meetings and interviews with the mother, aimed at understanding what she wanted. The idea to have them float into the sky was inspired by interviews with the family, said Kim. They told us that they would sometimes have conversations with Nayeon while facing the sky.

Ahead of the VR experience, the documentary also features interviews with Jang Ji-sung, in which she reminisces about her daughter or talks about her children. These interviews are interspersed with slice-of-life vignettes of the family in the present day. The family history is further explored in the sequel to Meeting You, released March 12, in which it is suggested that Nayeons mother harbored various regrets about her inadequacies during the last days of her daughters life.

But from the perspective of a viewer, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the follow-up is the seemingly fictionalized voice-over (provided by an adult woman), speaking from what seems to be the perspective of the youngest daughter. According to Kim, this creative decision was inspired by the desire to provide a sense of gentle closure, and to do so, he decided to try to think about death from the perspective of a young child. Kim did not consider the written narration to be a pure invention and said, We based it on interviews and clips of the youngest daughterNayeons sister.

These production details suggest less an independently realistic VR creationa clone capable of rebelling, in the way of the common science fiction tropethan one whose significance is based on the narrative history of the family, and subject to the manipulation of the documentary producers.

The documentary depicts these manipulations as a success, and the family as happy. Nayeons mother has told us that she thinks of the production and the VR experience as a wonderful dream, said Kim. But despite the uplifting ending, a nonfiction project like Meeting You presents certain ethical considerations, which dont quite have the same weight in fictional speculative exercises like Upload. In this particular instance, the postmortem, three-dimensional representation of a child unable to give consent leads to questions about the ethical ambiguities of resurrecting a person as an avatar after they have died, or the ambiguities surrounding the collection and processing of the personal data needed to re-create a person as VR persona. Jong-woo Kim did not see the issue of consent or representation as unique to his project: Many of the images we see online are probably there without consent, said Kim, adding that he considered the family had given consent by proxy.

The family was selected because it had demonstrated a clear desire for this VR reunification. But given the unprecedented and simultaneously public nature of this VR experience, there were a lot of unknowns about how the experience might affect Nayeons parents and siblings.

To prepare Jang Ji-sung for the potentially traumatic physical and mental effects of the VR experience, Kim explained that the producers met with the family therapist. They proceeded with the understanding that the experience would be a unique, momentous event, preparing to the best of their ability through long interviews with Jang and her family. We were careful to focus on their goals as much as possible. We did not try to analyze or heal anyone at any point. We stuck to our original focus of helping Jang Ji-sungs wish to see her daughter again come true. But within these self-imposed guidelines we did avoid going in a direction that would force the mother to relive her trauma. Rather, we tried to focus on the positive memories, said Kim.

VR has been used to help treat soldiers with PTSD. There is also research that supports the idea that storytelling can offset VR motion sickness and also that VR helps relieve pain during childbirth, suggesting that virtual reality can act as both a receptacle for stories and as a storytelling tool in and of itself. In Meeting You, the storytelling aspect of VR is strong. In this sense, the doll-like VR Nayeon does not come across so much as a perversion of a technophobic nightmare (e.g., like the eerily realistic android in Black Mirrors Be Right Back) but more like an artistic tribute.

There is a strong resemblance between the promises of resurrection via VR and the rhetoric that heralded the invention of other once-new technologies like the moving picture. Perhaps once the novelty of VR wears off, its pretenses to realism will no longer be met with suspicion. Meeting You, whatever its inadequacies, does present a compelling case for VR as a creative medium (much like writing or painting) for processing death rather than a creepy technophilic panacea that denies death, with all the interpretative complications that a creative medium entails.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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The uncanniness of watching a grieving mother and her dead daughter meet in virtual reality. - Slate

Hospitals are giving virtual reality (VR) glasses to patients undergoing operations to help them relax and to reduce pain and stress.

Rouen and Strasbourg are two of the hospitals to have taken up the technology, which was launched by French start-up HypnoVR last year.The glasses can be used before, during and after surgery. Benefits include allowing doctors to use local ...

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Virtual reality glasses being used in French hospitals - The Connexion

In Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality News

May 27, 2020 Taqtile, a provider of the enterprise software platform, Manifest, for frontline worker enablement, has today announced a strategic partnership with 3D Media, a technology development firm specializing in virtual and augmented reality solutions for the enterprise. 3D Media will now be able to provide its customers Taqtiles Manifest AR solution.

Our partnership with 3D Media plays an integral role in Taqtiles efforts to ensure enterprises have the technology they need to make all frontline workers experts, said Dirck Schou, CEO of Taqtile. Todays workforce benefits from the advanced training and job skill technology available to them including AR/VR solutions, and those from 3D Media, capable of bringing any age group up to speed quickly and efficiently. This, combined with the ease of use tools such as Manifest, enable all frontline workers an easy-to-use, effective way to train for new jobs, tasks, and protocols.

According to Taqtile, the two companies partnered because of their expertise in developing virtual and augmented solutions for industrial and government enterprises, specializing in the oil and gas, power generation and petro-chemical industries. In such industries where risk and retention are common daily workplace issues, the ability to quickly onboard and keep current employees up to speed on all necessary protocols and guidelines is vital.

3D Medias team develops exact replicas of working facilities that seamlessly integrate into Taqtiles Manifest platform. Manifest is an end-to-end solution delivering digital transformation and productivity to frontline workers through embracing spatial computing to enable knowledge capture, knowledge distribution, and knowledge management within an organization.

We at 3D Media strive to bridge the gap between the information technology processes and the capability for the human mind to interpret the data, said Daryl Roy, CEO and Founder of 3D Media. Taqtile fits into our companys mission by providing additional capabilities to optimize and ease the training process through knowledge capture, distribution, and management. This further enables all facilities training frontline workers to save money, mitigate risk, and keep themselves safe.

Image credit: 3D Media

About the author

Sam Sprigg

Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he covers news articles on both the AR and VR industries. He also has an interest in human augmentation technology as a whole, and does not just limit his learning specifically to the visual experience side of things.

Excerpt from:

Taqtile and 3D Media partner to optimize Augmented and Virtual Reality solutions for enterprise - Auganix

Innovative eLearning Program Safely Increases Care Quality & Improves Patient Health for Individuals with Alzheimers and Dementia-Related Diagnoses

Care Indeed and MyndVR have partnered to launch a new virtual reality dementia training program for its growing network of caregivers. Their new product, CI-VR provides portable training simulations designed to help equip caregivers with the skills they need to handle the challenges of caring for older adults with Alzheimers disease and dementia.

The new CI-VR virtual training program will be available for professional and family caregivers, vocational programs and healthcare providers beginning June 10th.

Virtual Reality is a highly underutilized tool for in-home care providers and one that Care Indeed trusts will bring a new level of understanding to the dementia care experience. At the center of this new training program is the companys state-of-the-art eLearning curriculum.

The VR units offer innovative instructional content curated by experts in the Geriatric and Memory Care fields. The goal is to provide caregivers and healthcare providers of all levels with real-world learning simulations that offer a more memorable and engaging experience than video or text-based learning alone.

According to Care Indeed CEO, Dee Bustos, "This training program will equip healthcare providers, professional and primary caregivers, and vocational students with the skills they need to better handle the trials, tribulations and challenges of caring for older adults living with Alzheimers Disease and similar cognitive impairments. And with CI-VRs portable, virtual training simulators, achieving this level of expertise has never been easier, or safer."

Innovative technology offers mobile, comfortable, and lightweight headsets that feature gaze-based tracking systems, 4K resolution and professionally-designed scenarios for a truly immersive, real-life experience so that training can be implemented anywhere, any time.

Care Indeed knows the best practices to appropriately care for individuals with complex behaviors requires hands-on experience, and with MyndVRs senior-friendly virtual reality technology, they can offer that experience without the accompanying safety risks. With these cost-effective, safe virtual training environments, organizations will also be able to prevent bottlenecks in staff development and mitigate risks during COVID-19 restrictions.

"We are proud to be part of this initiative and continue deploying our life-enriching VR platform that now can assist healthcare professionals dealing with the impacts of COVID-19," said Chris Brickler, CEO of MyndVR. "We felt it was important during this time of crisis to create the most immersive, training simulations using VR for folks taking care of our aging population. We are excited to share this content across the industry."

The new CI-VR program will be available beginning June 10, 2020. To learn more about Care Indeed, or the launch of their new CI-VR program visit https://info.careindeed.com/ci-vr.

About Care Indeed, Inc

Care Indeed is a leading provider of home care services throughout the Bay Area. Founded by two nurses with extensive caregiving experience, in 2010 they set out with a dream to transform the home care industry by focusing on one common mission - to create a better world for seniors and caregivers. The first agency of its kind to adopt innovative technologies and programs including virtual reality training for caregivers, the company has expanded to include three offices, more than 600 employees, and is ranked by Fortune as one of the 70 Best Companies to Work For in the Bay Area. For more information about Care Indeed, visit http://www.CareIndeed.com

About MyndVR

MyndVR is the national leader in providing virtual reality solutions to senior living communities, home health care agencies and directly to older adult consumers. The company has the largest library of VR content and is creating innovative genres of recreational, prescriptive and on-demand content for seniors. MyndVR offers a promising future of cognitive health and wellness for the dynamic aging population. Pilots have demonstrated the positive impacts on older adults. For more information about MyndVR, visit https://www.myndvr.com/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200527005158/en/

Contacts

Laura LeCare Indeedlaural@careindeed.com

Michael VaughanHeraldPR for MyndVRmichael@heraldpr.com

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Care Indeed Partners with MyndVR to Launch Second Iteration CI-VR Virtual Reality Training Program - Yahoo Finance

Because Baby Boomers have more disposable income, and more at stake, when it comes to futuristic tech.

Key takeaways:

At the worlds largest consumer tech show, CES, a hot red Lamborghini with Amazon Alexa voice capability is surrounded by selfie-takers. In comparison, a relatively small crowd is gathered around an exhibit owned by an organization that, to the uninitiated, hardly screams innovation: the American Association for Retired Persons, Americas largest interest group for elders.

Yet the AARP, itself a sexagenarian, offers something arguably more groundbreaking than most of the trendy consumer products on the glitzy Las Vegas trade floor: A virtual reality program that could one day replace social media sites like Facebook or Instagram as the go-to spot for online interaction between friends and family. Dubbed the Alcove, the Oculus headset compatible platform recreates a standard home, with a couch to watch TV on, multiple rooms and a porch to see the view outside whether you want that vista to be a beachfront, a cityscape, a grassy yard or a roiling sea.

Much of the conversation around technologies like A.I. and virtual reality focuses on younger audiences. Indeed, 93 percent of millennials ages 24 to 39 owned a smart phone last year, according to a Pew Research Center study, compared to just 68 percent of Boomers. But as America and the world age, a growing number of firms are developing technologies aimed squarely at engaging older folks. At the moment, its tempting to think of them only in terms of their vulnerability to the coronavirus. But they also represent a market thats certain to expand the number of Americans 65 years or older is set to rise to 20 percent by 2030, up from 16 percent in 2018. And its one thats quietly embracing tech. The A.I.-based elderly care industry alone is expected to cross $5.5 billion by 2022.

Elderly people thrive on social connection. What weve tried to do is replicate a human relationship.

Emanuele Musini, CEO, Pillo Health

Tel Aviv-headquartered VoiceItt, which translates unintelligible speech, has drawn $13.7 million in investment, while Pillo Health, which leverages facial recognition and A.I. to create robotic medical assistants, has received nearly $13 million. But its not only about healthcare its also about fun and companionship. On Alcove, users can play checkers with family members, engage in trivia and logic games or ride a hot-air balloon over the Swiss Alps, among other things.

Its cross-generational, says Charlotte Dorsey, a senior from West Sacramento in Northern California. Seniors love to play games together, adds her husband, Jim. Ive got a friend who I cant get to. No transportation. But now, through this kind of virtual reality tour, we both could see a World War II battlefield. Not just a picture, but interactively.

Alcove is intended to help seniors with loneliness and memory loss, but it has the potential to be so much more, fulfilling many a sci-fi writers dream (or nightmare) of a society fully immersed in digital worlds. Its live demonstration at CES debuted a back-end framework that will allow other developers to craft games and experiences for the platform making the possibilities virtually endless.

The goal for many of these companies is to use technology to augment desires already evident in the senior community. Elderly people thrive on social connection, says Emanuele Musini, CEO of Pillo Health. What weve tried to do is replicate a human relationship.

They might also be calling a bluff on our understanding of tech as a young persons game. After all, the products millennials so readily consume are also being mostly crafted by fellow millennials living in a Silicon Valley bubble known for its ageism. Are millennials intrinsically more tech-savvy, or is new tech just overwhelmingly designed by those who share their values? If older hands were at the wheel, would we see a tech world that was more representative of their interests?

Every time you talk to startups or investors, they all are shooting for that 18-to-35 demo for technology, says Justin Baker, founder of Stream Soar, a company in its Series A funding stage that creates mobile volumetric videos for VR and holograms.

Thats a limiting perspective, especially since seniors often get much more value out of virtual reality than younger folks. For millennials, virtual reality may just mean another gaming device. For seniors, it potentially means freedom the ability to travel to places no longer as accessible to them in real life. As other senses, such as touch and smell, become possible, those experiences will become disproportionately important to those whose physical senses are declining most.

At first, I thought cutting edge tech and seniors are not usually seen as going hand in hand, says Tom Neummann, the Chief Technology Officer for Rendever, a company that creates VR travel videos aimed at the aging community. But its fundamentally the ability to be in another place. And for a physically constrained population it means so much more.

Retirees also have more to spend on such pleasures. Baby Boomers report twice as much median income as millennials and more disposable income than any other generation, surpassing $548 billion annually, according to a 2019 Epsilon report.

There are real challenges regarding adoption. Many seniors are afraid to admit they need help with technology, says Dorsey, who hopes programs like the Alcove Playground can start breaking down those barriers. Unfortunately, tech startups all have one focus. Youre trying to scale fast and break things and be a unicorn. Dealing with a demographic that isnt up to the task of moving quickly on something is tough, Baker says.

Musini admits that putting technology in front of seniors can sometimes be a risk, one that his investors were initially wary of. Yet his company has had success, particularly by making its robot capable of responding to voice commands voice tends to be more accessible than text or touch-based platforms. Its one example of how tech companies can adapt to the needs of seniors, and potentially profit that is, if they themselves are willing to learn some new tricks, too.

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Boomers Are the Future of AI and Virtual Reality, Not Millennials - OZY

Press release from Sacred Heart University:

May 21 2020

FAIRFIELD, CT. An industry-leading partnership between Sacred Heart University and The Glimpse Group, Inc., a virtual- and augmented-reality (VR and AR) platform company, will advance development of content, events and services for SHU's NeXReality Lab.

Created under the auspices of the School of Communication, Media & the Arts, the partnership leverages the breadth of Glimpse and its multiple related software and services companies to give students world-class learning experiences.

"This partnership exemplifies the College of Arts & Sciences' commitment to an applied and experiential approach to the liberal arts. Through our association with Glimpse, our students benefit from working with faculty and industry professionals, deepening their learning, developing their skills and preparing them for a competitive and ever-evolving job market," said Robin L. Cautin, college dean.

The NeXReality Lab initially will facilitate the integration of extended reality (XR), along with VR and AR, into existing degree programs in art, design, film, journalism, sports media, public relations, digital communication and business. It also will be central to the future development of academic programs in immersive media and mixed reality that are planned for the media and theater arts department.

"Fostering undergraduate and graduate research in immersive technologies is a top priority for the lab," noted Shanshan Wang, assistant professor of media arts and founding director of the NeXReality Lab. "Students and faculty will partner with Glimpse to develop research projects and apps funded by grants from leading research foundations like the National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities."

The NeXReality Lab is part of SHU's larger, multimillion-dollar investment in its infrastructure, comprising best-in-class facilities dedicated to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and the IDEA Lab, a next-generation makerspace.

"This partnership with The Glimpse Group is part of initiatives SHU is pursuing to develop an entrepreneurial and creative ecosystem on our campus with industry partners that will benefit our students, their future employers and the region's economic development," said Rupendra Paliwal, provost and vice president of academic affairs.

"We are proud to partner with SHU and be an integral part of their implementation of next-generation technologies," said Lyron Bentovim, Glimpse president and CEO. "As the VR/AR/XR industry grows and matures, Glimpse is uniquely positioned to provide students access to a wide array of industry-leading, industry-focused software and services."

This press release was produced by Sacred Heart University . The views expressed here are the author's own.

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Sacred Heart University Partnering To Develop Virtual Reality Lab - Fairfield, CT Patch

One month ago, Xiaomi made an interesting VR experience for users wishing to get their hands on the Mi 10 Youth Edition. It literally was a VR unboxing. Now, the company is basically doing the same for the Mi 10 5G, except for the fact that there is no unboxing going on this time. In other words, Xiaomi is offering users a virtual hands-on experience of its flagship smartphone.

Through this VR experiment, users can see what the phone looks like and some details that we cant spot by seeing it through a regular video. Moreover, you can switch between the two color variants available Twilight Grey and Coral Green. This way, you can have an idea of how each color looks in real life. Its a great way to have an early idea of the handset before buying it. Or, if you cant buy, it still will help feed your dreams. You can experience the device through a VR headset from this link.

The Mi 10 5G is Xiaomis latest offering for the flagship segment. The handset is available in China since February and finally made its way to India early this month. Under the hood, its another flagship featuring Snapdragon 865 SoC with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of Storage. These specifications are built around a gorgeous 6.67-inch FHD+ display with a punch-hole camera at the top-left corner. The selfie snapper take shots with up to 20MP of resolution.

Moving around to back we have a gorgeous design and a powerful camera setup. The Mi 10 comprises a 108MP Quad-Camera array. The other sensors are a 13MP ultrawide, 2MP macro, and 2MP depth sensor. Other features include NFC, IR blaster, Stereo Speaker, and an In-Display fingerprint scanner.

The device ships with Android 10 straight out of the box with MIUI 11 running on top. There is a 4,780mAh battery keeping lights on with support for 30W fast-charging and 30 fast wireless charging.

The rest is here:

Xiaomi Mi 10 5G gets virtual-reality hands-on experience as well - Gizchina.com