Category Archives: Virtual Reality

Your third life is here (in beta).

The SF-based Linden Lab is at last launching an open creator beta of its VR-ready universe simulation, Sansar.The world creation and exploration title is expansive in its ambitions and still has a long way to go. After a lengthy creator preview in which early access was given to a couple thousand creators, there are 1,700 worlds to explore (some better than others, I imagine).

While last weeks surprise shutdown announcement for AltspaceVR, a social VR company that raised nearly $15 million, is still fresh on the minds, Linden Lab has the flexibility of profitability to help it guide its long-term vision for Sansar.

The company behind Second Life, a game which seemingly lost its wider cultural relevance more than a decade ago, has managed to make a ton of money as the titles most devoted lifers have continued to shovel cash into the online simulation. Despite the nascent nature of the VR market, the company has shifted its focus to building Sansar, though Second Life will continue on as a unique, separate entity.

Linden Lab has the luxury of monetizing world creation from the very beginning. In Second Life, users pay a pretty hefty amount in order to rent land while things beyond that stay relatively cheap otherwise. For Sansar, the land you build on is free (for your first few worlds); the costs start stacking up when you visit the asset store to populate those worlds with objects. If youre a budding 3D designer with time to spare, you can create a world customized to your liking on your own, but for those looking to drop a stock object like, say, a chair in their virtual home, they can drop some in-game coin on the product.

The company isnt looking to be very subtle with its ambitions of creating a wide network of explorable worlds that will grow to rival reality. Over my last several meetings, the company has not shied away from discussions of metaverses and simulations. In our latest meeting, a copy of Ready Player One sat unacknowledged on the table in the conference room, broadcasting its ambitions further without saying too much.

Whats launching today is very much a beta product of what Sansar will grow to become, but the experience is oddly so polished in some areas while sorely lacking in others. As-is, Sansar allows virtual reality users a wide swath of user-created worlds to explore and the potential to build their own whats missing are the tools to make exploring these arenas more interactive.

Unlike most VR developers, Linden Lab opted not to rely on an existing game engine like Unity or Unreal but instead built their own custom engine for Sansar thats wholly separate from what they built for Second Life. The limitations are pretty apparent early on, and while it is possible to build beautiful static worlds in Sansar, as an explorer youre ultimately left with a sort of three-dimensional board game to traverse thats generally only made dynamic by the multiplayer aspect. You can toss things like a basketball in some experiences, but the physics and controls themselves have a long ways to go.

Today, Sansar goes live on the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, as well as 2D desktop experience on PCs.

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Second Life creator launches beta of its virtual reality simulation - TechCrunch

August 1, 2017 Theres not a snowflake in the sky, but Winter Olympic hopefuls are already flying off ski jumps in Utah, firing up their luge sleds in Lake Placid, N.Y., and cross-country skiing past Vermont cow pastures.

With everything from wet suits to wheels to virtual-reality tools, theyre simulating the challenges theyll face at the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, next February. The perseverance and perfection highlighted on TV for those short few weeks are being honed now, thanks in part to the innovative methods devised by coaches, trainers, and equipment designers.

Keaton McCargo uses the Ski Simulator at the Center of Excellence in Park City, Utah. The simulator can be used in tandem with virtual reality technology that simulates the sensory environment of an alpine ski run.

U.S. Ski & Snowboard

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In some ways the lack of natural snow or ice actually makes for safer, more efficient training. Whereas alpine skiers would spend much of their on-snow training sessions riding the chairlift, for example, a skiing simulator allows them to cut straight to the actual training run. Essentially a lateral treadmill, it mimics the forces skiers contend with while hurtling down mountains and can be used in tandem with virtual-reality technology that replicates the sensory environment of a ski race. A huge bonus: theres no danger of crashing.

What were trying to do is use virtual reality to expand the time that the athletes can spend in their field of play, says Luke Bodensteiner, executive vice president, athletics at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) in Park City, Utah.

But he doesnt want to talk too much about that. Its one of the teams secret weapons heading into Pyeongchang.

Bodensteiner works out of the USSA Center of Excellence, which supports 195 national team athletes with state-of-the-art facilities (including napping areas) and a staff that includes conditioning coaches, dietitians, and physical therapists.

Chris Lillis is one of those athletes, and a rising star on the United States freestyle ski team. Last year he became the youngest male to win a World Cup in aerials skiing at age 17.

Freestyle skier Chris Lillis stands atop a jump at the Utah Olympic Park at the Tri-Nation Aerials Showdown on Sept. 11, 2016. Lillis trains at the facility during the summer and fall, and says that the softer landing afforded by the pool (below) enables him to fit in twice as many training jumps as on snow.

Tyler Tate/T Squared Action Sports

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Five days a week, he averages 25 to 30 jumps off the ramps at the Olympic Park, twisting in the air before landing in a pool. He wears ski boots and skis, and a wet suit in the summer switching to a dry suit in the fall as the temperatures drop, sometimes with sweatpants underneath.

The easier landing means he can do twice as many jumps as he would on snow. But theres a catch.

When we jump on snow the landing we jump on is between 28 and 32 degrees of pitch downwards, so if you land completely flat on water, you would land [wrong] on the snow, he explains, so they have to adjust their technique. You want to land forward to simulate snow.

Abby Ringquist also flies off jumps in Utah sans wet suit. A ski jumper, she cruises down porcelain tracks, springs into position, and floats through the air to land on moistened plastic. When she takes off, her hips must make an arcing motion similar to shooting a basketball your fist is kind of like your hips in ski jumping, explains Ringquist.

To perfect that motion, she also does imitations. Crouching down, she rides a small platform down a rollerboard, and then springs onto a pile of mats. Thats easier than when youre going 60 m.p.h. off a jump, explains Ringquist, who just placed second at US Nationals.

In between training, Lillis and Ringquist chip away at college and work multiple jobs. He works for a public-speaking company and a golf course; she coaches, works at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and waits tables at a breakfast restaurant.

None of my travel or equipment or lodging are covered unless its a World Cup weekend. So for me to travel this summer and next winter, its about $20,000, says Ringquist, who lives on a mini-ranch with her husband and their three dogs, two goats, and nine chickens. My plates overflowing, but I do the best I can.

Perhaps one of the hardest elements to replicate in summertime is the distractions of competition day. Take biathlon, for example, which combines cross-country skiing with shooting. As biathletes come into the shooting range, they stream into narrow lanes, pull their guns off their backs, load their ammo, and take aim at their five targets often with competitors right at their elbows.

Youll hear what theyre doing, youll see them out of the corner of your eye, says Susan Dunklee, whose silver at this years World Championships made her the first American woman to win an individual medal at Worlds. You always have to have a plan for when you do get distracted what are you going to do to refocus?

It can be something as simple as focusing on your trigger squeeze, which cant be too quick or too hard, or it will throw the bullet off course. So she practices that in the summertime just her finger and her rifle, getting to know that exact place where the trigger will engage, like the clutch of a car.

And thats just part of it. She also runs, hikes, bikes, and rollerskis through Vermont's rolling hills. Altogether, its up to four hours of training in the morning, and 1.5 hours in the afternoon six days a week. She goes through 17,000 rounds of ammunition a year.

As part of his summer training ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics, Tucker West (l.) practices his luge starts at a refrigerated facility in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Courtesy USA Luge

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Dunklee got her start in biathlon at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center, where elite athletes can live and eat for free.

Tucker West was recruited there after USA Luge heard about the luge track his dad had built in their backyard in Connecticut, which West would ride down on a plastic sled.

Those who deride luge as not a sport clearly havent heard about Wests workout regimen.

After 30 to 60 minutes of jogging and stretching, he shows up by 9 a.m.at a refrigerated facility with a short luge starting ramp equipped with starting gates and precision timing. He pulls six to 12 starts, then its off to the gym for an hour-long plyometric workout.

He eats lunch in 10 minutes no dessert and then one to three hours of lifting. Power cleans, power snatch, power jerks. And hanging by his fingers. All for those first few seconds when hell pull himself off the start and then use his hands to paddle down the icy track.

Sometimes they put wheels on their sleds and go down the streets of Lake Placid or even the actual luge tracks but thats too risky for an Olympic year. After stretching, massage, and other recovery methods, he eats dinner at 5 p.m. and then chips away at online college classes.

In bed by 10:30 to 11, he says. And then repeat.

With 192 days to go until the Pyeongchang Olympics opening ceremony, athletes from Lake Placid to Latvia have a lot of training ahead of them before the global spotlight is flicked on. Then, the world will see the fruits of their labors and maybe another little boy and his dad will be inspired to build something in their backyard, with a distant Olympics in mind.

Staff writer Story Hinckley contributed reporting.

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How Winter Olympians prep in summertime: wheels, wet suits, and virtual reality - Christian Science Monitor

Virtual reality in movie theaters and malls is about to get a whole lot more realistic, thanks to new tracking technology introduced by OptiTrack this week. The company, which is already supplying tracking solutions to The Void and other location-based VR startups, introduced a new whole-body VR tracking solution at SigGraph in Los Angeles Monday that could be one more step towards making loction-based virtual reality mainstream.

The new solution is based on a kind of puck that players in VR centers and arcades can attach to their hands and feet. Combined with any data gathered from tracking their VR headsets and any additional equipment, these pucks will help to enable whole-body tracking in multiplayer virtual reality worlds.

OptiTrack started selling its 3D tracking solutions into multiple industries about a decade ago. The companys customers include visual effects companies, which use OptiTracks technology to add some human touch to animated characters by putting real-life actors and athletes into motion capture suits, among other things.

A few years ago, OptiTracks executives realized that they could sell the same technology to VR companies as well, in part because all of the hardware vendors in the emerging VR world were specializing on non-commercial applications. Oculus and Vive have both very good trackers but they are limited to room-scale, said OptiTrack Chief Strategy Officer Brian Niles during a recent interview with Variety.

VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive offer positional tracking to accurately reproduce movements in a 3D space, but both are currently restricted to a areas measuring between 100 and 150 square-feet big enough for a living room, but not for a VR center. Thats why OptiTrack repurposed some of its technology to work in significantly larger spaces, measuring 10,000 square feet and beyond.

In addition to bigger areas, OptiTracks tech also allows VR center operators to track a much wider range of props to make sure that flashlights, guns and other objects you might pick up in a VR experience are accurately represented in the virtual world. And now, the company is extending this kind of tracking to the players themselves, allowing multi-player experiences to accurately relay the movements of all players in VR. This is the first skeletal tracking of these players, said Niles.

OptiTrack also introduced self-calibrating tracking systems at SigGraph Monday, which could further simplify the operation of VR arcades. Motion tracking, whether used in the context of VR or for visual effects, has long required frequent calibration of the cameras used. Operators typically re-calibrate their sets every single day to account for small structural movements, which requires employees to walk through the space and wave a special wand to make sure that all cameras still track everything accurately.

Now, OptiTracks systems can do this kind of calibration by themselves, while in use. This may sound like a small advancement, but it could be a big deal in a nascent industry that is trying bring VR to thousands of malls and movie theaters without having to hire expensive specialists for every single location. High school students will be able to run this, said Niles.

Correction 12:01pm: A previous version of this story misstated the size of spaces OtiTracks solution is capable of tracking.

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New Technology Brings Skeletal Tracking to Multi-Player Virtual Reality Experiences - Variety

As the world's tech giants invest heavily in virtual reality, the relatively few workers who specialize in the nascent field are seeing big benefits.

Demand for online freelancers with VR expertise grew far faster than for people with any other skill last quarter. Billings on VR projects grew more than 30-fold from the same period a year earlier, according to U.S. data provided by Upwork Inc.'s website that connects freelancers with employers.

VR has so far struggled to break into the mainstream, with the technology largely confined to high-end video gaming. Facebook Inc., which bought VR headset maker Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion, has already been lowering prices for the Oculus headset and is working on a more consumer-friendly version to be sold next year. Other companies that make VR goggles include Samsung Electronics Co., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Sony Corp.

Overall, tech-related skills accounted for nearly two-thirds of Upworks list of the 20 fastest-growing skills. Specialties related to artificial intelligence, such as natural language processing, neural networks and image processing, dominated the top of the list. People who specialize in econometrics, a subspecialty of economics that involves building mathematical models to explain and predict the real world, also saw a big spike in demand for their work.

To be sure, the market for many of these kinds of workers is still small, growing from a pool that was basically nonexistent just a year ago. For example, there are just over 2,500 freelancers on Upworks site now who list VR as one of their skills, compared with 106 individuals at this point last year.

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This Is the Fastest-Growing Skill Demanded of Online Freelancers - Fortune

The Oil & Gas industry has gone through ups and down over the years but the challenges to explore and produce commercially viable hydrocarbon remain the same. The advent of new technologies and next generation platforms provide ample opportunity to innovate and transform the industry. There are multiple prototypes leveraging the Augmented reality and Virtual reality concepts to help more efficient Oil & Gas operations.

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that enriches visual view of the environment around us with digital information. AR technology augments graphics, sounds, haptic feedback and real-time contextual information to the world in front of us and will change the way we interact with the world. For example, most field engineers who are responsible for maintenance and operations of machines like pumps, motors, compressors on oil rigs do not have real time information about the performance and operations of the machines in front of them. With AR informative graphics, real time information will appear in your field of view over a mobile phone of glasses, and audio will coincide with whatever you see. This capability will add tremendous value by providing real time and accurate information and thereby reduce inefficiencies and downtimes.

The success of capital projects in Exploration & Production (E&P) companies depends upon the timely execution of Drilling and Completion activities. Especially for drilling operations, reduction of Non-Productive Time is dependent on availability of critical equipment. Digital Oilfield technologies have been adopted over the past decade in varying degree across the globe and we now have more intelligent drilling rigs operational with critical equipment instrumented and monitored for NPT. However, quite a lot of the critical equipment which are legacy but perfectly operational remain not instrumented and are excluded from the Digital Oilfield implementation. In most cases, to ensure availability, E&P operators and service providers operate backup for every critical piece of equipment and deploying expert maintenance engineers on every rig, which, in turn, increases the capital costs. Bringing these critical equipment as part of the digital chain is key to reduce NPT and improved capital performance.

Rig monitoring system

To perform Drilling and Completions (D&C) operations, mud pumps, generator sets, agitators, shale shakers and compressors are essential and they need to be made available almost on round-the-clock basis. One of the major challenges in ensuring high availability is lack of continuous condition monitoring of these critical equipment. Some of these equipment is very closely monitored for their performance but are seldom regularly monitored for their health. This is the primary cause of subdued performance or unexpected breakdown and longer maintenance related unplanned downtime. In addition, the electrical and mechanical engineers maintaining this equipment do not have easy and handy access to equipment condition data to plant preventive maintenance. A comprehensive rig monitoring system will aid in monitoring the health of the Rig, reasonably predict failure points and provide a platform to track rig operations.

Rig monitoring systems combining AR, Sensors and real time dash board to report, schedule and predict maintenance actives will provide necessary insights for smooth operations. AR-based application on a mobile device helps regular maintenance of key rig equipment, analyses the parameter, retrieves user manuals, provides a collaborative platform to discuss and fix issues. Image recognizing technology will provide key pointers to identify failure points. A comprehensive area/rig/well level equipment condition monitoring dashboard with real time information from sensors monitoring vibration, surface temperature, pressure, sound and magnetic field.

These sensor readings are used to determine any anomalies in bearing condition, valve condition, filter condition, belt tension, oil level and viscosity, gearbox condition and rotor or starter health. NIA analytics engine will predict occurrence of these anomalies. Artificial intelligence framework leveraging Machine learning will analyse anomalies through history match and predict critical incidents. Also, Rig Monitoring systems provide health state of each equipment in the rig and provide analytical insights about the equipment to the field electrician and mechanical engineer.

In order to provide easy and handy access to equipment condition data, the monitoring system has an Augmented Reality-enabled application over mobile devices. The condition monitoring sensors deployed over the equipment provide real time data to the AR application about the condition of the equipment. Besides, the AR app also has latest information about maintenance schedules. It is capable of fetching digitized reference and repair manuals, taking pictures of the faulty equipment, raising ticket and connecting with SME or the OEMs helpdesk. The AR app workes on Intrinsically safe devices, to enable use in all the Zones in a Rig

The key advantages of such systems are Non-invasive sensors which can be attached to an equipment through a powerful magnetic base using which they can be simply placed over any equipment; Gateway for transmitting the data to cloud base servers and to local servers as required; Analytical engine using highly powerful and complex analytics routine to predict failures; User-friendly apps to provide real-time equipment information, collaboration platform to discuss findings and tracker to build history of equipment performance; and, Intrinsically safe mobile devices for safe operations.

The benefits include reduction in undesirable breakdowns, unscheduled maintenance, monitored inventory, Operating or Maintenance costs and dependency on OEM. Also, improved timely availability of technical expertise and easy access to events data will assist in adopting logical decisions rather than gut feel.

Virtual reality

Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer technology that replicates an environment, real or imagined, and simulates a user's physical presence in that environment and allows the user to interact with the elements of that environment. Virtual realities artificially create sensory experience, which can include graphics, sounds and haptic feedback. VR technology helps create virtual environment of a mine, a city, or an oil reservoir and allows users to walk through these environments and perform what-if scenarios.

The Oil & Gas industry has huge potential to adapt Virtual Reality based tools. Since the success of the exploration process heavily depends on interpretation of information, VR platform can provide additional insights by providing an immersive environment to visualize and interpret. Though providing immersive environment for the geoscientists and petroleum engineers were developed during the last decade, new generation Virtual Reality technologies provide greater flexibility and cost arbitrage. These VR tools can be made available at the rig site or at the field site for collaboration and performing operations. Imagine a driller wearing a VR gear to track the drill path virtually, augmented with near real time information about the reservoir.

Virtual Reservoir

The Virtual Reality application for oil & gas is a 3D immersive technology application that will take the sub-surface earth model and plug it onto headgear for enhanced visual experience on-the-move. It is an application to view the reservoir, wells, geological formation, Seismic traces etc. The comprehensive static earth model containing 3D seismic data, structural data such as zones and layers, planned well deviation surveys, logs, reservoir data, faults and horizons are loaded to the VR gear Once loaded on headgear, the subsurface data will be available to field users on drill site such as drilling engineers, supervisors, well site geologists, production and reservoir engineers, to enhance decision-making during critical drilling operations. Additional information is augmented depending on the workflow for which the application is developed. For example, Directional Drilling workflow will have the planned and actual drilling path.

VR application supports features such as zoom in, zoom out and viewing the model from different directions. Alongside planned well path, the actual well path is superimposed to show the deviation from actual trajectory as the drilling has progressed. All stakeholders responsible for drilling (on well site or off site), will be able to visualize same data on their respective headgears without bulky hardware (laptops/desktops).

Such applications can provide tremendous value when used for training. Ultra-realistic, multi-angle immersive virtual reality applications can be used for training process operators and engineers in oil and gas production, processing and transportation facilities. The technology mimics on-field environment and enables effective training in a safe and controlled environment. Dynamic simulators which are used on gaming can be leveraged to provide real life scenarios to test and train engineers for working in complex environment. Dynamic process simulator creates actual plant operating conditions to provide realistic training scenarios. Scenarios also can be created for workforce development, competency assurance, project commissioning support, new hire orientation, and more efficient turnaround or shutdown planning.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETEnergyworld.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETEnergyworld.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.

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How Augmented and Virtual Reality is helping Oil & Gas companies - ETEnergyworld.com

After 15 minutes of much-needed rest, I was ready to try the beta version of Marvel Powers United VR, which is not set for release for many months.

By this time, I had figured out the Touch hand controllers a key technology improvement that helps players take better advantage of what's known as a "mixed reality" environment.

Such an environment allows players to not only use their hands in the game but also to see them, as well as having multiple points of view from within the game, said Jason Rubin, vice president of content of Oculus, during the presentation by him and Mitchell prior to the demo.

"Games have had just one camera," Rubin said.

"Now, we've put the camera in the game," he added, which was no small engineering feat. "Mixed reality took a lot of work."

It also produces a lot of fun.

Thanks to some more expert instruction, my virtual Incredible Hulk character learned to bring his huge fists together to generate energy. That energy glowed in front of me the Hulk as I stood in a gigantic room the size of a warehouse.

Enemy characters moved around me at the edge of the room, or ran along a catwalk above it.

By swinging my arms down violently, I was able to unleash that energy, which rippled across the floor of the room like an earthquake tearing up asphalt.

Soon I was able to target these energy blasts, known as "Thunderclaps," at my virtual foes with deadly accuracy.

At other times I hurled their bodies across the debris-filled room with a move known as a "Seismic Toss," according to my game guide.

Although I had largely missed out on the action in the first game, in Marvel Powers United I was able to protect my teammates, including a wise-guy raccoon called Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.

He, in turn, saved my virtual, green, hulking self from laser gun fire on multiple occasions.

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Virtual reality turned me into the Hulk, but I'm glad I took some Dramamine first - CNBC

The service is also designed to provide treatment in other ways, like taking patients to the top of a virtual skyscraper so they can face a fear of heights or to a virtual bar so they can address an alcohol addiction.

Backed by the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, Limbix is less than a year old. The creators of its new service, including its chief executive and co-founder, Benjamin Lewis, worked in the seminal virtual reality efforts at Google and Facebook.

The hardware and software they are working with is still very young, but Limbix builds on more than two decades of research and clinical trials involving virtual reality and exposure therapy. At a time when much-hyped headsets like the Daydream and Facebooks Oculus are still struggling to find a wide audience in the world of gaming let alone other markets psychology is an area where technology and medical experts believe this technology can be a benefit.

As far back as the mid-1990s, clinical trials showed that this kind of technology could help treat phobias and other conditions, like post-traumatic stress disorder.

Traditionally, psychologists have treated such conditions by helping patients imagine they are facing a fear, mentally creating a situation where they can address their anxieties. Virtual reality takes this a step further.

We feel pretty confident that exposure therapy using V.R. can supplement what a patients imagination alone can do, said Skip Rizzo, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California who has explored such technology over the past 20 years.

Barbara Rothbaum helped pioneer the practice at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, and her work spawned a company called Virtually Better, which has long offered virtual reality exposure therapy tools to some doctors and hospitals through an older breed of headset. According to one clinical trial she helped build, virtual reality was just as effective as trips to airports in treating the fear of flying, with 90 percent of patients eventually conquering their anxieties.

Such technology has also been effective in treating post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans. Unlike treatments built solely on imagination, Dr. Rothbaum said, virtual reality can force patients to face their past traumas.

PTSD is a disorder of avoidance. People dont want to think about it, she said. We need them to be engaged emotionally, and with virtual reality, its harder for them to avoid that.

Now, headsets like Googles Daydream, which works in tandem with common smartphones, and Facebooks Oculus, the self-contained $400 headset that sparked the recent resurgence in virtual reality technologies, could potentially bring this kind of therapy to a much wider audience.

Virtually Better built its technology for virtual reality hardware that sold for several thousands of dollars. Today, Limbix and other companies, including a Spanish start-up called Psious, can offer services that are far less expensive. This week, Limbix is beginning to offer its tools to psychologists and other therapists outside its initial test. The service is free for now, with the company planning to sell more advanced tools at some point.

After testing the Limbix offering, Dr. Jewell said it allowed patients to face their anxieties in more controlled ways than they otherwise could. At the same time, such a tool can truly give patients the feeling that they are being transported to a different locations at least in some cases.

Standing atop a virtual skyscraper, for instance, can cause anxiety even in those who are relatively comfortable with heights. Experts warn that a service like the one offered by Limbix requires the guiding hand of trained psychologists while still in development.

Limbix combines technical and medical expertise. One key employee, Scott Satkin, is a robotics and artificial intelligence researcher who worked on the Daydream project at Google. Limbix also works with its own psychologist, Sean Sullivan, who continues to run a therapy practice in San Francisco.

Dr. Sullivan is using the new service to treat patients, including a young man who recently developed a fear of flying, something that causes anxiety simply when he talks about it. Using the service alongside Dr. Sullivan, the young man, who asked that his name be withheld for privacy reasons spent several sessions visiting a virtual airport and, eventually, flying on a virtual plane.

In some ways, the young man said, the service is still less than perfect. Like the Street View scenes Dr. Jewell uses in treating her patients, some of this virtual reality is static, built from still images. But like the rest of the virtual reality market, these tools are still evolving toward more realistic scenes.

And even in its current form, the service can be convincing. The young man recently took a flight across the country here in the real world.

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A New Way for Therapists to Get Inside Heads: Virtual Reality - New York Times

Jennifer Jolly/ Special for USA Today Published 8:00 a.m. ET July 28, 2017 | Updated 11:54 a.m. ET July 28, 2017

Jennifer Jolly takes us inside the Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, where a groundbreaking new VR simulation is helping train doctors to better save the lives of children. It's part of Facebook's Oculus for Good program. Jennifer Jolly/Special for USA TODAY

Jennifer Jolly practices hospital life-saving techniques using Oculus Rift.(Photo: Roddy Blelloch/Special USA Today)

Earlier this year, inside a cramped, windowless corner office at the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, I put on a virtual reality headset and tried to savea little girls life.

It wasnt real, of course, but it sure felt like it was. The blotchy, wheezing, seven-year-old struggling to survive while suffering from anaphylactic shock was nothing more than a bunch of digital polygons. Still, the experience triggered every real human reaction youd expect, flooding my brain with fear, stress, and anxiety.

Once I slipped the VR goggles off of my head, one other emotion struck me too: excitement. After a few tough years for the virtual reality industry, a wave of medical VR programs are breathing new life into this cutting-edge technology.

Patient in Oculus Rift simulator.(Photo: Oculus Rift)

Just this past week, VR made headlines for helping surgeons separate conjoined twins in Minnesota. The National Institutes of Health Vaccine Research Center uses it to find weak spots on viruses. Virtual realityalso made remarkable headway treating PTSD in soldiers, educating pediatric heart patients and their families, and speeding up rehab in stroke victims.

The medical uses are pretty amazing, says Unity Technologies Tony Parisi, one of the early pioneers of virtual reality. Were seeing the perfect confluence. Anything you can do to train people more quickly, effectively, and cheaply is a boon to the healthcare industry. VR is a rapidly evolving technology that solves a lot of problems here.

Virtual reality tested by NFL as tool to confront racism, sexism

VR has yet to find the right problem to solve for mainstream consumers, and has suffered for it. The technology that powers high-priced headsets like the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and even portable VR gadgets like Googles DayDream and Samsungs Gear VR is undeniably impressive, buthasnt lived up to the hype.

In 2016, analysts at Super Data Researchpredicted as much as $5.1 billion dollars in sales of VR hardware, software and accessories for the year. The reality was actually around $1.8 billion. Even those companies that bet big on virtual reality have recently slashed prices, too, throwing in freebies, and doing just about anything to get VR gadgets off the shelf and into the hands of everyday people.

Using an Oculus simulator, a doctor checks the pupil of a virtual girl undergoing anaphylactic shock.(Photo: Oculus Rift)

Does that mean VR is a flop, akin to Google Glass? That augmented reality predecessor to VR was met with jeers and criticism by the general public, and Google shelved the product before announcing its reboot as a business device earlier this month.

Not a consumer flop, saysTirias Research principal analyst Kevin Krewell, but rather "over-inflated and over-hyped."

"When Facebook bought Oculus for two billion dollars everyone said, Mark Zuckerberg just bet two billion on it, Oh, this is going to be huge,'" Krewell notes.

"It will be, just not overnight.

VR gadgets such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Sonys PSVR are well liked, and receive positive reviews from the tech community. Yet they've yet to strike a nerve with the masses, likely due to a combination of cost, content and comfort.

The deep-pocketed backers of virtual reality have faith it will happen. Until then, it's gaining momentum in business and science applications.

The heart is a complicated three-dimensional organ, and its really hard to describe whats going on inside of it especially when something is going wrong, says David M. Axelrod, MD. The clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicineis spearheading the development of a new virtual reality program called Stanford Virtual Heart.

Dr. Joshua Sherman, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, has been using virtual reality simulations to prepare for real-life medical emergencies.(Photo: Roddy Blelloch/ Special for USA Today)

Through a VR headset, the program gives medical trainees the freedom to explore and manipulate a lifelike human heart as it hovers in front of them, spotting defects and becoming more familiar with the issues heart patients experience. Virtual reality eliminates a lot of that complexity by letting people go inside the heart and see whats happening themselves its worth way more than a thousand words.

The freedom that VR affords is priceless, but its also helping to reduce cost. At Childrens Hospital L.A., doctors are trading high-priced training mannequins for VR headsets, ditching the cost of purchasing and maintaining plastic models, which can top $430,000 every year, and adopting a virtual trauma center where lifelike virtual patients are fighting for their lives.

The VR patient changes color of skin, monitor changes, the sound of the monitor changes, those are all cues to us that okay, I have to do this now or else Im going to be in trouble, Dr. Joshua Sherman, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist at CHLA, says. And when you make that action, you watch it change and that gives you positive reinforcement that you did the correct thing, or the incorrect thing, if the situation gets worse. VR is amazing for that.

Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech contributor and host of USA TODAY's digital video show TECH NOW. E-mail her at jj@techish.com. Follow her on Twitter @JenniferJolly.

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Doctors are saving lives with VR - USA TODAY

Fans of virtual reality felt a punch to the gut this week as Altspace VR announced it would hold its last social VR gathering on August 3 and then shut down.

AltspaceVR was a social space in VR where people could gather in environments that resembled virtual worlds. They could create their own avatars and chat with friends. As such, Altspace VR was like a harbinger of what the world would look like as a virtual society. Facebook followed up with its own version of social VR chat, while others such as Rec Room, Roblox, Linden Lab, and TheWave VR have created their own takes on social VR.

In a blog post, the company said i ran into unforeseen financial difficulty and couldnt afford to keep the virtual lights on anymore. The post said the company tried to raise a new round of funding, but a deal fell through and it ran out of time and money. The company said, Wed love to see this technology, if not the company, live on in some way, and were working on that.

Eric Romo, CEO of AltspaceVR, started the company in his home office in 2013. The company raised $10.3 million in 2015 from Comcast Ventures, Tencent, Dolby Family Ventures, Raine Ventures, Lux Capital, Western Technology Investments, Maven Ventures, Promus Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, and Rothenberg Ventures.

Romo said in an interview with GamesBeat in April that the company was hoping to monetize events that companies paid for, not unlike how Linden Lab monetized corporations in its Second Life virtual world. But Altspace VRs traffic was relatively small, at about 35,000 users a month. Thats a sign of how small the overall base for VR is, and it probably tells you why the company ran out of funds, as that number isnt enough to get investors excited. Mobile and PC-based VR units are expected to grow from 6.4 million globally in 2016 to 20.3 million in 2017, according to SuperData Research.

Its not clear exactly what this means for other VR startups, but everybody knows that growth is slower than expected. Other VR startups such as enterprise-focused Envelop VR have also shut down this year.

Above: Eric Romo, CEO of Altspace VR at SVVR.

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

Altspace advanced VR as a medium and, while it may have been ahead of its time, it demonstrated the potential of social VR. Everyone working in VR should be grateful for their contributions to the space, said Amitt Mahajan, cofounder of Presence Capital, which invests in AR and VR startups. I think were likely to see a virtual world like Altspace eventually work but itll likely be something that first starts off fairly constrained in what you can do with others and grow from there to a fully fledged social network.

Greg Castle, founder of Anorak Ventures and an early Oculus investor, said he was sad about the Altspace VR news.

There are two distinct strategies I see in social VR, he said in an email. Companies focused on building out the infrastructure (outside in), and those focused on customer experience (inside out). AltSpace and (Linden Labs) Sansar for example have spent a lot of time building out a really robust infrastructure platform and are largely relying on other developers to create fun experiences built atop their platform. Rec Room and Star Trek on the other hand have focused more on providing a compelling, engaging experience off the bat for users which in turn has the potential to build a strong social community. Given the user numbers and slower adoption curve as an investor I prefer the later strategy.

Above: AltspaceVR comedy night.

Image Credit: AltspaceVR

He added, In terms of what it means for venture backed VR companies, I think its probably a reality check in a somewhat frothy market. I think Eric and his team are fantastic and trust theyll find their way.

And Tipatat Chennavasin, cofounder of the Venture Reality Fund, said in an email, When a shutdown happens its hard to understand without knowing all the details. Altspace VR, led by Eric Romo, was a true pioneer and did some ground breaking work in VR and social. Its a shame they werent able to get further funds to continue to innovate, the news also comes right after Within announcing a $40M round, indicating evolving investor dynamics in the sector.

Chennavasin added, For later venture rounds the bar is raised higher and tangible metrics really come into play. A lot of times the main challenge for early innovators is to manage the companys growth in a nascent but potentially explosive market where there are no established investment patterns and the venture investors are still discovering the subtleties of the sector. Altspace has opened many doors of creativity and teased us all with compelling possibilities in social VR. Im afraid their timing wasnt precisely aligned with investor sentiments, especially in later rounds where certain growth parameters are expected, which is hard to do in early stages of the VR market with a small installed base.One last thing I will add is that the team were not just pioneers but also great supporters of the larger VR development community and will be missed. They have definitely learned a lot on their journey and I look forward to seeing what they do next.

Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, also said on Thursday that it may be a couple of years wait for the mass market VR market.

Jason Rubin, the head of studios at Oculus VR, said in an interview last week that he isnt surprised that the big companies like EA and Activision Blizzard havent jumped into VR yet. Smaller companies are moving into VR, and they will stake out the opportunities first. Once that happens, the big companies like EA will likely acquire those that have the lead.

Regarding Wilsons comments, Mahajan said, I dont disagree with him. The consumer VR market is going to take a while to develop still. I think new Daydream phones and Apples (rumored) addition of an OLED screen to the iPhone 8 will help drive adoption of mass market consumer VR. But were at least one phone refresh cycle away (18 to 24 months) from everyone having VR available to them.

Stephanie Llamas, analyst at SuperData Research, said, I think the closure was an example of how good companies suffer from the prematurely inflated expectations for the industry as a whole that many companies had early on. Primarily, investors are now spooked because there was an overvaluation of the market. Now that growth isnt going as fast as theyd expected, they reevaluated their risk and are now undervaluing certain opportunities. AltspaceVR was truly a pioneer in the social VR space. It should not have been discounted, and I honestly think this is a tragedy for the industry.

Bjorn Laurin, vice president of product at Linden Lab, said he was sorry to see the sad outcome for Altspace VR. But he said, We remain bullish on the future of social VR.

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What Altspace VR's shutdown says about virtual reality's prospects - VentureBeat

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) - Considering hes an owner over at Screams at the Beach in Georgetown, its not all that shocking to hear Brian Turner swoon over the tech inside the virtual reality horror game, Affected.

After all, there are experiences inside the game - a haunted mansion VR experience with an interactive flashlight and three distinctly different trails to an exit - that he couldnt possibly recreate in Georgetown, like the scene where all the furniture on the ground flies up to the ceiling and then falls on the person playing the game. Hes seen people hit the floor in fear.

Turner this summer has quite literally entered a much different world with his new venture. His Beyond Entertainment Enterprises has partnered with Pete and Michelle Townsend of Sports at the Beach to bring the first dedicated virtual reality arcade, Escape Reality, to Delaware in Rehoboth Beach.

More than that, it appears to be the only dedicated virtual reality arcade on the mid-Atlantic coastline outside of New York. Turner, a Sussex County native, handles the operation of it, while the folks at Sports at the Beach handle the marketing, Turner said.

But the producer of many screams around Halloween isnt out to scare anyone here in the new shop located at 27 Rehoboth Ave.

Hes ushering in a new experience with the future of technology. There are games available for all ages and the experiences range from cinematic viewing to first-person shooter games and more. Theres even a bike setup where users put a headset on and can fly a pegasus, race cars, ride horses, tanks or actually cycle. The faster you pedal, the better the game goes.

Escape is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends and closes at 10 p.m. other days. Turner said business has been booming since the soft opening around Memorial Day Weekend.

Theres nothing like this, Turner said. Its a brand-new concept because virtual reality is so new.

Which makes it not so cheap.

Turner, 36, wouldnt give an exact dollar amount on the startup cost, but did admit each unit costs five figures, and there are six units at Escape Reality. Experiences cost basically $1 per minute.

Escape Reality works with a company called Private Label, which works with game developers to distribute games and experiences to businesses like Turners. There are more than 40 games available at Escape Reality and more on the way, including an escape room experience.

A tough sell

Turner, who says hes always been into video games, was inspired by virtual reality after trying Playstations version of it.

It was a tough sell for me to be convinced because its cutting edge, Turner said. Theres nothing to compare it to. Theres nothing to compare pricing against. Theres nothing to compare anything against, which makes it hard but also makes it exciting.

You cant compare me to stuff on the boardwalk because its all coin-operated and, lets be honest, a lot of that stuff is starting to show its age.

The tech in VR is still relatively new. And many have maybe gotten the wrong idea, having experienced it only on a mobile device, which may have led to a nauseating experience.

At Escape, Turner said not one person has gotten sick, and the only game that makes people feel weird is one called Downward Spiral, a zero gravity experience at a space station that has lost power. There is a floating element.

And while its new and cutting edge, its not hard to picture a not-too-distant future that features mainstream VR arcades.

The 2016 Virtual Reality Industry Report offered a 10-year roadmap for VRs future. The report predicted two million non-Google Cardboard headsets would be in the hands of consumers by the end of 2016 and a staggering 36.9 million by the end of 2020.

Even then, though, the report indicated the hyper growth of the industry was still six-to-eight years away. By the end of 2025, a predicted 135.6 million VR headsets will be in use, with 122 million being mobile. A good portion of others may be in places like Escape Reality.

What does that mean for the traditional arcades? Its a question that doesnt have an exact answer.

Turner says his price point is not much different than that of a traditional arcade. He pointed to a recent trip to an arcade with his son Riley, 11, and some of his friends.

He said it wasnt long before he had spent $100.

You put your money in an arcade game that you dont like, youre stuck until youre dead and youve wasted a dollar, Turner said. If you play a game (at Escape) for 30 seconds and youre like, Ah, its not what I thought it was. You can switch out as many times as you want.

A reasonable price

Josh Mellinger, 32, owner of Makin Whoopie, the whoopie pie shop next door to Escape, said hes been playing at his next door neighbors spot three-four days per week lately.

I think for what it is, basically a dollar a minute, it is a reasonable price, Mellinger said Wednesday afternoon as he watched his daughter Evylyn, 7, play a game called Kitty Cannon, which involved putting cats into a cannon and launching them as far as possible.

Mellinger, of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, said the previous day he and a friend went to a traditional arcade on the boardwalk and were playing a pirate shooting game. He didnt last long there before he walked back up to Rehoboth Avenue.

This is a waste, he said. Why am I doing this? Im going back to VR. I dont want gum tickets.

But hes in the minority for now.

On Thursday afternoon, while Funland on the boardwalk was humming with customers in the middle of the day, Evylyn Mellinger was the only person using one of the six units at Escape Reality.

The nostalgia factor at traditional arcades like Funland makes it a business that looks far from going by the wayside, especially when they, too, have the capabilities of adding VR.

Thats part of what is our bread and butter and we know that, said Funland personnel manager Chris Darr. Our customers tell us all the time, Dont change it. If we were to take out the fire engines and put in a virtual reality simulator than wed probably have a mutiny on our hands.

We still try and incorporate stuff that works with what we are, but were not going to jump on the bandwagon of something that brand new until we know its tested and something that will really work for our customers.

Darr said Funland belongs to a trade organization, the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, and is keeping a watchful eye on new technologies.

Its not that we arent worried about it, Darr said. When its affordable and when its something we can implement, wed probably look at doing it. Right now, I think people are still trying to figure it out.

Mark down Brian Turner as one of those people.

___

Information from: The Daily Times of Salisbury, Md., http://www.delmarvanow.com/

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Delaware virtual reality arcade provides look at the future - Washington Times