Category Archives: Virtual Reality

Depending on how virtual reality (VR) is defined, its history started a long time ago. Most observers of the scene agree that VR in the sense that we understand it today began to emerge sometime in the 1950s. However some elements of it can be found much earlier in history.

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Already at the beginning of the last century, playwright Antonin Artaud was considering illusion and reality to be one and the same. In 1938 in a collection of essays, Le Thtre et son double, he considered characters and objects in the theatre as la ralit virtuelle . Just a few years earlier, in 1935, Stanley G. Weinbaum in his short story Pygmalions Spectacles described a goggle-based virtual reality system that displayed a holographic recording of fictional experiences.

More than 80 years later, two large FX brokers have introduced their own VR applications for trading. Japanese GMO Click Securities launched its product GMO-FX VR Trade on the 31st of January 2017. Shortly after, on the 3rd of February, Swissquote Bank introduced its own solution. In both cases the trader is provided with access to a virtual room and the ability to view it in 360 degrees. Is this how trading rooms will evolve?

VR in the financial industry is still a new phenomenon. But so was mobile trading 10 years ago, and for some brokers today it is as important a platform as traditional desktop applications.

It is simply too early to call. So when will we know if it has succeeded? The answer to this question is not only in the hands of the financial industry.

No one will ever buy a VR headset for financial services. Thats why the future of this technology in the financial services is strongly tied with VR becoming a mainstream technology otherwise it will always be a niche gadget.

Maciej Wolaski, CTO and Head of R&D, Comarch Financial Services.

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Should the Financial Industry Enter the World of Virtual Reality? - Finance Magnates

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THE US Army is creating virtual reality headsets for soldiers to see the battlefield as if they are in a video game.

Squaddies wearing the gear can more clearly tell between comrades and enemies and receive GPS locations or use night vision.

Dubbed Tactical Augmented Reality, or TAR, the new tech has been likened to top shoot em up Call Of Duty and spells the dawn of a new type of cyber-soldier.

It is designed to replace handheld GPS devices and frees soldiers up to keep their finger on the trigger while moving through hostile terrain.

And the system can be linked to gun-scopes, meaning they can peep over walls with their rifles and see the area without putting their heads in the firing line.

David Fellowes, an electronics engineer at US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, debuted TAR at The Pentagon last month.

He said it will "provide soldiers with a much higher level of situational awareness than they currently have".

He added: "I fully expect that the devices will save lives and contribute to mission success."

While a date of manufacture has not been set, the Army says TAR is in the advanced stages of development.

In April, Army tech boffins unveiled a gun-toting robotdesigned to travel underwater and storm beaches as the first line of attack in future naval invasions.

The Multi-Tactical Transport Robot, or MUTT, can be fitted with a range of weapons including machine guns and mortars.

It can also be loaded with gear to transport across dangerous territory.

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US soldiers are training for war using video game-style virtual reality headsets - The Sun

Metro

This app uses virtual reality to help people quit smoking Metro Whether you try going cold turkey, ask the NHS for help, or try that god-awful nicotine gum, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world just can't seem to break that habit and end up relapsing. It can happen two weeks in or two years, but the ...

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This app uses virtual reality to help people quit smoking - Metro

Virtual Reality is predicted to be worth 108bn by 2021. To a large extent, the emergent technology is rooted in basic photography skills. A new online course offers the chance to get involved in the technological arms race that could usher in a cultural epoch.

In 2003, the British photographer Robbie Cooper was employed to photograph the CEO of a large business. As they talked between shots, Cooper learnt that the man had recently separated from his wife, and didnt get much of a chance to spend time with his kids until he found something called Everquest.

Everquest was an early iteration of the 3D fantasy-themed role-playing computer games that cropped up at the turn of the millennium when multiplayer online games were really taking off. Every evening, the businessman would log onto Everquest and, through the game, spend time with his children or at least the cartoonish, anime-style virtual avatars of his children.

As they played together online, the businessman would ask them fatherly things how their schoolwork was going, what was going on with their friends, how their mother was getting on. He was using his virtual self to compensate for the absence of his real self.

Jason/Rurouni Robbie Cooper

Cooper says of the experience: This emotional exchange, taking place in the fantasy of the game, got me thinking about the distinction between reality and virtual reality. It seemed clear that our understanding of each reality would increasingly merge. It seemed like the obvious evolution of our culture.

In the artistic statement for a photography series he later shot, in which Cooper photographed portraits of gamers next their avatars, Cooper quoted Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine. New technology is catapulting images to the centre of the culture, Kelly said. We are becoming people of the screen.

Cooper has left stills photography behind. But his new career remains totally embedded in the language of image-making, for he has founded his own virtual reality company, the Brighton-based Metapixel. Cooper has built what he claims is one of the most advanced virtual reality scanning rigs in the world, designed to create lifelike replications of people in video games. The rig features 105 Nikon D810 36-megapixel cameras each linked and capable of working symbiotically. Rather than using one stills camera, Cooper has learnt how to use 105 simultaneously, to shoot images that can exist in space rather than hang on a wall.

Metapixel

Cooper had to work it out by himself, but he expects many other photographers to take his lead as opportunities to learn about VR grow and the brands that photographers work with today on conventional photographic projects start to adopt the technology.

He thinks getting ahead of that curve and becoming the first photographer in the room to get VR is something other photographers should do if they want to position themselves in a rapidly growing new area of imaging. A remarkable new online virtual reality nanodegree from the new Silicon Valley-based online university Udacity could be one way of getting started on that journey.

Udacity is an online educational startup that provides 21st century skills-based and vocational courses. With both public and private backing, more than 40,000 current students, and courses spanning topics such as digital marketing, mobile app development, and web development to cutting-edge courses in robotics, machine learning, and even self-driving car engineering.

Metapixel

Metapixel

Udacitys six-month long VR nanodegree offer students a certified qualification that, according to the company, is more rigorous and recognised for its practical usefulness than many other VR qualifications but without being as intensive and time-consuming as a full-time university degree.

People want to develop specific skills that allow them to land a job or start a company. Udacity teaches those skills in a highly focused manner and helps filter students directly into a great job at top-tier companies, says Matt Sonic, the lead instructor on Udacitys Virtual Reality nanodegree. Its like a university, but built by industry.

The educational nanodegrees, the first of their kind, are designed to help communities outside major urban centres meet the rising demand for high-tech skills and connect them to Silicon Valley. Udacitys Virtual Reality Developer Nanodegree programme is aimed at photographers who, like Cooper, want to steal a march on this new, rapidly emerging and quite possibly revolutionary, area of the image-based industries. The VR nanodegree aims to provide its students with just-in-time professional skills.

To develop the nanodegree, Udacitys VP of Learning Christian Plagemann and Matt Sonic interviewed top technology companies and asked what skills they wanted for virtual reality developer positions. From there, Udacity worked with Google VR, Upload, Unity, HTC Vive, Samsung, and Unreal to develop a core curriculum focusing on VR development. The programme grew by focusing on the skills employers want to find.

Virtual Reality is going to revolutionise how photographers create art, says Sonic. Instead of capturing a moment in a frame, photography will transform into capturing a moment in a space. You can still have the frame, but it is no longer required.

Mun & Lee/Crammer Robbie Cooper

This nanodegree is for everyone interested in VR development, regardless of your prior experience. Youll learn how to make VR films, some programming, and a lot about how create immersive interactions and environments, says Sonic.

Students start by learning cutting-edge mobile VR development. Then, they specialise in either Desktop VR programming using Unity, Desktop VR using Unreal, or 360 Immersive Media development. For anyone wanting to work in VR, even if its not on the programming side, having a basic understanding of the whole VR ecosystem, including the software elements, is going to be a big plus in getting work.

VR Room at Nick Thornton Jones and Warren Du Preezs Immortal photobook launch event

And the payoff for first movers in the VR career market could be huge. According to KZero, a global VR consulting firm, the consumer virtual reality market will be worth $5.2 billion by 2018. TechCrunch, meanwhile, are forecasting the VR industry will be a $108 billion market by 2021.

The trend hit headlines in 2013, when Facebook spent $2 billion for Oculus VR. Google quickly got involved by investing in startups like MagicLeap, and Microsoft also became involved in VR and augmented reality (AR) with their large investments in HoloLens. Sony and Samsung followed, launching their own virtual reality prototypes.

The technology is still in its early stages, but may have parallels in the mid-noughties mobile phone phenomenon. At first, mobile phones werent user friendly then suddenly, they became ubiquitous. Now its hard to imagine life without one.

Smartphones enable access to any information from anywhere, says Christian Plagemann, who co-founded Googles virtual reality team before becoming the VP of Learning at Udacity. Now, with virtual reality you can be anywhere and experience any place as if you were there. This new technology is about the experience and the feeling of presence, the understanding of space, environment and scale.

Creators are not limited to black rectangle screens any more, they can create entire worlds, spaces and experiences creating with an infinite amount of pixels, immersive sound and the most direct forms of interaction we have ever had available for users.

No other medium can create such an intuitive understanding of space and size. Imagine, for example, seeing a beautiful large building on a smartphone, computer monitor, TV or movie screen. You will never be able to truly grasp its size and the feeling of its size. With VR, however, you intuitively feel how the building fits into its surroundings, whether it is overwhelmingly large or just right. You experience space in a very direct, instinctive way.

In 2003 it was extraordinary, even strange, to find an absent father learning how to spend time with his children through their avatars, in the virtual space. In the next decade, this could become the norm for all of us how we socialise, make friends, meet new people, play with and educate our children, and spend our leisure time.

What is really exciting about this new technology is that anyone can learn it quite easily, says Plagemann. If you have access to a computer, some creativity and an open mind, you can jump right in.

For photographers worried about their future prospects, in an industry that sees its traditional revenue streams continuing to dwindle, then given its potential, learning about virtual reality could feel very appealing. Udacitys Nanodegree might very well be a good place to start the course is now open for enrollment until June 11th!

Sponsored byUdacity: This editorial feature was made possible with the support of Udacity. Please click here for more information on sponsored content funding at British Journal of Photography.

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Udacity offers photographers the chance to be Virtual Reality pioneers. - British Journal of Photography

Chuck Norris

Sandra Goldsmith, 74, a member of the congregation at South Los Angeles Holman Unified Methodist Church, clips a glasses-like device onto a smartphone and peers in. Instantly she sees herself standing in the middle of a kitchen. On the counter before her sits a range of food products from black beans to salmon to gumbo to lasagna to fruit smoothies. As she focuses in on each item, a header containing the sodium content of the item pops up above it. When she looks down, she is transported to a 3-D rendering of the item inside of a human body her virtual body and a time-lapse representation of a pumping heart as it deteriorates from the effects of years of high blood pressure.

Welcome to the world of virtual reality devices as applied to pre-emptive healthcare.

In the past decade, doctors across the country have used virtual reality in a number of innovative ways; from practicing surgeries, to teaching families about complicated medical treatments, to treating stress, and, most recently, to treating pain. According to the Los Angeles Times, the test project underway with Goldsmith and other congregation members of Holman Unified Methodist Church represents a new evolution to explore how virtual reality might work as a form of healthcare intervention outside a hospital or a doctors office.

Youre sitting there, all of a sudden in your own chest, watching your heart beat, Dr. Brennan Spiegel of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center tells public health and health policy reporter Soumya Karlamangla. The whole idea is to just hijack the brain into rethinking the role of food, and in this case salt and health, and were testing this now to see how people experience it and if its helpful to them.

This collaboration between Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Holman Unified Methodist Church to reduce high blood pressure in the community has been underway for approximately two years now. Virtual reality is just one tool in the tool kit to combat the problem. The program also includes weekly healthy dinners and recipe sharing, educational classes, and the wearing and monitoring of fitness trackers, as well as nurse check-ins.

The congregation of Holman Church is predominantly African-American. African-Americans tend to develop high blood pressure more often and at a younger age than other groups. One out of three African Americans in L.A. County said theyd been diagnosed with high blood pressure.

Everyones been on a diet, Dr. Bernice Coleman, a nurse scientist who heads the project for Cedars-Sinai tells Karlamangla. The thing in the middle that nobody understands is salt.

According to a Harvard University report, experts estimate that we could save 280,000 lives in the United States if, for example, for the next 10 years we lowered the average daily sodium intake by 40 percent. The operative word here is lower. Sodium is an essential part of our diet. It helps nerves and muscles function as well as hold onto water, but too much sodium means your body could retain too much liquid and that spells trouble. And that trouble is compounded by a Western diet saturated in salty food.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend the sodium intake of anyone over the age of 14 years be less than 2,300 milligrams per day. The average American consumes 3,409 milligrams of sodium each day, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many Americans routinely exceed this amount. Roughly 75 percent of sodium comes from prepared and processed foods. At the same time, the restaurant industry remains at the top of the list for sodium-dense meals.

According to the Mayo Clinic, high blood pressure and the condition known as hypertension can quietly damage your body for years before symptoms develop. Its why its often called the silent killer. Left uncontrolled, a person could wind up with a disability, poor quality of life or even a fatal heart attack. Roughly half the people with untreated hypertension die of heart disease, while another third die of stroke.

Meanwhile, like explorers in a new frontier, each week members of the Holman Church congregation gather for dinner, followed by a class. Theyve learned all about recommended salt intake. Theyve taken cooking and Tai Chi classes.

The churchs spiritual leader, Reverend Kelvin Sauls, tells the Los Angeles Times that he has come to see health and faith as two sides of the same coin. It is why he brings yoga and Zumba classes to his church. He is well aware that African-Americans, in addition to hypertension, are particularly vulnerable to diabetes and heart disease. According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 13 percent of all African-Americans aged 20 years or older have diagnosed diabetes. Nearly 95 percent of the diabetes cases in the United States are Type 2, which many health care professionals see as a reversible disease.

We cant save peoples souls in the sanctuary and kill their bodies in the fellowship hall, Rev. Sauls will say.

It seems a sentiment with which health care systems, looking desperately for more efficient ways to treat patients, could readily agree.

Write to Chuck Norris with your questions about health and fitness. Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebooks Official Chuck Norris Page. He blogs at ChuckNorrisNews.blogspot.com.

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Chuck Norris relates new use for virtual reality - WND.com

Calgary Herald

'Largest virtual reality arcade in North America' opens in Calgary Calgary Herald Vrkade, a virtual reality arcade, allows visitors to explore a variety of virtual reality worlds and games. Using a headset covering the eyes, headphones for the ears and two hand-held controllers, users are placed inside a computer-simulated ...

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'Largest virtual reality arcade in North America' opens in Calgary - Calgary Herald

Like many people, one of my first jobs growing up was in a movie theater. I spent summer 2005 sweeping up popcorn and sneaking into midday screenings of Wedding Crashers at an UltraStar Cinemas in San Diego. At the time, cup holders were considered fairly innovative and stadium seating was the height of luxury. Everyone still bought paper tickets at the box office, and the food menu was limited to popcorn, bad hot dogs and Junior Mints.

Today, moviegoers pay for tickets online and get their phones scanned at the door. They eat restaurant-style food and sip movie-themed cocktails in theater lounges before the films. They can even order food and wine while relaxing in their leather recliner seats.

Moviegoers have increasingly innovative and expensive options, especially in Los Angeles, a laboratory of multiplex innovation. The cinema industry is trying everything it can motion seats, virtual reality and even competitive video gaming to see what takes hold.

Its a matter of survival. Cinemas need to reinvent themselves for younger audiences who arent going to the multiplex as much. Movie theaters sold 1.3 billion tickets in the U.S. and Canada last year, down from the recent peak of 1.6 billion in 2002, according to data from the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

What you can get at a theater now is vastly different from five years ago, says Eric Handler, a media analyst with MKM Partners who follows the theatrical exhibition industry. The exhibitors finally realized people were willing to pay a premium for a higher-quality viewing experience.

The 3-year-old iPic Theaters location in Westwood revels in luxury. Going to the venue, which has a concierge-like front desk and full bar and restaurant, is more like checking into a hotel than a movie theater.

The premium section of the auditorium only fits six rows of seats, but thats the trade-off for full recliners equipped with pillows and blankets, plus wide aisles for the wait staff. Each pair of seats ($58 for two) comes with a menu created by Sherry Yard, who was Wolfgang Pucks longtime pastry chef, and a blue-light button to summon a server for wine and snacks.

Introducing food and wait service to the theatrical experience has forced companies to get creative. Smelly and crunchy dishes arent ideal, so instead they serve gourmet finger foods like green goddess turkey sliders, meatza pizza and tandoori chicken skewers.

Afterward, couples can venture to the darkly lit Tuck Room Tavern, the restaurant Yard opened a year ago. The bar features a glass tower that uses liquid nitrogen to create special cocktail flavoring.

Why the pampering?

We're competing with your home, says Hamid Hashemi, CEO of Florida-based iPic Entertainment, which also operates a theater in Pasadena. It's really simple. If there's a way to watch a movie and improve the experience, why not do it?

Rivals have taken note and are also attempting to turn a trip to the movies into a more plush and boozy date night. AMC Theatres, the worlds largest cinema chain, has been rapidly adding recliner chairs and dine-in options, and recently completed renovations of two Burbank locations. The exhibition giant has opened 250 of its MacGuffins bars at its theaters, with movie-themed cocktail tie-ins, including a Baywatch Banana Hammock and a Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Awesome Mix.

The U.S. division of the Mexican cinema chain Cinepolis has its own luxury theater in Westlake Village, featuring waiter service and a full bar (some Cinepolis locations also have auditoriums with play areas for kids). And Cinemark opened its Playa Vista and XD location in 2015 with a reserve level VIP experience for patrons to order food and drinks.

As the competition heats up, iPic is looking for ways to make its offerings even fancier. The company is introducing a new seating pod that creates a private cocoon around pairs of moviegoers.

The Vine Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, one of Los Angeles many single-screen theaters dating back to 1940, doesnt look like much from the sidewalk. No movies are advertised on its marquee. But inside is a center of advanced technology and cinema innovation. Cinema tech company Dolby Laboratories gutted and remodeled the space several years ago and now uses it to show its projection and surround-sound advancements to filmmakers such as Ang Lee.

There are 72 Dolby Cinema theaters in the United States with partner AMC L.A. locations include the AMC Burbank 16 and AMC Century City 15 complete with laser projection and an advanced 360-degree ring of speakers wrapped around the audience.

The Vine theater showcases the latest technologies. The tour starts with Dolbys signature audio-visual pathway from the lobby to the auditorium, a curved screen with projected images related to the movie the guests are about to see. As people walk into a screening of The Lego Batman Movie, for instance, they see animated graphics of the characters on the wall.

Once inside, Dolby executive Stuart Bowling uses a before-and-after shot of a white dot on black screen to show how the companys laser projectors can create a true inky black color, instead of the milky gray people are used to seeing on the silver screen.

It really delivers true black level for the filmmaker to deliver a more compelling image, Bowling says. They all have gasps, whoas, occasionally an expletive from a filmmaker.

The Dolby Atmos surround-sound technology uses dozens of speakers on the ceilings and walls around the auditorium to simulate sounds coming from different directions.

San Francisco-based Dolby is just one of the companies using better screening technology to get people off the couch and into the theaters. If its size youre looking for, go to TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

The Canadian cinema technology company Imax Corp. put its stamp on the legendary theater in 2013, installing a 94-wide screen (among the largest largest Imax theaters in North America). Later, Imax added a 4K laser projection system in what it called a giant leap forward for cinema technology.

Not to be outdone, the biggest theater chains, including AMC, Regal and Cinemark, are rolling out their own premium, large-format auditoriums for a more grandiose experience. Cinemark two years ago unveiled its revamped Playa Vista location, which includes a 450-seat auditorium known as XD with a giant 70-feet wide screen and a sound system that has more than 60 speakers.

Meanwhile, Belgian projector company Barco has been trying to promote its Barco Escape, an immersive three-screen format that surrounds the audience, though few movies have been designed for the experience. Regal L.A. Live, recently branded as a Barco Innovation Center, includes a Barco Escape auditorium, as does the Cinemark multiplex at Howard Hughes Center.

Another technological innovation that could change the movie business is the much-hyped virtual reality. Filmmakers and executives have talked up the grand possibilities of storytelling for the pricey headsets that promise an intense, immersive experience.

Many hurdles have prevented VR from going mainstream, including the high cost of the headsets, which can cost thousands of dollars each, and the lack of compelling content.

Still, Hollywood is adapting films to virtual-reality video games and designing promotional tie-ins for movies to supplement marketing efforts. Some major filmmakers are making VR a part of their toolkit. Oscar-winner Alejandro G. Irritu recently displayed his VR project Carne y Arena at the Cannes Film Festival.

And theaters have become testing grounds for VR experiments. At the Regal L.A. Live entertainment complex, a marketing team for 20th Century Fox recently roped off part of the cinema lobby and set up a row of chairs and Oculus Rift rigs. The team persuaded moviegoers wandering the lobby to strap on headsets and watch the free promotional tool Alien: Covenant In Utero, a two-minute, 360-degree video that lets users experience what its like for an alien to burst out of someones chest.

Universal Pictures took a different approach with its own VR tie-in for The Mummy. The studio teamed with Glendale-based VR seating company Positron to create virtual-reality theaters with rows of swiveling seats equipped with headsets. The studios free 10-minute VR video simulates a scene in which Tom Cruise weightlessly tries to survive in a plummeting airplane.

This VR technology really allowed us to create content that would immerse audiences in a way that wouldn't have been possible before, said Austin Barker, head of creative content for Universal Pictures. You can't ignore its potential.

Indeed, Imax is betting its new VR centers will become a part of the theatrical experience. During Memorial Day weekend, the company opened a virtual-reality hub in the lobby at the AMC Kips Bay in New York and has others in the works.

In L.A., Imax opened its new virtual-reality center, modeled after a video-game arcade, near the Grove shopping complex in January. Customers pay $7 to $10 for a virtual-reality experience, including games based on movies such as shoot-em-up action flick John Wick.

Down the hall from the Alien VR setup at Regal L.A. Live, moviegoers trickle into a 3:15 p.m. screening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in a 4DX auditorium promising an absolute cinema experience. Translated, that means audience members pay $24.50 a ticket for a theater that uses moving seats, plus wind, water and odor effects, to simulate whats happening on the screen.

The seats pull back and rumble as Drax the Destroyer takes a flying leap at an alien foe. When something explodes, simulated smoke fills the theater. The idea of 4DX, created by South Korean company CJ 4Dplex Co., is to make people feel as if theyre part of the action. Its a bit like a Universal Studios ride.

About 18 miles south of L.A. Live, a Torrance-based company called MediaMation makes its own competing version of the motion-seat technology, called MX4D. MediaMation workers in protective goggles assemble rows of seats that they will ship across the country, and crash dummies wait to test the seats safety.

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The company uses an on-site miniature theater to demonstrate for studio executives how their movies will be seen with its motion seating and other effects. In its version of Mad Max: Fury Road, moviegoers faces are blasted with air during a scene where a characters face is sprayed with chrome paint.

While popular in Asia, the technology has spread slowly in the U.S., partly because of the cost. Still, MediaMation CEO Daniel Jamele says the idea is catching on with American moviegoers who want an experience that they cant replicate in their living rooms.

We think theres a real market here, Jamele said.

Some theaters are even turning their theaters into video game centers. MediaMation is working with the TCL Chinese Theatre to retrofit one of its auditoriums for e-sports competitive video-game tournaments where people play on the big screen.

Cinephiles may balk at the apparent sacrilege of the cinematic space, but theaters have been experimenting for years with this kind of alternative content, especially during weekday business hours when auditoriums are empty.

iPic and other exhibitors have been getting into the in-theater gaming business too. The company has teamed with video-gaming league Super League Gaming to host one-week Minecraft tournaments at its locations. Five-day passes for its upcoming July event cost $100.

Thats the dream of every theater, Jamele said. It gives them an alternate source of income, which is what they need.

ryan.faughnder@latimes.com

Twitter: @rfaughnder

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Rumbling seats. Virtual reality. Booze. How cinemas are adapting to uncertain future - Los Angeles Times

USA TODAY Sports gets an inside look at the remarkable technology that will soon change the way people across the world consume sports. USA TODAY Sports

Camera pods will be set up throughout MLB ballparks.(Photo: Intel)

NEW YORKMajor League Baseball is about to play ballin virtual reality.

The league is teaming up with Intel to deliver a live-streaming game of the week in VR, starting Tuesday when the Colorado Rockies host the Cleveland Indians. Weekly games will be blacked out in the participating teams local markets, the same way the league handles out-of-market streams on MLB TV and on Twitter.

The non-exclusive Intel-MLB virtual reality partnership is set for three years. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Youll need a Samsung Gear VR (and compatible smartphone) to take in the game virtually, and must also download the Intel True VR app, available free in the Oculus store.

To bring you closer to the field, Intel plans to use an array of 4K-resolution cameras in the home team stadium, giving fans up to four camera angles per game in real time. So you might get to watch from the perspective of the first or third base coaches, or from the dugout. Or inthe case of Chase Fieldwhere the Arizona Diamondbacks play, from the outfield swimming pool view. Camera pods are automated, so you get to choose the views you want.

"Think of it as a highly personalized experience," says David Aufhauser, head of product at Intel Sports Group.

Youll also have the option of watching a fully produced VR broadcast, with audio most likely piped in from the regular radio feed. Intel and the league are not assigning a dedicated announcing crew to the VR broadcast. Stats and highlightswill also be available.

While Major League Baseball has dabbled in VR beforewith post-production efforts around last years All-Star Game and postseason, and through some At Bat VR offerings on Google's Daydream virtual reality platformthe Intel partnership is the first in which full live games will be streamed in virtual reality. It's something rival leagues such as the NBA already deliver on select games.

Whether fans choose to watch an entire three hour baseball game wearing a headsetremains to be seen.

Intel's VR production truck.(Photo: Intel)

Kenny Gersh, an executive vice president for business at MLB Advanced Media, says when it comes to virtual reality we are not even in the first inning yet, and he expects the experiences offered by the end of the three-year agreement to look very different from what will be available next week. But he thinks the pace of a baseball game, in which there are pauses between pitches and innings, will give fans the opportunity to somewhat leisurely toggle among the different views.

For now, Gersh says there are no plans to bring VR to this years All-Star game,playoffs or World Series, in part because of rights issues.

And since Intel will only placeits VR cameras in one ballpark per week, there is no immediate backup in case the VR game on the schedule is rained out.

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

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Major League Baseball to live-stream games in virtual reality - USA TODAY

In the early days of virtual reality shooters, adding another human to the experience turns out to be an easy win. Games like Raw Data, Farpoint, and the upcoming Killing Floor: Incursion are all best with two people. But Gunheart, the first game from studio Drifter Entertainment, is the only one that also lets you blow balloons with your friends between rounds.

Gunheart is launching on all major high-end VR platforms: Oculus Rift and HTC Vive this summer, then PlayStation VR later in the year. Its designed as a full-length game for three players, with a focus on cool weapons, fast-moving combat, and cooperation. Imagine an even more frenetic version of Borderlands in VR, with greater immersion but so far a lot less character.

Although Gunheart comes from a new studio, the games core team is made up of experienced developers. Ray Davis was general manager at Epic Games, where he worked on the Gears of War series and on Robo Recall, one of the most polished VR shooters ever made. Kenneth Scott is a longtime art director who previously worked at id Software and Oculus. And Brian Murphy is a former designer and creative director at Microsoft.

The gameplay looks fun, but it needs more character

Unfortunately, like a lot of VR games, Gunheart looks generic on the surface. Its name sounds like something from a Rob Liefeld superhero generator, and its central conflict killing bug-like monsters in a rocky alien landscape is the premise of Farpoint as well. Cooperative play is a great element to add, but its also a shortcut that lets developers avoid having to create characters or compelling narratives. VR games have to be developed on an aggressive timeline to keep up with the fast-changing industry, and Gunheart looks like one of the more substantive efforts. But it doesnt feel distinctive in the way we expect from good non-VR games, even ones enjoyed mostly for their gameplay.

In Gunhearts favor, the gameplay is shaping up to be a lot of fun, based on my run through an early build of one level. It pulls together an armory based on items people already love using with motion controls, including conventional weapons, a crossbow, and a disc-throwing gun reminiscent of the science fiction frisbees in sports games RipCoil and Sparc. Players can wield one in each hand, or combine them into a unique super-weapon by holding their hands together. You could probably go it alone, but you wouldnt be able to surround enemies with other people, or have one person lay down fire with a long-range weapon while another gets up close with a shotgun.

Gunhearts teleportation system makes it possible to reach places youd never get with standard video game running or jumping. You can pop instantly around areas to find cover spots and vantage points, or rush an enemy and then blink back to revive a fallen partner. A lot of VR developers early on looked at teleport as sort of a handicap that caused less motion sickness than running, says Davis. We really embraced it as a first-class citizen, and realized it feels like a superpower. Its also apparently easier to get players to notice things above their heads in VR. It unlocks vertical spaces in a way that we always wanted to do in shooters, Murphy says.

The multiplayer lobby is a literal lobby

And although the game badly needs a fresher aesthetic, it does have one clever feature I havent found anywhere else: the standard multiplayer lobby is a literal lobby, or at least a spacious lounge. Instead of holding guns, players use a device in their hands to blow balloons, draw voxels in midair, or produce a giant foam hand to give high-fives. Will most people spend much time here? Its hard to say. And when players start games with random strangers instead of acquaintances, Drifter will also need a robust anti-harassment system, if it wants to avoid the problems other VR games have faced. But the lobby still offers a non-violent playfulness thats rare in shooters.

Gunheart still feels very much like a first-wave VR game, but its riding the tail end of that wave, learning from the early successes and failures of VR shooters. I just hope I can find enough friends with headsets to play it.

Read more:

Gunheart looks like Borderlands for virtual reality - The Verge