Category Archives: Virtual Reality

For all of the overwrought promises about the futuristic technology connecting people, it's a pretty isolating experience. The hardware shuts out any view or sound of people physically near you, not many people own headsets yet, and interactions inside virtual settings are still limited.

Google (GOOG) is working on new features that could fix some of that. Unfortunately, it might involve hanging out in the VR version of a YouTube comments section.

The company announced the next steps for its virtual and augmented reality technology on Thursday at its annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California.

Google is releasing a major update to its virtual reality platform, Daydream. It's the software that will run on its own Daydream View goggles as well as the standalone headsets that third parties like Lenovo are creating later this year. Google also makes the Daydream View, a low-tech VR headset that uses a smartphone.

Related: Google is still trying to kill the Echo and Siri

In the new version of Daydream, called Euphrates, you can broadcast what you see in virtual reality to a regular TV over a Chromecast. That way any friends or family members hanging out in your home can see what you see. The popularity of services like Twitch, which live streams other people playing video games, has shown there's a demand for this type of sharing.

If no one's nearby, you can take a screenshot or record a video of what you see, like a level of a VR game. Post them on social media or share directly over text or email.

If you've alienated all your local friends by making them watch you play video games, there's a new option for hanging out with other VR users. YouTube is working on an update to its VR app that will let people watch the same videos together in virtual "shared rooms."

The feature will allow a limited number of people to view the same 360-degree videos simultaneously while speaking to each other over voice chat. You can also see what videos other people are watching and jump in. The rooms are public, so your customizable avatar is interacting with everyone else using the YouTube VR app. That makes it more like a spoken, virtual version of a YouTube comments section than a closed social app like Facebook's (FB, Tech30) Spaces. Google does plan to include safety features such as the ability to leave a group or block someone at anytime.

Google is also bringing other staples of the old fashioned 2D internet into VR. It's adding support for its Chrome web browser, so you can browse websites.

All the new features are coming later this year.

CNNMoney (San Francisco) First published May 18, 2017: 5:20 PM ET

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Can Google make virtual reality less lonely? - CNNMoney

Researchers discover 'virtual reality porn' can improve couple's real life sex.

But they are warning about the dangers of 'virtual reality porn'....where some users think sex via a head set is 'better than the real thing'.

The latest technology allows gamers to become an active part of 'new' experiences through sex games on screen.

A research team from Newcastle University found the growing popularity of VR technologies opening up a whole new market in pornography.

Dr Madeline Balaam, co-author of the research, used 45 volunteers, 14 men, 18 women and three described as 'other', to find out how VR porn could be used.

She said: "I think it is a more first person rather than a third person experience. The sensory experience through this technology means you think you are playing a role in it, rather than watching it.

"I think people were writing these accounts, to attune technology to create their fictional desires, so the character looks exactly what you want them to look like and does exactly what you want them to do. It is the ultimate for users in that sense."

She added: "Some wrote stories about being caught using VR in their own lives. But instead of getting angry, their partner agreed to explore sexual fantasies played out on screen.

"Then they had an amazing sex life together. So this technology could also be used to improve your sex life."

Dangers include more violent fantasies, however, and using photos of a partner - or even a stranger - to create characters involved in VR sex on screen.

By the 19 th century, pornography was in books and art, before postcards introduced it to the masses.

Now, with 3D cameras, photos of real people may be used for on line sex games, rather than avatars, including nude photos of partners past or present, which is one of the risks posed by the use of new media.

Dr Balaam added: "We are already obsessed with body image and the digital industry is no different, creating the perfect virtual woman from Lara Croft to sex-robots. VR porn has the potential to escalate this.

"Our research highlighted not only a drive for perfection, but also a crossover between reality and fantasy. Some of our findings highlighted the potential for creating 3D models of real life people, raising questions over what consent means in VR experiences.

"If a user created a VR version of their real life girlfriend, for example, would they do things to her that they knew she would refuse in the real world?"

Researcher Matthew Wood told how VR offers the opportunity to move from being 'simply an observer to being a participant' for the first time.

"This changes the experience massively," he added. "Our findings suggest VR porn could be more like cheating on a partner because of the increasing reality of the VR experience.

"We found that for most people the potential of a VR porn experience opened the doors to an apparently perfect sexual experience - a scenario which in the real world no-one could live up to.

"For others it meant pushing boundaries, often with highly explicit imagery, and we know exposure to this can become addictive and more extreme over time."

Through headsets such as the Facebook owned Oculus Rift, the 'Playstation' style sex games are growing in use, and it could be seen in 'revenge porn' in future, according to the research.

It was presented at Computer Human Interaction conference last week.

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Researchers discover 'virtual reality porn' can improve couple's real life sex - Mirror.co.uk

Escaping your everyday life to indulge in a little virtual reality romp is not so different from cheating on your partner, scientists have warned

IT may seem like youre spicing up your sex life when you strap on that virtual reality helmet to watch porn but its probably doing more harm than good.

Escaping your everyday life to indulge in a casual virtual romp is not so different from cheating on your partner, scientists have warned.

Getty Images

They are also more likely to play outhighly explicit and violent fantasies because there are no consequences in the virtual reality (VR) world.

Experts are warning that this behaviour has the potential to become addictive and more extreme over time damaging relationships in the real world.

Dr Madeline Balaam, of Newcastle Universitys school of computing science, said: As a society we are always looking for new and novel experiences but the porn industry brings with it an added risk because of its sexist stance and exploitation of women.

We are already obsessed with body image and the digital industry is no different, creating the perfect virtual woman from Lara Croft to sex-robots. VR porn has the potential to escalate this.

Our research highlighted not only a drive for perfection, but also a crossover between reality and fantasy.

Some of our findings highlighted the potential for creating 3D models of real life people, raising questions over what consent means in VR experiences.

If a user created a VR version of their real life girlfriend, for example, would they do things to her that they knew she would refuse in the real world?

The moveto internet pornography from books and magazines has largely been associated with more explicit and perverse sexual content, particularly with more violent behaviour, the researchers said.

Getty Images

They observed the behaviour of 45 participants using virtual reality porn to complete a characters story.

Some participants completed the perfect sexual experience that was as close to the real thing as they could get, but others went beyond what was acceptable in real life and even forced themselves upon women.

Lead author, Matthew Wood, said: But what VR offers for the first time is the opportunity to move from being simply an observer to being a participant and this changes the experience massively.

One of our findings suggested VR pornography could be something more like cheating on a partner because of the increasing reality of the VR experience.

We found that for most people the potential of a VR porn experience opened the doors to an apparently perfect sexual experience a scenario which in the real world no-one could live up to.

For others it meant pushing the boundaries, often with highly explicit and violent imagery, and we know from current research into pornography that exposure to this content has the potential to become addictive and more extreme over time.

Getty Images

Dr Balaam warned that with the rise of social media life-like 3D images of a person created in VR porn could be used in revenge porn in the future.

She said: Pornography has been with us forever and is not going to go away.

But maybe virtual reality gives us the opportunity to influence pornography and introduce some new rules.

Imagine a scenario, for example where a male participant is made to assume the female role in the virtual game.

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Virtual reality porn is so realistic is makes people think it's okay to ... - The Sun

While America broke, Donald Gloverthrived. His long-awaited sitcomAtlantawas an exalted take on the surrealism of blackness, he introduced Bad and Boujee to the Golden Globe bourgeoisie,Awaken, My Love!was a P-funk romp too charismatic to be written off as a derivative, and Redbone is still on the Hot 100. Hes been on a creative streak that encompasses multiple mediums, and sometimes, the ideas bled into each other.

Hence the virtual reality vinyl.On November 30, the Childish Gambino website revealedAwaken, My Love!would be available in that format, whatever it meant.The concept was about as wild as an invisible car, exceptit actually cost money. The normally articulate Childish Gambino fell into vaguedescriptors when he tried to explain what exactly $59.99 would get you. Its a vinyl that you play with virtual reality, he said. Do you get abducted into the vinyl grooves and take part in some hornyJumanji? Does a life-sized hologram of Black Justin Bieber spring up from the vinyl player as a bonus?

It turns out we didnt need to stretch our imaginations because a virtual reality vinyl is a bit of a misnomer. Its a cardboard pair of virtual reality glasses that work in conjunction with the PHAROS app; you get a vinyl disc, too.Awaken, My Love!s vinyledition finally drops today, and last night, Rough Trade NYC hosted brief previews for press and the general public. Inside the record store, general admission fans lined up in front of a vinyl display that included Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and the general pantheon of classic rock musicians that makewhite men in uncombedbeards smileand silently mutter, Mmm, thats good shit. (The attending fans were mostly college age, however.) While the past was put on sale, the futuristic VR experience was held in the windowed room on Rough Trades second floor.

The future, it turns out, comprises late-90s video gamegraphics and tribal creatures. When I walked in, the room already had one brother, seated and strapped into some black and shiny VR goggles. He was smiling as he watched, so I assumed it was good. Immediately, I was greeted by a pleasant Brit working the event. After asking me cursory questions about the night (Have you heard of the performance?), I sat down and wassoon within the Gambino experience.Scored by Gambinos PHAROS performance, the VR places you in a haunted ecosphere where the jungle leaves are colored in every tropical shade but green. Animated skeletons gathered in a kumbaya, kneeling and lounging in afterlifejoy.Gambino appeared as an apparition, boyishly singing the album closer Stand Tall.

The darkness that appeared as a subtle undertone on the album threwitself to the forefront; the results were jarring enough to elicit anxiety. At one point, a ghoul that looked like a deformed Grim Fandango suddenly appeareduncomfortablyclose to my periphery. I wanted to punch it, but because virtual reality exists beyond the reach of my fists, I wouldve ended up hitting a Glassnote Records representative. For the 10 seconds faux Fandango floated before me, I sat frightened and helpless.

The phantasmagoric imagery didnt really augmentAwaken, My Love!likean immersive experience ought to. Even within the 3D jungle nocturne, I was aware California sucked. And to that point, the VR reality experience is fine because the album is fine. But the inclusion of VR rarely seems to be as forward-thinking as their users purport; it largely seems like a perfunctory use of newfound resources.Dawn Richard dropped her interactive video for Lazarus and Love Under Lights last week, and I mainly remember being in a bad way for the rest of the daynot because the video blew me away, but because it caused my Mac to glitch out. People have this tendency to view the future as this self-fulfilling prophecy waiting to manifest. Its not; its simply a new thing to do.The college kids are here for now, but eventually theyll figure it out.

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We Finally Figured Out What Childish Gambino's "Virtual Reality Vinyl" Is All About - SPIN

New York Times

Irritu's 'Carne y Arena' Virtual Reality Simulates a Harrowing Border Trek New York Times The cold of the hieleras is the first thing you feel in Carne y Arena (Flesh and Sand), a groundbreaking hybrid of art exhibition, virtual reality simulation and historical re-enactment by the Mexican film director Alejandro G. Irritu on view ... How Alejandro G. Irritu Used Virtual Reality to Tackle Illegal ImmigrationVariety Alejandro G. Irritu Strikes At Heart Of Immigrant Experience With Virtual Reality Installation CARNE y ARENA ...Deadline all 4 news articles »

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Irritu's 'Carne y Arena' Virtual Reality Simulates a Harrowing Border Trek - New York Times

Forbes

'Neon Genesis Evangelion' Gets The Full Virtual Reality Treatment In Japan This Summer Forbes This new virtual reality or VR game will be playable at Bandai Namco's upcoming event space in Kabukicho, Shinjuku this summer. To be honest, I am surprised that Bandai Namco hasn't leveraged its mecha related properties more aggressively when it ...

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'Neon Genesis Evangelion' Gets The Full Virtual Reality Treatment In Japan This Summer - Forbes

Bjrk isnt just a pop star. Shes a songwriter and producer, as well as a composer who has done the arrangements on 90% of her music for the last 25 years. Most fans may not know this. She doesnt trumpet her musical fluency, she says, because its ingrained in her as a woman to stay quiet about her talents.

Shes done remaining silent on the subject, however, as she stands poised to unleash a veritable Bjrk-apalooza on the City of Angels with a three-pronged musical and artistic blitz. A virtual reality exhibit titled Bjrk Digital opens Friday in downtown L.A. Advance copies of her new book, 34 Scores for Piano, Organ, Harpsichord and Celeste, will be made exclusively available there. Then May 30 will mark the Iceland natives sold-out Walt Disney Concert Hall debut, accompanied by a 32-piece string orchestra.

If I were a guy, people would be talking about, and writing about, my music and not just about my love life and kids, she said in her lilting, sing-song voice over the phone from New York. So my input for feminism is to start putting the spotlight on my arrangements.

If I were a guy, people would be talking about, and writing about, my music and not just about my love life and kids.

Bjrk

The score book alone took eight years to put together. She met two times a year with composer, keyboardist and former bandmate Jonas Sen to go through her back catalog. They merged her arrangements for choir, strings, brass and vocals into versions for keyboards. She also worked with designers on what turned into a challenging task: creating a font for her music in the same way one would be created for letters. If youre not quite sure what this means, youre not alone. When pressed to elaborate, Bjrk said she could talk about the process for hours and that a documentary could be made about it, but it still wouldnt be easy to understand.

We had to do a Kofi Annan situation between the [music] notation universe and the font universe, she said, referring to the seemingly impossible negotiations undertaken by the former secretary general of the United Nations. That actually took two years, but hopefully now other musicians can do the same with their own notations.

Its fitting that 34 Scores, with its hard-won font, will be released at the Bjrk Digital exhibition, which highlights Bjrks talent for bringing multiple art forms together with technology in service of amplifying the effect of her music. The exhibit will be making its West Coast premiere after appearing in Sydney, Australia; Tokyo; London; Reykjavik, Iceland; Montreal; Mexico City; and Houston.

The exhibit has three distinct components. The first features six virtual reality experiences made for her most recent album, Vulnicura, which transport viewers in custom headsets to far-flung and unexpected places including a windswept beach in Iceland and the interior of the singers mouth.

The second is a hands-on educational alcove showcasing Bjrks custom instruments and music apps, which were made for her 2011 album, Biophilia. That groundbreaking work was the first album to be released as a series of interactive apps that stitched together aspects of musicology with science and nature to some academic effect. The album ultimately launched the Biophilia Educational Program, which adapted the singers programs into the official curriculum of several Northern European countries.

Finally, Bjrk Digital will have a cinema room playing remastered music videos spanning the career of the 51-year-old singer. Directors include heavyweights such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and Alexander McQueen.

It has been particularly satisfying to see the emotional reaction from people who come to the show and experience virtual reality for the first time. Audience members often hold hands, sing along, even cry while they are inside the virtual space, said James Merry, Bjrk Digital creative co-director, by email from Reykjavik. I think the ability to place sound in a 360-degree environment is particularly exciting to a self-confessed audio nerd like Bjork.

For fans of Bjrks music, Bjrk Digital should feel like a natural extension of her career trajectory. As a testament to her early use of digital technology as a means for artistic expression, the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2015 staged a three-month-long retrospective of her multifaceted work.

Her voice is among the most distinctive sopranos in modern music, characterized by remarkable elasticity and vulnerability. Her music, no matter the genre electronic, pop, experimental, trip-hop or orchestral has always somehow sounded like the future itself.

Bjrk stresses that this has not necessarily been intentional.

To be honest, when I do things that are technological, or with VR, or even with acoustic strings and choirs, Im basically just trying to be functional, she says. Im trying to be truthful to the lives we lead now. Im not trying to be far-out. We are on our phones now sharing files and ideas, making videos, photos and songs.

As complicated as playing with a 32-piece orchestra can be, the experience has brought Bjrk back to simpler tasks and allowed her to explore the roots of her arrangements. She is finding new freedom in that. Prior to her upcoming concert at Disney Hall, she has performed with orchestras at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Harpa hall in Reykjavik and the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City.

Ultimately, says Bjrk Digital co-director Merry, Bjrk is creating a musical landscape all her own.

Collaborating with her is like an invitation into a very specific universe that she is creating to surround her music, where she encourages you to grow and flourish inside of that world and brings the best out of you, teasing out the places where both your worlds overlap while still staying true to her vision, he says.

What future creative innovations might populate this universe is up in the air, Bjrk says, adding that shes always writing and learning new tools to enhance her craft.

I think its important at any given time to re-evaluate what is relevant and not relevant, and maybe cross-connect those to create a new form that is relevant to the world we live in, she says.

Where: Magic Box at the Reef, 1933 S. Broadway, Los Angeles

When: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday to June 4

Tickets: Starting at $35; timed entry every 15 minutes

Information: (323) 850-2000, http://www.laphil.com

jessica.gelt@latimes.com

@jessicagelt

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'Bjrk Digital': Sonic dreams become virtual reality in downtown LA - Los Angeles Times

Vikings raid the English coastline in the 900s. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

The Viking armies that invaded Britain in the ninth century were far larger than had previously been realised, according to academic research that forms the basis for a groundbreaking virtual reality project.

A major exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum, staged in partnership with the British Museum, draws on new research by the universities of York and Sheffield. According to Professor Dawn Hadley, one of the co-directors of the universities project at the site of a Viking winter camp, archeologists and historians had thought that the invading Viking armies numbered in the low hundreds. But archeological work at the camp on the river Trent at Torksey, Lincolnshire, suggested otherwise.

Our work at Torksey has revealed a camp 55 hectares in area, the size of some 75 football pitches, Hadley said. This reflects an army which, along with women, children, and crafts workers and traders, must have been several thousand strong, larger than most towns of the period.

The VR project at the Yorkshire exhibition presents those findings in an immersive reproduction of the camps life. Armed with virtual reality helmets, visitors will be transported back to the camp where Vikings camped out in their thousands during the winter of AD 872-3 while they prepared for conquest. They are seen melting down stolen loot, repairing ships and playing a favourite strategic board game.

Professor Julian Richards, Hadleys co-director on a project focusing on the camp, told the Guardian that the project was the first to present the Viking world via immersive virtual reality.

Torksey was much more than just a handful of hardy warriors, he said. This was a huge base From the finds we know, for example, that they were repairing their boats here and melting down looted gold and silver to make ingots or bars of metal they used to trade. Metal detectorists have also found more than 300 lead game-pieces, suggesting the Vikings were spending a lot of time playing games waiting for spring and the start of their next offensive.

The virtual reality scenes are based on actual objects found by archaeologists and metal detectorists at Torksey, recreating a camp where boats and weaponry were being patched up and replaced, objects like jewellery were being made for trading and clothes were being repaired.

The exhibition also reflects events of the year 865 AD, when a large Viking force landed in East Anglia. It is described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the main contemporary documentary source, as the Great Army because it was much larger than previous raiding parties.

Torksey was a perfect defensive and strategic position. Hadley said: Here Anglo-Saxon scribes tell us that the army overwintered but, working with metal detectorists, we have now been able to identify the actual site and nature of the camp.

Over 1,500 objects have been found, and the visitor will take part in a number of vignettes which show their use. For example, in Games Night, they will see a group of Vikings sitting round a board game, using some of the 300 lead playing pieces found on the site, to play an old Norse strategy game hnefatafl.

In another scene, some warriors are busy repairing one of their ships, drawn up on the river bank, as reflected in the iron rivets we have found.

Richards said: These extraordinary images offer a fascinating snapshot of life at a time of great upheaval in Britain. The Vikings had previously often raided exposed coastal monasteries and returned to Scandinavia in winter but in the later ninth century they came in larger numbers and decided to stay. This sent a very clear message that they now planned not only to loot and raid, but to control and conquer.

The virtual reality exhibition will feature alongside prized exhibits from the British Museum and Yorkshire Museums collections. The exhibition, entitled Viking: Rediscover the Legend, opens at the Yorkshire Museum on Friday.

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Virtual reality brings ninth century Viking invaders' camp to life - The Guardian

If there's one thing that's been consistently annoying about the current virtual reality renaissance it's that almost all of the available devices require you to stay tethered to another device, like a PC or PlayStation 4 with a wire.

But virtual reality may be about to break free from those chains. Yesterday at Google I/O 2017 conference, Google and HTC announced the upcoming release of a new standalone Vive headset powered by Google's Daydream virtual reality platform.

Image: Google

There's no clear word on if it'll be able to handle the Vive's more graphically intensive games and other applicationsalthough the official site claims it'll deliver an "unparalleled experience"but it at least sounds like the realization of a dream that's been long in the works. The unnamed device requires neither a PC nor a smartphone to run. It supports Google's WorldSense, a 3D mapping technology that works without any external sensors. And since you won't have to stuff your phone into the visor, there's more room available for a larger battery. This is liberating stuff.

Yet details are scant, unfortunately, aside from a couple of teaser images and an announcement that it'll be available "later this year." There's also no word on how much the thing will end up costing, although a price in the range of your average high-end smartphone seems like a safe bet.

The technology isn't just limited to HTC, as Google announced that Lenovo is also making a standalone device with Daydream tech. But for now, at least, Vive is the one to watch. After months of sluggish sales, a competent standalone device from one of the most successful virtual reality headset makes to date could be just want the virtual reality industry needs.

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With Some Help from Google, Virtual Reality Is About to Break Free from the Wires - Motherboard

Pretty soon, real life will be stranger than fiction when it comes to bringing the great inventions of science fiction and games into real world technology.

Kim Pallister, director of Intels virtual reality center of excellence, moderated a fireside chat about that topic with science fiction writer Austin Grossman at our recentGamesBeat Summit 2017: How games, sci-fi, and tech create real-world magic.

They dwelled on the future of virtual reality experiences and building worlds like the Metaverse in Neal Stephensons 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash. Given the advances of VR, its not such a crazy talk to have anymore. People are really looking for an experience that lives up to the imagination portrayed in such early works of fiction.

Snow Crash imprinted [the idea of virtual life] on the culture, Grossman said.

Pallister added, It feels like the current set of hardware has tipped us over a point where people can feel a magical experience but it is really only just the beginning of the types of experiences depicted in those fictional works.

Pallister leads Intels virtual reality (VR) project lab in Hillsboro, Ore. His team is working to improve the state of VR technology and to bring VR to mainstream audiences. In his current role, Pallister forecasts the progress of VR and the ingredient technologies responsible for driving VR experiences.

Above: Kim Pallister (left) of Intel quizzed sci-fi novelist Austin Grossman at GamesBeat Summit 2017.

Image Credit: Michael O'Donnell/VentureBeat

Assisting Intels original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners, from Microsoft to HTC and Oculus, Pallister works closely with the underlying solutions making VR possible.

Prior to rejoining Intel in 2007, Pallister worked on Microsofts business development team conducting deals for MS Casual Games services, including MSN Games, Xbox Live Arcade and Windows Live Messenger. From 1998 to 2005, he served as games technical strategist at Intel.

Grossman straddles the lines between books and games, as he is botha novelist and game designer.

Above: Kim Pallister of Intel talks with Austin Grossman (right) about the future of virtual reality.

Image Credit: Michael O'Donnell/VentureBeat

Grossmans novels include Soon I Will Be Invincible, YOU: a novel, and Crooked. Soon I Will Be Invincible was nominated for the 2007 John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize. His writing has also appeared in Granta, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.

His game credits include Ultima Underworld 2, System Shock, Trespasser, Deus Ex, Epic Mickey, and Dishonored, which received the 2012 BAFTA award for Best Game.

Its discouraging if the thing that VR gives us is an escape from a dystopia rather than tool to better ourselves or better the world, Pallister said.

That was part of the premise behind the world of Ready Player One, the novel by Ernest Cline that is being turned into a sci-fi movie by Steven Spielberg, Grossman said.

In the future, Grossman wants to be able to get all of the senses and sensations in VR so that he can learn how to dance in VR, and then come out into the real world and know how to dance in real life.

Pallister, by contrast, wants to learn how to juggle in VR.

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Building the virtual reality experiences and worlds of the future - VentureBeat