Category Archives: Virtual Reality

DUBLIN, October 14, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Virtual Reality (VR) - Global Market Trajectory & Analytics" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Virtual Reality (VR) estimated at US$9.2 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$89.1 Billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 38.2% over the analysis period 2020-2027.

Consumer Electronics, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to record a 31% CAGR and reach US$28 Billion by the end of the analysis period. After an early analysis of the business implications of the pandemic and its induced economic crisis, growth in the Aerospace segment is readjusted to a revised 37.6% CAGR for the next 7-year period.

The U.S. Market is Estimated at $2.8 Billion, While China is Forecast to Grow at 36.4% CAGR

The Virtual Reality (VR) market in the U.S. is estimated at US$2.8 Billion in the year 2020. China, the world's second largest economy, is forecast to reach a projected market size of US$14.6 Billion by the year 2027 trailing a CAGR of 36.4% over the analysis period 2020 to 2027. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 33.8% and 33% respectively over the 2020-2027 period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 26.5% CAGR.

Industrial Segment to Record 45.9% CAGR

In the global Industrial segment, USA, Canada, Japan, China and Europe will drive the 45.8% CAGR estimated for this segment. These regional markets accounting for a combined market size of US$1 Billion in the year 2020 will reach a projected size of US$14.7 Billion by the close of the analysis period. China will remain among the fastest growing in this cluster of regional markets. Led by countries such as Australia, India, and South Korea, the market in Asia-Pacific is forecast to reach US$11.3 Billion by the year 2027.

Select Competitors (Total 126 Featured):

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Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

AppReal-VR

Barco N.V

Crytek GmbH

Cubicle Ninjas

EON Reality Inc.

Epic Games, Inc.

Erminesoft

Firsthand Technology Inc.

Google Inc.

HTC Corporation

Hyperlink Infosystem

Immersive Robotics

Intel Corporation

Jaunt, Inc.

Kopin Corporation, Inc.

Leap Motion, Inc.

Lenovo (China)

MindMaze Holding SA

NVIDIA Corporation

Oculus VR, LLC

Pimax Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

Pixvana, Inc.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Sensics, Inc.

Sixense Enterprises Inc.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

StarVR Corporation

Unigine Corp.

Unity Technologies, Inc.

Varjo Technologies

Virtalis Limited

VirtaMed AG

VRgineers, Inc.

WorldViz

Key Topics Covered:

I. METHODOLOGY

II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. MARKET OVERVIEW

Influencer Market Insights

World Market Trajectories

Age of Digital Immersion: The Foundation for the Growing Business Interest in Virtual Reality

The First Wave of VR Unleashes the Power of VR as a Training, Simulation & Gaming Tool

The Second Wave of VR Will Unleash VR as a Communication System/Interface

Recent Market Activity

From a Fictional Concept to a Multi-Billion Dollar Opportunity, the VR Market is Ripe for the Picking

Investments Scenario: Venture Capitalists Get Ready to Surf the Giant VR Wave

A Peek Into Active AR & VR Investors & the Companies Funded by Them

Crowdfunding, Emerges as the New Way Forward

Participants across the Value Chain Bet Big on Virtual Reality

VR Value Chain Participants

Impact of Covid-19 and a Looming Global Recession

2. FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS

3. MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS

The Rise & Fall of Mobile VR: The Insider Story of Why Consumer VR is Falling

The Rise of VR Arcades: The Last Ditch Attempt to Revive the Consumer Gaming Market

Non-Consumer Applications: The Future of VR

Value of VR in Advertising Rises InSync With the Importance of Immersive & Interactive Visualization in Digital Marketing

VR Ready for Fishing Opportunities in the US$1.5 Trillion Aerospace Industry

VR's Room-Scale Immersive Experience to Revolutionize Real Estate and Architecture

Educational VR Experiences to Complement Traditional Teaching Methods

VR Technology Promotes Immersive and Cost-effective Simulation Based Training

Future of VR Lies in the Hardware Design: A Review

A Peek Into the Latest Headset Innovations in the Market

HTC Vive Pros Features Improved Visual Fidelity and Room Scale Experience to Attract Enterprise Users

Upgrades Propel Affordable Oculus Rift and Sony PSVR to Compete With HTC Vive in Immersive Gameplay

Standalone VR Headsets Promote Untethered VR Experience: Oculus Go Stands Out Among Pricier Competitors

Pimax 8K VR Premium Headset Provides Widest FOV to Increase Immersive Effect

Increased Focus on Innovations in Mobile VR Headsets in a Bid to Battle the Threat of Standalone VR Headsets

Innovations in VR Accessories to Enhance Immersive Experience

VR Content/Apps Rise in Significance On Par With Hardware to Influence the Commercial Success of VR Technology

List of Leading VR Apps Classified by End Use Application

Issues & Challenges

Yet to be Resolved Technology Issues - A Major Concern

Low Resolution of HMDs

Performance Issues from Display Latency of VR Devices

Massive Size of HMDs

4. GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE

III. MARKET ANALYSIS

IV. COMPETITION

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/swzxop

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211014005532/en/

Contacts

ResearchAndMarkets.comLaura Wood, Senior Press Managerpress@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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Insights on the Virtual Reality Global Market to 2027 - Featuring Intel, Jaunt and Unity Technologies Among Others - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Yahoo...

The experience makes me more excited for the integration of VR into higher learning, saidMacMorean23.It was definitely helpful for me, as a visual learner, to finally get to understand some of the structures that you can't really grasp from a textbook or a model.

Beckis teaching from Brazil this semesterandnever imaged that he would be teaching this course overseas. Hes verythankful forhowVR hasallowed him to adjusthis course.

Using this innovative technology and trying to figure out new solutions to problems has been great,hesaid. We have noticed students having a greater understanding of neuroanatomy,learning from the 3D models on VR. During one of the VR sessions, I got myselfthinking,Wow,Im teaching students overseas on a virtual environment. This is amazing!I really love what Im doing here.

Jennifer Jolly,professorof art history,hasused VR in her courseLatinxArt in the United States, using thetechnologyin conjunction with Google Earthandhaving students visit places like Los Angeles and San Diego, all from South Hill.

While the classroom is a great place to project images and details and really analyze the images themselves,what you don't get in that context is a larger sense of space,a larger sense of how these murals fit into the urban environment and that's such an important theme that we're studying in the class, how do works of art interact with communities, said Jolly.VRtakes us a step closer to being able to do that.

Jollytypicallysends her studentstwo at a timefor about 20 minutes to get introduced to thetechnology andsets up with the lab ahead of time a series of three different sites to visit.Students walk around the neighborhoods to look at the murals and then write a reflection about the experience afterwards.

The experience was beneficial in better understanding the full impact that murals have on their community, saidJosephineHorchler21.A photograph can only convey so much about the murals context. Getting towalk aroundthe site of the murals helped me better understand their meaning and connection to the community. I was able to gain a better sense of the murals scale, relation to their site, and how people interact with them,which are all things that arent easily understood from photographs.

It was fascinating putting the headset on for the first time, said Jolly.It really is remarkable to start in one spot, and then you swivel and can see in all these different directions.Theexperience of lookingaround is very clunky when you're just using GoogleEarth without the headset,so when you get to do it with the headset it really changes how you perceive the space.

Read this article:

Virtual Reality in the Classroom - Ithaca College

The Edge VR in Croton

The Edge VR in Croton is open Oct. 7, 2021. The new attraction is an immersive VR experience with a special experience called The Edge of Space.

Frank Becerra Jr., Rockland/Westchester Journal News

Taking a trip to outer space just got a little easier for those living on earth in the lower Hudson Valley.

A new virtual reality experience, The Edge VR, has openedin Croton-on-Hudson. It promises tobring customers to "the edge of space" through the use of "interactive and innovative"multi-player virtual reality.

The technology allows visitors to experience a virtual reality escape room combination without tethers as they maneuver through five environments virtually, and 20 x 20 square feet of space filled with propsphysically.

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Think of it like an escape room mixed with VR where you wear a headset but no heavy backpacks like in other VR places that puts you into a virtual space, yet at the same time, players canmaneuver through an actual room with props.

"The nice thing with the system is (customers) won't get this experience anywhere else," co-founder Steven Leo said. "The virtual reality interaction and physical things in the space combine to have the best immersive experience you're going to get."

The Edge VR, founded by Leo and Adam Anfiteatro, has been in the works since 2015. After the launch of Samsung's Oculus virtual reality and a trip to a mall with mystery rooms, Anfiteatro wanted to find a way to put the two together.

In 2017, following two years of working on the virtual reality tracking technology, the team finished up the tech and built the game around it. And, in September, after a soft opening period, The Edge VR officially opened in Croton-on-Hudson.

"It began with the idea of being able to track people more immersively inside the virtual environment," Anfiteatro said. "We're able to do that through our proprietary magnetic tracking system. This system allows us to immerse our visitors more than conventional camera based systems."

The attraction allows three people to explore rooms and space for 25 minute, traversing it by becoming one of eight avatars.

"The idea is thrilling and some people consider it a novelty," Anfiteatro said. "I considered it a way for people to engage and be immersed. Where story telling can be done. The goal is to capture the hearts and imaginations of kids young and old."

"(The experience) is socially engaging," Anfiteatro said. "You get to physically interact with (the other people). We put some lightweight gear on you, no heavy backpacks or harnesses."

For Anfiteatro setting up the experience in Croton-on-Hudson was a no brainer, he's the owner of Hudson View Automative Service Inc.

"Croton is a community of very likeminded people," Anfiteatro said. "There's a lot of artists and creative people here. But it also fits into the narrative of Croton. We like knowing that we're amongst others that have similar creative ideas."

Go:33 North Riverside Ave., Croton-on-Hudson; 914-271-3343; contact@theedgeunreal.com;theedgeunreal.com. Hours: Tuesday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday noon to 9 p.m. Tickets: $29.95 per person.

Heather Clark covers business openings and closings throughout Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. Keep up on the latest comings and goings by joining our Facebook group at What's going there Westchester, Rockland, Putnam. Contact Clark via email, hclark@lohud.com.

More:

The Edge VR, virtual reality attraction, opens in Croton-on-Hudson - The Journal News

Virtual reality may become instrumental in the workplace, could potentially be vital for reimagining crime scenes, and has even salvaged strip clubs in the midst of a pandemic. Its possibilities and applications are vast, still being discovered and toyed with. Now, new research shows that VR may be an effective treatment for anxiety.

Published by open access digital health research publisher JMIR Publications, the study looked into virtual reality exposure therapy, or VRET. This particular form of therapy is a method in which patients are steadily exposed to a traumatic stimulus with the help of virtual environments. So not confronting the traumatic stimuli in its actual form, but gaining the benefits of overcoming or managing trauma through virtual exposure.

The study in question was funded and conducted at Massey University Strategic Excellence Research Fund and Otago Polytechnic Auckland International Campus, New Zealand. The authors reviewed several past studies about VRET and anxiety, concluding that this type of immersive therapy is a viable and potentially revolutionising method to treat certain mental health conditions.

A blend of VRET and well-established practices in mental health treatment can both augment and enhance other forms of therapy, the research suggests. For instance, VRET could be interlocked with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which is commonly used to treat conditions such as anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. The combination can elevate effectiveness and reduce symptoms of mental health conditions.

Dr. Nilufar Baghaei, Vibhav Chitale (members of the Games and Extended Reality Lab at Massey University, New Zealand), and Professor Richard Porter (faculty at the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Otago, New Zealand) are amongst the authors of the study. In a joint statement to Mashable, the researchers say that VRET allows participants to "confront the situations that cause them fear and anxiety, but in a safe and controlled environment, working closely with their mental health professionals."

Scenarios in which this can be implemented are varied. VRET can be used to treat a fear of flying through virtual flight simulators, or a fear of driving through driving simulators. An aversion to public speaking can be tackled with virtual interviews and presentations.

"VRET allows for customisable virtual environments wherein a patient is exposed to a feared stimuli in a safe and controlled environment. Due to the nature of VR, the patients feel an engaging and immersive experience within the virtual world," say the authors. "The virtual world can be controlled by the mental health professional, enabling total control of the exposure, and allowing for the manipulation of scenarios specifically tailored towards the individual undergoing the sessions."

In other words, VRET allows for both safety and innovation in mental health treatment. An Oxford University study back in 2016 tested this, having patients who suffered from extreme versions of paranoid thoughts to step into virtual environments. The VR design allowed researchers to show patients that the spaces that scare them can actually be safe.

Conditions like PTSD and schizophrenia can also be addressed with VRET. For military veterans, for example, a virtual war zone can help to accelerate treatment. This is also effective when it comes to situations that are difficult to replicate due to cost, reality, and privacy concerns.

For the latter, a 2019 clinical trial in the UK tested how VR therapy can be implemented to help patients with schizophrenia. The trial recreated potentially stressful situations, allowing participants to learn how to re-engage with the world in a controlled setting.

Of course, VR therapy comes with its risks. According to a 2018 study by J Clin Med., VR may not be suitable for those with epilepsy, and for others can potentially cause motion sickness, dizziness, or disorientation. Another plausible risk is obsession, with patients becoming fixated and/or dependent on VR. These potential risks do exist. But the overarching conclusions of the studies show that the positives likely outweigh the negatives, especially when it comes to the potential VR therapy holds.

"A lot of studies have reported positive findings post-VRET treatment such in that the participants experienced a decrease in PTSD, depression, social anxiety disorder, public speaking anxiety and/or anger symptoms, and were more relaxed with upbeat mood," say Dr. Baghaei, Chitale, and Porter.

So far, certain studies (such as this one by the University of York, this by the Clinical Psychology Review, and this by Oxford Medicine Online) suggest that VR can be helpful for anxiety, PTSD, and anger symptoms. Many, such as the above Oxford study, suggest that the emerging field of VRET shows immense promise for a variety of disorders, while also allowing for lower costs and more accessibility. While it may appear that VR technology is expensive and out of reach, the researchers actually believe this technology is becoming more widespread, accessible, and affordable: "the assumption that the equipment needed to use VRET is too expensive will no longer hold."

Despite the emphasis on anxiety, researchers believe that there is room for the treatment of depression, too. The authors of the JMIR study point out that although there is less evidence surrounding VRET's applicability to depression, there is enough of a link between the two to argue it's a feasible treatment choice.

"A number of studies have shown that as the number of VRET sessions increases, the effectiveness of symptom reduction also increases. The evidence for effectiveness in depression is limited so far but there is a lot of research in this area and results are promising." Dr. Baghaei, Chitale, and Porter say.

For instance, they cite a study published by the University of Cambridge press, in which patients were exposed to compassion and self-compassion through virtual reality. The patients each experienced some sort of depression, but during the course of the open trial, saw their depression and self-criticism decreasing significantly.

The future of therapy may very well be virtual, if research continues on this path. And it may be exactly what some need.

The rest is here:

How virtual reality can be used to treat anxiety and PTSD - Mashable

The FINANCIAL Witness first-hand how your mountain of waste plastic expands over the years and what impact your food has on the rainforests. Virtual reality gives you a front-row seat to the impact of unsustainable behaviour. Communication scientists Marijn Meijers and Hande Sungur have developed highly effective virtual worlds that give people an up close and personal experience of how sustainable and unsustainable conduct make a substantial difference.

According to University of Amsterdam, you walk around a supermarket and whenever you take a product from the shelves, a pop-up appears with information about the environmental impact of your choice, for example, clearcutting of tropical rainforest to cultivate the palm oil in your chocolate spread. You travel through time to see how much plastic waste your everyday products create in the future, and travel back to see how your mountain of waste shrinks when you make more sustainable decisions.

VR shown to have a positive effect on sustainabilityThe first findings from Meijers and Sungurs projects are in and the results are positive. Research into the VR supermarket shows it gets the message across more effectively and gives people the feeling that they have control over the problem, says Meijers. They clearly see how buying eco-friendly products contributes to a more sustainable world and that unsustainable choices have a negative effect. This positive effect on the participants behaviour continued to be reflected in their real-world shopping habits after two weeks.

Does VR influence sustainable behaviour in children?

Habits formed during childhood are strong predictors of adult behaviour. Children are therefore a vital target group for the efforts to encourage healthy and sustainable selection of food products. Eline Smit and Marijn Meijers (University of Amsterdam) and Nynke van der Laan (Tilburg University) conducted a study into the potential of virtual reality to teach children about this issue. Will this help children to better understand and remember the nutritional value and sustainability of food products and will it influence their behaviour in the real world?

In the past year, we have successfully developed and tested our virtual and interactive time machine, says Sungur. The initial results show that virtual reality helps promote sustainable habits among adults. Undergoing the VR experience showed participants how they could reduce the amount of plastic they consume, which successfully translated into more sustainable real-world choices. Next, wed like to test the product with a younger target audience.

Virtual reality reduces psychological distance

These studies underline the potential of virtual reality to confront people with issues that they often feel too far removed from to worry about, such as the impact of our behaviour on the planet, conclude Meijers and Sungur. VR also boosts the realisation that you personally have the power to make a difference. Social psychology has taught us that these two mechanisms of psychological distance and self-efficacy play a vital role in behavioural change.

The future

Meijers thinks that the virtual supermarket will be predominantly focused on the education sector so people learn about sustainable behaviour from a young age. Sungur also sees great educational potential for the virtual time machine to teach a young audience about plastic waste. But a future application could also be Augmented Reality (AR), projecting a virtual world onto the real world, says Meijers, or using the handheld scanners that are already available at many supermarkets.

Read the original post:

Virtual reality: a front-row seat to the impact of (un)sustainable behaviour FINCHANNEL - The FINANCIAL

Virtual reality seems poised to be one of the hottest technology growth trends of the next decade or two. VR, in simple terms, is the use of computer technology to create a simulated environment that gives the user a fully immersive experience. The term applies to both the tech and the environment it creates.

Global spending on VR and its cousin augmented reality will soar from just over $12 billion in 2020 to $72.8 billion in 2024, according to estimates by research firm IDC. That's a whopping 54% compound annual growth rate. Estimates vary by source, and VR and AR are usually lumped together. But the point remains that these two related technologies have powerful growth potential.

Two of the best stocks to invest in VR -- though neither is a pure play -- are gaming and tech giant Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and newly public spatial-data company Matterport (NASDAQ:MTTR).

"Traveling" via VR. Image source: Getty Images.

S&P 500

Data sources: Yahoo! Finance and YCharts. Data as of Oct. 11, 2021. EPS = earnings per share.

Nvidia was founded in the 1990s as a maker of discrete graphics processing units for computer gaming. It's now not only the leader in the gaming GPU market, but also a major player in many fast-growing tech spaces, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicles, and -- yes -- virtual reality.

This transformation is largely thanks to founder and CEO Jensen Huang, whose business savvy seems on par with his tech brilliance. CFO Colette Kress also deserves much credit, as she's been the finance leader for eight years.

Nvidia is deeply involved in VR across its platforms. Its GeForce RTX GPUs offer gamers plug-and-play compatibility with all of the top VR headsets.Its VRWorks suite of products enables application and headset developers to create VR experiences. And, to name one more example, its Drive Constellation simulation platform -- which runs in data centers -- allows developers working on autonomous vehicles to do testing in virtual reality.

In the first half of its current fiscal year (ended Aug. 1), Nvidia's revenue surged 75% year over year to $12.2 billion. Adjusted for one-time items, net income soared 99% to $4.9 billion, or $1.95 per share. For investors, there's a lot to like about a fast-growing company churning out a fat adjusted profit margin of 40%.

Nvidia stock is already attractive as a long-term investment. It will be even more so if the company is successful in closing its pending $40 billion acquisition of Arm, a leading central processing unit chip designer.

Matterport just went public in July via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company, but the Silicon Valley-based company has been in business since 2011. Its platform enables the creation of detailed 3D digital replicas -- or "digital twins" -- of buildings and other physical spaces.

The industry that's been the fastest to adopt its platform is the real estate industry, with realtors using it to provide virtual tours of properties. But the potential use cases seem immense across industries such as travel and hospitality, retail, insurance, architecture and construction, and facility management.

Matterport has been transforming itself into a subscription-focused company, with subscription revenue accounting for 52% of total revenue in the first half of 2021. This is a positive for investors because subscription businesses generate recurring revenue.

As to VR, Matterport touts that it's a leader in the tech. Indeed, its models can be imported into VR platforms to create totally immersive experiences. The company supports several major VR platforms and headsets.

In the first half of 2021, Matterport's revenue grew 52% year over year to $56.4 million. Growth was driven by a 66% surge in subscription revenue. Net loss was $9.1 million, or $0.92 per share, which was slightly better than the net loss of $11.8 million, or $1.51 per share, in the year-ago period.

Nvidia stock is the better bet for most investors since the company is well established and extremely profitable. I'd not hesitate to call it a buy.

Matterport is more speculative because it's so new to the public markets and not yet profitable. So, only those comfortable with these traits should consider investing in it now. At the very least, though, you might want to put it on your watch list and monitor its performance in the coming quarters.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

The rest is here:

2 Best Stocks to Invest in Virtual Reality - The Motley Fool

The French government has just announced a trial using virtual reality to try to prevent domestic violence.

There has been considerable excitement about this, with claims the virtual reality experience is an empathy machine that enhances the perpetrators ability to empathise with a victims fear.

As Australia grapples with its own domestic violence crisis, overseas companies are making noises about using the technology here.

Read more: Not all men's violence prevention programs are effective: why women's voices need to be included

In our new book Virtual Realities, we explain the need to be sceptical of claims about what virtual reality can do for social and psychological problems, including domestic violence.

The French trial will involve 30 men serving sentences, or on parole, for domestic violence. They will be volunteers, wear a virtual reality headset and watch 12-minute, 360-degree videos.

They will encounter a range of dramatised domestic abuse scenarios involving a male and female couple and later, their infant child. One example released by the French government shows a man who shouts abuse and points a knife menacingly at the camera (as seen in the tweet below).

Other sample clips show the man threatening and assaulting his female partner. This is then supposed to trigger empathy in the perpetrators.

Enhancing empathy is important because violent offenders have been shown to have lower levels of what is known as cognitive empathy than non-offenders. This is the capacity to see a situation from another persons perspective and understand their emotions.

This is different from emotional empathy, which is the ability to sense other peoples emotions. It does not mean you necessarily share that emotion, or understand why the person is feeling it.

Read more: National summits have their place but what will it really take to achieve equality for Australian women?

In the French trial, which follows similar work in Spain and the Netherlands, it is hypothesised violent offenders will show improved levels of empathy with victims after the virtual reality experience. This will in turn lead to less recidivism.

The French Ministry of Justice says the 360-degree nature of virtual reality as opposed to simply watching TV or a movie can trick the brain into believing that the perpetrator is immersed in this reality.

It is unclear what if anything else the offenders will do as part of the study, or how the trials effectiveness will be measured.

In 2016, relatively low cost (though clunky) headsets came on the market, making virtual reality a more mainstream technology. Since then, virtual reality has increasingly been suggested as a digital panacea for a range of psycho-social issues.

This includes fears of things like heights and spiders and post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans. The capacity of 360-degree video to bring diverse environments to life is also being used to try to enhance cultural understanding and explore social issues such as racism.

While many of these uses have been innovative and exciting, its important to maintain a critical perspective. For one thing, it is no longer useful to label virtual reality a novel or experimental technology: much is now known about what it can and cant do.

Virtual reality has been found to elicit strong emotional reactions especially those linked to the users own fear and anxiety. Some studies have also shown to a limited extent virtual reality programs can increase prosocial behaviour (behaviour that helps others).

However, studies have also demonstrated virtual reality is not successful when it comes to the longer-term cognitive empathy the French trial is supposed to generate. Using both theoretical and empirical research, these studies have challenged many techno-evangelical ideas about virtual reality.

Read more: Andrew Laming: why empathy training is unlikely to work

This year, an academic review of 43 studies into virtual reality and empathy found across the 5,644 participants, cognitive empathy was not enhanced to any significant degree. Other studies have also challenged virtual realitys capacity to lead to behaviour change. Another 2020 review of studies found statistically significant positive changes in perspective-taking but not in empathy.

Findings from a 2018 study specifically looking at domestic violence reported some success in boosting cognitive empathy, however the researchers acknowledge that more research is needed. Importantly, this study used an entirely different type of virtual reality experience than what has been showcased in the French trial.

Another key piece of research to consider involves eye-tracking. One of the most important findings of this research is although virtual reality viewers are free to look at whatever they choose, they typically follow the same attention patterns as traditional screen viewers.

This means their attention will likely be drawn to movement and whichever character is talking. This has been shown to prevent audiences of virtual reality videos noticing other characters non-verbal responses, which are crucial to understanding the events depicted.

In the French trial, users will be able to view the scenario from the perspective of the victim, the child bystander and the perpetrator. Therefore, we would expect those in the trial to pay attention almost entirely to the perpetrator on show he is principally the one moving, talking and yelling.

To the limited extent virtual reality can elicit any empathy a claim that is challenged so compellingly by the research a viewer may only feel empathy in relation to what they are looking at.

The viewer of the domestic violence project will be a violent offender, who is likely to pay greater attention to the violent character in the virtual scenario. How will this prompt empathy in relation to the other characters (unseen) non-verbal displays of fear?

We know virtual reality companies can see a market for their domestic violence programs in Australia. It seems one of the limitations for its uptake to date has been the high cost of the headsets, although an appropriate virtual reality device is now available for under A$500.

Read more: QLD police will use AI to 'predict' domestic violence before it happens. Beware the unintended consequences

As we argue in Virtual Realities, policy-makers should be less worried about the price tag and more cautious about the often unwarranted enthusiasm that can be generated by virtual reality.

We all want to stop domestic violence but we need to be careful not to simply buy into virtual reality as a solution because it seems new and exciting. Especially if it takes resources away from other, proven interventions.

See the original post:

'Empathy machine' or false hope? How virtual reality is being used to try to stop domestic violence - The Conversation AU

image:From left to right: Florian Cabot, Sarah Kenderdine, Yves Revaz, Jean-Paul Kneib. view more

Credit: Alain Herzog / EPFL

Youre floating in space, just above the Earth. The International Space Station is an arms length away. You twist your head around only to see the moon, a tiny circle, far off in the distance. You cant help but think that this is probably what an astronaut would see during a space-walk.

This is the beginning of a journey into outer-space, in a virtual environment developed by EPFL scientists.

Now, for the very first time, you can enter the most comprehensive virtual universe based on the latest astrophysical and cosmological data, thanks to powerful, open-source software developed at EPFLs Laboratory of Astrophysics (LASTRO). The software is called VIRUP, for Virtual Reality Universe Project, and a first beta version is being released today.

You can navigate through the most detailed map of the universe from the comfort of your own home, explains Jean-Paul Kneib, director of LASTRO. Its the chance to travel through space, through time, and discover the universe.

The VIRUP challenge : visualizing terabytes of data at once

Astronomers and astrophysicists are collecting data about billions of celestial objects in the night sky with the help of telescopes here on Earth and in space. There are already decades of observational data. Even greater amounts of data are expected in the near future.

In order to get visual representations of the vast amounts of data, like a movie, its standard practice to pre-render specific sequences. But what about creating a visual representation of the data in real-time, as if you were there, an observer at an arbitrary point in space and time? This is what astrophysicist Yves Revaz of LASTRO set out to do with the VIRUP, with the help of LASTRO software engineer Florian Cabot, and it meant rendering terabytes of data at 90 frames per second. The latter constraint is imposed by the virtual reality environment, for a fully immersive and smooth experience.

Visualization of astrophysical data is much more accessible than showing graphs and figures, it helps to develop intuition of complex phenomena, explains Revaz. VIRUP is precisely a way of making all of our astrophysical data accessible to everyone, and this will become even more important as we build bigger telescopes like the Square Kilometer Array that will generate tremendous amounts of data.

Astrophysical, cosmological data and simulations

For the moment, VIRUP can already visualize data from over 8 databases bundled together. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey consists of over 50 million galaxies and 300 million objects in general. The Gaia data of the Milky Way Galaxy consists of 1.5 billion light sources. The Planck mission involves a satellite which measures the universes first light after the Big Bang called the cosmic microwave background radiation. Theres also the Open Exoplanet Catalog which aggregates various sources of exoplanet data. Other databases include a repertoire of over 3000 satellites orbiting the Earth, as well as various skins and textures to render the objects.

VIRUP also renders data sets of contemporary and scientifically robust simulations based on research. You can watch the Milky Way Galaxy and its future collision with the Andromeda galaxy, our galactic neighbor also known as M31. You can also see huge portions of the cosmic web the filamentary large-scale structures that extend across the universe coming into existence over billions of years, based on simulations from a data set called IllustrisTNG which consists of 30 billion simulated particles. A major challenge is ensuring smooth transition from one database to the next.

We considered using existing graphics engines for visualizing the data, but in the end, I developed one specifically for the project. Its flexible, we can add more data as it becomes available, and its tailored to astronomy, explains Cabot. For this first release of VIRUP, I have focused on rendering static data, so interacting with the data is still a bit rough and the rendering of simulations cant yet happen in real-time for example.

Of course, its only possible to navigate through the data and simulations imported into VIRUP. You can visit the 4500 discovered exoplanets so far, for instance, but the way they look are artist impressions inferred from observation. You can also navigate through the 50 million galaxies measured so far by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, but the actual data has limited resolution and this limits how much detail can be shown in its virtual representation. That being said, there is still a tremendous amount of data that can be explored with the help of VIRUP. Some of the next steps could be to include databases of objects in our solar system like all of the asteroids, or various other objects in the galaxy like nebulae and pulsars.

Flexible immersive virtual environment

For the fully immersive, 3D, 360 experience, youd need a pair of VR glasses and a computer for running the VIRUP engine, plus storage space to store a selection of astrophysical and cosmological data.

VIRUP is also capable of building a virtual universe in other VR environments, like a dome which is especially useful for venues like planetariums, panaromas, caves and half-caves. The open-softwares transition from the rather personal and isolated experience of VR goggles to the collective, theatrical experience offered by domes and caves, became possible thanks to a collaboration between LASTRO scientists and researchers at EPFLs Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+), and funded by EPFL seed funding for fostering interdisciplinary projects.

Its about data discovery. The immersive system means that you can embody the data which has a profound effect on how you actually perceive the data, says artist Sarah Kenderdine who leads eM+.

A journey though the universe a short movie

With the release of VIRUP comes a short movie entitled Archaeology of Light, one possible journey through the virtual universe made possible thanks to the open software.

The 20 minute movie starts from Earth, and charts out a voyage throughout the various scales of the universe, from our solar system, to the Milky Way, all the way to the cosmic web and the relic light of the Big Bang.

If youre impatient to see the movie, you can watch it in2D, in360and instereo 180on YouTube. If you have access to a VR environment, you can immerse yourself in Archaeology of Light.

For the dome experience, the movie will be showcased at EPFLs next exhibit, Cosmos Archaeology: Explorations in Space and Time, which opens on 21 April 2022 at EPFL Pavilions. A preliminary version of the movie was shown at the Synra Dome of the Science Museum of Tokyo in September, thanks to support from the Swiss Embassy in Tokyo. VIRUP will be presented this month at an exhibit, in Dubai, as part of EPFLs Virtual Space Tour.

Useful links:

Youtube EPFL news video (embeddable):https://youtu.be/lq3fW7Z8p2cPress kit (photos, b-roll video) :https://bit.ly/2021VIRUPArchaeology of Light in4K:https://youtu.be/I2Mcg2aUdNwArchaeology of Light in VR180:https://youtu.be/5D-7hszUhzMArchaeology of Light in Panorama:https://youtu.be/VGA4NrqqYiU

Archaeology of Light webpage:http://go.epfl.ch/ArchaeologyofLight

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Explore the most detailed 3D map of the universe with virtual reality - EurekAlert

Sothebys,the British auction house, will be holding itsfirstdigitalartmetaverse auctionbetween 18-26October.

A metaverse refers to avirtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.

The auction, namedNatively Digital 1.2: The Collectors, will consist of 53 lots of culturally significant art from 19 different collectors.

Theweeklong experiencewill allow visitors to view digital artworks that are available at auction, as wellaslearn about some of the artists behind the non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

NFTs are used to represent ownership of real-world items, like art, but cannot be traded as a currency.

Sothebysinvolvementunderscores the explosion of interest in digital artin what is relatively unchartedterritoryfor the auction house.

The groupheld its first sale of NFTs in April by an artist called Pak, which fetched US$16.8mln over a three-day drop(a sale).

Demand for luxury NFTshasskyrocketed this year.

Christie's, a competitor to Sothebys, hosted a 'drop' by Beeplein April, an American digital artist. His artwork sold for a record US$63.9mln at the auction.

Max Moore, Sothebys co-head of the digital art sales and head of contemporary art auctions, said, We have spent months exploring every aspect of the digital art landscape, aligning with some of the most influential minds of the NFT movement to architect a custom marketplace that prioritizes curation and customization.

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Sotheby"s takes more steps into virtual reality auctions - Proactive Investors USA

The two-minute VR films themes range from sitting on a beach to being served breakfast by friendly ghosts.

Some have a narrator saying relaxing words; others have nature sounds. Some show fish (gently) nibbling on your arm, as a visual simulation of a needle.

The view inside Smileyscopes VR headset.Credit:Eddie Jim

Ms Uren said staff at Frankston have received extraordinary feedback regarding the positive impact of the VR headset from both people being vaccinated and staff using the device to reduce anxiety associated with vaccinations. It reduces overall time needed to be vaccinated and prevents fainting.

She said the seriousness of the pandemic meant staff were seeing people who would have otherwise avoided needles. Fear caused some people to faint, which could in turn cause head injury.

Gabby Bunton, nurse manager at the Sandown vaccination hub run by Monash Health, said staff had used the VR goggles more than 50 times since May, and they are now helping about 10 people a week.

It has made their experience more comfortable and lessens their anxieties prior to the injection, she said.

Neha Bhardwaj, associate nurse unit manager at St Vincents Hospital, which runs the Royal Exhibition Building vaccination hub, said she used the VR technology about twice a shift.

The most common users were girls aged 12 to 15, who were sometimes so anxious they cried.

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Christine, from Burwood, who did not want to use her surname, said she knew she needed the COVID-19 vaccine but she wasnt looking forward to it.

She often feels anxious and dizzy around needles. I normally feel panicked afterwards. I feel like I cant breathe.

Using virtual reality, she overcame her panic more swiftly. It was helpful to have something else to focus on, she said.

It felt like the procedure went really quick and it was calming.

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Cuddly kittens and friendly fish: Virtual reality vanquishes vax fears - The Age