Category Archives: Virtual Reality

The military is turning to virtual wargaming as climate events such as floods reduce access to training sites overseas.

The Ministry of Defence is testing a digital replica of the world to assess personnels resilience to pandemics, natural disasters and attacks by hostile states. Soldiers, sailors and airmen can wear virtual reality headsets in war simulations. The training does not use fuel or damage the environment.

The single synthetic environment uses Call of Duty-style simulations to create a replica of the real world, including infrastructure such as water supplies and the changing weather.

The technology creates a virtual situation room that can simulate scenarios across land, sea, air, space and cyberspace

Census data is included so the system knows where people are living, their income distribution and what they might be saying on social media posts from Facebook and Instagram.

If there

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Troops answer call of duty in virtual-reality battles as floods hit training sites - The Times

A mixed reality headset being developed by Apple and expected to arrive in 2022 will feature eye-tracking technology, according to a prominent and often accurate analyst.

Ming-Chi Kuo has a strong track record for Apple news, and in his latest note sent to investors sheds some new light on the upcoming Apple headset.

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The device is described as mixed reality, meaning it can offer both virtual and augmented reality. It is expected to arrive at some point in 2022, and be followed by a pair of augmented reality smart glasses in 2025.

Kuo's latest research note on the mixed reality headset, published by MacRumors, states: "Apple's eye tracking system includes a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitting end provides one or several different wavelengths of invisible light, and the receiving end detects the change of the invisible light reflected by the eyeball, and judges the eyeball movement based on the change."

It is Kuo's understanding that Apple is working hard on eye tracking technology because of how current virtual reality headsets rely on handheld controllers that the analyst says don't provide a smooth enough experience.

Apple smart glasses are expected to arrive in 2025 iStock

Kuo says the eye tracking technology will provide a more intuitive user experience, letting the wearer interact seamlessly with their environment. It is also suggested how the headset would reduce the resolution of areas of its display that the user isn't looking at, which in turn could reduce computational burden.

The analyst also suggests that, based on hardware specifications, the headset could feature iris recognition, which could act as a form of biometric security and bring Apple Pay to the headset.

The headset has previously been described by Kuo as portable rather than mobile. It is also thought to be an accessory to the iPhone rather than a standalone device. Despite its accessory status, the headset is thought to carry a high price tag of around $1,000. A such, it will almost certainly be a niche device by Apple's standards, selling in fewer quantities than products like the Apple Watch.

Vuzix Blade 1.5 Upgraded Version AR Smart Glasses

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Apple mixed reality VR headset to have eye tracking and iris recognition - Gearbrain

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If there's one thing I miss about commuting to work every day on the subway pre-pandemic, it's people-watching. My ability to create fake narratives in my head about random strangers really helped flex the creative part of my brain each day. So, when I put on my virtual reality headset to find myself seated on a train next to people I didn't know in The Passengers, I felt right at home.

Premiering at this year's SXSW, The Passengers is an interactive VR experience that tells the story of four strangers, all dealing with their own internal struggles, traveling on a train together. As the viewer, you have the opportunity to embody each one, getting to know them on a more personal level via their inner thoughts and flashbacks.

Image: courtesy of Couzin films

"When you're taking public transit, you see different people and everyone's in their own heads. You start making assumptions [based on] their body language and maybe physical characteristics. So, this experience really immerses you in the thoughts of someone that you may have judged from the other point of view," Ziad Touma, director of The Passengers, said.

The game is built as something of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, with your experience based on the passenger you choose to play as and the characters you interact with. But rather than presenting you with options to physically tap through to trigger a scenario, the sequences are controlled strictly through your gaze and voice. Who you stare at impacts the narrative, and whether or not you speak up determines if the character completes their quest to solve issues in their personal lives.

The controls aren't as intuitive as they could be, but it's easy to get used to after a few tries. It's all based on visual cues: Depending on the direction you move your head (whether it's looking straight ahead, diagonally, or the right and left), it recognizes which character you're looking at. If you stare at a character long enough, you'll see an icon load above their heads that will trigger audio.

Other times, when the narrative calls for it, another circular icon will appear in front of you to prompt you to speak out loud. There aren't any specific keywords you need to say, though, it just needs to recognize a voice to continue on with the story. I really only stuck with "yes" or "no," along with "hi," depending on what the prompt was.

As of right now, only two chapters are available to view. They're titled "Him" and "Her," standing for the man and woman passengers you see in the train cabin. Later this year, users will also be able to access the young child and older lady sitting alongside them. But as of now, the narrative only goes as far as what you learn about the man and the woman.

Below are a few clips that I recorded of my own experience playing both the male and female passengers.

When you ride as "Him," your goal is to muster up the courage to talk to the woman across from you. When you ride "Her," your goal is to answer your boyfriend's call and admit to him that you don't want to have children. While these aren't directly stated from the beginning, you manage to piece it all together as the narrative progresses.

But whether you're riding as the man or the woman passenger, both are making assumptions about what the other is thinking. He assumes she's internally attacking his masculinity for not making a move. Meanwhile she can tell he's into her but shuts down the idea of his advances in fear that he'd also want children one day.

"He's infatuated by her, the passenger in front of him. And he remembers all the times in his life, from his teenage years, where he fell in love in his own head with different women," Touma explained, "All of her inner thoughts [change] depending on which character she's looking at....Whether she's looking at the lady, [who] will remind her of her mother, or the child [who] is going to remind her of the son she's not going to have."

Of course, it doesn't take much to see that both their situations are extremely different. Having to decide whether or not motherhood is the right path (a question women are constantly asked as they get older, and often wrestle with significantly) isn't quite the same as finding the courage to approach someone you're interested in (something everyone faces).

According to Touma, the goal was to provide deep personal experiences from different genders and ages. That way, viewers could experience specific point of views and themes that resonate with each character. By virtually embodying each character, viewers can gain a deeper understanding of what it's like to switch places among different walks of life.

Image: courtesy of Couzin films

Regardless of the difference in their situations, both characters can only change their path by speaking up. If you decide to stay quiet as the man, you're met with his same negative thoughts. If you do say hello by the last stop, mission accomplished, and you can hope that something comes out of it once they step off the train.

Meanwhile, if you don't answer your boyfriend's question while embodying the woman, the man across from you never ends up saying hello and you're stuck with your boyfriend continuously calling.

Eventually, when all the chapters are available, you'll be able to piece together the narratives surrounding all four characters on your own by going through them one by one. But here's the thing: The Passengers wasn't originally built as a one-player experience.

If SXSW wasn't fully virtual again due to the ongoing pandemic, it would've been more of a social and theatrical event. Users would enter a set that mirrored the same train cabin set in the VR world complete with ticket stubs, leather seats, and a table and your character would be chosen for you. Once it started, everyone would "play" along together, ultimately helping to influence the other's decisions depending on where they looked or whether they spoke up.

However, for me, the experience consisted of sitting on the hardwood floor in my room, with an HP Reverb G2 on my head, tethered to a bulky PC. And I'll assume that others who watch The Passengers will also be at home in their rooms. But while the aforementioned event setup sounds lovely, sitting alone in my room felt far more fitting for this type of thing.

The beauty of VR is that it allows you to escape your current setting. That meant I was fully tuned into what was happening in front of me without all the distractions that come with being on a full-blown set alongside other people. I had the option to stare at one person the entire time, allowing the character's inner thoughts to zone in on one narrative, or go back and forth between multiple people to elicit a variety of thoughts. After a while, I found myself replaying the experience over and over in an effort to discover all the different audio combinations. Since both passenger experiences are only 10 minutes each, it goes by super quick.

Image: courtesy of Couzin films

While having to nix the in-person demonstration of it all wasn't ideal, Touma expressed the silver lining: The experience can now reach a lot more people.

"[The Passengers] was designed [as] onboard entertainment. Ideally, we wanted to see it on trains, while you're traveling and on airplanes. That was our ultimate goal. Now, having invested money and time to pivot into the single user [experience], it's going to have more accessibility [and] more viewers will be able to download it in VR stores," he said.

As of now, the experience will only be showcased at festivals, art galleries, and museums. And, at the moment, accessing it requires a hefty VR headset, a fairly powerful PC, and the patience to set everything up. But according to Touma, its availability will expand to more viewers over time. The team is also exploring the possibility of adapting it to non-tethered headsets, like the Oculus Quest 2.

And, even though The Passengers is still very much a work-in-progress, it still made for a nice little escape during a pandemic. After all, I can only rewatch my favorite TV shows so many times in one year. Having the ability to escape into a different world and virtually take on the roles of other people thoughts included provided some respite I didn't know I craved.

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'The Passengers: Him and Her' is a virtual reality experience that's best enjoyed on your own - Mashable SE Asia

By The Washington Post 11h ago

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By Dalvin Brown

It's hard to understand an experience you've never had.

Still, in an era marked by heightened social awareness on race, expressing empathy and realizing what other people go through can be a powerful catalyst for change. This is especially true in the workplace, where we often interact with people from different backgrounds.

Companies have traditionally responded to this with unconscious bias training, which typically involves PowerPoint presentations or click-through courses for employees to check off. Maybe that's coupled with a Zoom session with experts on diversity and inclusion.

But it's often easy to get through those tasks without paying full attention, and the impact of those efforts is tough to measure.

With that gap in mind, the curriculum development start-up Praxis Labs launched Pivotal Experiences, a VR-based tool meant to take diversity and inclusion training to the next level. The platform lets employees experience what it's like to face bias and discrimination in the workplace and teaches them how best to respond.

Users are asked to speak aloud to other avatars and reflect on what happened for a more impactful experience.

"By providing perspective-taking and immersive experiences that build empathy, we're helping to build understanding," said Elise Smith, co-founder and chief executive of Praxis Labs. "By providing opportunities to practice interventions, we're helping to change how people actually act in the workplace."

Last month, the New York City-based firm raised $3.2 million in seed funding from backers, including SoftBank's SB Opportunity Fund. Uber, eBay, Amazon and Google were among the company's early test partners. It's now hiring to expand the platform to other partners.

The platform is launching at a critical time for companies in the United States as the pandemic spotlights disparities across the nation's labor force.

"If the last 12 months have shown us anything, it has brought to light what has been around for a very long time," said Kavitha Mariappan, an executive who leads diversity efforts for Zscaler, a cloud security platform. "There's a certain level of corporate urgency around having to act on diversity and inclusion rather than just being aware."

The software works on smartphones and computers, but the magic seems to happen in virtual reality, where each month, employees are assigned an avatar facing a specific issue at work.

The digital scenarios reflect insights gathered from employees with a wide range of backgrounds. For instance, it could be someone facing implicit bias, ageism or other forms of discrimination at work. The avatar might also be a bystander witnessing someone who's a target of unfair treatment, so it gives workers a chance to practice being an ally.

The start-up designed the avatars to be representative of a global workforce.

If you look into a mirror in the virtual space, you'll see someone else's image reflected back at you. They could be of a different race, gender or body size. They may be an executive or a lower-ranking employee.

Users are required to respond out loud as if they are that person "to get as close as you can to experiencing the perspective of someone else," Smith said. It's a subscription-based service. Companies are signing up for six-month to year-long commitments.

While no amount of training can change everyone, data suggests that virtual reality experiences can leave a lasting impression and alter perceptions.

Researchers from the University of Barcelona found that men who committed domestic violence showed more signs of emotional empathy after virtually putting themselves in the victim's shoes. Other studies have shown that VR scenarios are just as likely to increase empathy as "embodied" experiences, in which people physically re-create someone else's lived experience.

"By putting people on the scene, at a real situation, these invisible situations suddenly become visible," said Nonny de la Pea, a pioneer in empathy VR and founder of Emblematic Group.

Praxis Labs' strategy is to create a feedback loop.

The software asks the employee how they might react to certain situations in real life and then offers approaches for best dealing with the scenario. Aggregated insights are shared with the user's employer, while individualized data is shared with the trainee, who can continue to learn over time.

"Even if we can see someone is experiencing bias or discrimination or there's something truly inequitable happening, it's really hard to speak up. And the only way to change that is by building that muscle," Smith said.

Empathy training in VR doesn't solve everything. Lack of inclusivity is a deep, complex problem that starts from the top down. But it does give organizations a new tool that might have a wider impact, according to Jennifer Mackin, chief executive of the Leadership Pipeline Institute, a workplace consulting firm.

Diversity and inclusion experts champion the idea, saying it would probably be appealing to Generation Z, whose members, studies show, are more likely to stay with organizations they perceive as having a diverse and inclusive workforce.

"The generation entering the workforce today is going to be so much more comfortable with this form of learning than something static or prerecorded," Mariappan said.

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Diversity training enters the future with virtual reality - IOL

Every minute, a person just sitting or standing without moving sheds 100,000 particles that are 500 nanometers or larger. Is that person exercising? Now its 10 million particles per minute, says Jorg Scholvin, assistant director of user services for Fab.nano.

Thats why users of the MIT.nano cleanroom which is controlled to have fewer than 100 such particles per cubic foot of air wear full-body bunnysuits and other specialized garments to maintain the pristine environment required for nanoscale research.

Scholvin shared this lesson on gowning up during a virtual series of tours of the facility that was one of five courses highlighting the breadth of MIT.nanos capabilities, initiated during MITs Independent Activities Period (IAP). The courses, several of which will be offered again this semester, also included a live nanofabrication demo and virtual classes on 360-degree photography, biomechanics in everyday life, and storytelling for science and engineering communication.

A glimpse at the guts of MIT.nano

The three-part series of virtual tours brought 56 attendees inside MIT.nanos facilities. With a camera on a rolling tripod and a little ingenuity, Scholvin led the Zoom attendees through the cleanroom, comparing the layout to that of a grocery store: the bays where researchers work are like the aisles where customers shop, and the chases with the back ends of the equipment like the product shelves.

On the second day Scholvin was joined by Anna Osherov, assistant director for user services at Characterization.nano, for a tour of the nanoscale imaging suites located in MIT.nanos basement level. Attendees learned about the planning that went into creating an ultra-quiet environment for the nano-characterization tools, including a vibration demo showing the importance of the plinth a 50,000-pound slab of concrete balanced on a set of springs four feet above the ground to create a quiet, stable island for the ultrasensitive microscopes that sit on top.

The final tour in the series, led by MIT.nano Assistant Director for Infrastructure Nick Menounos, took virtual attendees on a walkthrough of the non-public spaces that keep MIT.nano running. Attendees rolled through the mechanical penthouse, basement water preparation space, centralized gas delivery system, and a freight elevator big enough to carry equipment the size of 14,000 large pizzas.

Following this series, Scholvin led a separate class on thin-film deposition, lithography, and etchingprocesses at the micro- and nanoscale. Attendees followed along with Scholvin as he worked in the cleanroom to expose, develop, and etch screenshots of the Zoom workshop attendees and secret messages from the class etched in letters less than one millimeter high into a 100-nanometer thin gold film on a silicon wafer. Seeing the actual fabrication processes really made the technology accessible," said one attendee. "Getting this type of access to the lab and process has been a truly unique experience."

Melding the physical with the digital

MIT.nanos Immersion Lab found a different way to engage with the students in its courses by sending the hands-on experience to them through the mail. For Creating, Editing, and Distributing 360 Photography a course facilitated by Rus Gant, director of the Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Laboratory, and Samantha Farrell, MIT.nano senior administrative assistant MIT.nano loaned each participant a 360-degree camera, a Quest 2 virtual reality (VR) headset, and a monopod.

The course began with an overview of virtual reality theory and technologies, along with a history lesson on immersive art and panoramic photography spanning from pre-Civil War era to present day. The class then transitioned to workshop-style, with students creating content in their own environments, from 360-degree nature photography to videos that place viewers into the film via VR headsets.

Having experience using tools including a 360 camera, Photoshop/Premiere Pro, and a VR headset has empowered me to pursue 360 projects on my own in the future, said one participant. For example, virtual reality developer Luis Zanforlin, part of a team that received an MIT.nano Immersion Lab Gaming Program seed grant in 2020, created a film of himself hanging out with all his friends during Covid-19. Zanforlin used a Ricoh Theta V 360 camera and a monopod, along with editing software from Adobe Premiere, to create the video best viewed using an Oculus Quest headset.

This is me hanging out with my friends during COVID.

Biomechanics in everyday life, another IAP offering organized by the Immersion Lab, explored human movement through cardio exercise, yoga, and meditation. The four-session course, co-sponsored by MITs Clinical Research Center and led by Praneeth Namburi, postdoc in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), used motion capture technology and wireless sensors to explain how simple tasks such as walking or jumping may improve human health and well-being.

During sessions on yoga and breathing, students learned how virtual reality could improve awareness and coordination. In focusing on balance, they were introduced to recording muscle activity using electromyography. When I think about movement now, said one participant, I will think beyond just copying the positions of people who move well and instead think about how they cycle through the energy process.

Storytelling at the nanoscale

The final MIT.nano offering, nanoStories, was a workshop focused on building narratives using text, video, and interactive media to demystify science and nanotechnology. Guest speakers from the Boston Museum of Science, PBS NOVA, and MIT joined workshop instructors MIT.nano Director Vladimir Bulovi, Research Scientist Annie Wang, and Samantha Farrell in discussions and exercises on crafting exciting and understandable presentations of nano-topics for a general audience. Students developed their own stories throughout the course, presenting final projects that enthralled with expositions of how snowflakes form and why pencils work, explaining the color perception of ones eye, and demystifying the activity of semiconductors in solar cells.

In addition to these five courses, MIT.nano collaborated with MITs Clinical Research Center (CRC), MIT Medical, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering to offer a three-module course on the basics of and resources for human subjects research, as well as technology for symptoms monitoring during the Covid-19 pandemic. Led by MIT.nano Associate Director Brian W. Anthony and CRC Director of Clinical Operations Catherine Ricciardi, the course explored how MIT researchers have deployed and developed physiological sensing technologies for Covid-19 research and highlighted the resources available through the CRC, the MIT.nano Immersion Lab, and MIT ecosystem partners.

Visit MIT.nano to see more images and videos from the courses.

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MIT.nano courses bring hands-on experimentation to virtual participants - MIT News

Since being added in 1993, Disneys Carousel of Progress's last scene has promised a future where families gather around the voice-activated kitchen appliances and play video games together via virtual reality headsets. Now, nearly three decades later, that scene is finally being realized in houses across the globe. Virtual reality is quickly becoming a cornerstone of entertainment, both in-home and out-of-home.

Earlier this year, Universal Studios Japan debuted the first major attraction to feature augmented reality. Simultaneously, other immersive tech has become a mainstay at attractions large and small in recent years. The introduction of virtual, augmented, and other immersive technologies have been met with excitement by artists, entertainers, and storytellers who are now envisioning new ways to engage with audiences.

At a recent virtual expo, ShowUp, immersive technologies expert Leila Amirsadeghi laid out where the industry is headed. Amirsadeghi said a new chapter is beginning in the industry, one where the dominance of fantasy worlds and sci-fi-themed games is challenged by the plethora of narratives found within our actual reality.

Until now, the vast majority of immersive and extended reality technology has been relegated to video game-like experiences, mostly built around basic premises. Even as family entertainment centers (FECs) and arcades have begun adding the technology to their lineup, the experiences guests are offered still feature a heavy reliance on shooting zombies, dinosaurs, or other players. But Amirsadeghi points to more recent uses of immersive technology to evolve the technology beyond glorified laser tag.

In speaking with Orlando Weekly, Amirsadeghi expanded upon her thoughts first shared at the virtual expo and showed why its important for FECs and other venues to be more conscientious about their offerings. She pointed to different storytelling experiences, such as theatre, as a better way to understand where immersive technology is headed.

There are companies whose model is on scalable, repeatable products that land in multiple arcades and locations versus, you know, approaching it as a theatrical model. You create experiences that are then ticketed and short-lived. They're not permanent installations. They're not permanent attractions per se, they're more pop-up experiences that come through like the theatre.

Like other technologies, the pandemic may have helped us leapfrog forward in the use of immersive technologies. Amirsadeghi believes that the technology that allowed a large portion of the population to shift to at-home working via remote presence will likely stick around long after the pandemic has subsided. The use of telepresence and mixed reality technologies over this past year has provided a familiarity with what these technologies are capable of.

The familiarity with the technologies will continue to increase as adoption goes, and I think we'll see more of these used as tools, whether it's at home or it's out in other locations, explains Amirsadeghi. Entertainment, education, and all of it are going to grow. It's just going to continue to grow.

Christopher Stapleton agrees. He founded a laboratory at UCF focused on experiential media and co-founded the Virtual World Society. Recently he worked with a group of homeschoolers in the mid-Atlantic to bring an educational VR experience, Traveling While Black, to nearby family entertainment centers.

The home is getting more sophisticated, but also youve got a lot of more sophisticated technology available for these venues. But on the same token, are they meeting up with it? With Traveling While Black, what you have is a content piece that was not made for FECs. But they realize they need better content, explains Stapleton. This is where you're going to have a convergence of media and venues with creators and collaborators that can mix and match together to create all new opportunities. So, you're going to have a lot more now that you have a more bottom-up kind of entrepreneurship or social entrepreneurship along with the ability to crowdsource materials and content.

Even while traditional art museums have been resistant to change, other groups, like Meow Wolf and teamLab, have become international sensations for their showcasing of technology-forward interactive art. Meow Wolfs latest attraction, Omega Mart in Las Vegas, relies heavily on projection mapping, as do many of teamLabs displays. Like augmented reality, projection mapping allows for a manipulation of how guests perceive the physical world.

Immersive tech is very visceral and very influential, explains Amirsadeghi. In many ways, it can change a person. Because of the visceral nature, you're able to walk away with the knowledge, whether you realize it or not. The experiences integrate in the body versus being audiovisual. That gives us a platform to be able to bring people into experiences that are more than just entertainment.

One such program to harness this visceral nature is Alejandro G. Irritus Carne y Arena. Guests enter through what looks to be a U.S. Border Patrol holding cell. Once theyve removed their shoes and signed a release form, theyre harnessed with a VR headset to watch an immersive short film focused on immigrants attempting to enter the U.S. through the Sonoran Desert. In one scene where immigrants, including children, encounter U.S. Border Patrol agents, special effects in the room enhance the experience's immersive nature. After the film, guests enter a final room filled with video testimonials from migrants. The film was the first virtual reality project to be included in the Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, and versions of it continue to tour North America and Europe.

Stapleton pointed to a study last year that found a third of museums may close due to the ongoing issues related to the pandemic.

One of the things our team has been working on is looking at this opportunity of crisis stimulates innovation. Continuing, he pointed to the ability for immersive technology as a format that can be in a museum that can ebb and flow between an individual group experience, and in an infinite story in a finite space.

In a similar vein to how entertainment and education are now intersecting, Stapleton believes family entertainment centers and cultural venues should also be viewed as adjacent, and overlapping, in their role to the communities they serve. To Stapleton, the role of immersive and extended reality technologies in education is a natural fit. The research I did at the University of Central Florida, right after I left Islands of Adventure, was this whole aspect of looking at experience, particularly looking at what is entertainment and what is education? We spent a lot of years developing an instructional strategy that looks at the basic heuristics of entertainment, the story-playing game, and the basic foundation of experiential learning. We realized that they coupled perfectly together.

Like Amirsadeghi, Stapleton points to how these immersive experiences can cause emotional triggers rarely seen in legacy technologies. The ability to fully envelop the viewer in the experience provides an opportunity for them to understand the story in ways that traditional video simply cant while being far easier to develop than the full mock-ups that some museums have turned to.

He pointed out that both cultural venues and FECs frequently target the same demographics and, to the visitor, often serve a similar role as a place for out-of-home entertainment. But he says, both industries drink their own Kool-Aid, so they have innovation blindness. They never look outside of their own box. But there are a lot of valuable lessons that can crossover. Now with [the rise in] experiential learning and technology, the world is becoming a theme park. And so, all these FECs are becoming little theme parks, but all the in-between spaces are also doing that.

With more artists and curators looking to use immersive technologies to develop to tell the stories unique to their communities, it's expected that more opportunities for collaboration, both between artists to venues and between venues themselves, will provide evermore unique experiences. Stapleton points to community-led museums and smaller towns where a museum or an FEC may offer the only out-of-home entertainment available in the area as potential leaders in this next wave of immersive storytelling.

In her presentation at the expo, Amirsadeghi showed examples of fantastical-like creatures that can be found all around us. She also pointed to the numerous stories in our communities that are yet to be formally shared. Stapleton shared the sentiment. He pointed to the recent push to better recognize Black voices and stories in American culture. There's a whole lacking of content. There's a whole lacking of opportunities. A whole lacking of facilitating these stories. We've only been telling the fairy tale of history thats from a very biased and privileged point of view. And there's all these lost stories and forgotten dreams of a culture that we have suppressed for hundreds of years that is so rich and so beautiful and so enticing. Pausing for a moment before continuing, there's huge work ahead of us.

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Virtual reality experts think attractions will move away from zombies, shooting galleries - Orlando Weekly

ByRich Shea

Sarah was 6 when her father brought her into the ER. Scared and short of breath, she had low blood pressure and a rash covering her torso. "I can't breathe," she wheezed, and her dad, verging on panic, reported that he'd rushed Sarah to the hospital after giving her "a tablet" for an ear infection.

"It was an anaphylaxis scenario, an allergic reaction to the medicine," recalls Melissa Boggan, a Doctor of Nursing Practice student at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. "So I had to do an epi."

An "epi" is a shot of epinephrine used to counteract the swelling of airways caused by certain allergens. "When a patient reacts that way to medicine, the turnaround time before cardiac arrest could be as little as five minutes," says Kristen Brown, advanced practice simulation coordinator at the School of Nursing. "Anybody in nursing needs to know how to handle an anaphylactic reaction."

The operative word in Brown's title is "simulation." Sarah, it turns out, was not a real patient. She's an avatar in a virtual reality scenario, one of several used for training by both pre-licensure and advanced practice students at the school. "We rolled out the virtual simulation platform over the summer, during COVID, and were able to train about 400 students in a short time frame," Brown says.

Melissa Boggan

Nursing student

The platform is VR software designed by Oxford Medical Simulation, a Boston-based company vetted by Brown and her team during a search for VR technology, a growing trend in nurse training, prior to the pandemic. The spread of coronavirus "put steam behind moving the project forward," says Nancy Sullivan, clinical simulation director at the school. The software provides two forms of VRon-screen, conducted via computer at home, and "immersive," which, with the use of an Oculus headset, provides a video gamelike experience.

"I first used the on-screen version last semester," recalls Kristin White, a pre-licensure student who graduates from the MSN: Entry into Nursing Practice program in May. "It was an asthma patient. We practiced at home and had to score 80% on different tasks. Then we got to do it with the headset on campus, which was great, almost like real life."

The VR program is part of simulation training, which includes manikins and live actors and complements clinical visits with hospital patients, which have been curtailed during the pandemic. And while the manikins, hooked up to medical equipment, are incredibly lifelike, they're also expensive and take up a lot of space.

Built into the VR scenarios, however, is artificial intelligence, which enables the avatarsstand-ins for patients, for exampleto alter their behavior. "Depending on when you do something, the physiological response of the patient changes," Brown explains. "When I put the oxygen on, or how much oxygen I give, changes the scenario. It adjusts to the learner."

Image credit: Will Kirk / Johns Hopkins University

Whether on-screen or via Oculus, each scenario places the student in an ER setting with a nursing assistant who introduces a patient facing a particular dilemma. Ray, for instance, a 42-year-old who's had a kidney transplant, is complaining of severe chest pain. Deepak, 64, has been vomiting blood. Boris, 40, is suffering from tremors and appears to be suicidal.

The student has 20 minutes, tracked by a digital clock, to diagnose and treat the illness by running through a series of tasks. Using a mouse or Oculus controllers (one for each hand), the student hovers over the patient's head and body to ask questions and perform exams, respectively, and has 360-degree access to medical equipment, a phone to call doctors, and a cabinet of drugs to prescribe.

Once a scenario's completed, the student is presented with a checklist of analyticswhat was done correctly and incorrectlyaccompanied by a percentage score. Students scoring 80 and above go to the school's brand-new Virtual Reality Lab, where COVID-19 safety protocols enable them to use the Oculus for the fully immersive experience.

"It's amazing," Boggan says. "You feel like you're in a whole other world."

Even better, for Brown and Sullivan, is the debrief that takes place after the Oculus sessions. A handful of students gather, at a safe distance, with the instructor to review each other's performances. "They do the talking," Sullivan says. "The instructor asks questions, and students discuss while we guide them. So they come out of the room with answers."

They then repeat the scenarios while improving their performance and reducing the emotional stressors that can derail ER procedures. "And they don't run the risk of hurting anyone," Brown says. "They learn critical thinking skills while being exposed to high-risk situations not seen very often. It's great preparation."

It's also the subject of a study Brown and Sullivan are conducting to determine how VR compares with other simulation methods and clinical practice. Early results show that "users rate it very high in terms of usability and the scenario debriefing," Brown says. "And when comparing it to traditional sim and clinical, they either rated it 'similar' or 'higher.'"

This relatively "new tool in the sim toolbox," as Sullivan puts it, could benefit the nursing profession in many ways. "It has implications on enrollment and increased delivery of online programs, allowing nurses to remain in the workforce while advancing education," Brown says. "More education rooted in experiential learning will produce a better-prepared workforce improving patient care."

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School of Nursing introduces a new, cost-effective form of training: Virtual reality - The Hub at Johns Hopkins

Facebook has nearly 10,000 employees in its division working on augmented reality and virtual reality devices, according to a report in The Information based on internal organizational data. The number means the Reality Labs division accounts for almost a fifth of the people working at Facebook worldwide.

This suggests that Facebook has been significantly accelerating its VR and AR efforts. As UploadVR noted in 2017, the Oculus VR division accounted for over a thousand employees at a time when Facebooks headcount was 18,770 overall, indicating a percentage somewhere north of five percent.

Since then, Facebook has shifted its VR focus away from Oculus Rift-style tethered headsets by releasing the Oculus Quest and Quest 2, which are standalone wireless devices that dont require a PC. The $299 Quest 2 was preordered five times as much as its predecessor, with developers seeing a boost in sales of their existing titles.

Today, most of what Facebook does iswere building on top of other peoples platforms, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told The Information in an interview this week on Facebooks VR and AR ambitions. I think it really makes sense for us to invest deeply to help shape what I think is going to be the next major computing platform, this combination of augmented and virtual reality, to make sure that it develops in this way that is fundamentally about people being present with each other and coming together.

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Almost a fifth of Facebook employees are now working on VR and AR - The Verge

Like many airlines, KLM had to cut spending because of the pandemics effect on travel. But the Dutch carrier has stood apart by preserving much of its spending on virtual reality (VR) and other emerging technologies that executives believe will help the business work smarter.

Virtual reality has already permanently changed the way we train workers, said Werner Soeteman, manager of the VR Centre Of Excellence at KLM IT. In every environment thats difficult to simulate or with every material that is expensive or risky to use, we expect to experiment with using VR instead.

In November, KLM began pilot training using virtual reality applications built in-house for pilots flying new Embraer 175 and 190 aircraft for its KLM Cityhopper subsidiary.

KLM Cityhopper used to do cockpit training with a paperboard mock-up, but it has now replaced that with virtual reality, which strives to improve pilot results by enabling more frequent practice. The airline developed the application between April and October of last year in response to the pandemic crunch on resources.

Some backstory: KLM created a team a few years ago to focus on emerging technologies.

Today seven KLM employees today work full-time on using new technologies to enhance training and operations. The team, led by Soeteman, especially focuses on extended reality a term that refers to virtual reality, augmented reality, and other tech that simulates experiences.

Adopting virtual reality has required KLM to vault a few hurdles. Clunky hardware has checkmated virtual reality usage by companies for years. According to feedback KLM has gotten from its workers, people find headsets from Facebook, Sony, HTC, and others uncomfortable to wear after more than an hour.

KLM trialed virtual reality training for the ground crews that operate the jetway bridges that connect the airport to a plane for passenger boarding.

In theory, the virtual reality training would spare KLM from renting a bridge and an airplane and risk damaging either piece of equipment. In practice, virtual reality wasnt yet good enough to simulate the feeling of toggling a bridge in the wind or other conditions. So the airline hasnt replaced virtual reality training with training using actual equipment.

But despite some setbacks, KLM sees promise. Last month, the brand put together a highlight reel of the companys experiments with extended reality.

Some experts expect quicker adoption of augmented reality, which superimposes digital content over real life, as being virtual realitys less intense cousin.

The most straightforward example of augmented reality is a heads-up display on eyewear to help workers see critical information. At Beijings Daxing International Airport, China Eastern Airlines has outfitted some employees with headsets whose cameras scan loyalty program members faces for instant recognition. The devices then display relevant details on an eyeglass-like screen for the worker to provide more personalized service.

KLM has experimented with augmented reality, too, using Microsoft HoloLens.

The carrier is experimenting with training maintenance engineers. Its testing on how to train engineers on the various components of an engine.

Augmented reality makes the training easier and cheaper because you dont need to to to dismantle an original motor engine, Soeteman said.

Another technique KLM has used for worker trainings is panoramic photo and video. When the company first had workers training to use the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, KLMs IT team created 360-degree wraparound imagery of the 787s various models using tech from vendor Matterport.

The normal training is when a new aircraft type arrives at the airport. But KLM was able to do the training up front. That move saved it money by making it possible to get that new plane type into production faster.

The managers of the cleaning crews found they made zero mistakes when they first boarded and cleaned actual new plane, Soeteman said.

For now, KLM is the leader in virtual reality and extended experimentation in travel.

The investments have been costly, and the carrier is working on commercializing some of its applications to recoup costs. KLM is exploring how it could license its intellectual property. Other parts of Air France-KLM Group and some regional universities have expressed interest.

Todays equipment doesnt always live up to its promise.

Other companies stand to enjoy the broader tech trend, too.

Earlier this week, Facebook Reality Labs published a post on the future of augmented reality that covered broad trends. Skift has covered how the pandemic may revive the fortunes of virtual reality and 360-Degree travel content in a few niches. Last summer, Google acquired a smart glasses startup, North, showing ongoing interest in the category, as The Information noted.

Many companies are coming to grips with the potential for extended reality. Consumer applications take up most of the sales of virtual reality hardware and software today. But enterprise software is beginning to take more share in the market. Subscribers to Skift Research can read our Emerging Tech in Travel report.

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Photo Credit: A virtual reality, or VR, simulation of a jet bridge connecting to a KLM Cityhopper plane at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. KLM, the Dutch airline, has been spending on virtual reality (VR) technologies for worker training that's more cost-effective. KLM

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KLM Is Ramping Up Virtual Reality to Train Workers Since Pandemics Start - Skift

According to new data, Facebook currently has more than 10,000 employees working on virtual or augmented reality-related projects.

The new study came fromThe Information and was based on Facebooks internal organizational data, which has now revealed that the tech giants Reality Labs division now accounts for nearly 20 percent of all of its employees across the globe. The number is staggering when compared to similar data recorded back in 2017, when only roughly 1,000 employees were within the Oculus branch, equating to less than five percent Facebooks headcount.

Today, most of what Facebook does iswere building on top of other peoples platforms, the companys CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained to The Information during a recent interview regarding its efforts in VR and AR. I think it really makes sense for us to invest deeply to help shape what I think is going to be the next major computing platform, this combination of augmented and virtual reality, to make sure that it develops in this way that is fundamentally about people being present with each other and coming together.

In other tech-related news, Bitcoin has broke through $60,000 USD for the very first time.

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Nearly 20% of Facebook's Employees are Working on Virtual and Augmented Reality - HYPEBEAST