Augmented & Virtual Reality, Wearable Tech, Theater-of-the-Future, Immersive Experience
Is the ‘Next Big Thing’ Illusion & Immersive Reality?
It’s VR Time…Quick Look!
As a battle for the VR space begins to heat up, Google & friends make a big bet on a little-known wearable headset maker called Magic Leap
Elephants in your hand, Sharks in your office, Leapin’ Lizards!
Roller Coasters in your living room
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MIT Update/March 2015: Magic Leap versus HoloLens from Microsoft
The MIT Technology Review recently focused on Breakthrough Technologies of 2014 and right there along with Agile Robots, Drones and Neuromorphic Chips, there’s the Oculus Rift and its many applications beyond video games—teleconferencing, online shopping, movies and more.
The Rift is just the tip of a coming wave. According to venture capital firms the virtual reality world will be far bigger than all of the above near-term uses. Augmented-Virtual Reality will be literally “changing the way we experience our everyday lives—our social interactions, our communities and our work.”
Get ready for a ride.
From c/net, Facebook sets up studio to provide content for its Oculus VR
From Mashable, the Oculus Rift is almost ready to hit the market.
The Oculus Rift’s digitalwear, ‘digiwear’ for ‘digibods’, is just the beginning of body enhancements…
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Imagine that you could see like a hawk or an eagle… choose your enhanced ‘sense array‘.
Enhanced sensing?
Consider a little ‘bio-mimicry’, take a gander at animals whose sensory ranges extend far beyond what humans have. Twenty-twenty vision is nothing to hoot about in the world of owls for example.
Can the extreme ranges of sight and hearing of many animals, via AR and VR for human use, begin to mimic how animals see, hear and sense. Infrared? Yes. Ultraviolet? Yes. Broadband, extended range hearing? Yes. The list goes on. The instruments to enhance and extend our senses are being conceived. Bio-engineering takes, as a starting point, immersive technology.
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Augmented Reality and Medicine
The same digital devices worn to play games and enhance sensory experiences will find a place in the operating room of the future.
Think of the world of health care, a scientific/technical world. We’ve previously written of applications for Google Glass in a hospital setting, but consider surgery itself with special Augmented Reality wearable tech instruments. For example, with the use of a dye solution that adheres to cancer cells, surgeons can more incisively operate to remove all cancer cells in a tumor. With special Augmented Reality/AR glasses, the doctors can see exactly what cells are cancerous and which are not…
The precision of Augmented/Enhanced surgery can save lives.
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Virtual and Augmented Reality goes far beyond fun and games…
‘Digital-enhancements‘ for a DigiBod world are being developed and tested.
Mini Augmented Vision / April 2015
Hands-on: BMW and Qualcomm make a convincing case cars are the best place to start AR…
Keep your eyes open — a first-generation of VR & AR ‘add-ons’ are coming soon
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Sharks !
Not yet available, but valued at +/- 2B pre-launch
Magic Leap
| Wired |
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Magic Leap: augmented-reality startup catches Google’s eye
NY Times / Magic Leap’s Effort to Blend Illusion and Reality
| Wall Street Journal (blog) |
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| Fast Company |
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| The Verge |
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| Engadget |
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| TechCrunch (blog) |
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| Business Insider |
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Augmented, Immersive, Virtual
New Realities:
Magic Leap and a “Digital Light Field”
In the Eyes of the Animal (video pov)
Virtual Reality @Sundance
Insider View: “We are building a wonderful, special thing – whose purpose is to gently, and in harmony with you (your physiology, your being), produce a Digital Lightfield – a living river of light sculpture, which can transmit to you the feelings of magic and experience and presence” — Magic Leap, Feb 2016
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VR @ the Computer Electronic Show
January 2016
- 40 exhibitors demonstrate VR products at #CES2016
Few Computers Are Powerful Enough for Virtual Reality
CES_2016 VR wrap up_Google News w links
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Immersive Cinema 3D & Beyond …. New Ways to See & Experience Our World ….
● VR headsets are ready to hit stores — and PCs need power and graphics to run them
- Just 13 million PCs worldwide next year will have the graphics capabilities needed to run VR, according to an estimate by Nvidia, the largest maker of computer graphics chips
- These ultra-high-end machines account for less than 1 percent of the 1.43 billion PCs expected to be in use globally in 2016, according to research firm Gartner
- Facebook recommends that Oculus Rift owners have a computer with an Nvidia GeForce 970 or AMD Radeon 290 graphics card
- Oculus Rift will require an Intel i5-class processor, more than 8 gigabytes of memory, and two USB 3.0 ports
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September 2015
- Immersive Cams Development — GoPro Odyssey, part of Google’s 3D, 360° virtual reality platform, Jump
August 2015
AstroPOV
SpaceVR’s Kickstarter project
Virtual reality video project will immerse you in space
June/July 2015
Beyond Immersive Cinema and Augmented Reality…
Via NYT / “Virtual Reality: Has the technology caught up with the hype?”
We have been talking about “taptic technology” as a real revolution since the introduction of the prototype Apple Watch. Lo and behold, here comes taptic to bring an essential element to virtual reality — touch…
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Oculus Touch
You’re in an unfamiliar world. You turn right and see lush vegetation. Turn left, and you spy an adorable woodland creature. You reach out to pet it—and nothing happens. Your arms stay limp at your side. You wonder if you have arms at all. Then you remember that the world is virtual, and the headset that brought you there is strictly look, don’t touch.
It’s a familiar limitation for head-mounted virtual-reality displays like the Oculus Rift. It can fool your eyes but leave your body stuck on the boring side of the looking glass. It’s a barrier to a truly immersive experience, one that Oculus will attempt to solve with a new accessory called Oculus Touch.
Oculus Touch / Via ReadWrite
Oculus Touch hand controls / Via WSJ
AR v VR — “Dualing Realities” / Via the Atlantic
Follow the Money, Big Payday or Not? / Via Barrons
When Apple Gets In, It Will Change the Reality / Via Engadget
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Not so long ago, there was a rumbling & beginnings of a change in the ways to see
Facebook’s $2 billion for Oculus VR
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547456/facebook-buying-oculus-for-2-billion
Why Oculus? At the beginning was the Great Rift origin story and the word went forth…
https://www.oculus.com/news/ — https://www.oculus.com/gear-vr/
http://www.roadtovr.com/samsung-gear-vr-review-part-one-design-comparison-to-oculus-rift-dk2/
and the Oculus Rift begat more rifting
2016 / Magic Leap
Magic Leap Raises $794 Million, Announces “Mixed Reality Lightfield“, “cinematic reality“
2015 / GOOG Invests $1/2 Billion in Magic Leap
Magic Leap files patent, Florida’s Magic Leap IP still secretive but closer to reality
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/magic-leaps-vision-for-virtual-reality/
while Google positions its VR ‘Cardboard’ device as a low-cost ‘digi VR thing’
http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/09/lg-google-cardboard-vr-headset-g3/
https://developers.google.com/cardboard/
http://gizmodo.com/the-view-master-is-back-and-now-its-for-virtual-reality-1685630204
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Microsoft comes out of the Cloud
Suddenly, after meltdown of Microsoft 8 comes Microsoft 10… and pivot from the Northwest
(forget 9, there won’t be a Microsoft 9 and btw, try to forget 8 too…)
Welcome Microsoft 10 and, oh btw, welcome “HoloLens”
“…the most advanced holographic computer the world has ever seen”
According to Microsoft’s exec-in-charge, guiding the mothership’s new venture into space where Microsoft has not gone before
Microsoft is, as of 2015, a virtual believer — and will not be left behind when the VR rapture arrives
Microsoft ante ups
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Big & small, players & talents, VR directions & misc characters not to be neglected
Feb 28, 2015 / HTC, the VIVE with VALVE / http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/1/8127445/htc-vive-valve-vr-headset
Feb 19, 2015 / http://www.slashgear.com/virtual-reality-will-change-the-world-so-says-tim-sweeney-19369729
AVEGANT / http://avegant.com — http://avegant.com/#timeline
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The race to embrace VR is heating up (did someone mention VRs need for inspiring content?)
http://gdgtarena.com/video-microsoft-hololens-vs-oculus-rift-ones-best-comes-future-gaming/
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/19/project-morpheus-hands-on/
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and stepping into popular consciousness… a VR ↔ AR set piece
Augmented or Virtual?
AR or VR… we’ll add awe, beauty and wonder
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Can VR make you a ‘nicer’ person?
We believe it’s possible and…
We’re working on it @Earth360
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DigiBody
http://www.digibod.com/newrealities
http://www.digibod.com/archives/4613
http://www.digibod.com/archives/4152
http://www.digibod.com/archives/3127
Tags: VirtualReality, AugmentedReality, VR, AR
HMD, HeadMountedDisplay
ImmersiveTechnology, ImmersiveCinema, Beyond3D, NextGenTV
MediaTechnology, VFX, SFX
Retinal, NeuroScience, CognitiveShift
Worldview, Earth360