Set 29, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
On October 13th, CNN will live stream the US Democratic presidential debate in virtual reality. Anyone with a Samsung Gear VR headset will be able to drop in via VR streaming company NextVR’s portal in the Oculus store.
CNN says viewers will get a “front-row seat” from the perspective of an audience member, with the immersive stream allowing people to “hold a gaze on a particular candidate, catch off-screen interactions, and more.”
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.theverge.com
CNN is going to live stream the Democratic debates in virtual reality
Limited access to VR headsets means that not many viewers will actually be able to tune in this way, but the falling price of VR (Samsung recently halved the cost of its Gear headset to $99) means that CNN might be ahead of the curve.
The broadcaster has already dabbled in this area by recording in virtual reality — but not streaming live — the Republican debates earlier this month, and it says that VR offers viewers "the opportunity to experience these historic political events through their own lens."
Whether or not live-streamed virtual reality is a good enough experience right now is still up in the air. Earlier this year, NextVR operated trials live-streaming a soccer game between Manchester United and Barcelona FC in VR, with Recode’s Vjeran Pavic describing the experience as mostly positive: "The screen resolution was crisp, and the action was easy to follow… However, the fisheye lens made players seem farther away than they actually were when the action drifted. Still, I was able to watch a match from angles I have never seen before."
Others think the technology isn’t ready yet. Discussing early implementations of live-streamed virtual reality fashion shows, NextVR competitor Jaunt told Racked it would be at least a year until the image quality was good enough. "I think 16 to 18 months is a fair prediction of when the technology will be capable," said Jaunt’s Scott Broock. "Right now, it’s in its very early stages, so it would still be lower-resolution and be subject to dropped frames, but no question, when it’s ready to happen, everyone will be doing it." Until then, we’ll just have to be happy with virtual reality gaming.
See on Scoop.it – Augmented World
Set 29, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Samsung Gear VR eleva l’esperienza utente ad un nuovo livello garantendo costi di gestione ed acquisto contenuti nei confronti degli utilizzatori. Le nuove implementazioni infatti consentono di sfruttare uno dei nuovi modelli di punta nel campo degli smartphone Samsung 2015 come display abbattendo così i costi a carico degli utenti.
Questa notizia si concretizza con la volontà da parte di Netfix di rendere disponibili i propri contenuti direttamente sul visore attraverso un’applicazione. Da ricordare la possibilità di 360° View per esplorare paesaggi con visione panoramica proprio come se ci si trovasse immersi nel paesaggio semplicemente utilizzando app studiate allo scopo. Samsung sta tentando di coinvolgere gli studi cinematografici per rendere disponibili produzioni visive adattabili al proprio device.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: focustech.it
Samsung Gear VR: Nuovo visore per la realtà aumentata
"Su Gear VR, la gente esegue giochi immersivi in realtà virtuale, condividendo esperienze di filmati a 360 gradi, e teletrasportandosi in giro per il mondo con fotografie e video – ed è solo l’inizio di ciò che è possibile realizzare con la realtà virtuale sui cellulari". Questo quanto affermato dal CEO di Oculus Brendan Iribe.
Nuove caratteristiche per la realtà aumentata
Per la sezione giochi e film, migliorato notevolmente il trackpad tattile che non svolge la propria funzione su una superficie liscia come quello della prima release del prodotto ma offre un grip più deciso e visibile per rendere efficiente il tocco.
Nel corso dell’evento di Los Angeles dello scorso venerdì è stato presentato inoltre un ulteriore device che integra un dual-stick analogico del tutto simile a quello di un classico controller XBox. Il nuovo dispositivo è stato denominato: Gear VR Gamepad.
Il nuovo Samsung Gear VR abbatte letteralmente i costi rispetto al modello precedente assestandosi su un prezzo di $99, ben al di sotto quindi della soglia del modello precedente. In un seduta congiunta Samsung e Oculus hanno affermato che la realtà virtuale sarà la “prossima piattaforma per l’elaborazione dati”.
Ne è convinto anche Mark Zuckerberg di Facebook, convinto che i contenuti 3D saranno il nuovo standard per il futuro e che questi seguiranno le orme dei dispositivi mobile che ormai hanno soppiantato il mercato PC. Oculus Rift per Xbox One infatti è stato un grande investimento costato ben 2 miliardi di dollari e che vedrà i suoi frutti nel corso del 2016 ad un prezzo ancora sconosciuto.
Intanto anche Sony si appresta ad entrare nel mondo dei visori a realtà aumentata con Morpheus per PlayStation 4 giusto ad inizio anno ad un prezzo tutto fuorché accessibile. Si parla infatti di ben 500 dollari americani, il prezzo di una console giochi. Ed ecco perché, ad oggi, Samsung Gear VR è il prodotto più apprezzato dagli utenti secondo quanto emerge dai commenti rilasciati dagl stessi.
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Set 29, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Le conferme del fatto che la realtà virtuale sarà la prossima frontiera dell’intrattenimento arrivano da diverse direzioni. Molte aziende stanno infatti per lanciare sul mercato i primi visori, tra cui Oculus Rift ed HTC Vive.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.smartworld.it
Disney crede così tanto nella realtà virtuale da investirvi 65 milioni di dollari
Ad accompagnare il lato hardware ci dovrà essere però anche un adeguato parco di contenuti e probabilemente proprio per questo Walt Disney Co. ha finanziato Jaunt, azienda californiana, con ben 65 milioni di dollari.
Jaunt, che così raggiunge i 100 milioni di dollari raccolti da finanziatori da tutto il mondo, si occupa di sviluppare e realizzare sistemi di ripresa capaci di creare video a 360 gradi.
L’azienda ha spiegato che utilizzerà i soldi per migliorare il suo sistema e avrebbe anche allestito uno studio in quel di Los Angeles per iniziare a creare i primi contenuti che, forse, un giorno riuscirete ad usufruire grazie al vostro visore per la realtà virtuale.
See on Scoop.it – Augmented World
Set 29, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Fast forward a few years and the global gaming market is expected to rake in $86.1 billion in revenue in 2016. Driving this projection is the expected quick increase in consumer adoption of Virtual Reality (VR) technology hardware products such as Microsoft’s HoloLens, Sony’s Project Morpheus and the Oculus Rift. It’s no longer just about unique and memorable game characters and exciting incentives, but holistic and immersive user experiences.
VR will make its way successfully into consumer gaming because of clearer and more definitive user expectations for next-gen gaming experiences — and technologies like movement detection, sensors and beacons. Consoles like PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One have already shifted gamers’ expectations for visual fidelity and sound design. Such huge advances in user interaction elements taking place in incredibly immersive gaming environments (thanks, Nintendo Wii!) have created momentum for next–gen gaming hardware in the consumer entertainment industry.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: techcrunch.com
A Gapless Gaming Language
Gaming technology has always been used from an “external” perspective; the hardware is an accessory apart from the physical self. With VR aiming to blend our physical environments and virtual worlds, next-gen gaming experiences will become more visceral and life-like. Users will be able to use their five senses and manipulate their surroundings using their entire bodies instead of just a controller.
The key to the success of next-gen gaming UX is the removal of obstacles in front of the user, like unnecessary actions, buttons or even distracting visuals. Users will be able to immediately jump into their VR experiences without tutorials, manuals or even the game itself guiding them. Devices could even become weightless or, at the very least, be made from the lightest materials.
VR products (and Augmented Reality, as well) will continually aim to break down physiological boundaries.
Without the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the video game market in North America could have completely receded (whew!). More than the machine’s usability and the intuitiveness of the human-machine interactions, people across the world loved using NES — mainly because of how much fun they had playing the actual games.
The gamers’ fidelity to the experience was largely hinged on the game narratives rather than the seamlessness, ease and novelty of using gaming consoles.
What will make these new gaming experiences so different from anything we’ve ever had before is that these VR products (and
Augmented Reality, as well) will continually aim to break down physiological boundaries. Yesteryear’s gaming experience designs allowed for stimuli-to-action interaction gaps, leaving it to our imaginations to fill in the void. Next–gen gaming experiences are not only going to be fully immersive, but will become less and less about users “playing roles” and more about being enveloped in a virtual world that feels absolutely natural.
Intuitive And Gorgeous: VR Gaming For All Ages
Though it became a cultural phenomenon and leapfrogged the Atari 2600, from a usability perspective, NES was a failure. From the poor ergonomics of the controller and a slow 8-bit processor, to clunky software that sometimes didn’t work at all (until you blew into the game cartridge), the NES was at its best, a total pain to use correctly.
The poor integration of the software (role-playing and storytelling aspects) and the hardware’s usability is exactly why Virtual Boy failed when it was released in 1995 — it was just too big of a mental leap for gamers. Explaining to younger gamers today that there was a time we played Mario Tennis using a table mounted VR headset is sure to get some laughs.
Simple and minimal interfaces are sometimes the most useful UX.
Nintendo Wii’s runaway success was always attributed to the intuitiveness of using the Wii-mote. The console was able to cater to casual and hardcore gamers from multiple demographics. Next-gen VR gaming software and hardware will have less usability issues and flatter learning curves for users of all ages, cognitive abilities and console loyalty (first-time gamers included). Game systems will also allow advanced users to perform those tasks faster and more efficiently for a more tailored experience (cue: AI and intelligent machine references).
With the onset of material design, users also expect their products to be beautiful and simple, not just useful and functional. Nonetheless, it’s a well-known fact amongst UX designers today that good-looking interfaces aren’t necessarily very usable, and vice-versa — simple and minimal interfaces are sometimes the most useful UX. With this shift in expectations, users will come to expect HUDs (head-up display) and interfaces to become more minimal and gorgeous as much as they are intuitive and highly useful.
Three Next Steps For VR Gaming Development
First, designers must find the right balance between the new and the familiar. Users generally respond well to new and innovative products because these experiences introduce new ways we can interact with our environments and create new contexts for human-machine interactions. It will be critical for next-gen gaming to concurrently seize innovation and a sense of familiarity.
Reinventing the wheel too quickly might stupefy users, causing even the most technologically advanced hardware to end up like Virtual Boy. It was trying to reinvent the wheel when users didn’t even know what wheels should and can do in the first place.
Second, usability testing must take center stage. User-experience can make or break the most elegant, useful and beautiful software and hardware products imaginable.
Ironically enough, consumers have spent most of their lives using products with poor UX, like our old VCRs (did anyone ever figure out how to get the time display to stop blinking?). Because VR technology in gaming is in its early stages of user adoption, designers, engineers, product managers and anyone on the manufacturer’s side should keep iterating and testing for what works. There’s a wide array of usability methods and tools on a UX designer’s tool belt that would make Batman’s look like it was a Fisher-Price knockoff.
The global gaming market is expected to rake in $86.1 billion in revenue in 2016.
Third, cutting-edge qualitative methodologies will be key to developing meaningful interactions. VR experiences will become like the multi-sensory and socially shared experiences we have in the physical world (VR online dating, anyone?). Because these virtual environments will share the same traits as physical worlds, they cannot be evaluated simply based on learnability, efficiency and effectiveness like experiences on a mobile phone; they have to be felt.
Ethnography, cognitive walk-through and heuristic evaluations are just a few of the many methods to collect these qualitative data points needed to ascertain what resonates with gamers at a deeper emotional level.
Games allow us to explore uncharted worlds, enhance our own creativity and help us understand and solve complex problems in ways we never thought possible. Next-gen gaming experiences should keep these core ideals alive. If all else fails, games should ultimately just be fun, right?
See on Scoop.it – Augmented World
Set 29, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
To date, Augmented Reality (AR) has been referred to as “the biggest technological advancement of our lifetime” by some, a mere “gimmick” by others or, worst yet, the next iteration of the QR code. The divisive term was introduced more than 25 years ago (although elements of AR technology have been used in science labs around the world since the mid-20th century), but if there’s one thing AR proponents and its naysayers can agree on, it’s the simple fact that AR, as we know it today, has an image problem.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: techcrunch.com
Augmented Reality Has An Image Problem
Largely misconceived as an absolute technology that only lends itself to advertising and marketing opportunities, the real potential of AR is just emerging. AR is not a linear technology — it is macro. It will help objects think; it will help objects talk.
The Internet has powered remarkable new ways for us to achieve just about everything — learn, buy, book travel, connect with each other — and AR, in all its many forms, will be at the forefront of the next revolution in the way we connect with the world around us.
Even better, this future is not very far away. Already, new use cases of AR technology are disrupting the industries in most dire need of evolution, and as our mobile devices become smarter and work in harmony with increasingly sophisticated wearable devices, the power of augmented reality technology will truly reveal itself to the masses.
So, where are we today? Where are we going?
The advertising industry was a natural starting point for the value and possibility of augmented reality. From a Pepsi can to a cereal box to the promotional materials for the next big Hollywood blockbuster,
AR is already making packaging and products come alive and “talk” to consumers. Products themselves are beginning to answer the how, what, why, where. Image recognition technology coupled with artificial intelligence has begun to revitalize the marketing industry, providing just a small glimpse into the true potential of AR.
But advertising is just the beginning. Here are the four industries that AR will impact next.
Education
Education provides perhaps the most tangible example of the power of AR. Augmented Reality technology in the classrooms — from today’s tablet- and mobile device-based approach to tomorrow’s heads up displays — empower the sort of visual and contextual learning proven to improve information retention to the extent that an estimated 80 percent of visual content is retained by short-term memory compared to an estimated 25 percent for spoken content.
Our brains are image processors, not word processors.
Imagine a classroom where a teacher can push lessons directly to students through a mobile device, where a student can use a tablet to access a multi-dimensional rendering of a mountain to learn the phenomena of a volcano, one step at a time. For early childhood education, apps like Quiver Education bring a child’s drawing to life, allowing the child to not only engage with their own creations, but to also learn myriad topics.
And for high school students, apps like Anatomy 4D create 3D renderings of the human body to give students a hands-on anatomy lesson directly from a tablet. Our brains are image processors, not word processors, and AR technology has the potential to bring a lesson plan to life and create digital, visual representations of the staid texts on which we’ve come to rely.
Industrial
Let’s think beyond the classroom, and look to the industrial workforce. Design, construction, manufacturing, medicine — specialized careers require employees to visualize in 3D. The practical implications of allowing workers to use tablets and wearables on-site to see how a blueprint will come to life as a building or how a prosthetic arm can improve a patient’s life speak for themselves.
Take for example APX’s Skylight that offers a hands-free, AR-powered solution to empower workers across various fields to directly connect with each other and their environments to create a more efficient workforce. Companies like Daqri and WaveOptics are creating devices to enhance visual knowledge of the work environment while keeping both hands free.
The potential to solve the problem of knowledge transfer is quite literally at our fingertips.
Even in an office setting, Augmented Reality and image recognition technology will transform the way we transfer information. What if a holographic rendering could allow a new hire to see and learn the ins and outs of their new position, as opposed to spending tens of millions of dollars to train new employees? The potential to solve the problem of knowledge transfer, while being remarkably cost-efficient, is quite literally at our fingertips.
Retail
Every year, especially around the holidays, online and brick and mortar retailers record billions of dollars in merchandise returns. Oftentimes, those returned items cannot be resold — from being pre-worn to out of season. What if all shoppers had easy access to 3D renderings of their bodies powered by Augmented Reality to see the fit of an item, without needing to actually be in-store to try on?
It’s inevitable that being able to virtually try on 20 items in three minutes will increase sales and reduce return rates. Companies like Me-ality are already powering this shift. As the technology is streamlined and mainstreamed, we’ll see AR enabling real problem solving, amounting to higher profits and overall stronger margins for the retailer.
Food and Health
Apps like Vivino are enabling customers to use their mobile devices and AR to learn more about a bottle of wine directly from the label itself, and we’ll only see more powerful ways AR can impact our relationship with food in stores and in the kitchen. We’re just around the corner from the ability to use your device to scan a food item and immediately visually learn how the product was sourced, where it came from, best recipes and nutritional information.
Beyond that, soon we’ll see kitchen appliances outfitted with cameras to alert cooks when a food’s optimum nutrition point is reached during the cooking process (or when the chef may have accidentally overcooked a product!).
AR will be at the forefront of the next revolution in the way we connect with the world around us.
Ultimately, the present and future of AR quite literally means the ability to receive the right information at the right place directly from the objects we need to know more about. As devices get smarter — from cars to washing machines to microwaves — machine-based learning systems will have ambient omnipresence and will help humans get smarter and more aware of the world around us.
Deep learning systems as they stand today are a new phenomena, but as devices and technology evolve in parallel, we’ll see AR driving new behaviors and new learnings across the industries that impact our lives the most. We are teetering on the edge of a new way to interact with the world, and becoming more informed consumers than ever before.
See on Scoop.it – Augmented World
