Oculus VR’s headsets are opening the door to a new brand of video gaming in which the player can experience virtually any environ, including the middle of the world’s largest particle collider. Collider, a new project for Oculus, isn’t a game so much as an experience. Users strap into the console (or simply project it onto a screen) and play the role of the shining star of the Large Hadron Collider—a single proton.
While it’s based on particle physics, Collider tries for an effect that’s more Aldous Huxley than Stephen Hawking. Bright fractals unfurl before the viewer’s eyes as they travel on a bizarre voyage through the LHC, and users can manipulate the environment using the Leap Motion detector.
Designer Eddie Lee took inspiration from the LHC, calling it a "beautiful and majestic" work of "perfect symmetry" in an interview with Wired. The LHC and the Higgs Boson serve as an inspiration for a not-so-scientific journey into the really bizarre end scene of 2001 as propulsive electronic music from Baiyon plays.
While it may not strive for scientific accuracy, the project provides an opportunity for a strange and provocative experience. And best of all, Collider is free in the Leap Motion store.
The art of building design and construction is one that has always been dictated by the technologies available at the time. Improvements to the materials, tools, vehicles and IT available have all had a significant impact in pushing the boundaries of what it is possible to build.
Today, increased use of smartphones and the introduction of formalised mobile strategies are delivering a host of benefits at every stage of a building project’s lifecycle. Better communications channels, as well as instant access to data, maps and cameras all have several uses when it comes to architecture and construction.
Experimenting with augmented reality
Augmented Reality (AR) is one such technology facilitated by mobile that is now delivering benefits for architects, construction workers, and even the maintenance teams responsible for looking after buildings following completion.
Once maligned as a consumer proposition with limited commercial applications, AR is providing the building design and construction industries with tools that increase agility and mobility, while simultaneously reducing inefficiencies.
At the design stage, architects are using AR to generate 3D models from 2D plans that can also demonstrate the effect that wind and other factors will have on completed buildings. In addition, some AR platforms can isolate specific elements of an overall design, allowing for closer inspection and even full scale presentation.
Using AR in this way makes sense as it removes much of the time and resource involved with producing physical models and prototypes. It also helps to more naturally represent the intended appearance of a design – end users can now take a tour of a building before a brick has been laid, as AR overlays a virtual representation at the proposed site.
UBC archaeologists working among ruins on the island of Cyprus are developing a new mobile application that lets users tour Bronze Age rubble and see reconstructed city buildings.
Point your mobile device at an archaeological dig and a scene will come alive before your eyes. It’s like a Google Street View for the past, but in the lexicon of the tech-world it’s known as augmented reality.
“The experience of being able to walk about an archaeological site and see what an ancient city might have looked like in its original context is unique,” says UBC researcher Kevin Fisher.
“Augmented reality is a relatively new technology but it has the potential to revolutionize the way people experience archaeological sites.”
For this project, Fisher, a professor in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies, has partnered with a group of engineers at UBC’s Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC), led by postdoctoral fellow Payam Rahmdel.
For now the researchers are developing the app for just one archaeological site but the project could be a stepping-stone for creating new tools for archaeologists and tourists.
SAN FRANCISCO – Google on Thursday announced a partnership with artificial intelligence teams at Oxford University to teach machines to think like people.
Oxford professors behind spinoff startups Dark Blue Labs and Vision Factory will work with DeepMind, a London-based startup that Google bought early this year.
Financial terms of the alliance were not disclosed, but DeepMind co-founder and Google vice president of engineering Demis Hassabis said in a blog post that it involves a "substantial contribution" to set up a partnership that will include student internships, joint lectures, and workshops.
The artificial intelligence effort will be aimed at getting machines to better understand what they hear and see, potentially powering services such as intuitive virtual assistants and online search tools.
Google earlier this week was among a group of investors participating in a $542 million funding of Magic Leap, which produces software for augmented reality, calling the effort a new "visual computing platform."
I cervelloni della Digital Arts Leadership and Innovation lab (DALI) di Dartmouth hanno quindi deciso di utilizzare Oculus Rift durante le missioni spaziali, dando così la possibilità agli astronauti di vivere virtualmente una serie di viaggi sulla terra, il tutto allo scopo di ridurre lo stress psicologico.
Ovviamente l’effetto benefico di Oculus Rift non è paragonabile alle conseguenze di un viaggio reale, ma la soluzione legata al mondo virtuale è risultata come un ottimo sostituto temporaneo.
Gli scienziati stanno inoltre studiando un sistema in grado di arricchire il tutto con suoni e odori, in mo da rendere il tutto molto più realistico.
L’esperimento è iniziato il 15 ottobre alle Hawaii e tra gli obiettivi da raggiungere sono presenti la riproduzione di luoghi reali, come spiagge o le case degli astronauti, ma anche luoghi completamente immaginari, arricchiti con quadri celebri e molto altro ancora.
