Interesting articles about VR – week #13

Custom VR Closeup Camera Experiment

I’ve been interested in experimenting with close-ups in VR for a while, and finally got around to building a custom VR closeup camera rig. It uses two wide angle Mobius Actioncams, and lets me get the lenses very close together (or very far apart, if I want). The are a few 3d printed parts, some wood from a cheap clipboard, some wires, resistors, a couple diodes, a few switches, and some black hot glue. Very simple.

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VR pioneer Edward Saatchi: VR films aren’t the future of storytelling

As one of the founding members of Oculus Story Studio, Edward Saatchi has spent years exploring how VR can be used to make narratives more immersive. But with Fable Studio, his latest virtual reality outfit,
Saatchi has come to a surprising revelation: The future of storytelling doesn’t lie in VR movies. That’s an odd but interesting stance for someone who’s devoted years of his life to the potential for VR narratives. Instead of trying to mimic the experience of films through virtual reality, Saatchi believes there’s even greater potential in designing realistic characters for AR and VR. Imagine a virtual companion that can learn over time and interact with you and your family naturally.

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Virtual Reality in Education

This year Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona, confirmed the continuation of work on the UN Sustainable Development Goals program (SDGs). The purpose of the program is to fight injustice, inequality and challenges of our time. One of its 17 goals is providing the quality education for everyone and promoting the lifelong learning. Thus, we are sure about increasing mobility of education and enriching it with virtual format in the nearest time.

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RVLVR Labs’ Nick Bicanic on Virtual Reality’s Future

The new film, Ready Player One, paints a dystopian world dominated by a Google-like company that provides everyone with access to a fantastic virtual world. The promise of virtual reality technology from companies like Oculus Rift always seems over the horizon, but VR and augmented reality are coming and, when they do, they’ll change the way people communicate, consume content and conduct commerce. Virtual and augmented reality will change the way technology companies market their products, interact with customers, and deliver their goods. Nick Bicanic, founder of RVLVR Labs, is helping to shape this digital future by developing virtual and augmented reality technology and content. In his view, Bicanic believes VR and AR will make technology more accessible and less intrusive than anything available today.

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VR is still a novelty, but Google’s light-field technology could make it serious art

I recently got a private tour of a NASA space shuttle’s cockpit, a quirky mosaic-covered LA home, and a peaceful chapel with light streaming through ornate stained-glass windows—all without leaving my chair.

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WHY IT’S SO HARD TO DESIGN FASHIONABLE AUGMENTED-REALITY GLASSES

IF THE TECH prophets are to be believed, the Next Great Computing Platform will be on your face. It will come as a pair of glasses, as powerful as your iPhone with the panache of your favorite frames. It will pipe your preferred virtual assistant into your ear and give you super-human vision like the Terminator. It will change the way you think of computers, and the way you see the world.

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YOUR AR APP SUCKS – OR – THE CURRENT SAD STATE OF AUGMENTED REALITY

Augmented Reality has been around for a very long time. Back in 2005 I was hired as the R&D manager and lead developer for EyeClick, which specialized in projection based AR for public locations. It wasn’t labeled as “AR” back then, but it was identical to AR systems today. Here is a video of the stuff we made:

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Google’s New Light Field App Is A Tantalizing Look At VR’s Future

The future of VR content lies with increased resolutions, higher image fidelity, wireless tracking, better form factors, and the removal of any and all other barriers that remind users they’re not actually inside the digital world. Light fields, like the stuff groundbreaking tech company OTOY is working on, are at the heart of that future evolution.

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AR and VR are different — y’all need to understand why this matters

One of the most anticipated launches of 2018 is the augmented reality glasses from Magic Leap, which are reportedly set to ship soon. Although cloaked in secrecy, the design and power of this product have been getting increasing hype. German media giant Axel Springer, which has been investing successfully in digital startups for at least the past five years, recently invested in Magic Leap, which itself has raised billions in funding over the past couple of years.

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Inside Out: The Case for Virtual Doppelgangers and How to Prevent Improper Use

The research is in, and manipulating the actions of digital avatars (any digital character a user can control) that look like a user (virtual doppelganger) can affect the user’s behavior. Some programs that contain virtual doppelgangers and make users behave better already exist, like software that ages your virtual doppelganger so you will save more for your retirement, while programs that would instigate negative and antisocial behavior have already been imagined, like software that makes you watch your virtual doppelganger torture people. Decreasing the effects of harmful uses of virtual doppelgangers and other digital avatars might be as simple as acknowledging the power of that manipulation.

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