Daily Archives: March 23, 2017

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies have gotten a lot of attention over the past few years. Sony'sPlayStation VR headset is shining a spotlight on the viability of VR gaming, while Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL)Google Cardboard and new Daydream View headsets are pushing mobile VR into the mainstream. The unexpected success of Pokemon Go last year showed that smartphone users are ready and willing to adopt augmented reality. AndMicrosoft's(NASDAQ:MSFT)development of its HoloLens goggles aim to prove that the virtual and augmented worlds will soon become a part of our reality.

Investors looking to benefit from these two intertwined markets should keep these five things in mind:

Image source: Google.

Photos are richer than text; video, much richer than photos. But that's not the end, right? I mean, it's like this indefinite continuum of getting closer and closer to being able to capture what a person's natural experience and thought is, and just being able to immediately capture that and design it however you want and share it with whomever you want.

VR is still in its very early stages, and it's likely that it will take many more years before it becomes mainstream -- Zuckerberg has put the timeframe at five to 10 years.

Adding to the slow pace is the fact that some hyped technologies, like Magic Leap's AR headset, have recently been found to be behind schedule. The Information reported (subscription required) at the end of the last year that Magic Leap -- which has raised $1.4 billion in funding in about three years -- pivoted away from some of its earlier fiber optic technologies and now trails the image quality of Microsoft's HoloLens.

And even the HoloLens, which currently costs $3,000 and is mainly for developers, has sold only thousands of units. Roger Walkden, Microsoft's HoloLens commercial lead,recently told The Inquirer that, "We're not trying to sell hundreds of thousands or millions or anything, it's expensive, and it's not in huge numbers. So we're happy with the level of sales that we've got -- I can't tell you anything about the numbers, but it's in thousands, not hundreds of thousands, and that's fine. That's all we need."

While Microsoft may be pleased with those numbers, it's still a clear indicator that VR and AR have a long way go before they become mainstream.

And then there's the recent news that Facebook's Oculus is shutting down 200 of its 500demo sites within Best Buy stores, reportedly due to the lack of public interest. The future may be virtual, but we're getting there slowly.

Jason Pontin, the editor of MIT'sTechnology Review,recentlyinterviewedJessica Brillhart, a filmmaker for virtual reality at Google, and talked with her about how VR is currently used and what it might become in the near future. When askedif people will eventually use VR to record home videos, Brillhart responded that we probably would but that it might not be a good thing,

Think of everything you forget about a birthday party when you're a kid. But now the rig would capture everything. You could watch someone you loved respond the way she used to, or eat cake a certain way. It is going to be interesting to see what happens when we aren't able to forget anything anymore.

The interview is a good reminder that VR is still in its early stages and it's still unclear how this platform will be used, and whether or not we'll like exactly how it turns out.

Right now, VR is limited to a user's visual and auditory senses, but in the future this will likely be enhanced. Thegeneral manager of Dell's gaming PC manufacturer Alienware,Frank Azor, said thisinan interview with TIME last year:

Once you begin catering to the rest of the senses, like what we feel body-wise, temperature-wise, and smell, the reality factor of virtual reality [becomes] stronger and the virtual piece begins to fade.

Breaking the barrier between the virtual world and the physical world with high-end touch sensors could be the next step in virtual reality, and it won't be here for a while, but VR hardware and software makers are already thinking about how this technology can go from immersive to fully interactive.

The virtual reality market was worth about $1.9 billion in 2016, but that's expected to climb to $22.4 billion by 2020. Those numbers include both software and hardware sales. And when you factor in AR sales, the market skyrockets even higher. The combined AR and VR market will be worth $121 billion by 2021, according to Digi-Capital.

In that same year, IDC estimates more than 99 million AR and VR headsets will be shipped, up from just 10 million last year, which represents a 58% compound annual growth rate between 2016 and 2021..

The good news for investors is that companies are just getting started with AR and VR, which means the opportunities to benefit haven't passed. There are still plenty of unknowns, but as more companies rally around these new technologies and make the necessary investments to get them off of the ground, we're likely to see the future of AR and VR develop substantially over the next few years.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Chris Neiger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Facebook. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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The Future of Virtual Reality: 5 Things to Know - Motley Fool

Few tech topics are hotter right now than virtual reality (VR). Though its been around for decades, VR has at last entered the world of consumer electronics via devices like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive and, increasingly, headsets that can be used in conjunction with our mobile phones. But VR isnt just a technological game-changer: it could transform the way we tackle mental health problems.

Not so long ago, talking about psychological problems was taboo. Now the scale of these disorders is no longer a secret. We know, for example, that one in four people will experience mental health issues at some point in their life. The ramifications from this ocean of distress arent merely personal; the socio-economic consequences are profound. Nearly half of all ill health in working age adults in the UK is psychological. Mental illness costs the UK economy 28 billion every year and thats excluding NHS costs.

But if the problem is so huge, what are we doing about it? When it comes to funding, psychological disorders are very much the poor relation, receiving just 5% of medical research funding and 13% of NHS health expenditure. Treatment options have increased since 2007 via the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies scheme, but were still a long way from being able to provide timely treatment to everyone who needs it.

And the form of that treatment is crucial. Counselling can be effective to a degree, but the most powerful changes happen when individuals are presented with the situations that cause them distress and directly learn how to think, feel, and behave more constructively. That means getting out of the consulting room and into the real world, with the therapist acting much more like a personal trainer or leadership coach. Unfortunately, this seldom occurs: even when therapists recognise the desirability of the approach, time is at a premium.

The picture, then, is not a happy one a major public health problem and an inability to provide the best therapies to the majority of those affected. And yet we may be on the brink of a startling breakthrough, thanks to a technology that has been with us for half a century.

Virtual reality was first developed at MIT in the mid-1960s. The essential elements havent changed greatly over the years a computer generates an image, a display system presents the sensory information, and a tracker feeds back the users position and orientation in order to update the image but whats new is the sophistication and affordability of the technology.

Despite the massive investment in VR on the part of companies such as Facebook (who bought Oculus in 2014 for $2bn), the technology has so far struggled to gain a foothold beyond the gaming market. So what can it bring to the world of mental health?

The answer lies in VRs extraordinary ability to create powerful simulations of the scenarios in which psychological difficulties occur. Suddenly theres no need for a therapist to accompany a client on a trip to a crowded shopping centre, for example, or up a tall building. Situations that are more or less impossible to build into a course of therapy flying, for example, or the shocking events that often lie behind PTSD can be conjured at the click of a mouse. The in-situ coaching thats so effective for so many disorders can now be delivered in the consulting room, with the simulations graded in difficulty and repeated as often as necessary.

VR offers another great advantage. Understandably, the thought of facing a difficult situation even as part of a course of therapy can be off-putting for many people. But because VR is not real that reticence tends to disappear. Well do things in VR that wed be reluctant to try in normal life. Yet although the computer-generated environment is artificial, our mind and body behave as if it were natural. And that means that the lessons we learn in VR transfer to the real world.

So where do things stand with VR and psychological therapy? Weve just completed the first review of every study that has used VR to assess, understand, and treat mental health conditions. The earliest was undertaken almost 25 years ago, at a time when the cost and complexity of the equipment and programming meant that research was confined to a very small number of specialist centres. Since then 285 studies have been published. Most of those have focused on using VR to treat anxiety disorders and particularly phobias, social anxiety, and PTSD. The results have been encouraging VR is a proven means of delivering rapid, lasting improvements.

When it comes to other disorders, however, the story so far is one of potential. The work weve done on tackling the persecutory delusions often seen in psychosis suggests that VR can be of huge value, but more research is needed. Just two small pilot studies have used VR to tackle depression, which of course is one of the most prevalent psychological problems. We know that the technology is effective at triggering the cravings associated with alcohol abuse and smoking, but no one has properly tested a VR-based treatment. Similarly, because VR is able to alter the way we perceive our bodies it could be hugely helpful in treating eating disorders (one study, for instance, helped anorexia patients to experience a healthy BMI body and for a short time afterwards the individuals were less likely to overestimate their weight). But to date systematic therapeutic studies of VR for eating disorders havent been done.

With the exception of anxiety disorders, then, its early days for VR and mental health. But what weve already seen is that the potential is huge, not only for therapy but also for assessment: rather than relying on what people can remember of their thoughts and feelings, VR will allow clinicians to run powerful situational tests. Moreover, we may not be far off the time when we can all use VR to improve our psychological well-being from the comfort and security of our own homes. Current VR treatments require a trained therapist to be present; future versions could be delivered by a virtual therapist, making the best psychological science available to far greater numbers of us than ever before.

Getting to that point, however, will require significant strategic leadership and investment. When it comes to hardware, VR could turn out to be more important in mental health than brain scanners. Yet, to our knowledge, our mental health research team in Oxford is the only one in the UK to have a full-time VR post.

Not only does the psychological component of virtual therapies need to be appropriate, the VR experience must be up to scratch. Much so-called VR is miles away from the revolutionary immersive technology it can be. When VR is done properly its a breath-taking adventure for users. Virtual therapies will need to be just as exciting as the very best computer games if they are to keep us coming back for more.

Moreover, we mustnt forget that VR doesnt merely allow us to simulate reality it allows us to create situations that could never happen in real life. We did just this a couple of years back when we altered peoples perceived height in a VR environment and tracked the impact on their self-esteem. VR therapies must aim to exploit the incredible imaginative capacity of the technology.

And of course, rather more prosaically but no less important, VR treatments must be tested in rigorous clinical trials.

Much work is required then. But the benefits could be extraordinary. Many have said that VR is a technology in search of a purpose. In mental health, it may just have found one.

Daniel and Jason Freeman can be found on Twitters as @ProfDFreeman and @JasonFreeman100

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Why virtual reality could be a mental health gamechanger | Science ... - The Guardian (blog)

A year ago, at Mobile World Congress 2016, Samsung announced its first million hardware shipments. This marked the first time a major VR headset manufacturer had reached this milestone. At this same time last year, Mark Zuckerbergs surprise appearance in Barcelona, surrounded by an audience all in VR headsets, sparked excitement for the future of VR. The image went viral and capital, entrepreneurs and brands made significant investments into the space.

A year later, critics question whether VR is just a fad or whether it is the next major computing platform. With holiday sales of headsets underwhelming expectations, the cynics commentary has gotten louder. It is important for everyone to keep in mind, that just 12 months ago, there was no HTC Vive on the market. Even Daydream, Playstation and Oculus launched in just the past 6 months. So any opinion or commentary on the space feels too early.

As a VR platform working closely with brands, publishers, and VR content producers, we have seen consistent increased demand in the VR ecosystem over the course of the past year. Rather than sharing an opinion piece of whether this is the year of VR or not, I wanted to share the data that we are seeing from real business and real consumer engagement with our products.

What we see today is higher consumer engagement, higher quality content, and more demand from brands than ever. This February marked a new record with substantial year-over-year growth. Today, we have helped more than 100 brands and publishers deliver over 100 million VR ad impressions. Here are the key takeaways based on our data and case studies.

Consumers Engage With VR 10X Higher

The real question to justify whether VR actually will take off is around consumer engagement. Almost every brand has asked what the uplift and engagement will be when they invest in VR. For every campaign, we have run both VR and 2D experiences to compare the performance across the same placement. We started by comparing 360 photos with 2D images. Then, we compared 360 VR videos with 2D videos. These experiments were performed across all platforms, including VR headsets, smartphones, tablets, and desktops.

We measured heat-map (eyeballs) tracking, time spent in the experience, and click-through-rate for the display units. All data suggests that VR experiences gain higher attention from audiences. With higher engagement from audiences, brands can ensure that their message is delivered more effectively.

Brands Are Investing Even More in VR Technology

Initially we thought VR experiences made sense for travel and real estate. The nature of their products is one that aligns well with a 360 experience. In reality, however, we have seen a broad range of VR content from brands. You may not think a VR campaign would be straightforward for insurance, alcohol, kitty litter, or even fast food companies, but we have seen brands from all verticals bring audiences into their narrative through this immersive media format. Below are just some examples:

IBM, Morgan Stanley, Honda, Infiniti, GE, Toyota, Google, Microsoft, NASA, Uber, Cartier, Coach, United Airline, Farmer Insurance, Ford, Mercedes, Cadillac, Maxis Telecom, Chevron, Volkswagen, Johnny Walker, Caudalie, KIA, Clorox, RYOT, Samsung, Lexus, Netflix, Fifty Shades, Chick-fil-A, Jack-In-The-Box, Herbalife, Tourism Australia, Hitachi, Porche, Time-After-Time, US Army and American Home Insurance.

Our takeaway: Every brand can effectively use VR for its marketing. Immersing your potential customer in your brands narrative is not a new objective to the marketer, and VR is being experimented with and successfully executed by creatives the same way we have seen these brands lean into online video 10 years ago.

And production value is getting stronger as well. One year ago, stereoscopic 360 content (VR content that is created for dimension of left and right eyes) was still in the lab. Not many brands and production partners knew how to film it. Now, we are serving advertising campaigns with stereoscopic video on a daily basis. We are receiving inbounds about spatial audios (360 audio), 8K resolution, 180 3D (theater-like experience), and Web VR (Web Browser inside VR headsets). This all demonstrates deeper engagement with the medium. Brands, agencies and their production partners are leaning into this technology and creating better VR experiences by the day.

Brands Are Seeking More Eyeballs

One of the most important metrics for a VR production is the number of people it reaches. While costs are coming down, investing in VR production for a marketing campaign is only as useful as the number of people that can access it. Today we are seeing VR content being distributed in many forms. People often think that VR content has to live inside a VR app only. However, we have found our customers use our technology to promote their content outside their VR app. These channels include pre-roll/display ad inventory, sponsored editorial, microsites, and even Snapchat.

Distribution on VR platforms today is highly fragmented, and there are multiple devices to choose from. Each requires unique technical work to implement adding additional cost and time to the production. We have found that while many brands will invest in those placements, they are eager to extend their reach and deliver as much viewership as possible on the creative content they have built

The VR platforms are still new. HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and Google Daydream have been in the market for less than one year. The journey of this new advertising medium will continue to evolve. Given the growth we have seen on our platform over the past 12 months, we are very excited for what 2017 has in store.

OmniVirt is a 360 Video and Virtual Reality advertising platform founded by former Google and YouTube employees. The company has received funding from top venture capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz, Greycroft, BDMI, Horizon Media, First Round Capital and many others.

*This blog was originally posted on OmniVirt.com.

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What We've Learned About Virtual Reality Advertising ... - Broadcasting & Cable (blog)

It feels like the entire universe is within a sphere that is maybe within a couple meters radius, says topologist Henry Segerman at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. He is describing,not an LSD trip, but his experience of exploring a curved universe in which the ordinary rules of geometry do not apply.

Segerman and his collaborators have released software allowing anyone with a virtual-reality (VR) headset to wander through this warped world, which they previewed last month in two papers on the arXiv.org preprint server1, 2.

To explore the mathematical possibilities of alternative geometries, mathematicians imagine such non-Euclidean spaces, where parallel lines can intersect or veer apart. Now, with the help of relatively affordable VR devices, researchers are making curved spaces a counter-intuitive concept with implications for Einsteins theory underlying gravity and also for seismology more accessible. They may even uncover new mathematics in the process.

You can think about it, but you dont get a very visceral sense of this until you actually experience it, says Elisabetta Matsumoto, a physicist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

Traditional, Euclidean geometry rests on the assumption that parallel lines stay at the same distance from each other forever, neither touching nor drifting apart. In non-Euclidean geometries, this parallels postulate is dropped. Two main possibilities then arise: one is spherical geometry, in which parallel lines can eventually touch, in the way that Earths meridians cross at the poles; the other is hyperbolic geometry, in which they diverge.

Both Matsumoto and Segerman are part of Hyperbolic VR, a collaboration that is bringing hyperbolic spaces to the masses. Their team, which includes a collective of mathematician-artists in San Francisco, California, called eleVR, will unveil their efforts at an arts and maths conference this summer.

In the 1980s, mathematician Bill Thurston revolutionized the study of 3D geometries, in part by imagining himself wandering around them. Mathematicians have since developed animations and even flight simulators that show an inside view of non-Euclidean spaces.

But compared with those visualizations, which were displayed on a computer screen, VR has the advantage that it reproduces the way in which light rays hit each eye. In Euclidean space, staring at a point at infinity means that the lines of sight of the two eyes track parallel lines. But in a hyperbolic world, those two paths would veer apart, says Segerman, forcing a different response from the viewer. Here, if you look at a point at infinity, you have to cross your eyes slightly. To our Euclidean brain, that makes everything feel kind of close, he says.

But the smallness is deceptive. One of the oddest facts about hyperbolic space is its sheer vastness. Whereas in Euclidean space the surface area within a given radius grows as fast as the square of the radius, and the volume grows as fast as its cube, in hyperbolic space areas and volumes grow much (exponentially) faster relative to the radius. One consequence is that a user roaming a planet in the hyperbolic world finds much more to visit within walking distance.

So far, there is not much to do in the eleVR world, apart from exploring tilings made of geometric shapes such as pentagons and dodecahedra. But the team plans to build hyperbolic houses and streets, as well as interactive experiences such as playing a non-Euclidean version of basketball. The researchers hope that their open-source software will become popular with science museums and the growing legion of consumer VR enthusiasts.

Others are bringing hyperbolic space to VR, too. Daan Michiels, a mathematician at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, developed a virtual hyperbolic universe as a student project in 2014. And David Dumas, a topologist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, and his students created a racquetball game in a virtual hyperbolic space, in which a ball sent in any direction eventually comes back to the starting point.

Virtual reality could soon join a long tradition of visualization and experimental tools that have helped mathematicians make discoveries. Visualizing fractals, for instance, led to discoveries about the underlying mathematics. Figuring how to make use of [virtual reality] as a research tool is just starting now, says Dumas.

Matsumoto says that the team would also like to create VR experiences for even more exotic geometries. In some such spaces, parallel lines might stay at a constant distance from each other if they go in one direction, but converge or diverge in another direction. And walking around a circle might lead to a place thats up or down relative to the starting point, like going up or down a spiral staircase.

Visualizing such geometries could be especially useful as a mathematical tool, she says, because very few people have thought of visualizing them at all.

This article is reproduced with permission and wasfirst publishedon March 21, 2017.

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Mathematicians Create Warped Worlds in Virtual Reality - Scientific American

Dawson Education Service Cooperative had the opportunity to train 24 teachers on Virtual Reality computer science kits from Facebook. They were trained on the use and setup of the kit.

Dawson Education Service Cooperative had the opportunity to train 24 teachers on Virtual Reality computer science kits from Facebook. They were trained on the use and setup of the kit. The Arkansas Public School Resource Center and Arkansas Department of Education released a list of 254 schools that were eligible to receive the equipment. Dawson trained the following districts: Gurdon, Kirby, Cutter Morning Star, South Pike County, Hot Springs, Bismarck, Centerpoint, Malvern, Mountain Pine, and Jessieville. Out of the districts, 14 schools will receive a kit that will go in the EAST initiative program. The Facebook/TechStart partnership with Arkansas is the first of its kind. The contract, which was secured by APSRC and ADE, stipulates that Facebook will donate 500 virtual reality (VR) kits to Arkansas to be used by schools and educational partners in professional development offerings. The kits donated by Facebook include computers, cameras and the Oculus Rift headset necessary to administer the program. The headset allows students to immerse themselves in computer-generated environments. Oculus Rift, which builds VR technology, was acquired by Facebook in 2014. Governor Asa Hutchinson announced the state's partnership with Facebook/TechStart on January 5, 2017, at Little Rock's Central High School.

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Dawson conducts Virtual Reality training - Siftings Herald

2017-03-23 17:14 - Boipelo Mokgothu

Cape Town - Imagine seeing Thailand through cinematic video and virtual reality? Well thanks to the brand global team atContiki and the Tourism Authority of Thailand, you can experience this 360 experience aimed at a millennial traveller. Contiki is celebrating its new Northern Thai Highlights trip.

See the cultural and natural side of Thailand like you have never before The city life of Bangkok, the culture of Ayutthaya, the food of Chiang Mai and the natural beauty of Kanchanaburi, all brought to life.

Contiki, on a global level, is delighted to be working in partnership with the Tourism Authority of Thailand to drive awareness of this stunning region and our brand new Northern Thai Highlights trip using innovative, immersive content, says Kelly Jackson, General Manager for Contiki in South Africa.

Adding on their Virtual Reality content, Contiki has recently done Latin America and USA Virtual Reality content.

Even though expert Video editor, Rachel Kate-Lloyd encountered some problems with creating the Northern Thai content such as crowding space or ruining shots she guarantees that it takes the traveller deeper to show the cultural side of Thailand.

SEE:Thailand: Budget-friendly escapes for South Africans

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WATCH: Thailand in 360 Virtual Reality style - News24

When Bethesda showed a limited demo ofFallout 4 in virtual reality (VR) during the 2016 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), it impressed gaming critics and enthusiasts alike. Not only would any first-person shooter game in a VR format be noteworthy, this was an installment in the acclaimedFallout series. It was enough to get any gamers trigger finger twitching or, in this case, pulling a virtual trigger.

For this years E3, Bethesda has promised not just a limited demo of the successful open-world, first-person shooter game, but a complete and uncompromisedFallout 4 experience with a VR treatment. This has been confirmed by both Bethesda game designer Todd Howard and marketing VP Peter Hines.

We have an opportunity to make something really unique. Wed rather do that than make some other tiny experience, Howard told Uploadlast November. I dont think thats what people want from us.

More recently, in an on-camera interview with gaming personality Hip Hop Gamer, Hines again confirmedFallout 4 VR. He also claimed that Howard told him it would be the craziest thing youve ever seen and revealed that the game would be ready to demo at E3:

I talked to Todd the other day and I was like, Hey hows Fallout 4 [VR] coming? and he said, Pete, Fallout 4 VR is the most incredible thing youve ever seen in your life. You cant even imagine what its like playing in VR and how realistic it looks with everywhere you turn your head. Its gonna blow your mind. [] We will have it at E3.

Fallout 4 VR is expected to come out for the HTC Vive this year. When it does, it will be the first open-world game thats been overhauled for a full-blown VR experience at that scale.

While gaming is the most common application for VR, it certainly isnt the only one. Recently, VR has been used in the fields of healthcare and medicine its even helped a blind person see for the first time. Its also been used to help with criminal investigations, teach students, andtrain astronauts for missions.People can now do everything fromtour their future kitchens toexplore Google Earthin VR, so while development of the technology itself may be coming in trickles, it is definitely helping people experience the world in ways theyve never been able to before.

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Fallout 4 in Virtual Reality Will Blow Your Mind - Futurism