Monthly Archives: March 2017

Georgia State has begun to invest in virtual reality to expand its research efforts

Georgia State is utilizing a new medium to further its advances in research: Virtual Reality (VR). Harsha Goli, Chief Financial Officer of the Panther Hackers, said that VR is a way to trick the user into a different perception of reality.

What virtual reality means is a complete replacement of our current reality. Currently this is done in the simplest way possible, by placing a display with a separate window on each eye to replicate different angles, Goli said. This tricks the user into having depth perception, which is what makes it real to him or her. So effectively, it replaces your vision and hearing with its alternate reality.

VRs research upsides

Georgia State psychology professor Page Anderson conducted research using VR to reduce the stress of people suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD).

Its not necessarily that virtual reality is a cure to social anxiety or probably anything. Its what the technology can do for you, Anderson said.

The VR system can simulate social environments to get those suffering from SAD accustomed through a more controlled immersion technique.

Its based on a very similar principle that in order to overcome your fears you have to face your fears. Most people can not tolerate that type of treatment for their anxiety so the idea of virtual reality is if you can take first step in a virtual world then you will be able to do so in the real world, Anderson said.

Anderson clarified that VR is not about the real experience, but preparing the user for the social environment and practicing cognitive processes.

It does not make it a more real of an experience, but it allows you to practice ways of thinking that will decrease your level of avoidance for the real situation, Anderson said.

The library has also made efforts to deploy innovate ways to conduct research using VR. In November 2016 the library launched a new virtual reality room that is available for reservation.

Library North room 275 now houses HTC Vive headset, an Alienware gaming PC, two wireless handheld controllers, and two lighthouse base-stations positioned on floor-to-ceiling stands.

The inclusion of VR was brought on when Dean of Libraries Jeff Steely, allowed faculty to propose innovative projects that directly benefit students. Business Data Librarian Ximin Mi, proposed the inclusion of VR technology in the library claiming that VR would strengthen Georgia States research.

As one of the few spaces open to all faculty, staff and students on campus, the GSU library serves the whole campus equally with information resources, research support, and increasingly technologies for inspiring research and learning activities,Anderson stated in her VR proposal. Adding VR services helps expand the spectrum of library technology support for learning and research, and strengthen the GSU library as a university-level research support hub.

VR for the classroom

In an effort to further understand VR and the impact it may have on the students of this generation, Sinclair interviewed Art Historian Glenn Gunhouse at Georgia State, who said that VR ultimately creates experiences that may have not been possible otherwise.

What VR offers to my students is an increasingly true-to-life way of visiting places that we otherwise could not visit, either because they are very far away, or because they no longer exist. Im hopeful that, in the future, I will be able to bring entire classes into a common virtual space with me, so that, for example, I can teach my class on the Roman house inside a virtual Roman house, Gunhouse said. Thats technically possible now, using VR social-networking apps like VRChat. The only thing preventing me from conducting such a virtual field trip today is the lack of a classroom equipped with the necessary hardware.

Panther Hacker members also believe in the impact VR can have on education as some of them participate in a project called, 3D Atlanta, dedicated to recreating Atlanta in the 20s as a virtual world, so people can walk around town and be a part of Atlantas history, according to Goli.

Sinclair said the library allocated $4000 from library donors to fund the implementation of the VR system and library is still open to more donations that would fund a possible to expansion of the existing room.

Thanks to generous library donors, the library has foundation funds that we can use from time to time to support innovative projects beyond our regular services, Sinclair said. So far, we have invested approximately $4000 in this equipment and service from foundation funds.

The VR system has picked up some momentum since being implemented as it has been booked 90 times by students, with over 150 hours of VR time logged so far, according to Sinclair.

Georgia State offers Georgias first B.I.S. degree in social entrepreneurship

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Georgia State has begun to invest in virtual reality to expand its research efforts - The Signal

BOSTON Students are developing a virtual reality game based on James Joyces Ulysses as part of a class at Boston College.

The goal of Joyce-stick is to expose new audiences to the works of one of Irelands most celebrated authors, as well as to give a glimpse of how virtual reality can be used to enhance literature, said Joseph Nugent, the Boston College English professor who is coordinating the project.

This is a new way to experience the power of a novel, he said. Were really at the edge of VR. Theres no guidance for this. What we have produced has been purely out of our imagination.

Nugent and his students hope to release a version of the game June 16 in Dublin during Bloomsday, the citys annual celebration of the author and novel. Theyve already showcased their progress at an academic conference in Rome last month.

Joycestick, in many ways, fills in the blanks of the novel, as many of the places key to the story have been lost to time as Dublin has evolved, said Enda Duffy, chairman of the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who has tried a prototype of the game.

The VR version in this way completes the book, she said. It makes it real. Ulysses is an ideal book to be turned into a VR experience, since Dublin is, you might say, the books major character.

There have been a number of efforts to bring works of literature into the gaming world over the years, including a computer game of F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby that became a viral hit in 2011 as it mimicked the look and feel of a classic, 1980s-era Nintendo game.

But the Boston College project is unique for trying to incorporate virtual reality technology, says D. Fox Harrell, a digital media professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is impressed that the students are taking on such a complex text.

It requires multiple entry points and modes of interpretation, so it will be fascinating to see how their VR system addresses these aspects of the work, said Harrell, who hasnt tried the game out yet.

Considered the epitome of the 1920s-era modernist literature, Ulysses traces a day in the life of an ordinary Dubliner named Leopold Bloom. The title reflects how the novel draws parallels between Blooms day and The Odyssey, the ancient Greek epic.

Joycestick isnt meant to be a straight re-telling of Ulysses, which in some versions runs nearly 650 pages long, acknowledged Evan Otero, a Boston College junior majoring in computer science who is helping to develop the game.

Instead, the game lets users explore a handful of key environments described in the book, from a military tower where the novel opens to a cafe in Paris that is significant to the protagonists past.

Its also not a typical video game in the sense of having tasks to complete, enemies to defeat or points to rack up, said Jan van Merkensteijn, a junior studying philosophy and medical humanities who is also involved in the project. For now, users can simply explore the virtual environments at their leisure. Touching certain objects triggers readings from the novel.

The project represents an extension of what academics call the digital humanities, a field that merges traditional liberal arts classes with emerging technology. Nugent has had previous classes develop a smartphone application that provides walking tours of Dublin, highlighting important landmarks in Ulysses and Joyces life.

But the native of Mullingar, Ireland, is quick to shift credit for the current projects ambition to his group of 22 students, who are studying a range of disciplines, from English to computer science, philosophy, business and biology, and have also been recruited from nearby Northeastern University and the Berklee College of Music.

These are ambitious kids, Nugent said. They want to prove theyve done something on the cutting edge. They have the skills. Theyre doing the work. All Im trying to do is direct these things.

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Virtual reality transforming James Joyce's 'Ulysses' into game - Press of Atlantic City

AccuWeather launches Samsung Gear Virtual Reality Application. Image: AccuWeather via AFP Relaxnews

AccuWeather is launching a special version of its app exclusively for the Samsung Gear VR.

Called Weather for Life for Samsung Gear VR, rather than simply give users a weather forecast, it puts them in the center of the prevailing meteorological conditions.

However, as well as an immersive take on local precipitation levels, the app will enable users to stand in the middle of tornados and other extreme weather events that have been captured in 360-degree video.

The app is interactive and easy for users to access immersive 360-degree video content and weather forecasts, all with the Superior Accuracy from AccuWeather they rely on, experiencing weather in revolutionary new ways, said Steven Smith, president of digital media at AccuWeather.

The new app is available to download from the Oculus store starting Friday and will be compatible with any Samsung Galaxy smartphone or phablet that works with the companys VR headset. JB

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Weather-checking virtual reality app ready for download - Inquirer.net

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We got a glimpse of Sony's futurea world full of augmented- and virtual-reality experiences that let you leave the headset behind.

Sony's SXSW Wow Factory is a virtual-reality playground full of wild demos (2:02)

Sony isnt exactly the coolest name in technology, which is why we were surprised to see the company set up shop directly across the street from the Austin Convention Center at South by Southwest.

Stepping inside Sonys makeshift Wow Factory was like seeing into a future where virtual and augmented reality are full-body experiences not necessarily tied to a clunky headset or a phone. And while none of these technologies are ready to buy, Sonys ambitious set-up was seriously impressive.

Were not sure theres a big market for the Synesthesia Suit, but this virtual reality experience is a trip. The suit has 26 actuators that vibrate all over your body once youre buckled inwhich takes some timeand slip on a PlayStation VR headset. The Rez Infinite demo we tried was wild, to say the least. Instead of simply hearing the musics bass through the TV or a pair of headphones, the suit radiates sensation throughout your body, from your arms to your ankles and down your torso. It brought the game to life in a totally unique way.

Then we went for a bike ride in Sonys Cyber Gym and Music Visualizer, which was like a SoulCycle class in space. A solar system was projected on dome-shaped theater, and the display responded to our movements on the stationary bike. It was a little disorienting, to be honest, but cycling through space was a one-of-a-kind experience youll only get at SXSW.

Sony used its relationship with Marvel Studios to create a Spiderman: Homecoming experience to show off its new projection mapping technology. The climbing challenge used a moving projector that responded to the climbers movements without the climber distorting the projected image. We left that demo to the pros, because one of us wouldve likely injured ourselves attempting to climb this wall, but it was a showstopping way to showcase what some might consider a boring piece of technology.

We tried on a wearable prototype that uses microphones to capture the sound of your movements as part of Sonys Motion Sonic Project. The cuff also has built-in motion sensors so you make music and control beats just by moving your body. A professional dancers demo was a little more awe-inspiring than our own dance moves, but we could envision this being a cool wearable for kids and creatives if it ever makes it to market.

Our last stop was the Mixed Reality Cave, where Sony used a short-throw 4K projector called the Warp Square to create a virtual experience without a headset. The cave itself was a small room that projected imagery on four high-contrast screens on the walls with sensors to interact with the installation. We traveled to Machu Picchu, created music by tapping the walls, and immersed ourselves in bizarre art, all without leaving the room.

Sonys Wow Factory was a perfect example of why people still go to South by Southwest: to see technologies that could change our lives, not just ones that make great holiday gifts.

Caitlin McGarry is Macworld's Staff Writer. She covers Apple news, health and fitness technology, and anything wearable.

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Sony's virtual reality suit is why people go to SXSW | PCWorld - PCWorld

Magic Leap has drawn more than $1.4 billion in investment. Theres also some troubling reports regarding demos and delays that are getting a lot of press. I know a game designer who works there, and I still believe they could pull it off. But when a Google search for magic leap fail turns up about 670,000 results, one has to admit that the prospect of failure exists.

Its not just Magic Leap who faces failure. Thetotal shipments in 2016 for VR gear has disappointed a number of people in and outside the sector.Why all the press? Think about NASCAR automobile racing. The most popular answer to the Quora question Why do people watch NASCAR? is:

Crashes, mostly. I know that everyone from [NASCAR cofounder] Bill France to the people in the Daytona infield will deny this with every breath in their body, but they all know deep down that it is true. Watch any random commercial for a NASCAR race, and count how many spectacular wrecks they show. Dave Hogg, freelance sportswriter in Detroit.

According to IDV, the total for mobile-base HMDs (Google Daydream and Gear VR), the tethered head-mounted displays (such as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR), and the miscellaneous standalone HMDs, was 10 million. This doesnt include Google Cardboard. Google has stated that its partners had shipped more than 10million units since its launch in 2014. Google also notes more than 160 million Cardboard app downloads to date.

Still, I know people that I respect who view the Magic Leap situation and assorted other news items (price cuts, etc.) as an indication that virtual reality and mixed reality will fail.

They are wrong. Heres why.

In the history of interactive platforms (hardware that runs games and other interactive experiences), weveseen flops as equally dramatic (and more expensive, adjusted for inflation) as the possiblefailure of Magic Leap.

CD-ROM represented a thousandfold increase in storage capacity over the floppies and game cartridges of the 1980s. I got involved in this technology, and at Activision in 1989 we shipped The Manhole, which is considered to be the first CD-ROM game.

It took considerably longer for the tech to go mainstream.

Microsoft was keen to have this technology on PCs and held the first of several CD-ROM conferences in 1986. The surprise at the event was the announcement of Compact Disc Interactive (CD-i) by Philips and Sony. Microsoft, who was pushing CD-ROM for computers, was not pleased about this and actively pushed an alternative system, Digital Video Interactive (DVI), which was never released as a console commercially.

What followed that was years of delays and a lackluster launch. The first Philips CD-i player released in 1991 and at $700. The CD-i was a commercial failure, selling only 1 million systemsacross all manufacturers in seven years, and losing Philips $1 billion. By 1996, the CD-i was discontinued.

But CD-i wasnt alone. Others attempted to make an optical disc console, such as:

The first true success was the Sony PlayStation. It launched in Japan in 1994 and in North America in Q4 1995. The PlayStation was an immediate success in Japan, selling over 2 million consoleswithin its first six months on the market. In the U.S., consumers bought 800,000 in four months. The launch price of $300and excellent games such asBattle Arena Toshinden, Warhawk, Air Combat, Philosoma, Ridge Racer and Rayman drove this enormous success.

Coincidentally, Sonys PlayStation VR (an add-on to the PlayStation 4) has sold almost 1 million headsets in the four months since launch, exceeding the companys expectations.

It isnt just optical disc consoles that have experienced this less than instant arc of technology. In mobile, we had Nokias N-Gauge and other attempts to build a gaming phone. Optical disc consoles survived the failure of CD-i, and VR/AR will survive the possible failure of Magic Leap.

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Magic Leap, the virtual reality backlash and the arc of technology - VentureBeat

In a darkened room in Raytheon Missile Systems sprawling Tucson airport plant, future weapon systems and the companys next construction project are taking shape in a CAVE.

But this isnt just any cave, its a room-sized, interactive 3-D theater known by the trade name CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment, or generically a computer assisted virtual environment.

Using the CAVE, teams of Raytheon engineers and other workers can collaborate on design and development using three-dimensional, stereoscopic immersive visualization.

Much more than a cool video-game technology though that doesnt hurt either the CAVE has become a major tool for collaborative, real-time product and facility development, said Kendall Loomis, manager of Raytheon Immersive Design Center.

With computer-aided design plans loaded into CAVE, participants can virtually navigate through a product like a missile, or walk through a virtual factory floor, Loomis said.

Were actually going to fly into a missile this is the core of what we do here, she said as she demonstrated the system.

Fitted with 3-D glasses, the observer gets a close-up, dynamic look at the innards of a generic missile, with electronics and mechanics laid out to exact scale.

Traditionally, engineers responsible for different missile components have consulted designs, ordered parts and created prototypes, often to find they didnt work in the final product because of things like production and maintenance issues, Loomis said.

The CAVE allows workers from the factory floor to collaborate with engineers to avoid such problems, she said.

Well have our assemblers and testers in here and theyll say, that looks great, but where is my torque wrench supposed to go? or how does my hand fit in there? or dont you realize by the time that assembly gets to my workstation, its sealed and I have nowhere to thread that wire, Loomis said. And the mechanical engineer says, Oh my gosh, I never thought of that before. So its that collaboration in that environment that is the power of this visual.

The CAVE also can be connected to similar systems for cross-country virtual collaboration.

Raytheons CAVE systems are made and custom-installed by Iowa-based Mechdyne Corp., which installed the latest system at Raytheons Tucson operation last October to replace a smaller system set up in 2010.

In 2014, Raytheon installed the industrys first CAVE2 system, featuring a 320-degree view, at another immersive design center in Andover, Massachusetts.

Raytheon also has two smaller, portable CAVE units that can be shipped to customer or supplier sites for long-distance VR conferencing.

Such collaboration can be a huge time- and money-saver.

Loomis recalled one example where the company was asked to redesign a wire harness system for a missile, which initially made up some 500 pages of drawings.

The design was digitized and fed into the CAVE system in Tucson, and a portable CAVE system was shipped to Raytheons supplier in New Hampshire so engineers could collaborate virtually on issues such as pinch points and heat hazards.

As a result, the design was converted to a flexible cable that worked, beating the 18-month design deadline by eight months and coming in 40 percent under budget, Loomis said.

Raytheons CAVE has also become a go-to tool for facility design.

When Raytheon was designing its $75 million missile assembly plant in Huntsville, Alabama, the CAVE in Tucson allowed a team of engineers, factory staff, program leaders, safety officials and contractors to collaborate on the layout of the highly automated plant, where shuttles autonomously convey missiles from one work station to the next.

In the virtual world, the team found hundreds of issues, from space and clearance issues to missing exit signs and doors too short for taller workers.

In all, the team fixed 49 issues, saving an estimated $1.5 million in construction costs.

We iterated it 57 times before we broke ground, Loomis said.

The CAVE system is now being used by Raytheon to plan two new buildings at its Tucson airport site.

The company, already Southern Arizonas biggest private employer with nearly 10,000 local workers, announced in November it will build new facilities and add some 1,900 workers here in the next five years.

Raytheon isnt the only defense contractor embracing virtual reality.

In 2014, Lockheed Martin opened its Collaborative Human Immersive Laboratory in Littleton, Colo., using Mechdynes CAVE system.

Raytheon and other defense firms also use VR setups for training. The Air Force has used flight simulators for decades, and today all the armed services are exploring or using some form of VR training.

It saves a lot of money, like all simulation-based training does its a real cost saver for the military across the board, said John Williams, a spokesman for the National Defense Industrial Association and the affiliated National Training and Simulation Association.

Its sort of going to be new frontier, youll see the interfaces become less clunky with miniaturization, and theyll seem more seamless, Williams said.

Virtual training also has emerged for industrial training and first responders.

In 2014, the Pima County Sheriffs Department began using a 300-degree, five-screen, VR setup to train officers on how to react in certain situations, with multiple outcomes depending on how an officer responds.

Looking ahead, Loomis said Raytheon is exploring ways to use the CAVE for employee training, for example, immersing quality-control employees or applicants in a virtual factory set up with numerous visible safety problems and asking them to spot them.

Raytheon also is working to pull more data analytics into the mix, including structural, thermal, mechanical and electric data, for sophisticated modeling, she said.

That large-scale data analytics will blow the roof off what we do here that is very cutting-edge and very unprecedented in this environment, to take multiple, different software apps and interlace them together in one place over a visual.

Contact senior reporter David Wichner at dwichner@tucson.com or 573-4181. On Twitter: @dwichner

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Fly into a missile: Raytheon embraces virtual reality - Arizona Daily Star