Daily Archives: April 28, 2017

(McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post)

Virtual reality smells like sweat. Or at least it did to me in the brief period I spent in that altered state, during which time I practiced sideline out of bounds plays with Washington Wizards rookies, shot some free throws with Ian Mahimni, and then wound up in Verizon Center tunnel huddling and holding hands with the entire squad just before the tip.

The Oculus Rift headset provided by the Wizards training staff didnt look like a universe destroyer. It looked rather like something a welder would wear, and weighed about as much as a childs toy, only it was loaded with proprietary Virtual Reality tape from Wizards workouts.

What no one can prepare you for is the extent to which the device alters space, literally rearranges the ceiling and walls around you, and persuades all of your senses. Within a few seconds your head starts whipping around like a treetop in a high wind, following the flight of existential basketballs through space. Next thing you know, your nose is convinced to go along with your eyes and ears, and starts telling you that youre smelling the damp-towel, rubber-soled sneakery, liniment and humidity musk thats in every professional arena.

VR is still in its clumsy, crude, awkward, unsharpened infancy its not even close to where its going to be. Yet its already startlingly clear that the technology is going to change the sports experience for everyone, from player to spectator. But its bigger than that, really. Its going to alter human performance, period. Among other things, VR means the death of the playbook. So long to loose-leafed binders and two-dimensional game film. One day soon playbooks will be loaded on VR devices, and this is how draft picks will learn their down screens and back cuts.

Its an inevitability, if you will, said Wizards owner Ted Leonsis, who has made a big investment in the technology.

Leonsis has been ahead of most franchise owners in importing VR for his teams he has implemented it for the Wizards, Capitals and Mystics equally because of his belief that its going to affect everything from competitive edge to player development to spectator experience. The conviction is grounded in his experience at AOL, which originated as a network that connected ATARI gamers for whom VR was the grail.

The people most interested in VR are no longer gamers. They are campus lab researchers looking at ways to apply VR to everything from surgical training to bridge building. Which is how the Wizards came by their specific system, which is called STRIVR: It originated in the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, where Wizards team president Ernie Grunfelds son Danny was in school.

Danny knew a Stanford football team kicker and graduate assistant named Derek Belch who studied in the lab. Belch and his professor-mentor Jeremy Bailenson founded STRIVR to explore a host of new applications of immersive performance training, using Stanfords football team as their guinea pigs. Danny Grunfeld brought STRIVR to his father and Leonsis, who promptly implemented it. STRIVRs clients now include seven NFL teams, three NBA teams, one major league baseball team, 14 collegiate programs and the U.S. ski team. All of them are toying with the STRIVR system in different ways, but theyre after the same thing: performance enhancement.

Behind any good performance is conditioning: repetitive practice, in real conditions that force the brain and body to react, and decide. You cant deny that doing something more often helps when it comes to decision-making, Belch said. The trouble is that the body can only tolerate so much practice before it begins to wear down. VR is a potential solution to that. Athletes can get unlimited reps in the most realistic environment possible, even experiencing some of the same stress, just by using the goggles.

But VRs larger impact is in speeding up learning. How humans learn is complex neuroscience, but one thing we do know is that a hierarchy of experiences leads to greater retention. Research shows that generally, people retain about 10 percent of what they read, but can remember more than 40 percent of what they watch and listen to. VR proponents have taken that concept and sprinted with it in the sports realm.

They have demonstrated that when it comes to any action that involves body coordination, full immersion learning is measurably better. Belchs mentor Bailenson, did a study in which he compared learning Tai Chi in immersive VR to a traditional two-dimensional instructional video. Those who learned from VR performed better in every single phase of the experiment. According to STRIVR, teams can improve recollection of key concepts by 30 percent.

To franchise owners and general managers worried about developing expensive young draft picks, Thats very powerful, Leonsis said. It struck Leonsis that teams were handling their young players such as Kelly Oubre, tech savvy and living his life on the Internet playing e-games, all wrong.

You draft players in the NBA where the kid goes to college for one year and then you put him on your team, and in the old days youd give him a loose-leaf book with words and scribbles, Leonsis said. It looked like geometry homework. And youd say Well, youre a rookie and weve already got starters and backups and youre not going to participate very much, youll do a little in practice. And then we expect these players to get it. And why would we expect that when were not even teaching them the right way?

STRIVR is now using its clients to help amass quantifiable evidence on how the system impacts learning. Reports and data are starting to trickle in. The Detroit Pistons Andre Drummond corrected his free throw form last season with STRIVR, and he upped his rate by a little more than 10 percent. Teams report that its useful as a slump buster, a form of visualization to the 100-proof that allows players to feel themselves making shots instead of missing them. Quarterbacks such as Carson Palmer report upping their efficiency by using it to recognize and react to blitz packages.

We want to be able to tell a head coach that if you put that freshman or rookie or vet in there for eight minutes a day, four days a week for a month, they will be X percent more likely to retain the info, said Belch. In high performance sports where the margins can be fractional between winning and losing, that could be a real difference maker.

But with new power comes new complications. Who owns the rights, who gets how much of the revenue? What will people pay for it? What does it do to television? These are actually just the minor complications. More importantly, what does it do to the people who use it?

Example: Cellular phones have all but killed our need to remember phone numbers. Thats a small phenomenon, but its changing the way our brains are wired on memory and recall, Leonsis said. When it comes to sustained use of highly developed VR, We dont know what the unintended consequence is, he adds.

Applying VR to human sports performance is not a trivial undertaking. The applications are potentially profound, across all professions. STRIVR has a corporate training arm for crisis management, and diversity training: It can put someone in the shoes of a person of color and show how others react to them in the workplace. Its probable that chemistry students will learn structure by stepping inside molecules.

But there are a lot of things that VR still cant do. The focus isnt yet sharp and the viewer cant experience full range of motion, because of something called vection, which is a form of car sickness. Basically, when your head and body do two different things, the human system doesnt like it and produces nausea. It can only reproduce reality from a static position, which is useful for a quarterback reading options off defenses, or studying your shooting form at the free throw line, but not for dynamic movement.

Which leads to the most intriguing part of all of this: the exploration of where we stand in the competition between the human and the machine. For now, were still in a place to discuss human superiority. VR is just a multifaceted camera linked to a powerful computer platform. The great strengths of computers are the speed and accuracy with which they process information and solve equations. But what they lack is judgment and flexibility when it comes to those qualities, the human head outstrips devices. VR cant teach John Walls brand of leadership, or Bradley Beals shape-shifting creativity. It can only photograph them, and show it back to us, to celebrate, and marvel at. It cant make narrative art, which is really what all games are.

Theres an inevitability, Leonsis repeated. But will a computer be able to write a book that moves you? Will it be able to paint a picture or make a piece of art that moves you? Thats really the question.

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I have witnessed the death of the playbook. The killer is virtual reality. - Washington Post

At this year's Tribeca Film Festival, audiences can walk alongside the rangers protecting elephants in Africa, see what it's like to be a tree, ride in an automated taxi transporting passengers, or follow a Holocaust survivor's steps as he visitsthe concentration camp he was held in for the last time.

Experiences like these are open to the public in New York City as part of the festival's immersive programming. Much the technology is a preview of how virtual reality can support cinema through things like commercials and storytelling.

"I think Hollywood is starting to take notice that VR is not just a marketing tool for their properties," says Loren Hammonds, a programmer at the Tribeca Film Festival. "Film studios recognize that there's a new medium in town and its very different from cinema."

Through Tribeca Immersive's Storyscapes and Virtual Arcade -- two programs that highlight the intersection of film and technology -- traditional filmmakers used new methods like 360-degree cameras and virtual reality devices to bring audiences deep into new worlds. One of the most prominent names at this year's event was Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow, who worked with director Imraan Ismail to create The Protectors: A Walk in the Ranger's Shoes, a look at the rangers guarding elephants from ivory poachers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The major differences in this year's immersive programming content is the slight increase in narrative works. That field continues to be dominated by non-fiction and documentaries partially because "the narrative language is just still being developed," Hammonds says. "The only way it will move forward is if a lot more people are willing to take that risk and experiment with it."

Filmmaker Steven Schardt debuted Auto at Tribeca's Virtual Arcade, where viewers got to sit alongside Musay, an Ethiopian immigrant who can't find work as a traditional driver and must act as the safety driver for an automated vehicle. Just as Schardt's film explores what happens when new technology is adopted in the ride-hailing industry, audiences get to see what happens when creators get their hands on new tools. "I think VR does a good job of putting you in a different perspective," says Schardt, whose experience puts in viewers in an actual seat as they take an uncomfortable Uber-like journey.

The intersection of immersive storytelling and Hollywood stretches beyond the Tribeca Film Festival as the two mediums find new ways to engage audiences. This marriage, Hammonds says, is creating original content and new experiences for users. For example, outside of the Tribeca Film Festival, Fox's virtual reality arm Innovation Lab is teaming up with Ridley Scott to create an Alien: Covenant experience ahead of the new movie.

This is the fifth year the Tribeca Film Festival has featured Storyscapes and the second year for the Virtual Arcade. The programming will be available to audiences from April 21 to April 29.

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How Virtual Reality at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival Is Changing Hollywood - Inc.com

Newcastles Hedgehog Lab is to launch a VR Academy to boost the regions virtual reality skills.

It comes following the launch of its Immersive Technologies division and its currently working alongside Gateshead Council to find a site for the facility. One of the options being explored is the Baltic Digital Quarter.

This sector is going to be getting very busy, very soon, said director of immersive technologies, Shaun Allan.

The aim is therefore to fill the void in skills training and get people industry-ready as quickly as possible.

I am also confident we can make the North East the place to be for VR development. We hope to get the biggest players in VR involved.

The company says itplans to bring in 20-30 students initially, with the course lasting 6 months. Half of this would be spent on formal training, the other half on real-world projects in virtual, augmented or mixed reality.

Want people from a range of backgrounds from graduates to those that show a natural creative and technical ability that doesnt necessarily fit into the usual formal education route; we want the mavericks and those who dare to think differently, continued Allen.

And we want them to feel theyve accomplished something just by joining this initiative. We want it to be aspirational, in line with the hedgehog lab ethos.

Councillor Gary Haley, Gatesheads Cabinet Member for Economy, added:

Gateshead Council established Europes first industry-led cluster, VRTGO Labs, in 2014 to provide business growth support to those companies operating in the immersive technology sector and the Council is now preparing to launch an all new state-of-the-art research and development facility to ensure businesses stay at the forefront of the latest emerging technologies.

The Council is therefore fully supportive of hedgehog labs VR Academy, an initiative which is critical if we are to develop talent and improve skills that are vital to the continued growth of the sector.

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Hedgehog Lab sets up Virtual Reality Academy - Prolific North

After years of hype, virtual reality has entered what research and consulting firm Gartner calls the trough of disillusionment because the much-touted technology hasnt made the expected breakthrough to mass popularity envisioned by the companies that poured billions of dollars into VR research and development.

That list of companies includes Facebook. But at last weeks much-anticipated event in which founder Mark Zuckerberg outlined how Facebook will evolve in coming years, the 32-year-old multibillionaire focused instead on augmented reality digitally altered physical reality, all via the Facebook app on your smartphone, as USA Today reported. Think of AR as an insanely more ambitious version of Pokemon Go one with Minority Report-level saturation of ones surroundings, at least if thats what a user wants.

But dont count out virtual reality yet. Silicon Valley legend Roy Amara, an engineer and researcher who was one of the first serious futurists of the 20th century, had a view of how innovation often plays out thats proved so prescient its now known as Amaras Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

Perhaps humankind should hope that Amaras Law doesnt hold up this time because if virtual reality does become as dazzling, hypnotic and intensely enjoyable as imagined in science fiction, it could build off trends in how technology is changing peoples lives and make the world a different and darker place.

In his acclaimed 2000 book Bowling Alone, Harvard professor Robert Putnam used extensive research to detail how Americans were increasingly less likely to interact with others. The result was fewer constructive, community-building bonds with those with similar identities and interests as well as fewer healthy attempts to create bridges and links to those with different backgrounds:

For the first two-thirds of the twentieth century a powerful tide bore Americans into ever deeper engagement in the life of their communities, but a few decades ago silently, without warning that tide reversed and we were overtaken by a treacherous rip current. Without at first noticing, we have been pulled apart from one another and from our communities over the last third of the century.

A chapter of Puttmans book is devoted to how this trend was accelerated by technology and mass media. This happened first because the arrival of television as a mass institution led people to stay home and then because the proliferation of sources of information and entertainment meant fewer people had the shared experiences seen in the era where there were only three TV networks and most adults read the hometown paper. Increasingly satisfying distractions both made people less likely to go outside their home and interact with the world and to have less in common with others when they did go outside and interact.

Seventeen years later, the availability and quality of such distractions is greater than ever, and the emergence of Facebook as a mass communications tool would seem to counter the idea that technology promotes civic disengagement. But as a 2015 article in The Atlantic laid out, scholarly research suggested Facebook was no answer for the epidemic of loneliness and disconnectedness in the Western world. Stephen Marche wrote:

Our omnipresent new technologies lure us toward increasingly superficial connections at exactly the same moment that they make avoiding the mess of human interaction easy. The beauty of Facebook, the source of its power, is that it enables us to be social while sparing us the embarrassing reality of society the accidental revelations we make at parties, the awkward pauses, the farting and the spilled drinks and the general gaucherie of face-to-face contact. Instead, we have the lovely smoothness of a seemingly social machine. ...

What Facebook has revealed about human nature and this is not a minor revelation is that a connection is not the same thing as a bond, and that instant and total connection is no salvation, no ticket to a happier, better world or a more liberated version of humanity.

Now imagine virtual reality technology so compelling and immersive that it could change the mess of human interaction into a simulacrum of human interaction in which an individual could have all needs communal, conversational, competitive, carnal satisfied by virtual others without any friction or awkwardness.

It is easy to see how such technology could warp societies, especially when considering the fallout from much-less advanced technology in South Korea. The governments 1995 commitment to having the worlds fastest internet helped supercharge the nations economy, as leaders hoped. But it has also had immense collateral damage on young South Koreans. Addiction to internet gaming is so common that in 2011, the South Korean government enacted a law banning children under 16 from accessing gaming websites between midnight and 6 a.m.

In 2013, the government estimated that 10 percent of those aged 10 to 19 were gaming addicts probably a statistic with parallels in other First World nations. But the number appears far too low to other observers. A 2015 VICE investigation suggested the number was closer to 50 percent. Earlier this year, after a weeklong visit to South Korea to meet with therapists and educational specialists, internationally recognized brain expert Michael Merzenich a TED talker and a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences wrote that the government figure was a gross underestimate ... the substantial majority of young Korean men live with this addiction.

The proliferation of gaming addiction rehab centers in the nation suggests Merzenich is on to something. So do other statistics such as the marrying age for South Korean men and women reaching an all-time high. But Exhibit A may be this 2014 Washington Post story:

South Korea may be doomed. A recent study, conducted by the National Assembly Research Service in Seoul, predicts that the country will reach zero inhabitants by 2750.

The report makes it clear where the countrys problem lies: A remarkably low birth rate of 1.19 children per woman. But whats really striking is the speed at which it could happen: South Koreas population (currently larger than Spain) could shrink to a level comparable to tiny Switzerland within only a few generations.

By 2136, South Korea is predicted to lose 40 million of its 50 million inhabitants, according to the research.

There are, of course, many factors at play in low birth rates. They commonly drop in times of economic distress and in nations when women become more educated and get better jobs. But as of 2014, South Korea had the lowest birth rate of any of the 35 affluent nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Hankyoreh daily newspaper reported last August that the number keeps getting worse. Its hard not to think that a factor is antisocial gaming addiction among the substantial majority of young Korean men.

Is this what awaits America should VR reach its alleged potential? Maybe, maybe not. South Korea and the United States have different cultures.

But if the history of our use of technology is a history of isolation desired and achieved, as Stephen Marche wrote in The Atlantic, be afraid. Virtual reality could warp reality.

Reed, deputy editor of the editorial and opinion section, is a Level 21 Pokemon Go player. Twitter: @chrisreed99. Email: chris.reed@sduniontribune.com.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

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Virtual reality may pose real problems for our lonely planet - The San Diego Union-Tribune

By Rebekah Boynton and Anne Swinbourne, James Cook University

Posted April 28, 2017 12:57:47

Gradually exposing people to the thing they fear, say a spider, in a controlled environment has long been the mainstay of treating phobias.

But with exposure therapy you don't have to have a spider physically present in the room for you to feel the benefits.

Psychologists and researchers are using virtual reality to help people face their fears.

Psychologists originally proposed exposure therapy, also known as systematic desensitisation, in the 1950s as a way of treating specific phobias.

The idea is that if you are presented with the phobic stimulus (for example, spiders or heights) repeatedly, but safely, then your fear reduces over time.

In the case of a spider phobia (arachnophobia), exposure therapy may start with the spider in a cage or container so it cannot physically harm you.

Exposure therapy has three main elements.

First, you identify the situations or objects that make you feel afraid or anxious, or situations you avoid because of the phobia. You then rank them according to which ones provoke the most fear.

This part of the therapy is known as constructing a fear hierarchy.

Then a psychologist teaches you how to progressively relax your muscles. This involves focusing on how you feel when you tense and relax different muscles.

You use this relaxation technique when facing items on your fear hierarchy (or list).

Here's a video showing how progressive muscle relaxation works in practice:

Finally, the therapist gradually shows you items on your fear list, while you practise your relaxation techniques.

You start with the least fear-provoking item until you feel you can manage your fear, before being ready to move sequentially on to more fear-provoking ones.

In the case of a spider phobia, this could mean progressing from looking at an image, to a spider in a container far away, to having one sit in your hand.

Exposure therapy with virtual reality is the same, except instead of being directly exposed to the items on your fear hierarchy, you experience them through a headset.

Real-life exposure therapy has long been considered the most effective form of treatment for phobias.

Yet, despite strong evidence exposure therapy works, about one third of people with a specific phobia don't seek treatment, or if they do, they avoid exposure therapy.

The idea of facing their phobias is just too distressing.

Because they avoid the things they fear, there is no experience of safe exposure and, in turn, no decrease in their fear, so unfortunately phobias often persist.

But people tend to be more willing to take part in virtual reality exposure therapy than in the real-life kind.

Researchers found that people prefer it mainly because confronting the phobia in real life is too fearsome.

So, virtual reality exposure therapy is a promising alternative, especially for people who find exposing themselves to their fear in real life is too difficult or stressful.

Since its introduction in the 1990s, virtual reality exposure therapy has been effective in treating a variety of phobias.

These include acrophobia (fear of heights), aviophobia (fear of flying), claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces) and arachnophobia (fear of spiders).

Virtual reality exposure is just as effective as traditional forms of exposure therapy when assessed immediately after treatment, a year later and even up to three years after treatment.

For example, people who seek treatment for a spider phobia are less likely to avoid spiders, and less likely to feel anxious when they see spiders after virtual reality exposure therapy.

Another advantage is that psychologists can provide their clients with a range of experiences (phobic stimuli), which can be difficult to achieve in the real world.

Consider how time-consuming it can be to provide real-life exposure therapy for someone with a fear of flying.

Additionally, virtual reality allows the psychologist to control the types of experiences clients have as they face items on their fear hierarchy.

Patients can also be assured of their safety and confidentiality, as the therapy is conducted in their psychologist's office.

Although research shows that virtual reality exposure therapy is effective, there are concerns about its cost, accessibility and quality.

However, its quality continues to improve, as does its cost.

There are now clinics (such as this one in Sydney) that specialise in treating specific phobias this way.

If this article has raised concerns for you or someone you know, please contact beyondblue for more information about phobias and how to treat them.

Rebekah Boynton is a PhD candidate in psychology at James Cook University. Her research interests include behaviour change, individual decision making, primary industries and climate change.

Dr Anne Swinbourne is a senior lecturer in psychology at James Cook University.

Originally published in The Conversation

Topics: science-and-technology, computers-and-technology, health, australia

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How virtual reality spiders are helping people face their arachnophobia - ABC Local