Monthly Archives: April 2017

(KUTV) Across an open field on the east side of Interstate 15 in Lindon, Utah, is a unique building containing the latest in virtual reality technology.

They call it The Void.

People suit up in a vest, helmet, and weapon, and walk through a special door to experience a make-believe world.

"When you go in wearing these goggles and this vest, you don't just see this world around you; you can actually reach out and touch it," described Curtis Hickman, co-founder of The Void.

In this virtual reality world, you become a Ghostbuster. Your job is to fight off the evil ghosts that appear all around you. And you end up face-to-face with the Marshmallow Man.

"We immerse you in it. When you walk in, you are completely untethered in this free and open world that you've stepped into," Hickman said.

The Void teamed up with Sony to bring this Ghostbuster experience.

But this is just one of several they've created. The concept is nearly three years in the making.

Their first location opened up in New York City in May of last year.

Number two opened in Dubai just last month and now The Void is coming to the little Utah County town of Lindon.

"We are here; it just made sense to open something up to let our friends here in Utah really see and experience this amazing technology we've developed," said Hickman.

The secrets of what happens behind these close doors are just that-secrets.

Much of it has to do with magic.

In fact, Hickman worked as a professional magician.

He says magic is a huge part of how this all is brought to life.

"It's all about creating an illusion of reality," he said.

But as high-tech as this experience is, this is just the beginning of what's to come from this kind of virtual reality experience.

"That's probably the most exciting part, is that everything is going to grow and expand and the technology is going to get better and the equipment is going to get smaller and lighter," Hickman said. "This is like the early days of basic video games."

But even now, the technology is so good that it becomes a little too real for customers.

"We've had people leap back and land on the equipment and just start screaming and flaring around," Hickman said.

But that's the reaction The Void is hoping to get as they bring this make-believe world to life.

"It's sort of this mix of actual reality and virtual reality that come together to create a realistic yet impossible experience," Hickman explained.

To find tickets, go to The Voids website.

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Inside the Story: A virtual reality experience opens in NYC, Dubai ... - KUTV 2News

Forbes

Just How Big Is The Virtual Reality Market And Where Is It Going Next? Forbes 2016 was a pivotal year for the Virtual Reality industry but just how pivotal? Almost 100 million VR units shipped, pivotal. The trouble is... most of those (96%) ... VR Porn Stats: Gear VR Most-Used Headset, Daydream Barely ...Variety 'We're running with scissors': Why some experts worry about VR dangersPolygon Experts want to ensure that we're fully ready for virtual realityThe Star Online OBU The Signal -Online Casino Reports (press release) -Deniz Ergurel (subscription) (blog) all 16 news articles »

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Just How Big Is The Virtual Reality Market And Where Is It Going Next? - Forbes

The "Lithodomos VR" app allows people to experience archaeological reconstructions of ancient Jerusalem, at the height of the city's splendor under Roman rule in the first century.

This story was updated at 12:29 a.m. ET on April 7.

Visitors to Jerusalem and virtual tourists alike can now see the city as it looked in ancient history, with a virtual-reality app based on archaeological reconstructions of the city at the height of its splendor under Roman rule in the first century.

The program, named "Lithodomos VR," is a paid android app for smartphones and portable virtual-reality headsets that was launched on Google Play in December 2016. The app sells for $1.99 on Google Play, and $2.99 in the Apple App Store. Developed by Simon Young, an archaeology doctoral student at the University of Melbourne in Australia, the app includes a 3D virtual view of the area around Jerusalem's Western Wall, where the ancient stone walls of the city's Temple Mount can still be seen.

By using the app on a portable VR headset and smartphone, visitors to the Western Wall can compare the modern-day view with a 3D, 360-degree reconstruction of the ancient city from the same location, when the wall and the Jewish temple above it had been newly built on the orders of Herod I (74 B.C.- 4 B.C.), the Roman-backed king of Judea. [See Photos of the VR App and Ancient Jerusalem]

Young told Live Science that the reconstruction of the first-century scene was faithful to the latest archaeological research, and will be updated as new research becomes available.

"The VR content that we are deploying on the app is the result of carefully researched material from archaeological excavations, site plans, elevation drawings, photographs of textures and [geographic information system] mapping, as well as topographical data from NASA's ASTER digital elevation models," he said. "So all the content is linked in to the real world."

The VR scenes of Jerusalem in the Lithodomos VR app are based on the archaeology of the city years after Herod rebuilt the Temple Mount around 20 B.C., Young said, and before the destruction of the temple precinct by Roman troops in A.D 70, during the rebellion against Roman rule that became known as the Jewish Revolt.

In addition to the virtual view of the ancient Western Wall, the app includes a reconstruction of a market street in the city, where the virtual houses are based on real excavations. The featured objects, such as ceramics and street furniture, were modeled on data from first-century artifacts in Israeli museums, according to Young.

"We're really making sure that rather than just being haphazardly thrown together, what you're seeing really does correspond to the research," Young said.

"I see virtual reality as a really important way of communicating what is often a lifetime of work for many archaeologists," he added, "so there's a line I dont cross."

Jerusalem's Western Wall is one of the most iconic cultural sites in the ancient city. The layers of stone blocks at the base of the wall were laid around 20 B.C., when Temple Mount and the Jewish Second Temple were rebuilt by the Roman "client-king" of Judea, Herod I.

Another virtual scene is an elevated view from a bridge to the entrance of the temple, the remains of which are known as Robinson's Arch. [The Holy Land: 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds]

"From there, you can see the slope of Mount Zion and the Roman-period settlements, as well as the back of a theater, and to the left you can see the Antonia Fortress [the barracks of the Roman garrison] and the Jewish settlement. So, you can see about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in every direction," Young said.

Young's career as a software developer began as he studied for his Ph.D. in archaeology at the University of Melbourne. (His thesis on ancient cityscapes was submitted in September, and he's waiting to hear the results.)

Young explained that he taught himself 3D-modeling as part of his studies on the architecture of ancient cities, and began experimenting with virtual reality when the Oculus Rift headset became available.

"I thought, I can take my 3D models and put them into this machine," he said, "and then when I put the headset on, there I was, standing in one of my buildings."

Lithodomos has also released a second, free app on Google Play and for Oculus Rift,featuring VR reconstructions of the Odeon of Agrippa in Athens, the Temple of Venus in Rome and the Arena of Lutece in Paris. The arena is a city park where a Roman theater and an arena for gladiators stood in the first century A.D.

"The idea is that when you visit an ancient site, say the Odeon of Agrippa, you take out your headset, stand in the right spot, and look around and what you will see is exactly a perfectly mapped reconstruction within a few centimeters to the real world," Young said.

In January, Young's company received investor funding of $900,000 Australian dollars ($679,000 U.S.) to develop the software and expand the range of archaeological sites that it covers, reported Venture Beat. Young plans to publish new VR scenes of famous archaeological sites every few weeks or months.

Future developments will include new software features, such as the ability to view the changes over time in VR scenes at each location, he said

"Our goal is to show the evolution of an important place through time, like the Roman forum from the time it was a cow market, right up to the sack of Rome by the Goths [in 410 A.D.]," Young said. "But, as they say, Rome wasn't built in a day."

Editor's Note: This story was updated to correct the app developer's name. His name is Simon, not Sean.

Original article on Live Science.

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Ancient Jerusalem Comes Alive in New Virtual-Reality App - Live Science

A new VR arcade will be filled with HTC Vive headsets.

London is getting a virtual reality arcade.

Other Worlds VR arcade will host gamers who don VR helmets and polish off street food and cocktails (not at the same time). It's set to be in a "secret location" somewhere in East London over the weekend of Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 June.

By day, the arcade will have events suitable for younger gamers. Bacon sandwiches, ice cream and retro cereal (this is East London, after all) will be served. Then from 4 p.m. to midnight, DJs take over, the bar opens and things no doubt get messy.

You'll be able to play on eight HTC Vive VR rigs, each with a big screen so your friends can point and laugh. There will also be retro arcade games and consoles hooked up to TVs from the appropriate era.

If you can't make it to London, Other Worlds is set to come to Birmingham, Cardiff and Manchester some time soon. Tickets go on sale on Friday. Sign up at otherworldsvra.com to find out more.

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VR and cocktails: London is getting a virtual reality arcade - CNET

New York Times

Cody Brown Has a Broad Vision for Virtual Reality New York Times Latest Project IRL, which was started in 2016, seeks to exploit what Mr. Brown calls virtual reality's untapped social potential. An overwhelming number of people have not discovered room-scale V.R., or high-end V.R., and they will not believe the ...

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Cody Brown Has a Broad Vision for Virtual Reality - New York Times

Information is where you find it. At first as I read a Variety story about which virtual reality headsets are preferred by porn viewers, I just thought it was one of those stories only readable because it is related to sex.

But that thats not it at all. Pornography is a big driver of the virtual reality industry, just as porn was a big driver of all kinds of media, from cable to VCR to Internet. Porn is a business that is proud of its premature exclamations.

Varietys Janko Rottgers reports that among porn VR users, Samsungs Gear VR virtual reality headset is getting a lot more use than all of its VR headset competitors. The source for this is BadoinkVR, a fully immersive VR site that has good reason to follow what gear is being strapped on. And according to Variety, 40% of Badoinks usage comes from Gear VR followed byGoogle Cardboard with 23%. Oculus Rift and HTC Vive accounted for 25% of downloads and PlayStation VR get 9%. Googles Daydream VR registers a measly 3%, according to Variety.

Many of the manufacturers dont disclose their sales but even when some, like Samsung and Sony, do, those figures those might be a little misleading because at this point many headsets are given away, possibly to a lot of people who don't know what to do with them, and don't care.

Badoink offers different files depending on headset their paying VR customers ask for, so thats a pretty solid indication of whats out there and whats really being used.

Just about a year ago at the NAB Show, VR was the belle of the ball. Im still a big believer, and so are vendors, enough so that the big Las Vegas convention will again feature a VR Pavilion at the event later this month.

But it appears that virtual reality headset sales have been disappointing. Fortune recently reported. The industry shipped 6.3 million devices accounting for $1.8 billion in sales in 2016, which the magazine says is a nothing much to brag about. So the market is overwhelmed by gamers and porn viewers While interest in music and virtual travel is growing Fortune reports, it also cites a Magid Research report that says theres a lack of clear value proposition besides early adopter enthusiasm.

In February, Forrester Research also said VR wont scale with marketers for at least three years. Last month, RBC Capital was more pessimistic, predicting a three-to five-year window. That, to me, seems too slow in a world where, more than ever, information is being distributed by video. Taking it slow might be the advice companies take, but the future might belong to the people who elect to make it go faster.

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Except For Porn, Gamers, Virtual Reality A Slow Build - MediaPost Communications

Two years ago, virtual reality startup NextVR privately demonstrated the future of sports broadcasting with one 360-degree camera placed courtside at a Golden State Warriors game in Oakland.

On Tuesday night, NextVR returned to Oracle Arena, this time with seven cameras, about 30 crew members, a full-scale TV production truck and three announcers presenting the Warriors-Minnesota Timberwolves game in virtual reality to a relatively small but paying audience of international basketball fans.

And the telecast came a day after the NCAA mens basketball championship was also broadcast in virtual reality using similar technology provided by Intel of Santa Clara.

The vast majority of basketball fans still watched the regular TV broadcasts and were probably unaware that these immersive, three-dimensional experiences were even available, a sign of how the VR industry is still trying to get off the ground and find an audience. However, this weeks back-to-back events showed how much progress live VR sports has made.

In five years, our goal is to produce this content so realistically that youll have a hard time distinguishing it from actually sitting in one of these seats, NextVR co-founder David Cole said as he showed off his companys cameras before the Warriors game.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, said Sankar Jay Jayaram, CEO of VR technology firm Voke, which Intel bought in November.

Live sports could be key to getting people hooked on virtual reality. A survey taken last year by Greenlight Insights, a San Francisco firm which researches virtual and augmented reality, showed that 39 percent of sports fans were very interested in watching live VR sports.

Even though it will be four to five years before live VR broadcasts develop into a major market, streaming big events live in VR will be central to the non-(video)game VR experience, Greenlight analyst Alexis Macklin said.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

Virtual reality cameras capture Stephen Currys tunnel shot before the Warriors-Timberwolves game.

Virtual reality cameras capture Stephen Currys tunnel shot before the Warriors-Timberwolves game.

Don Henderson (top) and Matt Klamm set up vir tual reality cameras on basket stanchions at Oracle.

Don Henderson (top) and Matt Klamm set up vir tual reality cameras on basket stanchions at Oracle.

Virtual reality basketball could be future of sports broadcasting

For now, the industry faces the classic chicken-and-egg dilemma, said Geoff Blaber, vice president of research for CCS Insight. It needs compelling content to attract users, but content investment is slow until theres a critical mass of users.

So this weeks virtual basketball telecasts were a hugely important step to proving the concept, he said.

Intel, CBS Sports, Turner Sports and the NCAA teamed up to broadcast six March Madness playoff games in VR, three of them from San Joses SAP Center and the three Final Four games from Phoenix Saturday and Monday. Only owners of Samsungs Gear VR headset, which also requires a newer-model Samsung smartphone, could view them. That limits the audience to those people who own the 5 million Gear VR headsets Samsung has sold worldwide.

For $2.99 per game, or $7.99 for all six games, viewers could see the action almost as if theyd paid hundreds of dollars for courtside seats. The feed included shots from seven cameras, each with 12 lenses, placed next to the court and in the arena. A production crew chose shots based on the game action, although viewers could also select their own views. And for the first time, the VR broadcast had its own three-person announcing team.

Jayaram and his wife, Uma Jayaram, a Voke co-founder, began working on the technology 18 years ago. He said he did not know how many viewers tuned into the VR stream. (Nielsen said the regular broadcast of the North Carolina-Gonzaga championship game averaged 23 million viewers.)

But Jayaram, now chief technology officer of Intel Sports Group, said there were enough viewers for the six games to show that there is interest in the medium, especially since this was the first time the show wasnt on for free.

At some point, the rubber has to meet the road, and you want to know we are creating an experience that is good enough that fans would pay for it, he said.

One paying customer was Josh Boggess of Athens, Tenn., who said he loved the experience.

The option of switching to different cameras helped him feel like Im standing in the crowd and can see all the details, including the big plays, Boggess said via text message.

Boggess said the only downside was the poorer video quality, compared with a 4K TV, but he expects that the VR quality will improve with time. Once that happens, its going to be the future of television viewing, he said.

Tuesday nights Warriors game was one of 25 NBA games to be broadcast this season in VR as part of NextVRs deal with the league. Warriors co-owner Peter Guber is an investor in the Newport Beach (Orange County) company, which made history by broadcasting the teams 2015-16 season opener in virtual reality. NextVR also produced a VR video that helped to lure star free agent Kevin Durant to the team this season.

To access the telecasts, however, viewers need a Gear VR and a subscription to NBA League Pass, a regular-season TV package of games that cost $199 at the start of the season and now costs $6.99 per game. The NBA declined to say how many viewers are watching the VR telecasts, which will not include the playoffs.

NextVR produces the show, which also includes replays and graphics. During a tour of the production truck, the NextVR crew was busy editing a clip of Warriors star Stephen Currys pregame warm-ups to show at halftime.

Most of the crew comes from traditional sports television, and they are still learning how to adapt to a medium that doesnt rely on closeup shots and constant cutaways to focus the viewers attention. Instead, the director switches between shots from the two cameras stationed on the basket stanchions or from a camera on the scorers table in the center.

There are also no commercials, so during timeouts, were staying with the experience, said Josh Earl, a coordinating producer. We never stop the entertainment value. We just keep pumping it through. When the play stops, you have time to take a deep breath and look around the arena, check out the JumboTron, watch the dancers, all kinds of glances you wouldnt normally do during a broadcast.

Although Cole said all major sports leagues are showing interest in VR, theres one live sport that has already become a hit.

Monster trucks are hugely popular, he said. We certainly wouldnt have guessed it, but were doubling down on monster trucks because its big.

Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: bevangelista@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChronicleBenny

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Virtual reality basketball could be future of sports broadcasting - San Francisco Chronicle