Monthly Archives: May 2017

**Warning:Spoilersfor the currently airing Season 4 of HBOs Silicon Valley below. Continue at your own risk!**

This past Sunday, April 30th, Episode 2 of Silicon Valleys 4th season aired and virtual reality occupied a minor side plot throughout the episode. When the trailer released for this years run of the show it seemed like virtual reality would claim a more prominent role in the show, but we havent seen that come to fruition in the episodes themselves quite yet.

If youre reading this right now, chances are youre aware of the fact that VR is absolutely taking the world by storm in recent years and ground zero for its meteoric rise in popularity is none other than the tech capital of the world, Silicon Valley. Naturally, a comedyfocused on the region would address it eventually.

For this most recent episode, Erlich Bachman (T.J. Miller) catches wind that one of the tenants Jian-Yang (Jimmy O. Yang), staying at his home that doubles as a tech incubator is seeking funding for a new application that presumably is related to VR.Upon finding out, Bachman states, Its a VR play. Thats the frothiest space in the valley right now. Nobody understands it, but everybody wants in. Any idiot could walk into a f*cking room, utter the letters V and R and VCs will hurl bricks of cash at them. By the time they find out its vaporware its too late. I have got to get in on this.

I mean, hes not wrong.

Naturally, you learn that things arent quite as wonderful as they seemed at first and the idea doesnt appear to be anywhere near as lucrative s Bachman was initially hoping. In the trailer (embedded above) we see VR and AR devices in use on more than one occasion, potentially hinting that there could be much more in the works.

In an interview last year with The Daily Beast, series creator Mike Judge stated that, We explored invented reality and visited some AR and VR companies, and yeah, theres a whole new wave coming of this stuff. And we might do some of it on the showJust the whole VR world thats blowing up right now. Well explore that. It sounds like our budding new industry will be in the spotlight more as the season continues.

Do you watch Silicon Valley? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

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This Week's Episode Of Silicon Valley Finally Addresses Virtual Reality - UploadVR

Five contestants lean back into the couch, disappearing inch by inch into the cushions with every puff off the vaporizer or join. A golden trophy, filled to the brim with a mixed ounce of Rainbow Jones, Moon Cookies, and Thin Mint GSC, sits nobly among a table full of snacks. The winner of Leaflys High Five Virtual Reality Challenge would be the proud owner of the stash, but six episodes would stand between them and their prize.

In this inaugural episode, watch the five fearless contestants pass around the DaVinci IQ vaporizerbefore they slice and dice their way through a rousing game of Fruit Ninja.

Meet the Contestants:

Which participant maintained enough hand-eye coordination to be crowned Leaflys High Five Challenge champion? Tune in for Part Two of our six-part series to see who advances and whose bowl gets cashed too soon.

The rest is here:

Leafly's High Five VR Challenge: Stoned People Compete in Virtual Reality - Leafly

An alphabet soup of tech acronyms is on Hollywoods menu these days, with VR and AR as the specials du jour. Those outside interactive media can be forgiven for not knowing how virtual reality and augmented reality will impact their businesses. But figuring this out is crucial for animation producers, whose pint-sized audiences are fluent with smartphones and other devices.

Theyre better at it than most adults, says Cartoon Network president Christina Miller. And they expect their brands of choice to be available wherever and whenever they want. To be part of our audiences habits, were multi-platform by design.

Miller notes the networks new OK K.O.! Lets Be Heroes is launching both as a show and console game, and theyre developing VR experiences for Adventure Time. The companys Adult Swim channel is programming VR for the Oculus and Vive headsets, but producing animated content for pricey hardware will take time. It will be the Wild West for a while, says Miller. Were emphasizing experimentation so that were ready when it IS a vibrant business.

Likely to have more imminent impact is augmented reality, especially with Facebook and Snapchat encouraging users to add digital images to real-world scenes. As Miller says: AR has been around a while, but then it got married to Pokemon. Never underestimate the power of a meaningful brand married to technology at the right time.

Nickelodeon Group president Cyma Zarghami admits, As a parent, when Snapchat arrived, my first instinct was game over. Since then, Ive realized its an exciting opportunity. We need to understand what the implications will be for our audiences.

Toward that end, Nickelodeon has launched the Entertainment Lab, headed by senior VP Chris Young. Ive spent a lot of time in kids animation, says Young. I see a future where we can apply things that were budgetarily or technically out of reach just a few years ago.

One of the Labs demos is a virtual puppet show using the star of Nicks The Loud House. As Zarghami says, Theyve used a game engine to create a 2D puppet of Lincoln Loud that can through an Adobe character animator host Saturday mornings for us. We can manipulate his arms, legs and mouth, and he can talk about anything in real time. We just have to bring in voice talent, we dont have to ship it to Asia for animation. Its a small application that Chris Youngs group has created, and there will be many more.

Promotional uses for these technologies are already emerging. Sony Pictures Animation has an interactive piece for Smurfs: The Lost Village running on Microsofts HoloLens platform, which allows kids to interact with virtual Smurfs.

It brings characters out of movie theaters and into homes, says Sony Pictures Animation senior VP Mike Moon. He notes that the Motiongate theme park in Dubai has a Hotel Transylvania AR experience, and expects there will be AR and VR associated with The Emoji Movie. There are marketing opportunities even while these technologies are in their infancy.

Moon says the greatest penetration remains on mobile devices. There are so many AR experiences that run on cellphones now. Thats the linchpin that brings it to the masses.

Fully immersive, headset-based VR is also being explored at studios as a creative production tool. At DreamWorks Animation, senior technologist Manny Francisco says: We have a lab where artists work in VR to understand how to draw or sculpt using VR tools. They can do previs or layout interactively. Its a good mechanism to take 2D storyboards and translate them into 3D space.

One point on which technologists agree is that more and more animation will be created using real-time tools. And new software companies are emerging to meet that need. Former Pixar animator Tom Sanocki, who founded Limitless VR, is finding that even non-VR creatives are interested in his software. Theres definitely a way to hedge your bets by building something in VR, even if youre not ready to use VR as a delivery medium.

Even such production studios as Bento Box, creators of Bobs Burgers, are anticipating the time when a business model will emerge to move these technologies past the expensive R&D phase. As CEO Scott Greenberg says: Animation has a leg up in VR and AR. Were building worlds anyway.

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Augment, Virtual Technology Boosts Storytelling and Revenue Streams - Variety

Its been two years since I wrote my primer on virtual reality: From Rectangles to Reality. Back then, VR was just starting to gain pace and people were truly excited about what was about to come.

Today, VR feels like a fairly normal experience. Samsung GearVR has sold over five million units, Google Cardboard is given away at agricultural conferences to inspire farmers, and gamers immerse themselves in all sorts of experiences from Canadian developers like CLOUDHEAD GAMES and their series The Gallery.

Beyond VR, we are seeing mixed reality becoming a useful tool in the world. Companies like Magic Leap have been hugely funded without product available yet, and Meta is starting to work on applications. Over the past few years, Microsoft secretly developed the Hololens in Victoria, BC, and now both Vancouver Island and the lower mainland have become the worlds hotbed of VR and MR development.

Over the next three to five years, VR and MR will be everywhere, and the metaverse will keep growing. Headsets and glasses will become standard, just like smartphones and Bluetooth earphones. We will start to move away from using our smartphones as those manufacturers Apple, Samsung, Google, and others and build out VR and MR capabilities beyond those screens in our pockets.

The evolution of the virtual, augmented, and mixed reality will be discussed at length as the designers, developers, visionaries, and users descend on Vancouver at CVR 2017 from May 5th to May 7th.

The three-day event includes speakers like Evelyn Miralles, lead VR innovator at NASA; Tony Bevilacqua, founder and CEO at Cognitive VR; and Kharis OConnell, director of senior director of UX at Meta. The event also includes hands-on demonstrations of the latest products, and will be open to industry professionals on Friday, and the general public for two days over the weekend.

Companies at the event will touch on topics like solving problems in outer space with VR, designing the future of virtual humans, and featuring the latest evolution in entertainment.

Im very excited to be presenting at the CVR 2017, the Canadians premier VR/AR/MR conference, said Miralles. VRs a technology that has been with us at NASA for several decades used for astronaut space training. But the technology has now come of age and itll be changing the way we interact with people and the environment around us.

If youre as excited about this as I am, and youll be in Vancouver from the 5th to 7th of May then you can be the lucky recipient of one of four tickets to CVR 2017. One person will also get a VR headset.

Just tweet Im excited about the future Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality in Canada and beyond at #CVR2017 and the team at CVR will be in touch if you are selected.

Link:

CVR 2017 exploring the future of virtual reality with speakers from NASA, Cognitive VR - BetaKit

Virtual realitywhen done rightcan transport viewers to another world. Artist and director Arjan van Meertens newest film made specifically for VR, which debuted last week at the Tribeca Film Festivals Virtual Arcade, takes viewers to the edge and beyondliterally. Apex, which is van Meertens highly anticipated follow-up to his 2015 virtual reality music video Surge, puts the viewer right smack in the middle of theapocalypse, as it unfolds. Or at least thats what it felt like to me when I gave a whirl, on what was only my second time usinga VRheadset.

The directors new title, which was created separatelyfrom his more commercial animation work, was a partnership with his Amsterdam-baseddigital animation studio House of Secrets,Los Angeles VRcompany Wevrand Portlands Kaleidoscope VR. Venturing into VR was a logical thing to try to experiment with it, he told me by phone. VR, he said, allows viewers to see animations in a whole new way.

Van Meerten spent his youth entrenchedin theMetal scene, he tells me. The energy that the audience experiences at concerts, coupled with the fact the genre still makes up the core of his musical tastes served asthe foundation of bothSurge and Apex. But while the music for Apex, which van Meerten composed himself, is not Metal in the traditional sense and leans more towards Electronica, theres still a furious, rapturous energy thats palpable when paired withhis arresting visuals.

His inspiration for thosevisuals came from many places. but creatinga new kind of music video was his primary goal. He cites music videos by Aphex Twins and Radiohead as inspiration.In van Meertens fieryworld, a cityscape is engulfed by an exploding sun, fire tears through the urban landscapes streets and tunnels as creatures big and small scurry for cover, and a giant figure takes a walk like Godzilla above burning buildings. The, a dark, amorphous form envelops the viewer, passing through and eventually swallowing you up entirely. Apex is more than just a360, 3D animation; its a full-body experiencethat pushes the bounds of whats possiblewith VR.

While Apex features predictably familiar apocalyptic tropesfire, explosions and darknessvan Meerten also throws a heavy dose of more abstract forms into the mix.I tend to stay away from global symbolism, hesaid. [I] try to speak to the imagination of the viewerI wanted to choose images that are familiar (the deer, blocks figures) but more alien.

While I had the fortune of experiencing Apex firsthand at the festival,VR headsets have yet to become popular with the mass market as tech likesmartphones or smartwatches. At this moment its [VR] still really inaccessible and expensive. Eventually it will be more accessible, as mobile phones are getting better and stronger, says van Meerten. The director hopes that as interest grows in the technology, there will be more opportunities for his work, and that of his peers, to be viewed almost anywhere. At this moment Apex wont run on any phone because its too heavy on the graphics side. But it be wont be long before phones can run this and you can walk around with a small headset and daydream in VR.

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This Virtual Reality Film Lets You Experience Apocalypse Firsthand - Observer