Monthly Archives: June 2017

Virtual reality has moved from science fiction to marketable consumer product astonishingly quickly, partly because the incorporation of the smartphone into the technology makes it accessible, if not ubiquitous. Its looking more and more like those who bet that virtual reality is here to stay, and not a flash-in-the-pan trend, made the smart bet. But what about in healthcare? Could a technology primarily associated with gaming turn out to be a serious therapeutic tool? Well, a growing number of doctors, researchers, and entrepreneurs think it can. Some are even starting to collect efficacy data to that effect. In May, Kalorama reported that the virtual and augmented reality market in healthcare grew from $525 million in 2012 to an estimated $976 million in 2017. Virtual reality is showing promise in treating pain, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, smoking cessation, and even at the dentists office. Below, weve rounded up 15 VR use cases, the companies or research institutions that are investigating them, and the successes theyve had so far. Read on for the whole list. 1. Surgical Training As far as medical understanding and technological advancements have come, educating current and prospective doctors is still largely done the old-fashioned way: books, tests, pens and paper. Virtual reality enthusiasts arent standing for it, especially when it comes to training medical professionals for surgery.

Fed up with the almost comical-sounding current method of surgical training, which take place at a few specialized centers around the country and requires the use of expensive artificial body parts a few innovators are offering a new option. Osso VR, which just raised $2 million, provides software that creates a virtual operating room on VR platforms like Oculus Rift/Touch or the HTC Vive. Practicing surgeries in virtual reality allows surgeons to get in more reps, particularly on complicated procedures.

"Right now the way theyre doing it is people have these devices in their trunks, you can only fit like one in and they drive around with hundreds of dollars in disposable, simulated bones to allow people to practice one procedure once," founder and CEO (and trained orthopedic surgeon) Dr. Justin Barad said last year in a presentation at Health 2.0. "Ive done surgeries where I just sat there reading the instruction manual like we were putting together IKEA furniture because people dont have a training option thats something like this. So I really hope this is the future of medical training to increase patient safety, decrease complications, and increase the learning curve for complex medical devices."

Chicago-based Level EX is another surgical training innovator. Airway EX, the company's first app, is a surgical training simulator built by video game developers and physicians from real footage of surgeries. It was launched in beta in October 2016 and available for free on iOS and Android, and the app offers physicians the opportunity to perform virtual airway surgery on realistic patients which are detailed down to their pores across 18 different procedures on the airway. The game is designed for anesthesiologists, otolaryngologists, critical care specialists, emergency room physicians and pulmonologists. Along the way, they can earn Continuing Medical Education credit by playing the game. The idea came to CEO Sam Glassenberg after realizing there was a dearth of surgical simulation centers around the country, and that the simulators lacked the sophisticated graphics and video he saw in the video game industry. Glassenberg, a game developer who comes from a family of doctors and has many friends in medicine, had also been asked several times to help build surgical training programs.

There is a big gap between surgery training simulations and the video game industry. Its like the old business video game distribution model where the equipment was expensive, so you'd grab your roll of quarters and go across town to an arcade, Glassenberg told MobiHealthNews. Of course, now you dont do that, because what you have in game consoles and computers is way better, but the surgical training simulators of today are still like the Pac-Man arcade games. It's that level."

Through realistic simulations of human tissue dynamics, endoscopic device optics and moving fluids to recreate life-life surgeries, doctors who need to practice surgical techniques can do so in a way that doesnt run the risk of harming anyone, even though mistakes in the game can end up a bit shocking.

It bleeds, it coughs, it reacts and its running on a device you already own, Glassenberg said. Its a totally reactive patient.

Additionally, the availability of the app means surgeons can really explore in ways they otherwise couldnt with traditional training modes.

Right now, if you want to try out a new device, they reserve a cadaver lab, or you a mannequin in a room, Glassenberg said. But the beauty of this is you have it on a tablet or phone and it reacts, but its not a live patient. Its perfectly safe. You can try things you never would. 2. Pain Management Probably the virtual reality use case weve covered the most at MobiHealthNews is pain management, specifically Cedars Sinais virtual reality program, headed up by Dr. Brennan Spiegel. As Cedars Sinai, patients use virtual reality to escape the bio-psycho-social jail cell, as Spiegel calls it, of the hospital bed. Using apps made by Applied VR, they have deployed VR headsets to a number of patients to help them manage pain. Weve now done this with well over 300 of our patients and we have been learning a lot about when it works and when it doesnt work, Spiegel said. How effective is this for managing conditions like pain, managing depression, managing anxiety, even managing hypertension? In a small controlled study, the VR technology was able to drop patients average self-reported pain scores from a 5.4 to a 4.1. A 2D distraction experience in the control group only dropped that score to 4.8. And theres some evidence that, by noting whether the headset helps or not, the technology could be used to help determine when pain is a result of something in the body or purely mental. You can read more about Spiegels efforts at Cedars Sinai here and here. 3. Patient Education Pain management is just one area where Cedars Sinai is exploring virtual reality. The hospital is also partnering with Holman United Methodist Church in south LA on a community health education initiative aimed at reducing hypertension in a vulnerable population. The education initiative is much bigger than VR. But the VR aspect is interesting. Members of the Holman congregation used a VR program that takes users into a virtual kitchen where foods are labelled with their sodium content. It then takes them inside the body for a visualization of what hypertension does to the heart. Finally, Cedars-Sinai and Holman UMC created a relaxation app to help congregants deal with stress, which also contributes to hypertension. Holman Pastor Rev. Kevin Sauls narrates the guided meditation in the app. Another virtual reality company, BioLucid, also uses VR for patient education, designing virtual tours of the human body. BioLucid was recently acquired by digital health M&A juggernaut Sharecare. Visual storytelling technologies particularly virtual reality blended with 360-degree video have boundless potential in healthcare and patient engagement, yet consumer-facing innovation in VR has been limited mostly to entertainment and gaming, Jeff Arnold, chairman and CEO of Sharecare, said in a statement at the time. By differentiating our platform with BioLucids immersive simulation of the human body, we can turn data into actionable, visual intelligence, and make a transformative impact on patient engagement, health literacy, medical education and therapy adherence. 4. Clinician Education Gone are the days where text books and two dimensional anatomical images are the only way for physicians to learn about common afflictions. Salix Pharmaceuticals, a New Jersey-based drug development company that focuses on gastrointestinal conditions, developed an interactive virtual reality platform to guide clinicians through an open-minded approach to treatment, which can be difficult to pin down due to the mysterious etiology of IBS. In an educational voyage up close and personal with the GI tract, Salix will guide healthcare providers through the numerous theories floating around on the potential causes of IBS, including changes in the gut-brain axis, an imbalance in the gut microbiome, hypersensitivity to pain signals in the intestinal wall, or a chronic imbalance set off by a temporary gastrointestinal bug.

As a gastroenterologist who treats conditions like IBS on a daily basis, I believe this virtual reality experience will move GI treatment forward by helping healthcare professionals better understand this complex condition," Dr. Brooks Cash, one of Salix's gastroenterology advisors, chief of gastroenterology and director of the Gastroenterology Physiology Lab at the University of South Alabama Digestive Health Center, said in a statement. 5. Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation A few years ago, the Microsoft Kinect and similar 3D motion tracking cameras were set to revolutionize physical therapy. By tracking and gamifying movement, the Kinect could be used to send patients home with exercises, motivate them to do those exercises, and collect hard data on things like range of motion. VIrtual reality enhances that capability even further. VRPhysio is a Boston-based company that offers immersive, interactive virtual reality environments that trick patients into doing physical therapy exercises without even knowing it. For instance, one game puts virtual swords in the patients hands and asks them to slice through a line of targets that appear on the screen. To accomplish that goal, the patient will necessarily test out the range of motion in their shoulders. Another gives patients an always-on water cannon that shoots in the direction their head is pointed, then instructs them to fill a moving barrel -- all the while taking their neck through a full range of movement. On the backend, a physical therapist can see data collected through the device and can change the parameters of the game on the fly in order to guide the patient to the most beneficial exercise. Another company, MindMaze, is using VR for stroke recovery. For stroke victims who have lost the use of the left hand but retain the use of the right, for instance, the computer will project a virtual reality depiction of the nonfunctional left hand, which is controlled by the patient's movement of the working right hand. This can trick the brain into kickstarting the functionality of the other hand. That functionality doesnt use the mask, but another MindMaze product, called Mask, does. Mask is a thin sensor that can be worn with a VR headset. It can detect the user's facial expressions and map them onto an in-game avatar. "If you go into, say, the autism spectrum or other aspects of social interactions, you can imagine a scenario where a patient is controlling something and youre able to emote," CEO Tej Tadi told MobiHealthNews. "Its helpful in a therapeutic context, but also as a true clinical monitor for other kinds of deficits, not necessarily stroke. The Mask is designed to capture emotions either for therapeutic effect or just for consumer gameplay. It just works on both metrics.

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15 health and wellness use cases for virtual reality - MobiHealthNews

Googles virtual reality push involves making some changes to the way people view videos in full 360 degrees.

The search giant ( goog ) said this week that it created a new video file format called VR180 that it hopes makes will make watching 360 degree videos a better experience than with current technology.

Instead of displaying video in full 360 degrees, the new file format only allows for videos to be seen with a VR headset in 180 degrees. By trimming the field of view in half, the video files dont have to be as large as they currently are.

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Additionally, by not focusing on the full 360 degrees, developers can create more compelling and graphically intense visuals that are displayed directly in front of a persons field of vision.

The tradeoff is that when a person wearing a VR headset like the Google Cardboard or Sony Playstation VR turns their head to see whats behind them while viewing a 360 video, they will only see a black screen that fills the space.

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Google said it is working with companies like Lenovo, LG, and YI to build cameras that are designed to work with the 360 video files. Some of these cameras will be available in winter, but Google did not say which ones and how much they would cost.

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Google Debuts a New Virtual Reality Video File Format - Fortune

Holidaymakers will now be able to try before they buy on a virtual reality tour at their travel agent.

Instead of flicking through brochures, Thomas Cook customers can put on a headset and experience their luxury hotel or cruise ship.

The goggles will also allow travellers to take a reality walk on foreign beaches or go sight-seeing without leaving the store.

Customers can choose from 40 videos which will bring to life different parts of their trip, from the plane journey to the resort itself.

Thomas Cook has tried out the headsets at eight branches and plans to introduce them at 17 more by 2019.

Figures from the Association of British Travel Agents show three-quarters of four holidays are now booked online. But Thomas Cook believes new technology may attract us back to stores.

A spokesman said: Customers like it. The Royal Caribbeans cruise ship video led to 45 per cent increase in bookings.

Rival firm Tui, which owns Thomson and First Choice, is also trialling reality headsets with videos and interactive touch screens and plans to ditch its own brochures by 2020.

But Thomas Cook says it has no plans to scrap brochures yet.

Fancy abseiling down Table Mountain or taking a helicopter ride across the New York skyline?

I experienced both when I tried the virtual reality tours at Thomas Cooks branch at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, East London.

The videos, which last from two and a half to five minutes, are surprisingly realistic.

Thomas Cook manager Zak Bihmoutine showed me how to use a headset.

One moment I was listening to a jazz band in Central Park, the next I was admiring the view from Empire State Building.

Even better was my virtual reality trip to South Africa where I inched my way down Table Mountain then hang-glided across the beach at Cape Town.

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Virtual reality tours through headsets at travel agents could spell the end of holiday brochures - Mirror.co.uk

But in gaming, virtual reality is flourishing. Worldwide revenue for the augmented-reality and virtual-reality market is projected to grow to more than $162 billion in 2020, from $5.2 billion in 2016, driven largely by gaming consoles and mobile virtual-reality headsets and experiences, according to IDC, a research firm.

The appetite of gamers for virtual reality was on display last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo , or E3, the video game industrys annual trade show in Los Angeles. Game publishers such as Bethesda and Sony announced that several popular video games would be available as virtual-reality experiences this year, including the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout and Doom.

At E3, independent game developers also showcased half a dozen virtual-reality titles, such as Virtual Virtual Reality, an absurdist black comedy from the studio Tender Claws that plays with ideas of tourism, travel and authority; and SnowVR, a dreamlike game made by two Tehran-born artists who were unable to attend E3 because of travel restrictions.

The appeal of virtual reality in gaming has long been clear. Pete Hines, vice president of public relations and marketing at Bethesda Softworks, which makes the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises, said first-person shooter games and open-world role-playing games were best suited to the virtual-reality experience because they provided players with a great sense of immersion.

Youre not looking at a screen on which something is displayed; all you see is the screen youre in it, Mr. Hines said.

What has changed now is that many of the early games with virtual reality are shifting to a more experimental phase. Some of the first titles with virtual reality were more like showcases for V.R. technology, but were moving past that phase, said Richard Marks, head of Sonys PlayStation Magic Lab, part of the companys research and development group.

Now developers are trying out new technologies and ways to apply virtual reality, like artificial intelligence, voice recognition and co-presence, essentially a multiplayer experience in virtual reality that allows two or more players to play together, he said.

One recent example of this is Sonys multiplayer shooter game Starblood Arena, which combines traditional multiplayer gaming with the immersion of virtual reality. The game lets players match up in an online arena and engage in combat in a range of modes, from a free-for-all death match to team-based play, where players can join forces to defend a particular objective.

Virtual reality still faces hurdles in gaming. The industry is still working out how to deal with the nausea that some people feel after they put on an immersive virtual-reality headset, for example.

There are lots of fundamental issues V.R. hasnt worked out, such as nausea or how our body actually moves and reacts, said Mattie Brice, an associate director at IndieCade, an international festival highlighting the work of innovative independent game developers. V.R. has to figure out whats unique about it besides being immersive, a consumer product buzzword for every advancement since games went 3-D.

Other game developers said there was not yet enough demand for virtual reality from consumers to allow more video game studios to focus solely on virtual-reality content.

What needs to happen is for the early visionaries to stay the course, the investors to continue subsidizing the first wave of content until the economics are in place, and the platforms to continue maturing their hardware to bring in more consumers, said Ray Davis, chief executive and a founder of Drifter Entertainment, a Seattle start-up that is working on a virtual-reality multiplayer sci-fi shooter game called Gunheart. All we need right now is a healthy dose of patience.

Still, the video game industrys continued effort in pushing virtual realitys boundaries is leading other industries particularly other parts of the entertainment business to take notice.

Baobab Studios, a California-based virtual-reality animation studio, aims to combine elements of animation and video games to create interactive stories. The studios coming project, Rainbow Crow, an animated virtual-reality series based on a Native American folk tale and developed in partnership with John Legend, who also stars in it, allows players to interact with the storybooklike environment.

For example, in one scene, players can use virtual-reality controllers to paint the surrounding environment, turning it from fall to winter. Waving ones arms up and down causes it to snow.

It took many years for gaming to advance, just like it took decades for film to figure out its language of cuts, pans and zooms, said Maureen Fan, chief executive and a founder of Baobab Studios. Games are often about being someone else or escaping to another reality. Therefore, V.R. intersects directly with gaming. We are at the very beginning of creating this industry.

Follow Laura Parker on Twitter @lauraannaparker.

A version of this article appears in print on June 22, 2017, on Page B8 of the New York edition with the headline: Gamers Keep Virtual Reality Dreams Alive.

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Virtual Reality Is a Disappointment? Not in the World of Video Gamers - New York Times

Virtual reality has yet to become a mainstream hit, but many companies, investors, and developers still have high hopes.

The potential for VR to become a huge hit, VR mergers and acquisition is too big for these boosters to pass up. Augmented reality and VR mergers and acquisition advisory firm Digi-Capital predicts that VR will become a $25 billion market by 2021.

For instance, despite recent setbacks for the Oculus Rift Headset that include smaller-than-expected sales and management issues , Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is still pledging to spend billions of dollars on VR.

It's been a rough stretch for virtual reality over the past year, but there are some developments that show there are still signs of life, according to a survey of 600 VR developers released Thursday by the Virtual Reality Developers Conference.

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But challenges still persist like dealing with headsets that cause people to feel sick that the industry must overcome before the tech becomes a massive success. Heres a roundup of the survey's most interesting findings:

According to the survey, developers cite the uncomfortable feeling of motion sickness as a prominent issue thats impacting consumer adoption. People can often feel sick when wearing a VR headset because what they see in the virtual world doesnt sync up to their physical movements, in addition to problems with latency and frame-rate issues. The resulting incongruity can produce feelings similar to sea-sickness.

One coder that was surveyed said that nobody has developed a one-size-fits-all technique to alleviate motion sickness that VR app makers can use. As another developer bluntly put it, A lot of those [VR] experiences make people sick.

Video games still dominate when it comes to virtual reality, with 78% of survey respondents saying that they're dedicating time to developing games and related VR entertainment apps. The rest of the respondents said they're building VR business apps used for corporate training, marketing content like vacation apps, and industrial design.

Some developers said that the current focus on VR video games is misplaced, because businesses appear more interested in using the tech than mainstream consumers. One developer said that the overwhelming concentration on games and entertainment, gives the impression of [VR] being a toy instead of the world-changing technology that it really is.

Developers appear to be more optimistic about the future of augmented reality, in which digital imagery is overlaid onto the physical world, than virtual reality. The survey said that 77% of respondents believe AR apps will be more popular than VR apps in the long-term.

One developer said ARs advantage over VR is that it does not pose such a high risk of vertigo, motion sickness, or the other potential side effects of VR since people arent totally immersed in virtual world.

Our entire society would have to change to incorporate VR in daily life beyond situationally-specific contexts, said another respondent. "But augmented reality means that you can incorporate it virtually anywhere."

Several big tech companies like Apple ( aapl ) , Google ( goog ) , and Facebook ( fb ) have all debuted AR coding tools this year as a way to spur more developers to build compelling AR apps.

Among some of the survey respondents favorite VR and AR apps released this year include a version of Google Earth for virtual reality headsets that lets fly past awe-inspiring sights, including Yosemite National Park and Italys Florence cathedral.

A VR version of Google Street view also seemed to be a favorite, with one developer saying, Put someone in [VR] Street View of their childhood home and just let them walk around and talk.

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Several coders also mentioned last summers blockbuster game Pokmon Go as important in getting mainstream consumers interested in AR and VR technologies. It really made it easy for people to understand AR, said one developer.

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Virtual Reality Needs to Fix Stomach-Churning Experiences - Fortune

In Brief Intel has signed up as a sponsor of the Olympic games through 2024. The company is expected to bring its VR, AI, drone, and wireless technologies to enhance viewer experience and hopefully attract a younger demographic.

Computing giant Intel has announced a multi-year deal, stretching through the 2024 Olympic games, with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to bring the companys new technologies to enhance the upcoming events. According to Advertising Age, Intel is hoping to bring virtual reality, 360-degree video, artificial intelligence, and drones, to enhance the Olympic Games.

The partnership aims to attract the interest of a younger demographic to help quell the loss of overall viewership. The president of the IOC, Thomas Bach said There are many young people that are living a digital life. So we have to go where they are in the digital world, in their virtual reality.

Intel has, as of late, been experimenting with sports as a way of showcasing their new technologies. They recently made a deal with Major League Baseball to broadcast live games and deliver highlights using their True VR technology.Intel tech will also play an integral role in boosting the spectacle of the games. We can likely expect an evolution of what we saw during Lady Gagas Super Bowl halftime performance. During the games, we can also expect to see unprecedented views of the action as drone technology will be able to give us access like never before.

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Intel Announces Deal to Bring Virtual Reality Tech to the Olympics - Futurism

Where might virtual reality lead us?

David Ramos/Getty Images

By Pat Kane

Plonk a set of smart glasses or a virtual-reality helmet before the philosopher Plato, and after his fastidious recoil there would be a moment of self-righteousness: I told you so.

Platos Allegory of the Cave has its inhabitants chained up and gazing at a stony wall. Over it flicker shadows that they take for reality. As we plug in, turn on and zone out with our current repertoire of virtuality-generating devices, we will find it worth musing over the challenge that Plato poses: do wisdom-lovers break those chains, as he suggests, and leave the cave to seek reality? Or do they stay put, finally face down the old misery-guts super-rationalist, and assert that this new layer of simulated experience is as natural to humans as play or art?

Simulation already draws on mythology. The much-heralded Magic Leap platform which sees reality augmented as you look upon it, rather than entirely simulated like in a video game sends household robot-gods scurrying around under tables and schools of whales undulating across the ceiling. Other human beings can be mapped in your augmented eyesight and rendered as cultural icons, creatures, objects, or aliens. An entirely new popular-culture storm is gathering here; last years Pokmon Go phenomenon was the merest flurry.

Still, its good to keep Platos admonitions about delusion and illusion in mind. We have come through a decade in which general enthusiasm for a gameful world (as theorist Jane McGonigal might put it) held out the hope of new forms of education and work. A generation of managers asked: look at all the free labour people do in World of Warcraft, Minecraft and No Mans Sky. Cant we gamify our endeavour or enterprise to elicit a similar kind of commitment? Not just for profit, but for social good, for mental health?

This agenda has progressed somewhat into the mainstream. In the current series of House of Cards, Frank Underwoods presidential challenger the damaged military hero Will Conway uses a war-gaming VR headset as therapy for his post-traumatic stress disorder.

Yet the serious games movement (which has an upcoming conference in July at George Mason University in Manassas, Virginia) can rarely overcome the oldest truth about any human engagement with games, play or mimicry that being able to freely chose to play the game, beyond utility or coercion, is the very point of it.

This freedom to play is not just a rabbit hole into which ones attention disappears. The link between freedom and play could perhaps be preserved in a serious game if the political stakes were high enough. Some regard virtual-world creation as a tool, as yet barely wielded, for reordering society. In his recent book Postcapitalism, Paul Mason wonders why we have no models that capture economic complexity, in the way computers are used to simulate weather, population, epidemics or traffic flows.

Masons simulations would be agent-based and unpredictable: you create a million digital people with digital resources and needs, set them loose in a synthetic world, and are informed and illuminated by what emerges.

The assumption is that economics needs to be much better at anticipating major surprises and crises that arise from messily motivated rather than rationally maximising human beings. Synthetic worlds, with their increasingly daunting simulation power, can set those hares running.

So virtuality could indeed rehearse you for the complexity of the real world, not just act as an escape from it. The optimism of the current wave of AI pioneers, such as Googles DeepMind, is that their learning machines can be the great assistants of not grim replacements for human ambition, vision and will.

Our modern Plato should put on his techno-specs and walk out of the cave. He would still see a real world worth grasping and shaping, but one informed by the simulations and augmentations dancing before his eyes. Will we need new philosophies and philosophers to cope with our permanently virtual condition? Well, one might argue thats all theyve ever done.

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Escape to the future with virtual reality - New Scientist