Monthly Archives: July 2017

VRs software ecosystem is home to plenty of escapism experiences that transport you to serene environments for calming gameplay and interaction as a way to promote wellness.RE:NEW, aproject from NewPathVR, is a portal that points users straight toward various wellness applications.

VR has a large scattered mess of content thats progressively getting larger. With so many entities racing to create and acquire original VR and 360-degree media, some things can get lost in the shuffle especially if you find yourself attached to just one or two content specific mediaapps or platforms. RE:NEWpoints you to wellness apps from different platforms and gives you the option to filter via platform and whether or not the application is free or paid.

On the home page right now youll find apps such as Google Cardboard stress-reliever Happinss, rhythmic casual game Thumper for PS VR, and Fearless which gives you a chance to overcome your own fears on Oculus Rift and Gear VR. In addition to the immersive media, RE:NEW will also link users to articles, podcasts, events, and insight revolving around immersive wellness and even content unrelated to tech like the recently published blog on meditation. If the NewPathVR team remains consistent with the content that will be supplementary to VR, this will position website as a one-stop-shop forwellness tools.

RE:NEW serves as an effort to efficiently gather the tools to harness the potential for positive change, a primary goal for transformative technology company NewPathVR. It also has a partner program in place to better raise awareness of projects from developers and content creators.

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Newly Launched RE:NEW Is Your Portal To Virtual Reality Wellness Apps - UploadVR

The three-dimensional aspect of the imagery eases surgeons planning and improves the accuracy of the surgery, with the aim of producing safer procedures. We can plan out how we can approach a tumor and avoid critical areas like the motor cortex or the sensory areas, said Steinberg, professor and chair of neurosurgery. Before, we didnt have the ability to reconstruct it in three dimensions; wed have to do it in our minds. This way its a three-dimensional rendering.

Steinberg noted that in Rodonis case, an artery was attached to the top of the aneurysm. You couldnt see it on conventional imaging, he said. Had I not known about it, it could have been a real disaster.

To show patients whats going on inside their skulls, Malie Collins, MS, senior program lead for the VR program, rolls a mobile unit, complete with headset, into an examination or hospital room. Being able to see the problem in three dimensions reassures them, she said, adding that its especially useful for young patients or those who dont understand English well. She can also download the imagery onto a thumb drive and give it to the patient as a souvenir.

Traditionally, doctors can show their patient a standard physical model of the brain or of the spine and say, On this model, imagine your tumor is located here, she said. But with VR, we are able to immerse patients in their own anatomy, so they can very clearly get a sense of whats going on.

Stanford Medicine doctors are using the VR technology for the brain and spinal cord because these organs are stable and lend themselves to imagery unlike other body parts, which move with blood flow and breathing. Collins said the technology may soon be available for the rest of the body.

Surgeons typically use video feeds while they are operating, but the new VR technology adds a three-dimensional view which they can superimpose on the real-time video. It has much, much more detail, said Steinberg, the Bernard and Ronni Lacroute-William Randolph Hearst Professor in Neurosurgery and Neurosciences. For Rodonis surgery, I had the 3-D rendering of her anatomy and could match that up with the surgical microscopic view, something I cant do with any other technology.

Veeravagu said some patients have chosen Stanford over other nearby hospitals solely because of the VR technology. This software really helps them understand what it is they are about to undergo, he said. Seeing it on the screen, in 3-D, really helps put a patients mind at ease.

It certainly did for Rodoni. Knowing where her aneurysm lay, and how Steinberg would repair it, helped calm her as she faced her third brain surgery. I knew that Dr. Steinberg would be able to see the same thing I saw, and he wasnt going to run into any surprises, she said. Rodonis surgery went smoothly and she was discharged from the hospital within two days, her aneurysm gone.

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Virtual reality system helps surgeons, reassures patients - Stanford Medical Center Report

Adoption of virtual reality (VR) headsets hasnt grown by leaps and bounds. For one, the devices arent cheap. While there are affordable options out there, some can leave a substantial dent in a consumers wallet.

And many consumers dont want to shell out money for a device they feel doesnt have enough content. But video may change their perception.

A study of VR device users worldwide by Ericsson found that more than half (54%) of respondents felt that VR devices will be the new screens for video. And almost as many (53%) said video will be one of the most popular uses of VR.

Just over half of respondents think video in VR will become popular because it will combine with social networking.

But not everyone had a positive attitude toward video in VR. In fact, over a third of respondents (38%) felt that watching video via a VR headset was restrictive, because they would only watch it alone and not share the experience with anyone else.

And theres also the question of quality. A third of VR device users felt their video experience via a headset would be restricted because of poor resolution.

VR has been slower to catch on in the US, and will not reach mass adoption in the foreseeable future, according to eMarketer.

eMarketer expects just 22.4 million people in the US will engage with a form of VR at least monthly this year, with that figure increasing to 49.2 million by 2019.

But while VR headsets provide a more immersive experience, engagement will remain low due to their often high cost. This year, only 2.9% of the US population will use a VR headset at least monthly, eMarketer estimates, with that number growing to just 5.2% by 2019.

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Is Video a Game Changer for Virtual Reality? - eMarketer

Jul 11, 2017, 3:29 pm EDT |By Samuel Rae, InvestorPlace Contributor

Recent analysis suggests that the global augmented and virtual reality market will reach nearly 100 million annual units sold during 2021. For perspective, less than 10 million units were sold during 2016, meaning the space will grow at a CAGR of more than 57%. Its an explosive industry, sure, but ask someone to name the top virtual or augmented reality stocks available today and youll no doubt get the same standard response Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Sony Corp (ADR) (NYSE:SNE).

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Facebooks Oculus Rift hashaving sold just shy of 250,000 unitsby the end of 2016, and Sony just announcedthat it has topped 1 million sales of PlayStation VR. Both companies are indeed some of the front runners in the space, pioneering what amounts to a brand new industry and doing so with some degree of success.

These arent the only exposures available to an investor looking to get in on the action, however.

Here are three companies set to benefit from the growth of the VR/AR market, none of which are Facebook or Sony.

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Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, http://investorplace.com/2017/07/three-virtual-reality-stocks-arent-facebook-sony/.

2017 InvestorPlace Media, LLC

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3 Virtual Reality Stocks (That Aren't Facebook or Sony) - Investorplace.com

A team at NPR is the winner of a grant to develop virtual-reality stories that will transport listeners to audio-rich soundscapes.

The NPR project is among 11 winners of the Journalism 360 Challenge awards announced Tuesday. Presented by the Knight Foundation, Google News Lab and the Online News Association, the grants of $15,000$30,000 support the use of immersive storytelling in news.

Other winners include efforts to make immersive storytelling more accessible to community and ethnic media and to help journalists and others create location-based data visualizations in a virtual-reality format.

NPRs video team includes Bronson Arcuri, CJ Riculan, Maia Stern and Nick Michael, who worked on the Knight Foundation grant application.

NPRs team is receiving $15,000 to develop best practices for immersive storytelling audio by producing two virtual reality stories with a particular focus on sound-rich scenes, according to a statement from the grantors.

Place is important in 360-degree video, NPR Video Producer Nick Michael told Current. And audio is also crucial for understanding; spatial audio allows users to see and hear themselves in space. 360 experiences tend to focus on digital immersion, Michael said, but audio immersion has lagged behind. That gives NPR and the world class audio experience in our building an opportunity, Michael said.

NPR has already been dabbling in 360 experiments. Last year, NPR Music partnered with immersive media company RYOT to produce a 360-degree Tiny Desk concert featuring the band Wilco.

A not-yet-published experience for the program Jazz Night in America captured an immersive field-recording performance in Glendora, Miss., with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith playing at the site where Emmett Tills murderers dropped the youths body into a river. Smith, a Mississippi native, played a selection from a songhe had written in Tills honor. The trumpeterfloated down the river in a canoe at sunset.

Los Angeles NPR station KCRW has also experimented with 360 music performances.

Most virtual reality experiences dont include audio that changes, Michael said. A little over a year ago, YouTube introduced spatial audio for 360-degree and virtual reality videos.

Thats really valuable for locating people in a scene, Michael said. But a work of journalism may want to add a host or reporters voice. Unless that person is physically in the environment talking to the viewer, it doesnt make sense for their voice to be in the space, Michael said.

Producers can work with both spatialized and non-spatialized audio fields, according to Michael. One challenge they face is how to set up audio and video in editing software when one field is spatialized and the other is not.

Weve been interested in trying to figure out lower-touch ways to do 360, and as an audio organization, were particularly interested in how these different spatial and traditional audio components might mix together, Michael said.

NPRs team isnt the first to experiment with dual audio fields, Michael said, but it aims to figure out how to easily gather audio and process it via dual fields. The team plans to share its findings through NPR training team sites and other mediums.

NPR is also considering the level of resources to devote to 360 presentations. Its very cool, but even as a team internally, weve been asking ourselves, in theory, How many stories have we seen that can only be told through 360, as opposed to flat video? Michael said.

Theyve concluded most stories dont need 360 but do benefit from the technology. Stories about energy lend themselves to 360 one could transport listeners to the installation and maintenance of wind turbines. But the team has yet to settle on stories to experiment with.

NPRs team also wants to discover and standardize production practices so the work feels less experimental.

Michael expects the team will include three producers, possibly one reporter, and a larger crew that reviews and troubleshoots. Audio engineers may also consult and travel.

Grantees will build on their ideas over the next six to 12 months, attend the ONA conference in Washington, D.C., in October and share their findings at a demo day early next year.

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NPR wins award to experiment with virtual-reality audio - Current

By RONALD BLUM, AP Baseball Writer

MIAMI BEACH Nicholas Montes put on goggles and a catcher's mitt and crouched.

The 13-year-old will never catch a 104 mph pitch from Aroldis Chapman. But at the All-Star FanFest, he felt what it's like to be Buster Posey snagging virtual strikes.

"It like I was actually in the game. When I was catching, I felt the ball move and everything," the 13-year-old from Miami said enthusiastically Sunday. "And then when I saw it go in my glove, I tried touching the ball, but I felt the remote control thing. So it was pretty cool."

Developed by GMR Marketing, the Esurance Behind The Plate With Buster Posey VR Experience allows fans to "catch" fastballs, curveballs and sliders from a generic pitcher at velocities ranging from 86-93 mph.

"I've always said that I thought it would be cool for the average fan to either step in the box or like this get behind the plate and get the same sense of what it's like to see a 90-plus, 95-mile an hour fastball coming your way," Posey explained last week.

Esurance Insurance Services Inc., a subsidiary of Allstate Corp., became a sponsor of Major League Baseball in 2015 and signed Posey as a brand ambassador. The company had a 180-degree photo experience at the 2015 FanFest in Cincinnati, then provided 360-degree videos of fans taking swings last year in San Diego.

In a dual setup at FanFest, which opened Friday and runs through Tuesday, people get to signal for three pitches over about 90 seconds as Posey's recorded voice offers tips. They can choose the pitch type by pointing their glove toward an icon on the screen, triggering a sensor. When a pitch is successfully caught, the person hears and feels the mitt snap.

"It is as real as it can be," Danny Devarona, a 48-year-old who coaches youth baseball in Miami Lakes, said after taking his turn.

Commercial and social media content was shot over two days during spring training in Scottsdale, Arizona, where Posey's San Francisco Giants train. Posey's voice-over was recorded after the season started.

"Are you ready? All right, let's see what you've got," Posey's voice tells fans. "This guy throws a nasty curve. The trick is to keep your glove below the ball and your eye on it. ... Keep your chin down and be ready to slide to your right, because this one might hit the dirt."

"Nice job! Right in the pocket," he tells fans when they succeed.

"Yeah, that was a tricky one," he says when they fail.

Based on PITCH f/x data, breaks of 38-to-52 inches are simulated.

"Fans will receive a social-sharable video for them that they can then distribute to their friends," said Kristen Gambetta, Esurance's brand partnerships manager. "With VR, there's something really entertaining about seeing people's facial reactions and kind of seeing their movements and how they react to having a ball flying at their face."

Several thousand fans were expected to put on the electronic "tools of ignorance" over the five days. And unlike real catchers, they won't have to stuff sponges in the glove to absorb the impact.

"Let's just say I'm pretty impressed. I don't think I can ever catch or hit for that matter a Major League Baseball curveball," said Pablo Souki, a 38-year-old from Venezuela who lives in Miami. "That was pretty eye-opening."

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Virtual reality baseball a hit at the All-Star FanFest - Daily Commercial