Monthly Archives: August 2017

Scientists have devised a virtual reality platform for lab animals. Let that sink in.Zebrafish have swum with the aliens from the video game Space Invaders, mice were afraid of virtual heights, and fruit flies circled illusory obstacles.

This new holodeck for animals can help researchers see how freely-moving animals respond to a variety of illusionswork that could help scientists better understand human genes and brain circuitry, researchers say. The researchers, from the Vienna Biocenter in Austria, detailed their findings in todays edition of the journal Nature Methods.

FreemoVR, immersed animals in arenas where the walls or floors were computer displays. Each screen depicted photorealistic images that accounted for each animals perspective as it walked, flew, or swam.

Up to 10 high-speed cameras monitored the precise 3D position of each animal. FreemoVR then updated its video imagery within milliseconds of each animal's movements to create the 3D illusion that they were moving in environments that changed in response to their actions.

The researchers compared FreemoVR to the holodeck, a fictional environment in [the TV show] Star Trek in which humans enter a computer-controlled virtual world, says Andrew Straw, a neurobiologist at the Vienna Biocenter who was co-senior author of a paper detailing the study. They can freely move, have no need to wear special clothing or headgear, and are immersed in a computer-controlled environment, which can be made completely realistic or arbitrarily unrealistic.

The researchers tested FreemoVR on mice, fruit flies, and zebrafish, three species commonly used in lab research. The virtual landscape with which these animals interacted included vertical pillars, floating rings, checkerboard floors, virtual plants, and a swarm of digital aliens from Space Invaders. They even had distinctive portals that could instantly alter the virtual environments to make it seem as if zebrafish swimming into them had teleported elsewhere.

The animals apparently found the illusions realistic. For instance, fruit flies circled virtual pillars just as they did real ones placed in the platforms. Moreover, mice generally avoided tracks that looked as if they were suspended at great heights, just as they would in real life.

The animals also changed their behavior in response to illusory animals. For example, zebrafish normally circled the periphery of their fishbowl near the screens, but when teleported into settings with swarms of Space Invaders, the zebrafish tended to move toward the middle of the fishbowl.

We wanted to study collective behavior because that is something incredibly difficult to do with real animals or with robots, Straw says. "We wanted to show how real fish respond to the motion of a swarm of simulated agents and to show that we could create a hybrid biological-computational swarm.

In addition, the researchers developed a photorealistic model of a swimming fish, and showed that real zebrafish most reliably followed the digital fish when the virtual animal matched its swim direction to the real fish. The fact that researchers can vary the appearance of virtual animals from cartoonish to realistic will allow experiments to test how important the exact visual appearance of other animals is as opposed to, say, the pattern of motion, Straw says.

This new platform will let scientists investigate animals as they behave relatively naturally and unrestrained by conventional VR gear in realistic virtual environments they can manipulate extensively. By tinkering with animal DNA or brains in such experiments, the researchers can learn what role certain genes or brain circuits play in these animals, and potentially in humans as well. Brains evolved in the real world, and to understand how and why neural circuits process information in the way they do, we need to understand them in this context, Straw says.

Straw notes that humans would notice several imperfections with FreemoVR. Primary amongst those is that our system does not create two distinct views for the two eyes, and thus the stereo cues important for depth perception would be gone, he says. However, Straw notes this is not a major concern with the animals they are experimenting with; the eyes of these animals are so close together that the differences between the view from each eye are limited.

Straws lab is now conducting experiments where they can silence the activity of single brain cells in fruit flies and examining the roles these cells play in the insects behavior in virtual erality.

IEEE Spectrums biomedical engineering blog, featuring the wearable sensors, big data analytics, and implanted devices that enable new ventures in personalized medicine.

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Virtual Reality Platform Created For Lab Animals - IEEE Spectrum - IEEE Spectrum

LCD Soundsystem has teamed up with the Amsterdam-based design studios Puckey and Moniker as well as with Googles data arts team to produce a kind of abstract, interactive music video for their latest single Tonite. Dance Tonite, as the piece is called, lets owners of high-end VR headsets dance to the singles music, capturing their motions and then broadcasting them to anyone visiting the projects website with their computer, phone or Daydream VR headset.

Its a fun idea thats hard to put in words, which is why Google produced a video to show what Dance Tonite is all about:

The uncanniness of the Dance Tonite experience is super entertaining and weird, and I really enjoy it. I didnt expect to enjoy it, said LCD Soundsystems James Murphy. I like the simplicity of it.

Dance Tonite uses WebVR, a technology that makes it possible to develop VR experiences for the web, where they can be consumed with any browser. Anyone visiting the experiences website with a capable device can switch to VR mode, and enjoy it as a spectator or even participant.

We wanted to see if we could treat a VR device as a tool for self-expression and Dance Tonite fits perfectly within a series of participative interactive music videos which weve directed over the years, said project creator Jonathan Puckey. Taking a piece of music likeLCD Soundsystems Tonite as a starting point can act as the perfect scaffold to create something within.

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LCD Soundsystem's Latest Music Video Is an Interactive Virtual Reality Dance Performance - Variety

Virtual reality (VR) is providing intriguing opportunities for companies to create new products.

This emerging technology has yielded applications in healthcare, where aspiring physicians can view realistic simulations to prepare themselves for surgeries. Entertainment has become another area of growth for VR, and a swath of tech firms and movie studios have developed immersive experiences where users can further explore the worlds found in their favorite movies.

However, one startup in Australia called Lithodomos VR has taken a different approach to harnessing this enterprising technology.

The firm is utilizing VR to recreate historical archaeological sites like Acropolis in Athens, Greece, and the Colosseum in Rome. Lithodomos VR offers a fulll library of content featuring historical landmarks that be viewed via VR.

Lithodomos VRs software can be used at a historical site to make the experience more immersive, or as an educational tool elsewhere.

Today, many of the ancient worlds secrets lie buried or destroyed. For most people, seeing a pile of ruins is hard to contextualize and visualize what was once there,said Dr. Simon Young, the co-founder and CEO of Lithodomos VR, to R&D Magazine. Virtual Reality is the perfect tool to reconstruct these ancient places and spaces, allowing people to explore them in a 3D environment when they are on site, or from thousands of miles away in their own home or classroom.

To view these digital restorations, users can either pay a one-time royalty fee anytime they want to access the archive for a tour or pay a small fee to set up a recurring subscription. Significant effort goes into creating each virtual reconstruction, said Young.

Our reconstructions stem from academic publications and researchto ensure experiencesareas accurate, realistic and enthralling and engaging aspossible.This practice rests upon the foundation of a long tradition of archaeological reconstruction practices. First, detailed published archaeological reports are gathered, and these form the basis of our scope. Next, archaeologists work intensively with our team of 3D artists to direct the meshing and texturing of the project. Finally, the scenes are signed off by the lead archaeologist and delivered to our library. The time needed for the process varies a great deal depending on the complexity of the scene, but on average, a few weeks, explained Young.

Their offerings can be downloaded through Google and Apples respective app store.

Putting history in perspective

Young said that the goal of his venture is to offer people the ability to instantly form a connection with the place they are in.

Some ancient sites attract thousands of visitors every day, but most of the time these visitors cant connect on a personal level to the ruins, he continued.

The mobile VR headsets used to view these locales are intended to be like, binoculars into the past, which can enhance and enrich each viewpoint from a variety of locations.

Young acknowledged that visitors have an obvious fascination with big ticket destinations like Rome and Athens, but he noted Lithodomos also sees immense value in building models of archaeological sites that are less well-understood.

One example in Lithodomoss library is the Odeion of Agrippa located in Athenian Agora.

This destination was once a concert hall that would have once hosted events like musical performances, poetry recitations, and exhibitions of rhetorical skills. It was constructed around 15 B.C. with a seating capacity of about 1,000. It was built by a member of the Roman elite that Young felt was viewed as a symbol of Romes respect for contributions the Greek culture made to humanity.

Today it is mass of ruins that visitors pass by without a second thought, Young noted adding that his company brought the location back to life in its full glory.

The Future for Embracing the Past

There are a lot of advantages for using VR in providing deeper insights into history, but there are some disadvantages as well.

Young said that when the content creation process is taken up by non-specialists, the results can lack scientific rigor and accuracy.

As content creators of cultural heritage materials, we have a responsibility to strive to ensure that the information presented to viewers is correct and backed up by solid research, he explained.

Young noted his company is always looking for new frontiers and opportunities where they can expand their content library including potential sites in China, India, and South Korea. Also, they are finishing work on their distribution platform so customers can undertake self-guided tours of any place with enhanced audio capabilities.

Ultimately, Youngs thoughts on the future of VR is that the wave of popularity is building, but will crash down in the future.

In time, everyone will have a VR headset, but penetration rates are slower than originally anticipated. Many have taken this as a sign that VR will peter out it will not, said Young.

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Recreating the Past with Virtual Reality - R & D Magazine

HTC cut the price of its Vive virtual reality system by $200 in a move that follows discounting by Facebook's Oculus Rift.

In a blog post, HTC said it would offer its Vive system for $599. That bundle includes headset, sensors, and motion controllers. Oculus in July said that its Rift and Touch were available for $399 for a limited time. Both Oculus and HTC are chasing Sony's Playstation VR, which has sold more than a million units so far and goes for $399.

If you're looking at the consumer market, it's easy to argue that HTC's price cut doesn't do much. However, HTC noted that the Vive hardware has attracted enterprise partners such as Intel, UPS, Volkswagen, and Salesforce as enterprise partners.

UPS has outlined how it is using virtual reality and Vive for driver training. At $599, the Vive has become more affordable for businesses looking at proof-of-concept pilots.

HTC added that more global brand partners will be announced in the second half of the year.

Certainly, Vive hopes to play in the gaming space, but the win for HTC may be the enterprise. Yes, augmented reality will initially have more use cases, but HTC Vive can garner traction for training, maintenance ,and other enterprise tasks. Indeed, developers are already gravitating toward Vive and Rift.

Another key reason HTC has a shot in the enterprise: It is one of the few early players focused on corporate uses. Microsoft HoloLens rhymes with virtual reality, but is more augmented reality. Google Glass is more augmented than virtual reality.

Add it up and HTC's price cut may be more about business than landing a mass of consumers.

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HTC cuts price of Vive virtual reality system by $200, could spur more enterprise pilots - ZDNet

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This lab animal VR platform allows scientists to study animal behavior in more controlled and dynamic environments.

Lab animals can now enter immersive virtual reality environments thanks to researchers in Andrew Straws lab at the University of Freiburgin Germany. Dubbed FreemoVR, the system resembles the holodeck fromStar Trekand monitors the movements of common lab animals like mice, zebrafish, and fruit flies, projecting photorealistic environments onto a screen to simulate movement in the real world.

To understand how an animal responds behaviorally to visual stimuli, I always wanted something like the holodeck in Star Trek, Straw, a neurobiologist at the Vienna Biocenter, told Digital Trends. Gradually, it dawned on me that a lot of the bits and pieces I had built over the years could be extended and combined to achieve what we now have done.

Straw and his team arranged as many as 10 high-speed cameras to track the position of the animal as it ventured around the space. Within seconds, the FreemoVR software projects a new image, from digital pillars to checkerboard floors, and even Space Invader aliens. Unlike human VR systems, there is no need for the animals to wear special garments or headgear.

This might sound like a bunch of fun and games but the researchers hope the system will help them study animal behavior in new and unique ways.

Straw and his team found that the animals often responded to the various environments as though they were real. Mice demonstrated caution when the environment depicted a scene suspended up high. Flies flew around the digital pillars, as seen in the video above. And zebrafish showed a propensity to swim after a photo-realistic virtual fish when the digital model matched its swim direction.

If we do not put the animals visual sense in strong conflict with other senses, we do not find any differences between behavioral responses to real world versus VR stimuli, Straw said.

The virtual worlds were not all realistic. Along with Space Invaders, the researchers intend to experiment with more cartoonish and gamified environments, including one that simulates teleportation animals.

We could test stimuli that would be impossible to create in the real world, Straw said. So far fish seem OK with being teleported virtually!

A paper detailing the study was published this week in the journal Nature Methods.

See more here:

Zooculus rift lab animals get their own virtual reality system - Digital Trends

Enlarge / Look all you want... in VR, this kind of view of the Sun is completely safe to stare at.

I've been told that being present for a total eclipse of the Sun is a life-changing experience. But I wasn't able to get my act together to travel to the path of totality for today's event. Luckily, I am part of the first generation to be able to experience an eclipse vicariously through the magic of virtual reality. While seeing a total eclipse in VR wasn't exactly a life-changing experience, it was one of the best examples I've seen of the power and promise of live, 360-degree video.

I first tried to view CNN's 360-degree Facebook Live video coverage of the eclipse on my Oculus Rift. Despite numerous tries, though, the livestream never showed up as a choice on the list of "New" or "Top Pick" videos available on the Oculus Video app. Without a built-in search function or any way to navigate to a specific URL or some such, viewing the eclipse on the Rift was a bust.

As a backup, I dug out the latest Samsung Gear VR headset and a Galaxy S7 Edge. While I waited for some necessary updates to download, I was able to watch CNN's "VR" coverage in a simple Web browser window. I used the mouse to tilt the virtual camera between the people on the ground and the Sun in the sky. Having control of the viewpoint was nice, but watching through a small window on a laptop screen didn't really feel all that different from watching similar coverage on TV.

I finally got the stream working on the Gear VR in time for the eclipse to hit Wyoming, the third of seven eclipse locations CNN was covering in VR. The video started out extremely grainy, but it got a bit sharper as the bandwidth caught up with itself. Even with the highest-quality stream from the 4K cameras, though, the relative image I saw on the Galaxy S7's 1440x2560 screen was much blurrier than the same stream viewed on my Macbook Air screen.

In VR, facial features of people are hard to make out if they were more than a few feet from the camera, and details on the horizon almost completely lacked definition. There was also none of the "stereoscopic 3D" effect you usually get from most other apps in virtual realitythis was more like looking at a 2D video projected on a 360-degree dome surrounding me.

This adorable Girl Scout group in Missouri was looking up at the eclipse with me in VR (all these images are taken from the Facebook Live 360 video feed on a laptop, but the same content was viewable in the Gear VR).

A few onlookers in Wyoming look up with me just before totality.

While the Sun was just a small dot in the VR sky, CNN's zoomed-in "eclipse cam" gave me the detailed crescent Sun view I craved.

That tiny white dot is all I could see of the Sun in VR during totality.

A cloudy Nashville main street a few minutes before totality.

The same Nashville street lit up during the total blackness of the total eclipse.

The VR image also had a fair share of compression artifacts, especially when the sky grew dark and the streaming algorithms struggled to differentiate between the small gradations of black. While people live on the ground started talking about seeing individual stars and even planets in the darkened sky, I could only see large, color-banded blobs of different shades of black. It reminded me of nothing so much as watching grainy RealVideo streams in the early 2000s, only with a viewing "window" that surrounded me completely.

What the VR experience lacked in sharpness, it made up for in its overwhelming, all-encompassing nature. Watching the eclipse in VR, I could really get the sense of the sky darkening quickly all around me as totality approached. I got the sense of a rapid dawn when the Moon's shadow started to recede. It was incredible being able to turn in place and see a virtual, eclipse-generated "sunset" in all directions on the horizon from the comfort of my own kitchen. Hearing the whoops and hollers of onlookers alongside the confused chirping of birds and crickets picked up by the microphones only increased the immersion.

I also appreciated the variety of eclipse locations CNN was able to cover over a two-hour span, from a wide-open field in Idaho, to a neon-covered street in Nashville, to the seat of a helicopter floating above Charleston. Through it all, a variety of hosts and guests rambled, repeating themselves quite often about the "once in a lifetime" grandeur of it all and the way ancient humans were awed by what is now an utterly predictable astronomical occurrence. CNN also superimposed some ethereal "space music" on top of pretty much any eclipse moment, which was a bit distracting.

Continued here:

I was one of the first humans to see a solar eclipse in virtual reality - Ars Technica

Efforts to reduce nuclear stockpiles soon may get a boost from a team of Princeton University researchers and a socially responsible gaming company that are seeking to use virtual reality to help improve systems to discover and monitor nuclear materials worldwide.

Alexander Glaser, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and international affairs, and New York City-based Games for Change were awarded a $414,000 grant last month from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the MacArthur Foundation. Their project, one of 11 selected, seeks to employ virtual reality for innovation, collaboration and public awareness on nuclear arms control and materials security, according to a corporation and foundation announcement.

The project participants will develop a full-motion virtual reality (VR) to design and simulate new, cohesive arms-control treaty verification approaches to reduce and secure nuclear weapons and materials, according to the proposal.

The first part of the project is meant to provide governments with new opportunities for cooperation in traditionally sticky nuclear arms-control efforts. The second part of the project will focus on raising awareness of the continuing dangers of nuclear weapons and material.

While nuclear weapons are still very much around and relevant, and the risks posed by them are just as high as they used to be, the issues are much less salient today than they were during the Cold War, Glaser said.

Glaser along with Tamara Patton, a third-year doctoral student in the science, technology and environmental policy program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs worked with Games for Change to develop the proposal and pitch it to the Carnegie Corporation and the MacArthur Foundation.

The basic idea is, can we leverage this new technology of virtual reality to actually facilitate collaboration in a virtual environment where the security risks are essentially nonexistent, Patton said. Its much less expensive, its much more flexible. And, of course, we can do it remotely.

The researchers program will feature virtual depictions of arms control inspection sites as shown here.

Photo courtesy of the researchers

Glaser said virtual reality can create a simulated world in which inspectors and others can see and document issues involving nuclear material. Demonstrating new verification techniques can encourage nation-to-nation cooperation with an aim of reducing nuclear materials around the globe, he said.

Virtual reality can be used for training and demonstration, which in turn can convince nations that inspections do not present insurmountable hurdles, Glaser said. The current version of the virtual reality setup is hosted at Princetons Council on Science and Technologys StudioLab.

There is a pressing need for innovative ideas, such as the use of virtual reality, when it comes to nuclear weapons control, said Allison Macfarlane, a former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and now a professor of public policy and international affairs and director of the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

Its essential to develop some new thinking around how to reduce the numbers of these materials, said Macfarlane. She called Glaser a top-notch scientist and policy expert who is uniquely qualified to deliver on the projects promise.

Hes one of the few people really thinking outside the box, Macfarlane said of Glaser. Part of the innovative nature of the project is the Princeton teams collaboration with Games for Change, a nonprofit company which aids in the development of games designed to foster awareness of and promote solutions to real-world problems.

Games for Change will take the lead creating a virtual reality game that could be used in classrooms or other learning spaces to raise awareness of the continuing dangers of nuclear materials.

Virtual reality offers a number of engagement opportunities for consumers," said Susanna Pollack, president of Games for Change. "First of all, it gives them the opportunity to be in an environment in a safe manner rather than being exposed to something that is toxic or that has a high risk element to it. The second piece is the ability to transport somebody and immerse them into a world that otherwise is difficult to imagine.

Patton said the consumer world is in the midst of a VR renaissance in which headsets are now reaching a wider consumer base than before. The increased sophistication and availability of virtual reality simulations present an opportunity to overcome the issues involved with access to nuclear sites.

Before Alex and I even started working together, we were both watching this development, and it occurred to us that this would be a really useful space for our problem, Patton said.

We really have to get the younger generation on board with understanding what the threats are and then thinking about how to manage them, Macfarlane said. I think we have to meet them where they are, and virtual reality is a really innovative way to do that.

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Team to use virtual reality to help with real-world arms control - Princeton University