Monthly Archives: June 2021

Thousands of staff at Cincinnati Children's are using virtual reality training to help move into the new Critical Care Building this fall.The layout and experience will be different in this facility. So knowing where everything is and how to navigate it, will be critical.The technology is state of the art. "Things can happen so quickly so the more that we can become acclimated to the environment, the better. So this was a great way for us to see the space and how we would move around in it so we can focus on our patients when we move into the new building," said Kelly Ely, nurse in PICU at Cincinnati Children's.There are eight virtual reality stations. More than 3,000 front-line workers will be coming and training on it. This is one of the largest V-R onboarding experiences in the world.Ryan Moore is a doctor at Children's."I started out as a digital arts background. Failed out of that and became a cardiologist," said Dr. Ryan Moore, co-director of digital experience technology labs at Children's.His mission has been to utilize his gaming and medical background to help colleagues in the most realistic setting possible.He collaborated with Children's team of digital experience creators to make this a possibility."It's fun to make video games that save lives," said Matthew NeCamp, an application specialist.A big move with virtual reality hoping to ease the transition.

Thousands of staff at Cincinnati Children's are using virtual reality training to help move into the new Critical Care Building this fall.

The layout and experience will be different in this facility. So knowing where everything is and how to navigate it, will be critical.

The technology is state of the art.

"Things can happen so quickly so the more that we can become acclimated to the environment, the better. So this was a great way for us to see the space and how we would move around in it so we can focus on our patients when we move into the new building," said Kelly Ely, nurse in PICU at Cincinnati Children's.

There are eight virtual reality stations. More than 3,000 front-line workers will be coming and training on it. This is one of the largest V-R onboarding experiences in the world.

Ryan Moore is a doctor at Children's.

"I started out as a digital arts background. Failed out of that and became a cardiologist," said Dr. Ryan Moore, co-director of digital experience technology labs at Children's.

His mission has been to utilize his gaming and medical background to help colleagues in the most realistic setting possible.

He collaborated with Children's team of digital experience creators to make this a possibility.

"It's fun to make video games that save lives," said Matthew NeCamp, an application specialist.

A big move with virtual reality hoping to ease the transition.

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Cincinnati Children's using virtual reality to transition thousands of front-line workers to new building - WLWT Cincinnati

Chloe Kirby, Blue Label Labs, outlines how virtual reality (VR) is improving mining operations in a huge way.

If you work in mining, then you know the associated risks that come with the job. For those who do not work in the industry, most of us at least have somewhat of an idea of the dangers that come with roles in the profession. The good news: things are getting safer each and every year.

It has been long understood that training plays a significant role in decreasing on-site injuries and disasters. When things do happen that pose a risk to workers and job sites, proper training provides employees with a skillset that allows them to respond swiftly. The tricky part is that training is only a simulation of the sort of instances where these risks occur. New technologies, however, are offering the most in-depth look at how to make these training scenarios match real-world events more closely.

Creating a virtual space for realistic training programs is changing mining operations and improving concerns like safety and efficiency. Companies like Spatial utilise VR to model training exercises in a virtual reality to make them more realistic for trainees.1 These programs are also easy to revisit regularly for long-time staff. Let us explore more about why VR is improving mining in a huge way.

With just a laptop and basic VR peripherals, training in the mining industry can be completely transformed for the better. Many of the most hazardous mining dangers are less about the instance where something goes wrong and more about how employees respond to the moment of crisis.2 The mining training programs created for VR are growing increasingly realistic and specific depending on specific industry requirements and guidelines.

With the latest technology and cooperation from safety standard organisations, VR is the closest thing mining professionals can get to experiencing many of the challenges that can occur on the job site. It is a handy way to make sure they are getting all the experience they need to handle whatever comes their way. There is no denying that mining industries provide far more safety guidelines than they did even a decade ago. That said, risks are still present and VR can help to increase awareness of best practices related to the industry.

One thing that helps make VR training programs a compelling investment for the mining industry is the numerous benefits that come with infusing the technology with the training process. For starters, training in VR can often lead to better results in terms of comprehension. Because the environment is more realistic than simulated walkthroughs of dangerous incidents, employees learn more and they learn it in an effective way.

Speaking of employees, VR training success measurements have a lot to do with how employees perceive the training process.3 Things like how employees think the training prepared them and the relevance of training exercises tend to be higher within a VR environment.

VR can also help to bring the training experience to the job site itself rather than a remote location. If your mining operation is run remotely, then this can also help to get hands-on training to employees who might not spend as much time on-site. All of the variables that go into an employees experience working in the mining industry can be better managed thanks to VR.

There is nothing more impactful to a mining company than whether or not its employees are ready to handle everything that might occur on the job. Training is an extensive part of preparing employees for the task at hand, but old methods fail to make the impact VR spaces can offer.

Investing in VR training programs for mining industry safety standards and disaster training is the best move to make in 2021. With the help of safety standards organisations, these programs are the closest thing to hands-on experience with the difficulties and intricacies of the mining industry. Employees also feel more engaged with VR environments than traditional training programs.

When it comes to safety, no mining operation can guarantee things will always go as expected. Prepare for everything that might come at you with VR spaces for mining operations training and you will be grateful that your employees know what to do when the unexpected arrives.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/25062021/virtual-reality-improves-mining-operations/

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Virtual reality improves mining operations - Global Mining Review

HONG KONG, June 25, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MobiusTrend, the fintech market research organization, recently released a research report "WIMI Hologram Cloud Seizes the Opportunity of AR Development, and Industry Development Is Expected to Increase Production Capacity with the Release of 5G". When it comes to the AR/VR industry, it has been proposed for many years. According to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the global virtual reality industry has a scale of more than one trillion yuan, and the compound annual growth rate in 2017-2022 is expected to exceed 70%. In terms of overall scale, it was predicted that the global AR/VR market will exceed 70 billion yuan in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 126%. Among them, the VR content market is about 20 billion yuan, and the AR content market is close to 8 billion yuan. Meanwhile, in 2020, the global virtual reality industry will exceed 200 billion yuan, of which the VR market will be 160 billion yuan and the AR market will be 45 billion yuan.

With the continuous update of AR/VR products, its application field continues to expand, and the user scale continues to rise. The scale of China's virtual reality users has increased from 520,000 in 2015 to 5 million in 2017, and by 2020, it exceeded 20 million. With the maturity of China's virtual reality technology, the market scale will further expand. Only in 2020, China's virtual reality market reached 30 billion yuan.

1. Development status of AR industry

AR and VR are two technical aspects with different concepts. AR is to emphasize the enhanced information of the real world, and the purpose of VR is to present a closed virtual world. In specific scenarios, VR will be used in large-scale games, video albums, and product display fields, while AR is suitable for social applications, education, and lightweight games. AR focuses on algorithm software, and VR focuses on content production. The difficulty of augmented reality lies in how to make computers understand and reconstruct the 3D world, which requires high algorithms and software. Low-latency high-definition display is an important indicator of VR, and virtual content production is difficult.

Currently, AR on the market is still dominated by computer and mobile phone applications, and the technological maturity of optical components has become the main bottleneck restricting near-eye display AR. The AR industry chain is divided into upstream, midstream, and downstream. The upstream is mainly for components including chips, sensors, optical components, display screens, and other parts. The midstream is for various devices such as head-mounted displays, glasses, mobile phones, and vehicle terminals. As for the downstream, it is a platform for content such as games and movies.

Due to the impact of the epidemic in 2020, the demand for homes of mass consumers has been promoted, and with the continuous breakthroughs in AR optical technology, the demand represented by AR products has seen strong growth. Namely, the user base has increased, many developers have joined, and the industry has also ushered in the new flashpoint of developments.

2. Major giants are actively deploying in the AR field

2.1 Apple

Apple has been exploring the AR field for a long time. It has successively acquired more than a dozen companies such as Polar Rose and Metaio to obtain facial recognition and development tools. It has successively applied for six AR-related patents.

At the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference in June 2017, Apple announced the launch of the AR development platform ARKit. ARKit supports motion tracking, allowing developers to create AR applications and games. At the same time, A11 Bionic has two high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, and its overall performance is 70% higher than that of A10 Fusion. A11 Bionic is also equipped with Apple's first self-developed 3-core GPU, which is optimized for AR and immersive 3D games. In 2018, Apple added a lot of AR-related functions. For example, AR measurement tools, AR multiplayer interactive functions, AR games, and other functions. Apple CEO Cook made it clear that the core of Apple's future development will be AR.

2.2 Qualcomm

Qualcomm first launched the Qualcomm VR820 all-in-one design model with the same name as the processor in September 2016. The performance of the Snapdragon 835 processor continues to improve. It enhanced GPU support for VR rendering features, and it integrated several dedicated DSPs in the chip to optimize operating efficiency. The 3D graphics rendering capability of the Snapdragon 835 is increased by up to 25%, supports 4K resolution, and adds support for eye-tracking and rendering technology.

In addition, Qualcomm released the first chip dedicated to AR devices in May 2018, that is, XR1. The Snapdragon XR1 platform is specially optimized for the augmented reality experience that supports AI functions, which can provide interactivity and reduce energy consumption. The XR1 platform will support ultra-high-definition 4K video resolutions up to 60 frames per second. In terms of audio, it also includes Qualcomm Technologies 3D Audio Suite, Qualcomm Aqstic, and Qualcomm aptX audio technology, which can bring excellent sound effects to users.

The AR industry chain mainly includes four major parts, that is, hardware, software, applications and content, and services. Hardware includes parts and equipment, the software is divided into information processing and operation platforms, applications and content are developed and produced for different industries, and services are channel distribution of application content through the distribution platform. In recent years, leading foreign manufacturers have continued to deploy in the AR industry, increase R&D and M&A activities, and have their own focus on technical direction and category. Microsoft used Hololens as an entry to polish its commercial-end MR products and ecosystem. Apple applied for a large number of patents and released new products. Google continued to improve consumer AR products and ecosystems, while Qualcomm began to start from the chip research of upstream devices in the AR industry chain.

3. China's domestic AR chip research

From the perspective of the business model, WIMI Hologram Cloud, a leading provider of holographic AR application technology in China, has a similar focus to Qualcomm. WIMI is a solution provider, which integrates applications, content, and services according to the real needs of downstream customers to provide complete solutions.

According to some public information, WIMI Hologram Cloud was founded in 2015. WIMI's business covers multiple links of the Hologram AR technology, including Hologram computer visual AI synthesis, Hologram visual presentation, Hologram interactive software development, Hologram AR online and offline advertising, Hologram ARSDK payment, as well as 5G Hologram communication software development. It is a holographic cloud comprehensive technical solution provider. Moreover, WIMI's commercial application scenarios are mainly concentrated in five professional fields, including home entertainment, light field theater, performing arts system, commercial publishing system, and advertising display system.

In addition, WIMI also focuses on the applied research and development of holographic AR technology in semiconductors, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data 5G, and other fields. The purpose of WIMI's substantial increase in R&D investment is to quickly improve the holographic AR technology capabilities to maintain a leading competitive advantage in the AR holographic industry. Since July 2020, WIMI has established a joint venture company to carry out the semiconductor chip business. It provides corporate customers with comprehensive solutions for computer chip products and central processing algorithms and related services, as well as software and semiconductor business.

China's semiconductor chip business application demand is growing rapidly, and the market potential is large. WIMI wants to expand the semiconductor industry field and integrate market resources across industries. With the rapid development of the electric vehicle industry, the demand for automotive holographic AR navigation, holographic AR car windows, holographic AR rearview mirror, and holographic AR vehicle communication has exploded rapidly. WIMI develops solutions such as holographic vehicle equipment, holographic vehicle chip, and holographic vehicle software to meet the needs of electric vehicle holographic applications. Industry insiders expressed their affirmation that WIMI has the strength to develop its AR holographic technology into the semiconductor chip business, and its business expansion into new applications and business layers. Indeed, in 2020, WIMI has won the holographic AR business and the semiconductor business to generate about 44% and about 56.0% of the revenue respectively.

With the support of 5G, WIMI revealed that it will further extend the use of use holographic AI face recognition technology and holographic AI face-changing technology as its core technologies. Moreover, it will use multiple technologically innovative systems to support holographic cloud platform services and 5G communication holographic applications. Not long ago, WIMI finally surpassed other competitors in the holographic field and communications field, and it won the bid for the second phase of the holographic remote interactive project of China Mobile and the Media Cloud Platform. The winning of the bid proves the technical strength of WIMI, and its independent R&D and investment in the core field of 5G. It has integrated the identities of holographic AI mobile software developers and operators, and it has become one of the leading integrated platforms in the holographic AI field in China.

Although WIMI Hologram Cloud has been established for a short time, it has already gathered multiple identities in one, which is incredible, and it makes people look forward to its future development. Meanwhile, the development trend of China's AR industry has also reached the stage of rising and speeding up. As for the next path for both of them, we will report as soon as there is any news.

About MobiusTrend

MobiusTrend Group is a leading market research organization in Hong Kong. They have built one of the premier proprietary research platforms on the financial market, emphasizing on emerging growth companies and paradigm-shifting businesses. MobiusTrend team is professional in market research reports, industry insights, and financing trends analysis. For more information, please visit http://www.mobiustrend.com/

Media contact

Company: MobiusTrend Research

E-Mail: cs@mobiustrend.com

Website: http://www.mobiusTrend.com

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WIMI Hologram Cloud Seizes the Opportunity of AR Development, and Industry Development Is Expected to Increase - GlobeNewswire

Dr. Steven Murphy had conducted countless hip replacement operations before, but this one was different. In this one, he and his team could see a 3D hologram overlaid on the patient a digital model of the patient's body that existed directly in his line of vision.

The effect? The surgical team had a form of X-ray vision with augmented reality.

"We had done a lot of testing on real human specimens, so we knew what it was going to look like, but to see it in a live patient for the first time was just unbelievable," Murphy said in an interview with Freethink.

"It feels to the surgeon as if she has been transported inside of the patient."

From 3D bioprinted body parts to NASA-developed remote-controlled robots that enter your body through your belly button, there's no shortage of sci-fi headlines about medicine's far-out future. But amid all the sci-fi sounding stuff, it can be easy to miss the very real ways that new technologies are changing medicine in the present.

These innovations aren't replacing human expertise, but rather enabling new forms of human-machine collaboration. This collaboration is especially key in the high-stakes environment of the operating room. Where startups in other industries might have the luxury of "moving fast and break(ing) stuff," there's no margin for error in surgery.

Dr. Murphy's operation, performed in February at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston, was in fact the first-ever AR-guided total hip replacement.

Using Microsoft HoloLens 2 mixed reality headsets, the four-person team could see full 3D holograms and other important information overlaid on the patient's body, accurately positioned in their line of sight.

HipInsight, which Dr. Murphy invented, is the first intraoperative AR guidance platform designed for joint replacement. It received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January.

With HipInsight, 3D images of the patient's anatomy are captured prior to surgery. In the OR, a tracker tells headsets where to project the 3D information relative to the patient's body.

3D models and visualization tools have been a part of surgery for many years, but the ability to bring them directly into surgeons' sight lines and make necessary adjustments in real time is a novel development. Beyond the cool factor, this technology allows surgeons to be as precise and minimally invasive as possible.

"We had all these holograms locked up in a computer for a decade taking all that stuff that was sitting there flat on a screen and then putting it right inside the person's body where they actually are is totally amazing," Dr. Murphy said. "Everybody can see it all together, and we can project the whole sequence of the operation and what it should look like. If you have a 3D model of someone on a computer 5 feet away, you can see it, but you can't experience it."

HipInsight is among a crop of new AR products that are designed to augment surgery in real time.

"Medicine is heading to a place that has never existed before," Dr. Murphy said. "Everybody can see it; we had 4 HoloLenses running all day today in surgery and people that aren't even scrubbed at the field can log on and see what's going on."

Some companies, like Proximie, are taking the premise of remote surgery to the next level.

Proximie enables a truly "borderless operating room." By using AR, the U.K.-based company lets world-class surgeons oversee operations in remote areas of the world.

"We want to bring together the best of human expertise and technology to imagine a world where operating rooms all around the world are connected," Proximie CEO and surgeon Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram told Sifted.

Through Proximie, surgeons overseas can view the procedure through multiple different views, and even direct the on-site team using their hands.

According to the World Health Organization, 5 billion people don't have access to safe, timely, and affordable surgical care, and nine in ten people in low- and middle-income countries can't access basic surgical services.

We're a long way from addressing these structural inequities, but Proximie initially rolled out in war zones could erode the barriers posed by physical location. Specialists around the world can work alongside local professionals as need arises.

"Surgery is very visual," Hachach-Haram said. "This is like I'm virtually scrubbed in with you, working with you in the actual operation."

Just as important to this effort is ensuring that insights can be saved for future learning; Proximie records surgeries in order to create a database of shareable knowledge for worldwide use.

"The ability to have a network of operating rooms where every interaction is captured, digitized and analyzed changes the paradigm," Hachach-Haram said. "It makes surgery more democratized and of a higher quality."

Where Proximie is about broadening who can participate in surgeries, Vicarious Surgical is focused on enhancing surgeons' capabilities within the OR.

The Boston-based company on path to become the next VR unicorn when it goes public later this year combines surgical robotics with virtual reality, letting surgeons control surgical machines in the full immersion of VR headsets.

The surgical robot's arms sport 9 degrees of freedom (9DoF), letting them effectively move anywhere within the abdomen. It can also capture 360 video, giving surgeons a fully immersive and up-close view of whatever they're working on.

"Legacy surgical robots force surgeons to stare at a screen or peer into a microscope ... resulting in a disorienting and limited perspective," Vicarious Surgical CEO and Cofounder Adam Sachs said in an interview with Freethink. "Our system uses a head-mounted display to create a real and complete immersive view into the patient's abdomen."

A fun way to think about it is that Vicarious "shrinks" surgeons so they can see and conduct their work from a new perspective.

"The head-mounted display allows a surgeon to perform the surgery by simply looking where she wants to look without the use of additional foot pedals and hand controllers," Sachs said. "By allowing the surgeon to control the camera view naturally using her own head, it feels to the surgeon as if she has been transported inside of the patient and is operating from the ideal viewpoint."

Virtual reality is also finding its way into other realms of surgery, before and after the procedure itself. FundamentalVR, Medical Augmented Intelligence, Osso VR, and Surgical Theater are among a handful of companies that provide medical training in VR.

Aside from the novelty, the clear benefit of training in VR is that surgeons can practice repeatedly using a virtual reconstruction of the patient they'll be operating on, a la HipInsight. At the Stanford Neurosurgical Simulation Lab, surgeons can practice on a simulated model of the patient's brain, allowing them to map out the surgery in advance.

"It's a window into the brain and a window into the brain of the particular patient we're going to operate on," said Dr. Anand Veeravagu, a Stanford professor of neurosurgery and the head of the Neurosurgical Simulation Lab in a statement.

"It makes you feel like if you do surgery without (AR), that you're just totally blind."

One major benefit to this form of practice particularly with highly sensitive parts of the body like the brain is that it establishes a kind of muscle memory before the actual operation.

Previous studies have demonstrated that training with the Osso VR platform leads to a 230- 300% improvement in surgical performance. Now the startup is working with Wake Forest to understand this muscle memory data at a more granular level.

Using specialized motion trackers, the researchers are working to visualize and compare body movements taken in real-world surgeries and in VR.

"As an orthopaedic surgeon, it's critical to me that our technology is evidence-based," said Dr. Justin Barad, CEO and cofounder of Osso VR, in a statement. "As we roll out a completely new way to train, we want our users and customers to continue to see this platform as effective and reliable."

Meanwhile, VR can also help patients understand their own treatment. Back at the Stanford Neurosurgical Simulation Lab, Sandi Rodoni, a patient awaiting her third aneurysm surgery, was "treated to a virtual reality trip inside her own brain" in VR. Her surgeon was able to demonstrate to her, in full immersion, the procedure he would be undertaking.

"Because I had been through this before, I thought I knew it all until I saw this," Rodoni said. "I felt better knowing it was so clear to the doctor."

According to Dr. Brennan Spiegel, director of Health-Services Research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, there are other ways that patients stand to benefit from VR.

Since being introduced to VR in 2014, Spiegel has studied how VR functions as a tool to modify human perception. Where this gets particularly interesting with regard to surgery is how it can be used to reduce anxiety and pain.

"Patients often have stress or anxiety before they go into the room, even while they're in the room," Spiegel said. "There's research that VR can help really put people at ease, both before and even during the procedure and that patients are much more willing to repeat procedures if they need to in the future, or require less pain medication during the procedure, if they're using virtual reality as a pain-fighting intervention."

In 2019, nearly 50,000 people died from opioid overdoses in the United States, part of an epidemic that the CDC estimates costs the U.S. $78.5 billion per year. Spiegel believes that virtual therapeutics could play a role in curbing opioid reliance.

"We know that even one day of opioids confers about a 6% risk of dependency a year later, which is astonishing. All it takes is one day," Spiegel said. "When people come out of the operating room, there's pain involved, and the very first thing that they get is an opioid. It's just standard of care and no one really questions it. So we've been interested in using VR postoperatively."

It's not as simple as plopping a patient into a headset when they come out of the operating room. VR has to be explained and integrated in advance to help the patients feel comfortable using it.

"We call it 'prehab,' instead of rehab," Spiegel said. "We explain it to them before they go into the operating room when people are clear of mind and don't have operative pain yet. The whole idea is if we do that work ahead of time, educate people, then they may be much more willing to interpose VR postoperatively prior to starting to use high doses of opioids, and some may be very willing to stay on virtual reality."

To the general public, VR and AR applications may still feel a bit far-out, but they're rapidly proving their use in surgery connecting specialists across the world, providing unprecedented real-time insight, and democratizing the training process.

Unlike the steep learning curves that came with first-generation robot- and computer-assisted surgery, virtual and augmented tools are generally far more intuitive to pick up and explain to patients.

And for early-adopters like Dr. Murphy, they rapidly become indispensable.

"You have this three-dimensional information that was disconnected, and now it's completely connected to your eyes, to your brain, and to the person," Murphy said. "You have this sense as a surgeon of where things are, that are covered up in space, but when you can actually see it in real time, it's just unbelievable. It makes you feel like if you do surgery without it, that you're just totally blind."

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The Augmented, Virtual, Human-Machine Future of Surgery Is Here - Freethink

HURON The Tribeca Film Festival is known around the world as a launching pad for the careers of writers, directors and actors. And this years festival, which wrapped up on June 20, had a little bit of Huron in its makeup.

The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite, is the first of a planned four-part series that mines the evolving field of live action virtual reality. It was part of this years Immersive Theater portion of the renowned festival, and Welcome to Respite boasts Huron High School graduate Braden Roy as its co-writer and adapter.

The production was very well received at the festival, said Roy from his home in Sioux Falls this past week. More than 300 people can through and were audience members and participated in the production and we had a great deal of feedback from both those in attendance, as well as by those participating remotely, through email after they were done.

Welcome to Respite, follows the character of Alex, a child described as having a troubled past. At the risk of being a spoiler, the character visits his family home after his mothers passing and it brings up forgotten childhood memories. But it is not a flashback production, where the writer and director lead the viewer on a journey.

In this type of production, the viewer participates, and, to some extent, guides the storyline.

The player, or in the case of Tribeca, an audience member, controls everything that he or she does, Roy said, all movement. If you turn your head or move your arm, that movement is transferred to your avatar on the screen. We set it so the production flows by the actions and words of the player.

Two other people, associated with the game, play the other parts in the production, including the mother and father. Because of the live theater aspect of Welcome to Respite, other productions will be scheduled, when the whole event is available to the public. More on that availability later.

Roy is the son of Duane and LeAnn Roy, and he moved here at a young age from Sioux Falls. He graduated from Huron High School in 2006.

While he is an integral part of the production team - in addition to writing Roy played a character during the festival - he didnt travel to New York to participate. That is one of the huge benefits of doing things through virtual reality - you dont have to be there to do it.

Between being incredibly busy right now on our next project, as well as the unknown predictability of a hotels Wi-Fi, led me to stay home and participate remotely, Roy said.

Virtual reality itself has been around for some time, he noted. There were professors on a campus somewhere that created a virtual world, but it was confined to that campus.

Now, of course, the world of virtual reality has stretched around the world and encompasses players of all ages. But what Roy and his team is doing breaks the norm of what is expected in any other gameor movieor live theater.or.

We just call them shows or productions, he said with a chuckle. They are not completely scripted and they are live and the part not played by you as Alex are played by actual live people. What we are doing is kind of breaking new ground, so we have the luxury of labeling it as we go.

Welcome to Respite, participants are given instruction and direction through and the production is a psychological-thriller that both help and haunt people, through the lens of a mental illness call Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which was formerly known as multiple personality disorder. The production is designed for entertainment, but it is the production teams intent to use the platform to promote empathy of those struggling with mental illness.

Roy added that it deals with things that are done and the ripples of trauma that actions can take. And it has an effect on people.

There was a woman who left feedback that she was moved to tears by her participation, Roy said, while another said there was the sensation of catharsis. And one person said that he was able to sit and have a heart-to-heart discussion with his father, something he was otherwise unable to do, as his father has been very distant.

Prior to Welcome to Respite, is the third production for Roy, who was the writer on two other titles, PARA, which is a horror experience at the intersection of immersive theater and VR. After PARA came Krampusnacht, which takes a group of audience members to a small Austrian village, to experience Christmas holiday festivities. An avalanche re-directs them and the production escalates into a fight between the forces of light and darkness.

I was the writer on the two prior productions, Roy said, And I have written part two of The Severance Theory.

Welcome to Respite will be available for the general public to begin scheduled interactions, but that release will be delayed.

Right now, Roy said, we are being considered for some international film festivals - some of them very well known - and they arent so keen on it being out in the general public ahead of time.

So, if people want to immerse themselves in Alexs world at some point, how can they do that?

I would suggest that anyone who is interested go to our website - http://www.welcometorespite.com - look around and then sign up to get email updates. That way, he said, when the show is released people will know and will be able to go online and schedule a time. Anyone with a VR headset can participate. And $250 to $300 will get you a good headset anymore.

As expected, most of those interacting with the production during Tribeca were somewhat younger.

About 75% of those participating at Tribeca were over 30 years of age, Roy said. And of that group, 25% sere in the 40-50 age range.

So, when not creating dark storylines for his next project, what does Roy like to do when he straps on his VR headset?

Well, I have little spare time right now, he said, however there is a game called Beat Saber, where players must slice emerging colored blocks with lightsabers in your hand. Also Tetris Effect, a version of the original game, although with wildly interactive audio and visuals.

All of the stories I have written are a little dark many of the people involved, myself included, are horror enthusiasts, he said. I would like to tell other stories kind of focus on the whimsy and take advantage of the VR aspects available, in different ways.

Roy encourages those with a desire to create in the VR world is just get started and keep going.

All the tools we used to create Welcome to Respite are entirely and completely free, he said. And there is a community out there to guide and help you learn and become involved. Dive in. Dont be intimidated. There is really no wrong way to do it.

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Huron native makes waves at renowned NY film festival - Plainsman

Navers metaverse platform Zepeto (Naver)

A combination of meta and universe, the term refers to a virtual world shared by people from the real world.

Built on the convergence of all things sci-fi such as augmented reality, virtual reality, extended reality, artificial intelligence, fifth-generation networks, edge computing and so on, this digital universe has gained traction under the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown among millennials and Gen Z, who together include those born from the 1980s to 2010s and are referred to as the MZ generations.

In the beginning, it looked like nothing more than a game, or virtual playground for younger people. But it is now a serious world of a digital economy, where a virtual Gucci bag resold for $4,115, higher than its real-world value.

(Naver)

Such an idea has become only possible due to the emergence of new technologies, including high-speed telecommunications, augmented and virtual reality and 3D sensors in the era of the 5G mobile network systems.

US-based game company Roblox has been a pioneer in the metaverse, with a platform that revolves around a virtual world where users can interact with others through personal avatars, make their own games and play, shop and communicate.

(Naver)

In Robloxs virtual world, the Gucci Dionysus Bag With Bee sold for an original price of 475 Robux, equivalent to $6, on May 17, but it resold for 350,000 Robux, or $4,115.

A Korean version of this is Zepeto, operated by the countrys largest internet company Naver. Launched in August 2018 in 165 markets across the world, the platform has garnered over 200 million users as of December.

In the world of Zepeto, users avatars are created by artificial intelligence-based face recognition technology from their actual photos. Users find it more interesting to play around with digital representations that resemble themselves.

The avatars can wander around the Zepeto world, taking part in activities like taking photos, recording videos or playing games.

In September last year, popular girl group Blackpink held an avatar fan signing event, attracting around 46 million fans to the virtual world.

(Naver)

Other similar platforms include Fortnite, created by US firm Epic Games, which has about 350 million users. Fortnite is famous for gunfight game Battle Royale and digital playground Party Royale. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Party Royale has gained popularity as a metaverse playground.

American hip-hop artist Travis Scott held a concert with his avatar in April on Fortnite, drawing 12.3 million people to the parallel world, dancing along and flying with the star.

Drawn to the huge potential the metaverse concept presents, businesses are getting ready to, or are already making the moves to, tap into the virtual world.

Market researcher Strategy Analytics forecasts the metaverse represents a market of $46 billion now, and that is expected to soar to $280 billion by 2025.

The Korean Ministry of Science and ICT has formed an alliance with some of the countrys leading companies, including Hyundai Motor, SK Telecom, KT, Naver Labs and Kakao Entertainment, to take preemptive measures for the emerging world of new markets,

Naver Z, the subsidiary of Naver in charge of operation of Zepeto, is in the long run seeking to turn Zepeto into a profitable business, according to the firm.

The company currently makes most of its revenue -- about 75 percent -- from selling items made for the virtual world. It has also raised profits from marketing collaborations with renowned brands like Nike and Gucci. Around 5 million Nike shoes have been sold in Zepeto, exceeding in-person offline sales.

Naver seeks to make Zepeto another complete world where the MZ generations can make a living, for example by making money from creating virtual products and services, and also go shopping with virtual money and enjoy in-world entertainment.

As part of increasing the profitability of the virtual business, it also plans to charge users a 30 percent commission on sales of items.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)

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[Weekender] Invitation to Metaverse - The Korea Herald

Digital reality is a hypernym for augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality and a gamut of other associated technologies.

By Amit Chopra,

Our current world is amid a fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, which encompasses the Internet of Things (IOT), additive manufacturing, digital reality, big data, artificial intelligence (ML, DL, robotics), hybrid cloud and cybersecurity. Of these areas, the ones that seamlessly integrate the cyber and physical worlds seem to be the most suitable to help navigate the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic. We have seen digital reality emerging as a key enabler in ensuring an enhanced customer experience and business continuity amid the pandemic.

The Virtual Reality Landscape

Digital reality is a hypernym for augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality and a gamut of other associated technologies. Virtual Reality (VR) involves using audio and video to immerse a user in the experience of an artificial environment, often in 3D and with 360 degrees of vision. This creates a fully rendered digital environment that substitutes the users real-world environment.

This is useful in healthcare in areas like patient management, point of care, tele-health, and home-based care. Life sciences organizations are also using VR to optimize production of very expensive products, e.g., manufacturing for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. VR can enable deep training across sales, manufacturing, and distribution by simulating multiple what-if scenarios that might minimize leakage.

With the growing market of wellness and preventive health, insurers are also using virtual reality to gamify prevention journeys, e.g., showing users in 3D what they might look like if they followed a particular diet or incorporated certain lifestyle changes. These have led to the healthcare & life sciences virtual reality market to be projected to reach USD 8.03 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 16.21%.

Enter Covid-19

The pandemic brought to this existing landscape the additional complexity of being able to conduct risk-free research & production operations. Risk-free, in the time of a global pandemic, is often contact-less. It has become imperative for service providers to quickly adapt to the new-normal with digital tools that help their customers reduce physical exposure. Technologies like virtual reality can prove to be a significant differentiator in such scenarios by enabling teams to quickly evaluate a product, service or solution in a virtual, contact-less and risk-free environment.

Labatar- A virtual customer experience centre

In India, customers typically visit the Customer Experience Centers (CEC) to see first-hand our innovative capabilities in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, food safety, forensics, analytical solutions and laboratory essentials. The CECs provide researchers, scientists, and industry practitioners access to our advanced industry leading technologies and solutions.

The pandemic severely limited these physical customer visits to the CECs, but that gap was quickly filled by the launch of Labatar the first virtual lab in India last year. Built on virtual reality technology, it provides a platform to show the depth and scale of Thermo Fishers capabilities in supporting customers critical needs. The tool offers an immersive online experience to our customers by helping them engage virtually with our state-of-the-art technologies while performing complex research. The platform seamlessly depicts a fully equipped lab environment and walks the user through each step of a workflow, using easy-to-understand instructions that simulate the experiments performed in a physical lab.

As of now, the platform hosts two workflows, one that shows biosimilar characterization by hydrogen-deuterium exchange (HDX) reaction. This analytical technique is growing in popularity amongst pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and research organizations, especially for studying higher order protein structures for epitope mapping, screening drug candidates and in the comparison of biopharmaceutical to biosimilars.

Recently, a new workflow on Labatar, Virus detection by Real time PCR method, showcases comprehensive solutions for COVID-19 testing using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method. The RT-PCR based testing method is extremely sensitive, accurate, and is considered the gold standard test for detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.The platform also offers expediency, allowing customers to learn from industry experts while performing experiments with the click of a mouse and get a first-hand, virtual experience of handling them. The pandemic has irreversibly changed the way people interact with technology. We should support researchers and scientists across the globe who are working to develop treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. Now, more than ever, we remain steadfast in our mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer.

(The author is Managing Director, India and South Asia, Thermo Fisher Scientific. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Financial Express Online.)

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Role of virtual reality in healthcare and life science research - The Financial Express