Monthly Archives: July 2021

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJTo help residents deal with social isolation, Parker Life at Landing Lane in New Brunswick has incorporated the virtual reality (VR) platform called Rendever.

There are also Parker Life homes at Somerset, Monroe, Stonegate, and River Road. The homes have made changes to meet the needs of their residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, including incorporating virtual reality technology.

Parker is always interested in looking at new ways to enhance our residents experiences, whether its through technology or care and services, said Judy Collett-Miller, Director of Planning and Technology Innovation at Parker Life. Weve known about VR. It has been around for a long time. Its become more popular within aging services, so we have been thinking about it.

Collett-Miller says the pandemic really accelerated her efforts to use this service.

We reached out to two companies that we were familiar with and then did vetting of both of their products, she said. We actually had them send headsets to all of our different sites so all of our recreation directors can actually use the equipment. They did demos for us before we made our selection.

The companies were Rendever and MyndVR, and they chose Rendever. It was all about getting more opportunities for positive experiences to the Parker Life residents.

Since using the product, the residents have had a wonderful reaction to it.

I have to say, from the minute they started using it they really enjoyed it for really different reasons, Collett-Miller said. Even though we had restrictions in place, we were able to do some virtual visits.

For obvious reasons, the residents werent able to do many group activities but they were spaced out in their rooms and were able to have a communal experience through the VR technology.

They went on a trip to London and other places, she said. We used it in group settings, but we also did a lot of one-on-one visits, as well.

The Parker Life at Landing Lane home in particular did a lot of one-on-one visits.

They had a particular resident who was on hospice services, and she had been to the Grand Canyon a long time ago and it was one of her favorite experiences, she said. They were able to bring her back to the Grand Canyon through VR.

VR technology being used to help residents with terminal illnesses or cognitive decline reminisce about good times in their lives.

A Parker Life at Landing Lane resident with dementia was also taken to a waterfall and museum during VR visits.

What is interesting is that she was very interactive, she said. She was pointing. She was gesturing. She was moving with the technology so they were very excited to see her engaged in a different way than somebody else.

Tara Cunningham is the Activities Director at Parker Life at Landing Lane, and she has seen very positive reactions first hand from residents.

We started using the virtual reality back in June of 2020, Cunningham said. It was something our director of technology, Judy, was informing us about. We all had different meetings to get more information on it. Ever since, it has been a huge success.

During the course of the pandemic, she saw the residents struggle with loneliness, boredom and sadness from being away from family members.

Virtual reality has given them a sense of belonging again, she said. Growing up with her grandparents, Cunningham has always been interested in elder care.

I did a lot of volunteer work, and my college internship was in elder care, as well, she said.

Even after the pandemic is over, she still plans on having residents at the home use the VR technology. Not only is it really great for travel and culture, theres so much on there. One of the other things its great for is sensory simulation, she said.

For elders who are non-verbal and are unable to make their needs known, the residents are still able to use the VR technology to connect with others.

As Recreation Supervisor, she manages the day-to-day activates going on in the home. However, the pandemic has challenged her to keep the residents connected to their families.

She has been setting up a lot of video communication schedules on Facetime and Skype, on top of window and outdoor visits.

Jake from Rendever trained the Landing Lane staff and answered all of their questions.

The technology is set up in a tablet that is synced to the headsets.

This allows the activity directors to send out the videos to the users.

If a resident isnt comfortable with the headset, they can start with just looking at the tablet and then slowly bring the headset up to their eyes and strap it on.

We started about five years ago, said Kyle Rand, CEO of Rendever. We have been on a mission.

He saw the impacts of social isolation on his grandmother, so he has always been interested in helping the elderly population cope with the isolation of aging.

The data shows that the health impacts can be as detrimental as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, or an increase in dementia risk, 32% increase in stroke and 29% increase in heart disease, he said.

He wants to bring the world to this special demographic through this technology. Our core guiding principle is that the foundation of human relationships is shared positive experiences, he said.

A silver lining of this pandemic in his view is that he doesnt have to explain how detrimental social isolation is.

Even as millions get the COVID-19 vaccine and things are getting back to normal, we cant forget how isolation impacts seniors.

The case fatality rate of COVID-19 for seniors is about 12 to 25 percent and social isolation increases the mortality rate in this population by up to 30%.

The magic of VR is that seniors can connect with others will also being physically distant.

The company also launched the Connection Corner, which allows user to sit with one another on a virtual coach after the experience is over, look at each other as avatars, and continue communicating with each other.

The VR has been such in light in something that has been so dark, he said.

The company is nearing 300 communities across North America, and they work with health care systems and hospice organizations, as well.

In the future, the company could potentially sell the product direct to consumers outside of nursing homes but they are very happy working with the senior care industry for right now.

They are doing a study that is funded by the National Institute on Aging to study the impact of virtual family interaction.

We have a family platform where family members are able to upload old family photos and videos. But they can also take their own 360 camera, film something like a birthday party or a wedding, and the loved one can put on a headset and feel like theyre there at the event, he said.

They also have the Reminiscence Journey, or life story builder, where you can recreate someones life story in a location-by-location basis, such as a childhood home or vacation destination.

You can bring them there in VR and recreate those moments, he said.

When a family does this together, the emotion health of the senior improves. Caregiver guilt decreases, as well. The ongoing study is currently in phase two of clinical trials and has expanded to twelve locations across the United States.

If a home wants to get the technology, all they have to do is reach out. Parker Life at Landing Lane is one of the companys most active users.

Any senior living community can use Rendever, he said.

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Nursing Homes Use Virtual Reality Tech to Help Residents Cope with Isolation - New Brunswick Today

POCONO MOUNTAINS, Pa., July 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --To celebrate National Waterpark Day next week, Kalahari Resorts and Conventions partnered with BallastVR to launch America's first and only virtual reality waterslide. Ballast's patented VRSlide technology enables riders to experience virtual reality worlds while riding down Kalahari's thrilling Anaconda waterslide. As riders race down unique drops and twisting curves wearing a VR headset, the sensation fully immerses them in one of three experiences: adventuring on an action-packed African safari, chasing aliens through outer space or flying through castles surrounded by fire-breathing dragons.

To celebrate National Waterpark Day, Kalahari Resorts debuts America's first virtual reality waterslide.

"We wanted to do something extraordinary to celebrate the 5th annual National Waterpark Day and what better way than to introduce America's first virtual reality slide?" said Cary Brandt, Corporate Creative Director Entertainment at Kalahari Resorts and Conventions. "Our guests will be truly blown away by the experience offered by Ballast's VRSlide technology, and we're proud to continue to innovate the waterpark experience to bring our guests the best in entertainment."

Ballast engineers thoroughly match each piece of content to the exact slide layout to maximize the experience for each guest.

"There's a magical combination that comes from merging immersive virtual reality worlds with the thrill of riding down a real waterslide. At Ballast, we've been committed to bringing that magic to waterparks for the last four years with VRSlide and we couldn't be more pleased to debut this system in America with Kalahari Resorts," said Stephen Greenwood, CEO and Co-Founder of Ballast VR. "To date, we've had over half a million riders of VRSlide at prior installations overseas it's a system that has proven to be safe for riders and profitable for our clients and partners. The Anaconda at Kalahari is the perfect match for VRSlide and the result is an incredible guest experience that can be repeated over and over, without getting old. We're deeply appreciative of Kalahari's vision for innovation and their leadership in the immersive entertainment space."

National Waterpark Day

Kalahari Resorts, home to America's largest indoor waterparks, founded National Waterpark Day on July 28, 2017, to celebrate the fun and lasting memories families create at waterparks every summer. In addition to the new waterslide attraction, Kalahari will celebrate the holiday with a special summer savings offer available at http://www.kalahariresorts.com/celebrate.

About Kalahari Resorts and Conventions

Kalahari Resorts and Conventions in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, Sandusky, Ohio, the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, and now open in Round Rock, Texas, deliver a beyond-expectations waterpark resort and conference experience all under one roof. The authentically African-themed Kalahari Resorts, privately owned by the Nelson family, are home to America's largest indoor waterparks. All Kalahari Resorts feature well-appointed guest rooms, full-service Spa Kalahari, a fun-filled family entertainment center, on-site signature restaurants, unique retail shops and a state-of-the-art convention center. Kalahari Resorts and Conventions frequently receives awards and accolades for its guest and convention services. Recognition includes: Cond Nast Traveler's #1 World's Coolest Indoor Waterparks, Sensory Friendly Certified in 2020 (Ohio), Best Family-Friendly Meeting Hotel and Resort in Smart Meeting's 2020 Smart Stars Awards, Parents' Magazine 2019 Kids' Travel Award Winner and TripAdvisor's 2018 and 2017 Travelers' Choice Awards. For reservation and guest information, call 1-877-KALAHARI (525-2427) or visit KalahariResorts.com. To learn more about Kalahari Resorts and download images and b-roll, members of the media are encouraged to visit KalahariMedia.com.

About Ballast VR

Ballast VR is the first company in the world to bring the magic of virtual reality to the unique environment that water parks and resorts offer. In the past four years, Ballast VR has introduced several new attractions that heighten the thrill of virtual reality by merging out-of-this-world visuals with incredible physical sensations. For waterpark operators, these systems offer new possibilities to add dynamic attractions that can be updated seasonally while establishing new revenue streams on top of existing waterslide and swimming pool infrastructure. VRSlide is a system that safely allows riders to be immersed in VR worlds while riding down real waterslides. With multiple content experiences that are tailored to each unique waterslide path, guests love the ability to re-ride the same slide and have a new adventure with each different VR experience. Every drop, turn and burst of speed is augmented inside the VR worlds, resulting in new sensations that make VRSlide a must-try experience. DIVR is a system that safely allows guests to snorkel in shallow water while wearing a unique underwater VR headset. The unique sensation of being in neutral buoyancy in VR makes guests believe they can float in space, dive with whales or soar over cliffs alongside wingsuit skydivers. These groundbreaking attractions have been enjoyed by over 700,000 happy customers in 15 countries across the world. By creating incredible and eye-catching guest experiences that generate new revenue streams, Ballast has grown quickly to become the unquestioned world leader in this new form of entertainment technology. To learn more, visit BallastVR.com.

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SOURCE Kalahari Resorts and Conventions

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America's First Virtual Reality Waterslide Opens at Kalahari Resorts and Conventions - WFMZ Allentown

For an audience member in a proscenium theater, watching ballet unfold onstage is a big picture experience. As you sit quietly in the dark, you can shift your vision side to side, up and down, but the perspective stays basically the same, and theres a definite sense of remove between viewer and performer.

With its new virtual reality project, Dance in VR Series on Facebook, Boston Ballet explodes the 4th wall, offering viewers at home a way to step into the middle of all the action. Dancers seem to jet over your shoulder, and you can almost feel the breeze from a flurry of pirouettes that unfurl as if just inches away. Its an intimate, visceral, immersive, and interactive experience. And since the company wont be performing live at the Opera House until The Nutcracker, it may be the next best thing to sitting in the audience this summer.

You can experience performance at your house as if youre sitting in the middle of the [performance space], seeing everything from within, says Ernesto Galan, Boston Ballets videographer for the past 12 years. Its like being transported to another world.

For the new series, the company commissioned three works designed specifically for VR Ken Ossolas Zoom In, adapted from his work of the same name for the recent Process & Progress program, a newly tweaked version of Helen Picketts acclaimed Petal, and a new work by company dancer MyKal Stromile, On (my) line, In (my) mind, filmed in December in a large industrial warehouse in New Bedford. The three pieces are choreographed to be viewed through a high-end Oculus headset, but even some gaming headsets can give you a glimpse into this new way of looking at dance. (If your only option is your tablet or smartphone, your best bet is to sit on a swivel chair in a darkened room. You change perspective by moving your device.)

Virtual and augmented reality in dance have been around for awhile, but Boston Ballet believes its the first major company to delve so deeply into the technologies with ballet. The project builds on inroads made over the past year during the companys first ever virtual season, which not only expanded outreach to audiences around the world but strengthened understanding of technology.

Boston Ballets artistic director Mikko Nissinen says it is part of being a living theater for contemporary audiences. I didnt want to be a museum or church, but part of todays society moving forward, he explains. We explored this technology five or six years ago, but the limitations of viewership were so narrow I thought there was no point jumping on the bandwagon. Now that technology has grown by leaps and bounds, its opened so many possibilities. In the future, it could be almost a new art form for people to experience dance, music, theater. This is just the beginning.

Its not a simple or inexpensive process. The dances are filmed with a globe-like contraption embedded with six different cameras placed in the center of the space to capture a 360-degree surround. Footage from each camera then gets stitched into a seamless flow that the viewer controls. Though each dance was filmed in a day, the editing process for each was an intensive week of post-production that Galan says pushed his system to the limit.

However, he says he is excited to be a part of the companys exploration of new vistas for ballet. And he can imagine moving beyond virtual reality into augmented reality once that technology is more developed. In the future, you could be in the Opera House watching a performance, put on AR glasses and see Swan Lake [performed] on a lake, or Corsair could actually be on a pirate ship going through the ocean. It could really enhance the performance.

For the current VR series, the choreographers challenge was to tailor the dance so viewers could look in any direction at any time and see dancing. Ossolas approach keeps some of the tradition of putting important material, such as duets, in the forefront. Stromiles choreography draws the eye around the space in a circular manner. Picketts work, however, filled every corner of the space with simultaneous movement. For the dancers, that meant treating every phrase like a solo in case someone chose to look their way, and it was a cardiovascular feat to dance full-out continuously for the pieces full length every take the technology couldnt be edited for starts and stops.

Normally in a theater, you could go offstage and catch your breath, explained Stromile, who danced in Picketts work in addition to choreographing his own piece. But we had to fill in all the holes and do it all the way through at one time. We dancers made an agreement that if anything happened, we just keep going!

Stromile thinks embracing new technology could be a way to bring more people into the Opera House for the real thing in person, he says, adding hed like to see the company provide a range of interactive virtual experiences, including previews and glimpses behind the scenes. It gives people who are not your typical avid ballet-goers another way into the ballet world. People are really interested in getting that inside look. You could get funding to get some VR goggles and turn the whole building into an interactive space for people, who would then go buy tickets to see the live performance. I think were really on the brink of something incredible that puts us on the forefront and definitely makes Boston Ballet a leader in the field.

We like to explore the boundaries and go over the boundaries, Nissinen claims. When theres nobody to follow, you have to lead.

Karen Campbell can be reached at karencampbell4@rcn.com.

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Boston Ballets Dance in VR Series breaks the wall between viewer and performer - The Boston Globe

In Virtual Reality News

July 20, 2021 Moth+Flame, a developer of immersive training technology, has recently announced that its Virtual Reality (VR) sexual assault prevention and response (SAPR) training platform has been officially deployed by the United States Air Force (USAF).

Utilizing Moth+Flames VR training platform, the immersive training program was first introduced to Airmen at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina. According to Moth+Flame, the three-part multifaceted curriculum is designed to tackle many sides of a complex issue, including intervention skills, victim advocacy, and reporting protocols.

We take a great deal of pride in helping the armed forces develop smarter, safer, and more responsive teams through immersive training. This is such an important issue, and by bringing people into environments where they have to confront difficult situations, we can help prepare them for when these scenarios arise in the real world, said Kevin Cornish, CEO and Founder of Moth+Flame. The Air Force has been a tremendous partner in working with us to address these complex and serious issues head on with training that improves how people respond to these types of situations.

The sexual assault prevention and response training features conversational simulations that leverage natural language processing technology, allowing virtual trainees to respond in real-time to spoken dialogue. The solution helps to train Air Force personnel to physically say out loud the right words in difficult conversations, as opposed to selecting a text-based answer from a list of options, which Moth+Flame states offers a more effective style of learning. The company added that the training comes at a crucial time as the most recent annual report from the Department of Defense indicates that the Air Force received a total of 1,661 reports of sexual assault in 2020.

The future of sexual assault prevention and response training should be innovative and creative. Virtual reality as a training tool puts Airmen into real world life situations where they can build knowledge, skills and abilities, commented Carmen Schott, Air Mobility Command Sexual Assault Prevention & Response Program Manager. Through experiencing SAPR training in the virtual world, the Airmen have to be present and connected to the experience. Our mission is collect relevant data to show that Airmen prefer this type of training over normal classroom training and that we can track to see that they enhance comprehension of key sexual assault reporting options and resources to better equip them to intervene and help other Airmen in need. We want to show that this type of training is not only relevant but effective in educating our Airmen on sexual assault prevention and response reporting options and resources.

The trainings content modules will include:

The contract for the training was awarded through the AFWERX Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, and follows on from a successful pilot training program Moth+Flame recently completed at Sacramentos Travis Air Force Base in military suicide prevention.

The content of the training was developed in conjunction with Air Mobility Commands Integrated Resiliency Team. Moth+Flame added that the training is expected to be utilized at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas later this summer. For more information on Moth+Flame and its VR training solutions, please visit the companys website.

Image credit: Moth+Flame / US Air Force

About the author

Sam Sprigg

Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he covers news articles on both the AR and VR industries. He also has an interest in human augmentation technology as a whole, and does not just limit his learning specifically to the visual experience side of things.

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Moth+Flame partners with US Air Force to launch Virtual Reality sexual assault prevention and response training - Auganix

The Impact and Role of Social Media at the Olympics

In this episode of Michigan Minds, Scott Campbell, PhD, Communications and Media Department Chair and Constance F. and Arnold C. Pohs Professor of Telecommunications, discusses the impact and role of social media at the Tokyo Olympics. He also talks about the presence that newer technologies like 5G and augmented reality will have on spectator events.

Campbell says that the way people experience the Olympics is continually evolving, through communications media like radio, television, and internet streaming.

Whats going on right now is interesting, because the telecom companies are trying to get us to shift to a new fifth generation of infrastructure with mobile media, and what Im paying attention to when it comes to the Olympics is the advertising of that media, he says, adding that 5G is supposed to offer a new level of low latency, or more instantaneous processing of livestreamed data.

Theyre offering all kinds of new ways to connect with the Olympics so that spectators can take part through augmented reality and through virtual reality.

He notes how social media has the ability to bring people from around the world right into the Olympics.

We are intimately and immediately involved in gossip, rumor, updates, and news.

The way that social media provides a platform for athletes to amplify their voices has a great impact on society, Campbell says.

Olympic athletes and professional and amateur athletes can use social media to put themselves on a stage, to represent who they are, to represent their values beyond just their skills. Because they are role models, he says. It also makes them more vulnerable. These are young people and the dynamics on social media are so very hard to keep up with.

After more than a year of living through a global pandemic in which individuals connected virtually rather than in person to follow public health and safety guidelines, Campbell believes people will be even more comfortable engaging through social media.

The Olympics is a global event, and for people to participate in this together, it does take these kinds of resources. It does take this kind of media to bring people together at the same time, in the same place. And thats what the Olympics is all about. So I do think were going to see more people living their lives in the digital realm. Theyre more accustomed to it. Its more acceptable, he says.

Throughout the 2021 Tokyo Olympic events, and after, Campbell will be watching the mobile and social spaces to see how they progress. His prediction? More hybrid experiences of the Olympics where people have opportunities to be there, immersed with digital information to enhance that experience. He notes that the movement is toward visuals, and that will continue to grow.

The internet was very text-based 25-30 years ago, very text-based. From there, picture sharing has become more prominent and people are trying to use fewer words and more pictures and more images. From there, I think were seeing more videos nowmore streaming content now. And from there, I think were going to see more immersive content where its a hybrid space.

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The Impact and Role of Social Media at the Olympics | Public Engagement - University of Michigan News