iWork: Apple announced an update to its iWork productivity suite across iPhone, iPad, and Mac that allows for real-time collaboration within Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.
Although there weren’t drastic changes made to the physical design of the iPhone (minus that old thing called a headphone jack), Apple’s unveiling of a dual-lens camera points to a world where millions of consumers could one day put a powerful augmented reality device in their pocket.
A brief demonstration of the game was featured on-stage. The watch edition of the game will place a bigger focus on player fitness, tracking the calories you burn in play sessions along with distance.
Virtual reality: The hype, the problems and the promise — from bbc.com by Tim Maughan It’s the technology that is supposed to be 2016’s big thing, but what iteration of VR will actually catch on, and what’s just a fad? Tim Maughan takes an in-depth look.
Excerpt:
For Zec this is one of VR’s most promising potentials – to be able to drop audiences into a situation and force them to react emotionally, in ways that traditional filmmaking or journalism might struggle to do. “We really cannot understand what the people [in Syria and other places] right now are going through, so I thought maybe if we put the viewer inside the shoes of the family, or near them, maybe they can feel more and understand more rather than just reading a headline in a newspaper.”
The aim of Blackout is to challenge assumptions New Yorkers might have about the people around them, by allowing them to tap directly into their thoughts. “You’re given the ability to pick into people’s minds and their motives,” says co-creator Alex Porter. “Through that process you start to realise the ways in which you were wrong about all the people around you, and start to find these kind of exciting stories that they have to tell.”
From DSC: Virtual Reality could have a significant impact in diversity training. (I don’t like the word diversity too much; as in my experience, everybody in the Fortune 5oo companies where I worked belonged in the realm of diversity except for Christians, but I’ll use it here anyway.)
The point is…when you can put yourself into someone else’s shoes, it could have some positive impact in terms of better being able to relate to what that person is going through.
What if there was a new way to start this journey? What if you walked into the room and boarded a starship instead? What would a school experience be like if we sent our students on a mission, joining a global team to learn and solve our world’s most pressing problems? What if they met in Virtual Reality? For example, literally experiencing the streets of Paris if they were studying French culture or urban planning. Examining first hand the geology of volcanoes or building the next generation transportation? What would happen if they are given a problem they could not answer on their own, a problem that requires collaboration and teamwork with colleagues to find a solution?
Here is how VR and AI can empower the future of learning. The Star Trek: Bridge Crew VR Game gives us a glimpse of how we can engage with our students. Or, as Levar Burton (Geordi La Forge from Engineering) in the video trailer puts it:
There is something different being in a shared virtual environment . . . The team does not succeed unless everybody does their job well.
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In the true spirit of Star Trek it is through cooperation rather than competition that we learn best. In VR, you can sit on any of the crew chairs and be the captain, engineer, or doctor and experience events from very different point of views. In Star Trek: Bridge Crew, you are flying the ship but have to work collaboratively with your team. You have to work with your crew to reach goals and accomplish the mission as this is virtual reality as a social experience. It demands that you be fully engaged.
Think “virtual reality,” and it’s probably video gaming that comes to mind. CSU is looking to expand the breadth and depth of this emerging technical field with a campus-wide Virtual Reality Initiative, launching this semester.
The initiative will give students and the science community hands-on experience with virtual reality, for research and educational applications.
Virtual reality (VR) is a way of experiencing virtual worlds or objects – the cockpit of a spaceship, an anatomy lesson, a walk through a historical building – through devices like computers, goggles or headsets designed to immerse someone in a simulated environment. VR touches fields ranging from design to art to engineering.
In case you haven’t heard, there is a lot of hype right now about virtual and augmented reality. Three months into 2016, investors have already spent 1.1 billion dollars to get a piece of the action.
Still, I am confident that virtual reality will revolutionize how we learn, and the reason is simple. Virtual reality is not just a technology, it’s a medium. And I’ve seen how powerful that medium can be.
A Chinese surgeon has discovered a practical application for augmented reality in the medical field. Using the same technology by which a Pokemon character is layered onto a real-life setting, two surgical images can be combined into a single view, eliminating the need for surgeons to watch two separate screens simultaneously.
Catherine Chan Po-ling, a surgeon in Hong Kong and co-founder of MedEXO Robotics, says that the use of augmented reality technology in keyhole, or minimally invasive, surgery can solve one of the biggest problems for surgeons performing these procedures.
Currently, surgeons in keyhole procedures must create and view two images simultaneously. In Chan’s example, when checking for cancerous cells in the liver, the surgeon operates a regular camera showing a view of the surface of the liver, and at the same time operates an ultrasound probe to check beneath the surface of the liver.
Given the explosion of interest in virtual reality among media organizations, we sought in January to establish best practices and ideal scenarios for using the technology in storytelling through our inaugural immersive journalism class at Stanford University.
During the 10-week course, 12 undergraduate and graduate students evaluated a range of virtual reality experiences published by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC News and others. We compared commercially available virtual reality headsets (Google Cardboard, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear/VR and Oculus Rift) for ease and quality as well as virtual reality cameras — the (more expensive but expansive) GoPro and the (more affordable) Ricoh Theta S.
Virtual reality used to be the thing of science fiction books and movies. Now, it’s inexpensive, works with the technology we carry in our pockets, and can transform us to real and imaginary places.
The first truly awesome chatbot is a talking T. Rex — from fastcodesign.com by John Brownlee National Geographic uses a virtual Tyrannosaur to teach kids about dinosaurs—and succeeds where other chatbots fail.
Excerpt:
As some have declared chatbots to be the “next webpage,” brands have scrambled to develop their own talkative bots, letting you do everything from order a pizza to rewrite your resume. The truth is, though, that a lot of these chatbots are actually quite stupid, and tend to have a hard time understanding natural human language. Sooner or later, users get frustrated bashing their heads up against the wall of a dim-witted bot’s AI.
So how do you design around a chatbot’s walnut-sized brain? If you’re National Geographic Kids UK, you set your chatbot to the task of pretending to be a Tyrannosaurus rex, a Cretaceous-era apex predator that really had a walnut-sized brain (at least comparatively speaking).
She’s called Tina the T. rex, and by making it fun to learn about dinosaurs, she suggests that education — rather than advertising or shopping — might be the real calling of chatbots.
Here are the ten technologies comprising the 2016 list, along with the reason cited by the WEF for their selection:
Nanosensors and the Internet of Nanothings — “With the Internet of Things expected to comprise 30 billion connected devices by 2020, one of the most exciting areas of focus today is now on nanosensors capable of circulating in the human body or being embedded in construction materials.”
Next-generation batteries— “One of the greatest obstacles holding renewable energy back is matching supply with demand, but recent advances in energy storage using sodium, aluminum, and zinc based batteries makes mini-grids feasible that can provide clean, reliable, around-the-clock energy sources to entire villages.”
The Blockchain — “With venture investment related to the online currency bitcoin exceeding $1 billion in 2015 alone, the economic and social impact of blockchain’s potential to fundamentally change the way markets and governments work is only now emerging.”
2-D materials — “Plummeting production costs mean that 2D materials like graphene are emerging in a wide range of applications, from air and water filters to new generations of wearables and batteries.”
Autonomous vehicles — “The potential of self-driving vehicles for saving lives, cutting pollution, boosting economies, and improving quality of life for the elderly and other segments of society has led to rapid deployment of key technology forerunners along the way to full autonomy.”
Organs-on-chips — “Miniature models of human organs could revolutionize medical research and drug discovery by allowing researchers to see biological mechanism behaviors in ways never before possible.”
Perovskite solar cells — “This new photovoltaic material offers three improvements over the classic silicon solar cell: it is easier to make, can be used virtually anywhere and, to date, keeps on generating power more efficiently.”
Open AI ecosystem — “Shared advances in natural language processing and social awareness algorithms, coupled with an unprecedented availability of data, will soon allow smart digital assistants to help with a vast range of tasks, from keeping track of one’s finances and health to advising on wardrobe choice.”
Optogenetics— “Recent developments mean light can now be delivered deeper into brain tissue, something that could lead to better treatment for people with brain disorders.”
Systems metabolic engineering — “Advances in synthetic biology, systems biology, and evolutionary engineering mean that the list of building block chemicals that can be manufactured better and more cheaply by using plants rather than fossil fuels is growing every year.”
Grush: Is there a signpost you might point to that would indicate that there’s going to be more product development in AR/VR/MR?
Christian: There’s a significant one. Several major players — with very deep pockets — within the corporate world are investing in new forms of HCI, including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, Magic Leap, and others. In fact, according to an article on engadget.com from 6/16/16, “Magic Leap has amassed an astounding $1.39 billion in funding without shipping an actual product.” So to me, it’s just not likely that the billions of dollars being invested in a variety of R&D-related efforts are simply going to evaporate without producing any impactful, concrete products or services. There are too many extremely smart, creative people working on these projects, and they have impressive financial backing behind their research and product development efforts. So, I think we can expect an array of new choices in AR/VR/MR.
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Just the other day I was talking to Jason VanHorn, an associate professor in our geology, geography, and environmental studies department. After finishing our discussion about a particular learning space and how we might implement active learning in it, we got to talking about mixed reality. He related his wonderful dreams of being able to view, manipulate, maneuver through, and interact with holographic displays of our planet Earth.
When I mentioned a video piece done by Case Western and the Cleveland Clinic that featured Microsoft’s Hololens technology, he knew exactly what I was referring to. But this time, instead of being able to drill down through the human body to review, explore, and learn about the various systems composing our human anatomy, he wanted to be able to drill down through the various layers of the planet Earth. He also wanted to be able to use gestures to maneuver and manipulate the globe — turning the globe to just the right spot before using a gesture to drill down to a particular place.
Gartner reveals the top 3 emerging technologies from 2016 — from information-age.com by Nicholas Ismail Technology is advancing at such a rapid rate that businesses are almost being forced to embrace emerging technologies in order to stay competitive
Excerpt:
Emerging technologies are fast becoming the tools with the highest priority for organisations facing rapidly accelerating digital business innovation.
Their selection was based on what technologies will have the most impact and lead to the most competitive advantage, while establishing when these big technologies are going to mature (early stage or saturating).
Gartner’s research director Mike Walker said the hype cycle specifically focuses on the set of technologies that are showing promise in delivering a high degree of competitive advantage over the next five to ten years.
Information Age spoke to Mike Walker to gain a further insight into these three technologies, and their future business applications.
Smart machine technologies will be the most disruptive class of technologies over the next 10 years, including smart robots, autonomous cars and smart workspaces
Imagination in the Augmented-Reality Age — from theatlantic.com by Georgia Perry
Pokémon Go may have reached the zenith of its popularity, but the game has far-reaching implications for the future of play.
Excerpt:
For young people today, however, it’s a different story. “They hardly play. If they do play it’s some TV script. Very prescribed,” Levin said. “Even if they have friends over, it’s often playing video games.”
That was before Pokémon Go, though.
The augmented-reality (AR) game that—since its release on July 6, attracted 21 million users and became one of the most successful mobile apps ever—has been praised for promoting exercise, facilitating social interactions, sparking new interest in local landmarks, and more. Education writers and experts have weighed in on its implications for teaching kids everything from social skills to geography to the point that such coverage has become cliché. And while it seems clear at this point that the game is a fad that has peaked—it’s been losing active players for over a week—one of the game’s biggest triumphs has, arguably, been the hope it’s generated about the future of play. While electronic games have traditionally caused kids to retreat to couches, here is one that did precisely the opposite.
What Pokémon Go is, however, is one of the first iterations of what will undeniably be many more AR games. If done right, some say the technology Go introduced to the world could bring back the kind of outdoor, creative, and social forms of play that used to be the mainstay of childhood. Augmented reality, it stands to reason, could revitalize the role of imagination in kids’ learning and development.
Soon, hundreds of millions of mobile users in China will have direct access to an augmented reality smartphone platform on their smartphones.
Baidu, China’s largest search engine, unveiled an AR platform today called DuSee that will allow China’s mobile users the opportunity to test out smartphone augmented reality on their existing devices. The company also detailed that they plan to integrate the technology directly into their flagship apps, including the highly popular Mobile Baidu search app.
From DSC: With “a billion iOS devices out in the world“, I’d say that’s a good, safe call…at least for one of the avenues/approaches via which AR will be offered.
Recently it’s appeared that augmented reality (AR) is gaining popularity as a professional platform, with Visa testing it as a brand new e-commerce solution and engineering giant Aecom piloting a project that will see the technology used in their construction projects across three continents. Now, it’s academia’s turn with Deakin University in Australia announcing that it plans to use the technology as a teaching tool in its medicine and engineering classrooms.
As reported by ITNews, AR technology will be introduced to Deakin University’s classes from December, with the first AR apps to be used during the university’s summer programme which runs from November to March, before the technology is distributed more widely in the first semester of 2017.
Creating realistic interactions with objects and people in virtual reality is one of the industry’s biggest challenges right now, but what about for augmented reality?
That’s an area that researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have recently made strides in with what they call Interactive Dynamic Video (IDV). First designed with video in mind, PhD student Abe Davis has created a unique concept that could represent a way to not only interact with on-screen objects, but for those objects to also realistically react to the world around them.
If that sounds a little confusing, then we recommend taking a look at…
Venice Architecture Biennale 2016: augmented reality will revolutionise the architecture and construction industries according to architect Greg Lynn, who used Microsoft HoloLens to design his contribution to the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (+ movie).
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Augmented Reality In Healthcare Will Be Revolutionary — from medicalfuturist.com Augmented reality is one of the most promising digital technologies at present – look at the success of Pokémon Go – and it has the potential to change healthcare and everyday medicine completely for physicians and patients alike.
Excerpt:
Nurses can find veins easier with augmented reality The start-up company AccuVein is using AR technology to make both nurses’ and patients’ lives easier. AccuVein’s marketing specialist, Vinny Luciano said 40% of IVs (intravenous injections) miss the vein on the first stick, with the numbers getting worse for children and the elderly. AccuVein uses augmented reality by using a handheld scanner that projects over skin and shows nurses and doctors where veins are in the patients’ bodies. Luciano estimates that it’s been used on more than 10 million patients, making finding a vein on the first stick 3.5x more likely. Such technologies could assist healthcare professionals and extend their skills.
But even with a wealth of hardware partners over the years, Urbach says he’d never tried a pair of consumer VR glasses that could effectively trick his brain until he began working with Osterhout Design Group (ODG).
ODG has previously made military night-vision goggles, and enterprise-focused glasses that overlay digital objects onto the real world. But now the company is partnering with OTOY, and will break into the consumer AR/VR market with a model of glasses codenamed “Project Horizon.”
The glasses work by using a pair of micro OLED displays to reflect images into your eyes at 120 frames-per-second. And the quality blew Urbach away, he tells Business Insider.
You could overlay images onto the real world in a way that didn’t appear “ghost-like.” We have the ability to do true opacity matching,” he says.
Live streaming VR events continue to make the news. First, it was the amazing Reggie Watts performance on AltspaceVR. Now the startup Rivet has launched an iOS app (sorry, Android still to come) for live streams of concerts. As the musician, record producer and visual artist Brian Eno once said,
You can’t really imagine music without technology.
In the near future, we may not be able to imagine a live performance without the option of a live stream in virtual reality.
While statistics on VR use in K-12 schools and colleges have yet to be gathered, the steady growth of the market is reflected in the surge of companies (including zSpace, Alchemy VRand Immersive VR Education) solely dedicated to providing schools with packaged educational curriculum and content, teacher training and technological tools to support VR-based instruction in the classroom. Myriad articles, studies and conference presentations attest to the great success of 3D immersion and VR technology in hundreds of classrooms in educationally progressive schools and learning labs in the U.S. and Europe.
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Much of this early foray into VR-based learning has centered on the hard sciences — biology, anatomy, geology and astronomy — as the curricular focus and learning opportunities are notably enriched through interaction with dimensional objects, animals and environments. The World of Comenius project, a biology lesson at a school in the Czech Republic that employed a Leap Motion controller and specially adapted Oculus Rift DK2 headsets, stands as an exemplary model of innovative scientific learning.
In other areas of education, many classes have used VR tools to collaboratively construct architectural models, recreations of historic or natural sites and other spatial renderings. Instructors also have used VR technology to engage students in topics related to literature, history and economics by offering a deeply immersive sense of place and time, whether historic or evolving.
“Perhaps the most utopian application of this technology will be seen in terms of bridging cultures and fostering understanding among young students.”
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A new wave of compute technology -fueled by; big data analytics, the internet of things, augmented reality and so on- will change the way we live and work to be more immersive and natural with technology in the role as partner.
We haven’t even scratched the surface of the things technology can do to further human progress. Education is the next major frontier. We already have PC- and smartphone-enabled students, as well as tech-enabled classrooms, but the real breakthrough will be in personalized learning.
Every educator divides his or her time between teaching and interacting. In lectures they have to choose between teaching to the smartest kid in the class or the weakest. Efficiency (and reality) dictates that they must teach to the theoretical median, meaning some students will be bored and some will still struggle. What if a digital assistant could step in to personalize the learning experience for each student, accelerating the curriculum for the advanced students and providing greater extra support for those that need more help? The digital assistant could “sense” and “learn” that Student #1 has already mastered a particular subject and “assign” more advanced materials. And it could provide additional work to Student #2 to ensure that he or she was ready for the next subject. Self-paced learning to supplant and support classroom learning…that’s the next big advancement.
Business will be a leading use case for AR over the next several years. An example is DHL’s use of wearables and AR in a warehouse pilot program to achieve improvement in the picking process. Other AR apps allow for automatic sign translation, or in a hands-busy environment, technicians can get equipment maintenance instructions through their HMDs while keeping focused on the task at hand.
“Virtual reality (VR) and AR capabilities will merge with the digital mesh to form a more seamless system of devices capable of orchestrating a flow of information that comes to the user as hyperpersonalized and relevant apps and services,” said Mr. Blau. “Integration across multiple mobile, wearable, IoT and sensor-rich environments (the digital mesh) will extend immersive applications beyond isolated and single-person experiences. Rooms and spaces will become active with things, and their connection through the mesh will appear and work in conjunction with immersive virtual worlds. “
From DSC: I would add those working in higher education to this as well — as well as vendors working on education-related solutions.
Consumer computing platform changes aren’t straight lines, they’re waves. PC, internet and mobile were the first 3 waves, and each was faster, larger and more disruptive than the last. Now the fourth wave of virtual, augmented and mixed reality is bearing down on us, so let’s dive in. The water’s fine.
From DSC: As you might suppose, waves are best experienced when riding on top of one — versus getting crushed by one or having to try to swim after a wave once it’s passed you by. Though much of this wave is forthcoming, the point in posting this now is to encourage us to put these Human Computer Interaction (HCI)-related changes on our radars…or, to go with the former analogy, to encourage us to grab our surfboards!
From DSC: I postedan item yesterday warning parents of the potential dangers of Pokémon Go. But I don’t want to leave it at that. I’m generally pro-technology and there are many solid, good, positive reasons for using most technologies. So I also want to post some other, more positive items showing the enormous success of this augmented reality (AR)-based app.
But let’s end with some larger implications for learning, particularly organizational learning.
New hire training: tour facilities with augmented reality or virtual reality. Meet key folks in the organization. See behind the scenes production, or visit HQ virtually.
Skill refinement: once the basics have been taught, present ongoing practice scenarios. Could be internal, customer-facing, or software/equipment training.
Product training: provide the ability to interact with multiple customers and see how the product benefits them differently.
Application in context: how do you navigate a real-life complex environment effectively? Think busy retail, insurance adjusters, combat/disaster zones, crime scenes, etc.
Just in time geographically relevant support: have a question in context? What if an app let you access training and tips relevant to where you are?
Augmented reality game Pokemon Go has inadvertently led users down disturbing paths less than a week after its launch.
On July 8, a teenager in Wyoming was hunting for a Pokemon on a riverbank, but discovered a man’s corpse instead. Police have said the death “appears to be accidental” and the teenager, 19-year-old Shayla Wiggens, told CNN that she’ll continue to hunt for water Pokemon.
Two days later, on July 10, robbers reportedly used Pokemon Go to lure victims to a remote area and rob them at gunpoint.
Police in O’Fallon, Missouri, responded to a report of an armed robbery at 2am, according to an update on the police department’s Facebook page. Having found the suspects and their handgun, the police linked the suspects to a series of earlier robberies which they believe all used Pokemon Go to lure players into their trap.
The smartphone game, which lets players hunt for virtual items in the real world, allows players to meet up and form teams.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are new technologies which have been making all kinds of waves recently; but VR and AR are not only going to be used for gaming, several companies are exploring applications for VR and AR to be used in education. Around 90% of what we see and do is retained, which is something that has always been missing from education; students do not retain as much information if they are just reading a textbook compared to having more real applications of what they’re learning. Which is why VR and AR in education are so beneficial; these technologies engage students in a completely new way which is more fun and engaging for them, and it increases retention. Several companies are currently working on innovations in this space; and the work we’ve seen so far is surely a good sign of things to come.
Creating high-quality online courses is getting increasingly complex—requiring an ever-growing set of skills. Faculty members can’t do it all, nor can instructional designers, nor can anyone else. As time goes by, new entrants and alternatives to traditional institutions of higher education will likely continue to appear on the higher education landscape—the ability to compete will be key.
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For example, will there be a need for the following team members in your not-too-distant future?
Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Specialists: those with knowledge of how to leverage Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) in order to create fun and engaging learning experiences (while still meeting the learning objectives)
