From DSC:
After reviewing the two items below, I think you will agree that there is great potential in the future of virtual reality — and the new affordances it will bring with it. For example, if we use it wisely, virtual reality could help us raise cultural intelligence, promote empathy, and reduce racism.


How might virtual reality change the world? Stanford lab peers into future — from CBS News by Ines Novacic

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Beyond playing entertaining tricks on people’s perceptions, VR has the potential to promote a better understanding of what it’s like to be someone else – a refugee in a war zone, for example. Studying the effects of those uses, and the psychological effects of VR use in general, has always been the main focus of the lab. Bailenson listed how several of his studies that focused on empathy – for example, making someone visually impaired through VR– yielded results that demonstrated the VR experience made participants more altruistic in real life.

“The idea is, I truly believe VR is a good tool to teach you about yourself and to teach you empathy,” said Bailenson. “We want to know how robust that effect is, how long-lasting, because I can see this becoming a tool we all use.”

 

Also see:

 

 


A somewhat related posting:

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Fusing art, culture, and retail with virtual reality, augmented reality, and themed architecture and design, each complex will include an interactive museum, a virtual zoo and aquarium, a digital art gallery, a live entertainment stage, an immersive movie theater, and themed experience retail.

“With virtual reality we can put you in the African savannah or fly you into outer space,” Christopher says. “This completely changes the idea of an old-fashioned museum by allowing kids to experience prehistoric dinosaurs or legendary creatures as we develop new experiences that keep them coming back for more. We’ll combine education and entertainment into one destination that’s always evolving.”

 

An AR-related posting:

From DSC:
This is very sharp Human Computer Interaction (HCI)!  This should unleash some serious creativity. Microsoft is bringing Minecraft to Augmented Reality. Check out this clip!

 

 

 

Do you see what I see? Smart glasses, VR, and telepresence robots — from arstechnica.com by Megan Geuss
Heightened reality will hit industry and gaming before it changes anyone’s day-to-day.

 

 

 

Oculus VR unveils the version of Oculus Rift you’ll actually buy — from mashable.com by JP Mangalindan

Excerpt:

Oculus VR finally debuted the long-awaited consumer version of Oculus Rift, the virtual reality headset, at a media event in San Francisco on Thursday [6/11/15].

“For the first time we’ll finally be on the inside of the game,” Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe said onstage. “Gamers have been dreaming of this. We’ve all been dreaming of this for decades.”

Oculus Touch

 

 

Virtual reality apps market set to explode — from netguide.co.nz by

Excerpt:

Augmented Reality (AR) apps in the mobile games market will generate 420 million downloads annually by 2019, up from 30 million in 2014, according to Juniper Research’s research titled Augmented Reality: Consumer, Enterprise and Vehicles 2015-2019.

The emergence of Head Mounted Devices (HMDs) used in the home, such as Microsoft’s Hololens, will bring a surge in interest for AR games over the next five years, according to Juniper.

For the time being however, most AR downloads will occur via smartphones and tablets.

 

 

What the Surreal Vision acquisition means for Oculus — from fortune.com by  John Gaudiosi
Oculus now has the technology to blend augmented reality with virtual reality.

Excerpt:

Oculus VR last week acquired Surreal Vision, a company creating real-time 3D scene reconstruction technology that will allow users to move around the room and interact with real-world objects while immersed in VR.

 

 

Microsoft pulls back curtain on Surface hub collaboration screen — from by Shira Ovide

Excerpt:

Microsoft announced on Wednesday [6/10/15] the price tag for a piece of audio-visual equipment that it first showed off in January. Surface Hub, which will cost up to $20,000 for a model with an 84-inch screen, is like the merger of a high-end video conference system, electronic whiteboard and Xbox.

The product plunges Microsoft headlong into competition with Cisco and other traditional providers of conference room audio-visual systems.

Microsoft is pitching Surface Hub as the best audio-video conference
equipment and collaboration tool a company can buy. It costs up to $20,000.
[From DSC: There will also be a $7,000, 55-inch version].

 

 

Bluescape launches new hardware program with MultiTaction, Planar Systems, and 3M — from Bluescape
Bluescape Showcases MultiTaction’s and Planar’s Interactive Displays Running Its Visual Collaboration Software at Booth #1690 at InfoComm 2015

Excerpt:

SAN CARLOS, CA–(Jun 15, 2015) – Bluescape, a persistent cloud-based platform for real-time visual collaboration, today announced the new Bluescape Hardware Program. Companies in the program offer hardware that complements the Bluescape experience and has been extensively tested and validated to work well with Bluescape’s platform. As collaboration spans across an entire enterprise, Bluescape strives to support a range of hardware options to allow an organization’s choice in hardware to fit different workspaces. The first three companies are market-leading interactive display vendors MultiTaction, Planar, and 3M.

MultiTaction, a leading developer of interactive display systems, offers advanced tracking performance that identifies fingers, hands, objects, 2D bar codes and IR pens. The unparalleled responsiveness of MultiTaction’s systems scales to an unlimited number of concurrent users and the displays are highly customizable to fit any existing corporate space. MultiTaction’s advanced interactive hardware combined with Bluescape’s software allows teams to connect content and people in one place, enabling deeper insights, meaningful innovation, and simultaneous collaboration across global time zones.

 

BlueScape-2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

GoPro goes 360-degrees with new VR array — from zdnet.com by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
Summary: Think that having one GoPro camera attached to your car, helmet or skateboard is cool. How about an array of 16 GoPros that can capture 3D video?

001.jpg

 

 

StereoLabs announces huge hardware breakthrough: Human vision — from zdnet.com by Greg Nichols
Summary: Earlier this month, a Bay Area startup called ?StereoLabs quietly introduced the first affordable high definition stereo camera. This is a big deal, and autonomous machines will never be the same. Here’s why.

 

zed-3d-scanner-in-hands.jpg

 

 

Expeditions – Google Offers Immersive Learning — from digitalbodies.net

Excerpt:

Immersive learning is about to get a lot more real this fall with Expeditions – the new Google tool which will allow teachers to take students on virtual trips using the Google Cardboard viewer. Google reported that over 1 million devices are already in the hands of users from all ages. According to the announcement:

From the Expeditions app on their tablet, a teacher is able to send synchronized three-dimensional 360° panoramas to each student’s Cardboard viewer, pointing out areas of interest in real time and instantly pausing the trip when needed.

Expeditions will work to combine three things: a software platform, immersive virtual reality content and Android and iOS devices.

 

 

World 1st Holographic Patient-Based Augmented Reality Surgical Navigation — from youtube.com as posted by Maki Sugimoto

.

 

HolographicSurgery-Spring2015

 

 

 

MIT’s Humanoid Robot Goes to Robo Boot Camp — from wired.com

 

 

Top Emerging Technologies – The Internet Of DNA Or Human Beings — from wtvox.com

 

 

New ‘deep learning’ technique enables robot mastery of skills via trial and error — from newscenter.berkeley.edu by Sarah Yang

Excerpt:

BERKELEY — UC Berkeley researchers have developed algorithms that enable robots to learn motor tasks through trial and error using a process that more closely approximates the way humans learn, marking a major milestone in the field of artificial intelligence. They demonstrated their technique, a type of reinforcement learning, by having a robot complete various tasks — putting a clothes hanger on a rack, assembling a toy plane, screwing a cap on a water bottle, and more — without pre-programmed details about its surroundings.

 

 

And for some upcoming innovations:

 

 

 

Addendum on 6/1/15:

 

Work time pie chart with TouchJet touchscreen

 

From DSC:
Someone in your organization needs to be getting up to speed on sensors and machine-to-machine communications — and looking for potential applications.  This goes for schools, colleges, universities, and corporate training departments as well. Already such technologies are being applied within museums, art galleries, and for self-guided tours.

Is that student, teacher, professor, or trainer not around to talk about their poster, project, or artwork hanging in the hallway?  Why not use an app like Locly along with Estimote beacons to allows visitors to hear what they had in mind?


 

The Hitchhikers Guide to iBeacon Hardware: A Comprehensive Report by Aislelabs (2015) — from aislelabs.com

Excerpt:

In this report we examine 26 different iBeacon hardware vendors, including Estimote, Kontakt, and Gimbal. Over the past nine months, we have stress tested the beacons under many conditions examining every aspect of them. This is the most comprehensive report of its kind, covering every major beacon manufacturer, and providing an independent benchmark of each.

 

HitchhikersGuideToiBeaconHW-May2015

 

 

 

 Addendum on 5/6/15:

 

 

Here’s how you build an augmented reality game for HoloLens — from theverge.com by Adi Robertson

Excerpt:

Programming a hologram sounds like something that should be done with some kind of special cybergloves on a computer the size of a ‘60s IBM mainframe. But at Build 2015, Microsoft has been quietly taking developers through the “Holographic Academy,” a 90-minute training session that teaches them the basics of building projects for its HoloLens augmented reality headset. I’m not a developer, but Microsoft let me and some other journalists go through it as well — and it turns out that basic hologram creation is, if not exactly straightforward, at least pretty understandable.

 

From DSC:
Will designing learning-related games for augmented reality and virtual reality become an area of specialty within Instructional Design? Within Programming/Computer Studies-related programs? Within Human Computer Interface design programs or User Experience Design programs?  Will we need a team-based approach to deliver such products and services?

I wonder how one would go about getting trained in this area in the future if you wanted to create games for education or for the corporate training/L&D world? Will institutions of higher education respond to this sort of emerging opportunity or will we leave it up to the bootcamps/etc. to offer?

 

 

Also see:

 

P90178908_highRes

 

 

Also see:

  • New Demo of Microsoft HoloLens Unveils the Future of Holographic Computing — from seriouswonder.com by B.J. Murphy
    Excerpt:
    What happens when you combine holographic technology with augmented reality and the Internet of Things (IoT)? Well, it would appear that you’ll soon be getting a hands-on experience of just that, all thanks to the Microsoft HoloLens. At the Build Developers Conference, Microsoft had unveiled the HoloLens and shocked the world on just how far we’ve come in developing legitimate, functional augmented reality and holographic computing.

 

future-hololens

 

FinallyAdoptHTML5

 

7 powerful reminders to finally adopt HTML5 in corporate eLearning  — from elearningindustry.com by Alfredo Leone

Excerpt:

Mobility, ubiquity and portability are key requirements for any type of learning as the market fully embraces to the demand of learners to access knowledge when and where is needed. Learners today expect access to relevant and useful information on various types of mobile devices connected via networks of ever cheaper and faster bandwidth.

This trend toward multi-device and multi-access learning is solidifying day after day, making responsive content design one of the most critical components of any production process for online training material. The premise today is for learning to “follow” the person and not the other way around.

In this dynamic online learning scenario, HTML5 is finally going mainstream as the leading technology to structure and present learning content online. Here are some powerful reasons to adopt HTML5 today even when legacy constrains seem to favor a “wait and see” approach:

 

 

———–

 

Also see:

2015 Business eLearning Trends Infographic — from elearninginfographics.com

 

Addendum on 4/28/15:

How soon is now for the mobile web? — from visionmobile.com by Matt Asay

Excerpt:

That’s one primary takeaway from VisionMobile’s “How Can HTML5 Compete With Native?” report. As report author Dimitris Michalakos concludes, “The question is no longer *whether* HTML5 can produce quality apps, but *how* easy it is to create quality web apps.” Given that “HTML5 is like driving a car without a dashboard,” the key is to deliver better dashboards, or tools, to make it easier to build great web apps.

 

 

What does ‘learning’ have to learn from Netflix? — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark

Excerpts:

Of course, young people are watching way less TV these days, TV is dying, and when they do watch stuff, it’s streamed, at a time that suits them. Education has to learn from this. I’m not saying that we need to replace all of our existing structures but moving towards understanding what the technology can deliver and what learners want (they shape each other) is worth investigation. Hence some reflections on Netflix.

Areas discussed:

  • Timeshifting
  • Data driven delivery — Netflix’ recommendations engine
  • Data driven content
  • Content that’s accessible via multiple kinds of devices
  • Going global

 

From DSC:
I just wanted to add a few thoughts here:

  1. The areas of micro-credentials, nano-degrees, services like stackup.net, big data, etc. may come to play a role with what Donald is talking about here.
  2. I appreciate Donald’s solid, insightful perspectives and his thinking out loud — some great thoughts in that posting (as usual)
  3. Various technologies seem to be making progress as we move towards a future where learning platforms will be able to deliver a personalized learning experience; as digital learning playlists and educationally-related recommendation engines become more available/sophisticated, highly-customized learning experiences should be within reach.
  4. At a recent Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference, one of the speakers stated, “People are control freaks — so let them have more control.”  Along these lines…ultimately, what makes this vision powerful is having more choice, more control.

 

 

MoreChoiceMoreControl-DSC

 

 

 

Also, some other graphics come to my mind:

 

MakingTVMorePersonal-V-NetTV-April2014

 

EducationServiceOfTheFutureApril2014

 

 

 

NHL-VirtualReality-WatchFromAnySeat-3-14-15

Excerpt:

AUSTIN, TX – Virtual reality is featured prominently at South By Southwest Sports this year, from using it to better train athletes with Oculus Rift to how it could transform the fan experience watching basketball, football and hockey at home.

The NHL had its first successful test of a 360-degree virtual reality experience at its Stadium Series game between the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings last month, mounting cameras around the glass that filmed HD images in the round.

 

 

NBA-VirtualReality-WatchFromAnySeat-3-14-15

Excerpt:

When basketball lovers aren’t able to trek to stadiums near and far to follow their favorite teams, it’s possible that watching games on a bar’s widescreen TV from behind bowls of wings is the next best thing. This may no longer be true, however, as a wave of court-side, 3D virtual game experiences is becoming available to superfans with Oculus gear.

Earlier this month, NextVR showed off its new enhanced spectator experiences at the 2015 NBA All-Star Technology Summit with virtual reality (VR) footage of an October 2014 Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers match-up in Rio de Janeiro. The NBA also already announced plans to record VR sessions of the NBA All-Star Game, the Foot Locker Three-Point Contest, and the Sprite Slam Dunk event and practice.

 

NEXTVR-March2015

 

 

OculusRift-InSportsSXSW-2015

 

 

 

From DSC:
In the future, will you be able to “pull up a seat” at any lecture — throughout the globe — that you want to?

 

 



 

Alternatively, another experiment might relate to second screening lectures — i.e., listening to the lecture on the main/large screen — in your home or office — and employing social-based learning/networking going on via a mobile device.

Consider this article:

TV-friendly social network Twitter is testing a new Social TV service on iPhones which provides users with content and interaction about only one TV show at a time.

The aim is to give users significantly better engagement with their favourite shows than they presently experience when they follow a live broadcast via a Twitter hashtag.

This radical innovation in Social TV design effectively curates just relevant content (screening out irrelevant tweets that use a show’s hashtag) and presents it in an easy-to-use interface.

If successful, the TV Timeline feature will better position Twitter as it competes with Facebook to partner with the television industry and tap advertising revenue related to TV programming.

 

Cognitoy-ElementalPath-March2015
CognitoyFramed-March2015

 

 

From DSC:
Given the above…what are the ramifications of that in our/your work?

 

 

Also see:

 

 

A related addendum on 3/11/15
Look at the different expectations of the generations found in this article:

 

A related addendum on 3/17/15:

Excerpt:
The overall goal for DragonBot (which, as far as I can tell, is a common platform used for many different projects) is to develop “personalized learning companions” for children. In other words, MIT is finding ways in which robots like DragonBot can effectively help kids learn.

DragonBot isn’t intended to work like that IBM Watson-based dinosaur robot; it’s not a primary source of knowledge, and it’s not actively teaching a whole bunch of new facts to kids who use it. Rather, DragonBot is intended to help with the process of learning itself, encouraging kids to be interactively engaged in whatever they happen to be learning about.

 

 

AppleWatch-3-9-15

 

 

AppleResearchKit-3-9-15

 

 

Also see:

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision2015

 

Example snapshots from
Microsoft’s Productivity Future Vision

 

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision2-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision3-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision5-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision6-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision7-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision8-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision4-2015

 

 

 

My thanks to Mary Grush at Campus Technology for her continued work in bringing relevant topics and discussions to light — so that our institutions of higher education will continue delivering on their missions well into the future. By doing so, learners will be able to continue to partake of the benefits of attending such institutions. But in order to do so, we must adapt, be responsive, and be willing to experiment. Towards that end, this Q&A with Mary relays some of my thoughts on the need to move more towards a team-based approach.

When you think about it, we need teams whether we’re talking about online learning, hybrid learning or face-to-face learning. In fact, I just came back from an excellent Next Generation Learning Space Conference and it was never so evident to me that you need a team of specialists to design the Next Generation Learning Space and to design/implement pedagogies that take advantage of the new affordances being offered by active learning environments.

 

DanielSChristian-CampusTechologyMagazine-2-24-15

 

DanielSChristian-CampusTechologyMagazine2-2-24-15

 

 

 

MITTechReview-10Breakthroughs-2015

 

 

Excerpt:

Not all breakthroughs are created equal. Some arrive more or less as usable things; others mainly set the stage for innovations that emerge later, and we have to estimate when that will be. But we’d bet that every one of the milestones on this list will be worth following in the coming years.

 

 

MITTechReview-2015-magic-leap

 

 

 

Designing the Future of Augmented Reality: slides from PechaKucha

 

HelenPapagiannis-3-Feb2015

 

Excerpted slides:

 

HelenPapagiannis-2-Feb2015

 

HelenPapagiannis-1-Feb2015

 

 

Also see:

 

40Ideas-Book-Feb2015

Excerpt from 40ideas.com

How will Augmented Reality extend human capacity and human imagination? The 40 Ideas That Will Change Reality documents the inventions, concepts, and opportunities that will forever change the way we experience reality. Eight of the 40 Ideas from the upcoming book are highlighted above.

 

 

 

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality: what’s the difference? — from augmentedstories.com by Helen Papagiannis

Excerpt:

AR and VR are often confused with each other, and used interchangeably in the media, but they are significantly different. Let’s break it down:

Augmented Reality (AR): real, physical world
Virtual Reality (VR): computer generated environment, artificial world

 

 

 

Reality Has Changed. Microsoft’s HoloLens and what you need to know about the next wave of Augmented Reality — from augmentedstories.com by Helen Papagiannis

Excerpt:

 

HoloLens appears to use a Virtual Retinal Display (VRD).

So, what’s VRD, you ask?

VRD mirrors how the human eye works. The back of the eye receives light and converts it into signals for your brain. Images are projected directly onto the retina with the back of the eye used as a screen effectively.

The result is a more true-to-life image than the ‘ghostly transparent superimposed representation’ (as Gizmodo reporter Sean Hollister describes) we’ve seen with AR eyewear before. Hollister details his experience of Microsoft’s prototype as “standing in a room filled with objects. Posters covering the walls. And yet somehow—without blocking my vision—the HoloLens was making those objects almost totally invisible.” He states, “Some of the very shiniest things in the room—the silver handle of a pitcher, if I recall correctly—managed to reflect enough light into my eyes to penetrate the illusion.”

 

 

 

Microsoft’s HoloLens

 

MicrosoftHoloLens-Feb2015
MicrosoftHoloLens2-Feb2015

MicrosoftHoloLens3-Feb2015

MicrosoftHoloLens4-Feb2015

 

Also see:

 

what-is-ar--augmented-blog--feb2015

 

 


An addendum on 2/17/15 — with thanks to Mr. Steven Chevalia for this resource which deals with immersive experiences:


 

mj-simulator-wired-feb-2015

 

 

 

From DSC:
Check out some of the functionality in these solutions. Then imagine if these solutions were in the size of an entire wall in a classroom or in a corporate L&D facility. Whew!

  • Some serious opportunities for collaboration would arise for remote learners –as well as those located in the face-to-face setting
  • What new affordances would be present for those teaching in K-12, higher ed, or trainers working within the training/learning and development fields? Conversations/discussions would be recorded — to be picked up at the next session. In the meantime, learners could review the discussions at their own pace.
  • What if all of this were possible in your future Smart/Connected TV?
  • I’m also talking here about a vendor that could offer solutions that K-12 systems and institutions of higher ed could afford; some of the solutions below have much of what I’m envisioning here, but are out of the price range. Or the product is multitouch and fairly large, but it doesn’t offer the collaborative features of some of the other products here.

 


 

mezzanine-feb-2015

 


 

Feb2015-AstecSenseTable-InteractiveDisplay

 

 


ideum-feb2015

 

ideumPresenter-feb2015

Ideum’s touch walls come close to what I’m talking about in this posting. If they could add some functionality for seeing/bringing in/collaborating with remote learners — as found in Mezzanine — then that would be great!

Also see:

 

Also see bluescape — but these excellent, innovative solutions are out of the price range for most K-12 and higher ed institutions:

 

bluescape-1-feb-2015

 
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