5 emerging tech trends impacting the enterprise — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpts:

Gartner’s Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle focuses specifically on new technologies (not previously highlighted in past Hype Cycles) that “show promise in delivering a high degree of competitive advantage over the next five to 10 years.” The five most impactful trends to watch this year are:

  1. Sensing and mobility.
  2. Augmented human.
  3. Postclassical compute and comms.
  4. Digital ecosystems.
  5. Advanced AI and analytics.
 

Is virtual reality the future of online learning? — from builtin.com by Stephen Gossett; with thanks to Dane Lancaster for his tweet on this (see below)
Education is driving the future of VR more than any other industry outside of gaming. Here’s why virtual reality gets such high marks for tutoring, STEM development, field trips and distance education.

 

 

 

A new immersive classroom uses AI and VR to teach Mandarin Chinese — from technologyreview.com by Karen Hao
Students will learn the language by ordering food or haggling with street vendors on a virtual Beijing street.

Excerpt:

Often the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in an environment where people speak it. The constant exposure, along with the pressure to communicate, helps you swiftly pick up and practice new vocabulary. But not everyone gets the opportunity to live or study abroad.

In a new collaboration with IBM Research, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), a university based in Troy, New York, now offers its students studying Chinese another option: a 360-degree virtual environment that teleports them to the busy streets of Beijing or a crowded Chinese restaurant. Students get to haggle with street vendors or order food, and the environment is equipped with different AI capabilities to respond to them in real time.

 

 

Bigscreen TV launches with 50+ channels of video content — from vrscout.com by Allison Hollender

Excerpts:

Bigscreen, an immersive social platform that allows you to access your computer in VR, aims to continue revolutionizing the TV viewing experience with Bigscreen TV — a VR streaming experience that opens up access to over 50 major television providers.


“With Bigscreen, users can watch a Netflix show or a Twitch stream in an IMAX-like virtual movie theater,” Bigscreen reports. This means users from around the world can gather together to watch big championship games or their favorite shows with their friends as though they are together on the same couch.

 

How might immersive techs like those found in BigScreen TV impact teaching and learning related experiences?

 

From DSC:
Interesting…how might technologies and vendors like Bigscreen TV impact learning-related experiences? Hmmm….time will tell.

 

The World’s First Full in VR Semester Course Taught by Survios CTO — from medium.com by Rahel Demant

Excerpt:

VR First is excited to announce its strategic partnership with Axon Park?—?the world’s first educational campus in VR. To kick things off, they are running a full semester course taught in VR. Launching this fall, the course will teach expert-level Unreal Engine VR development, taught remotely by Survios CTO and Co-Founder Alex Silkin with support from the Unreal Engine team.

To enable Axon Park’s commitment to diversity and inclusion through immersive education, VR First has signed a strategic partnership with Axon Park, an organization which maintains the largest network of VR lab enabled universities and science parks internationally. Together, Axon Park and VR First are announcing a needs-based scholarship program that will provide students with low cost or free access to VR hardware and resources through their partner network of 850 universities. With their expertise in VR/AR workforce education and regional tech cluster facilities, VR First is the international distribution partner for Axon Park training solutions to universities, businesses and governments.

 

 

Also see:

Axon Park -- in fall 2019, delivering the world’s first full in VR semester course

 

 

Law firms either keep up with tech or get left behind — from abajournal.com by Gabriel Teninbaum

Excerpts:

I spend a lot of time thinking about a version of that classic interview question where applicants are asked to envision their future. But, instead of thinking about my own future, I think of the legal profession’s future. If you haven’t done it, give it a try: What will legal work look like in 15 years?

There is a reason to think it’ll look very different from it does now. E-discovery software now does the work once handled by new associates. Legal process outsourcing (LPO) companies have pulled due diligence work, and much more, to offshore locations (and away from domestic midsize firms). LegalZoom—now valued at $2 billion—is drawing millions of consumers every year choosing to handle legal matters without local attorneys.

If your vision includes the idea that the biggest legal employers may someday not even be law firms, then you’re correct. It’s already happened: The largest private provider of legal services in the world today is no longer a multinational law firm. It’s Deloitte, the Big Four accounting firm. Looming super-technologies—like AI and blockchain—are somewhere on the horizon, with the potential to upend legal work in ways that some believe will be unprecedented.

 

Also see:

Students create immersive videos to enhance criminal justice courses — from news.psu.edu by Emma Gosalvez

Excerpt:

Immersive technologies such as 360-degree videos could revolutionize the future of forensic science, giving police and criminologists a tool to visualize different crime scenes and ultimately, become better investigators. Through a Berks Teaching & Learning Innovation Partnership Grant, Penn State Berks students in the course CRIMJ 210: Policing in America are learning to create 360-degree videos of crime-scene scenarios.

These videos are viewed by their peers in CRIMJ 100: Introduction to Criminal Justice to learn about topics such as self-defense, defense of others, and defense of property.

“The project transforms student learning on two levels: It allows students to engage in creative collaboration related to a course topic, and students get to ‘experience’ the scenarios presented by the 360-degree videos created by their peers,” said Mary Ann Mengel, an instructional multimedia designer for Penn State Berks’ Center for Learning & Teaching.

 

 

Augmented Reality In Healthcare Will Be Revolutionary — from medicalfuturist.com

Excerpts:

1) Augmented reality can save lives through showing defibrillators nearby
2) Google Glass might help new mothers struggling with breastfeeding
3) Patients can describe their symptoms better through augmented reality
4) Nurses can find veins easier with augmented reality

5) Motivating runners through zombies
6) Pharma companies can provide more innovative drug information
7) Augmented reality can assist surgeons in the OR
8) Google’s digital contact lens can transform how we look at the world

 

How is AI used in healthcare – 5 powerful real-world examples that show the latest advances — from forbes.com by Bernard Marr

Excerpts:

1) AI-assisted robotic surgery
2) Virtual nursing assistants
3) Aid clinical judgment or diagnosis
4) Workflow and administrative tasks
5) Image analysis

 

 

Summary: A Manager’s guide to Augmented Reality.  — from twnkls.com by Prof. Michael Porter

Excerpt:

The full read can be found at the bottom of this page. But we summarized for you the 4 key take-aways:

  1. AR enables a new information-delivery paradigm
  2. AR helps to visualize
  3. Instruct and guide
  4. Eight AR strategy starting questions

 

 

What’s so great about VR? Virtually everything — from virtuallyinspired.org

Excerpt:

No doubt about it. Virtual reality isn’t just for gamers and gadget geeks anymore. In fact, as the technology gets better and cheaper, VR is the wave of the future when it comes to creating a truly memorable and effective learning experience – and for good reason.

Multiple Learning Attributes. To begin with, it empowers us to create any number of safely immersive virtual learning environments that feel and respond much as they would in real life, as students engage and explore, interact with and manipulate objects within these worlds. Imagine teleporting your students to re-enact historic battles; explore outer space; or travel the inner workings of the human body. What’s more, using sophisticated controls, they can actually “practice” complex procedures like cardiac surgery, or master difficult concepts, such as the molecular properties of brain cells.

Likewise, VR gives new meaning to the term “field trip,” by enabling students to virtually experience first-hand some of the world’s great museums, natural wonders and notable landmarks. You can also embed 360-degree objects within the virtual classroom to support course content, much as Drexel University Online is doing after assembling its one-of-a-kind VRtifacts+ repository.   And you can use it to live-stream events, guest lectures and campus tours, in addition to hosting virtual community spaces where learners can meet and connect in a seemingly “real” environment.

 

 

The Modern Alternative Learning Resource: Time To Drop The Ban On Phones In Schools? — from vrfocus.com by Robert Currie
Robert Currie discusses the mobile phone’s role in education, and how thanks in part to AR and VR it should now be considered a top tool.

 

 

Benefits of Virtual Reality in Education — from invisible.toys

 

 

 

The AVR Platform and Classroom 3.0 Showcased at EduTECH Asia 2018 — from eonreality.com

Excerpt:

At EduTECH Asia 2018 this week in Singapore, EON Reality spent two full days speaking, promoting, and demonstrating the latest updates to the AVR Platform to the thousands of education and technology professionals in attendance.

With a focus on how the AVR Platform can best be used in the education world, EON Reality’s discussion, ‘Augmented and Virtual Reality in Education: The Shift to Classroom 3.0,’ highlighted Wednesday’s offerings with a full presentation and hands-on demos of the new tools in Creator AVR. Over the course of both days, visitors filled the EON Reality booth to get their own one-on-one experience of Creator AVR, Virtual Trainer, and the ways in which AR Assist can help out in the classroom.

The AVR Platform’s three products are the fundamental tools of EON Reality’s Classroom 3.0 vision for the Immersed Flipped Classrooms of the future. With Creator AVR — a SaaS-based learning and content creation solution — leading the way, the AVR Platform empowers Classroom 3.0 by providing teachers and educators of all types with the tools needed to create Augmented and Virtual Reality learning modules.

Bringing Asian educators from all over the continent together, EON Reality’s presence at EduTECH showed just how significantly Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality can elevate the overall educational experience going forward. After two full days of demonstrations, EON Reality introduced the AVR Platform to approximately 1500 teachers, school administration officials, and other decision-makers in Asia’s education industry.

As the AVR Platform expands to educational markets around the world, EON Reality’s revolutionary spin on traditional learning branches into new cultures and nations. With local Singaporean educational institutions like Temasek Polytechnic already onboard, the EduTECH Asia 2018 conference marked the continued spread of Classroom 3.0 and the AVR Platform on both a regional and global level.

 

 

Gartner: Immersive experiences among top tech trends for 2019 — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

IT analyst firm Gartner has named its top 10 trends for 2019, and the “immersive user experience” is on the list, alongside blockchain, quantum computing and seven other drivers influencing how we interact with the world. The annual trend list covers breakout tech with broad impact and tech that could reach a tipping point in the near future.

 

 

 
For museums, augmented reality is the next frontier — from wired.com by Arielle Pardes

Excerpt:

Mae Jemison, the first woman of color to go into space, stood in the center of the room and prepared to become digital. Around her, 106 cameras captured her image in 3-D, which would later render her as a life-sized hologram when viewed through a HoloLens headset.

Jemison was recording what would become the introduction for a new exhibit at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum, which opens tomorrow as part of the Smithsonian’s annual Museum Day. In the exhibit, visitors will wear HoloLens headsets and watch Jemison materialize before their eyes, taking them on a tour of the Space Shuttle Enterprise—and through space history. They’re invited to explore artifacts both physical (like the Enterprise) and digital (like a galaxy of AR stars) while Jemison introduces women throughout history who have made important contributions to space exploration.

Interactive museum exhibits like this are becoming more common as augmented reality tech becomes cheaper, lighter, and easier to create.

 

 

Oculus will livestream it’s 5th Connect Conference on Oculus venues — from vrscout.com by Kyle Melnick

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Using either an Oculus Go standalone device or a mobile Gear VR headset, users will be able to login to the Oculus Venues app and join other users for an immersive live stream of various developer keynotes and adrenaline-pumping esports competitions.

 

From DSC:
What are the ramifications of this for the future of webinars, teaching and learning, online learning, MOOCs and more…?

 

 

 

10 new AR features in iOS 12 for iPhone & iPad — from mobile-ar.reality.news by Justin Meyers

Excerpt:

Apple’s iOS 12 has finally landed. The big update appeared for everyone on Monday, Sept. 17, and hiding within are some pretty amazing augmented reality upgrades for iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. We’ve been playing with them ever since the iOS 12 beta launched in June, and here are the things we learned that you’ll want to know about.

For now, here’s everything AR-related that Apple has included in iOS 12. There are some new features aimed to please AR fanatics as well as hook those new to AR into finally getting with the program. But all of the new AR features rely on ARKit 2.0, the latest version of Apple’s augmented reality framework for iOS.

 

 

Berkeley College Faculty Test VR for Learning— from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

In a pilot program at Berkeley College, members of a Virtual Reality Faculty Interest Group tested the use of virtual reality to immerse students in a variety of learning experiences. During winter 2018, seven different instructors in nearly as many disciplines used inexpensive Google Cardboard headsets along with apps on smartphones to virtually place students in North Korea, a taxicab and other environments as part of their classwork.

Participants used free mobile applications such as Within, the New York Times VR, Discovery VR, Jaunt VR and YouTube VR. Their courses included critical writing, international business, business essentials, medical terminology, international banking, public speaking and crisis management.

 

 

 

 

The Mobile AR Leaders of 2018 — from next.reality.news

Excerpt:

This time last year, we were getting our first taste of what mobile app developers could do in augmented reality with Apple’s ARKit, and most people had never heard of Animojis. Google’s AR platform was still Tango. Snapchat had just introduced its World Lens AR experiences. Most mobile AR experiences existing in the wild were marker-based offerings from the likes of Blippar and Zappar, or generic Pokémon GO knock-offs.

In last year’s NR50, published before the introduction of ARKit, only two of the top 10 professionals worked directly with mobile AR, and Apple CEO Tim Cook was ranked number 26, based primarily on his forward-looking statements about AR.

This year, Cook comes in at number one, with five others categorized under mobile AR in the overall top 10 of the NR30.

What a difference a year makes.

In just 12 months, we’ve seen mobile AR grow at a breakneck pace. Since Apple launched its AR toolkit, users have downloaded more than 13 million ARKit apps from the App Store, not including existing apps updated with ARKit capabilities. Apple has already updated its platform and will introduce even more new features to the public with the release of ARKit 2.0 this fall. Last year’s iPhone X also introduced a depth-sensing camera and AR Animojis that captured the imaginations of its users.

 

 

The Weather Channel forecasts more augmented reality for its live broadcasts with Unreal Engine — from next.reality.news by Tommy Palladino

Excerpt:

Augmented reality made its live broadcast debut for The Weather Channel in 2015. The technology helps on-air talent at the network to explain the science behind weather phenomena and tell more immersive stories. Powered by Unreal Engine, The Future Group’s Frontier platform will enable The Weather Channel to be able to show even more realistic AR content, such as accurately rendered storms and detailed cityscapes, all in real time.

 

 

 

From DSC:
Imagine this type of thing in online-based learning, MOOCs, and/or even in blended learning based learning environments (i.e., in situations where learning materials are designed/created by teams of specialists). If that were the case, who needs to be trained to create these pieces? Will students be creating these types of pieces in the future? Hmmm….

 

 

Winners announced of the 2018 Journalism 360 Challenge — from vrfocus.com
The question of “How might we experiment with immersive storytelling to advance the field of journalism?” looks to be answered by 11 projects.

Excerpt:

The eleven winners were announced on 9/11/18 of a contest being held by the Google News Initiative, Knight Foundation and Online News Association. The 2018 Journalism 360 Challenge asked people the question “How might we experiment with immersive storytelling to advance the field of journalism?” and it generated over 400 responses.

 

 

 

 

 



 

Addendum:

Educause Explores Future of Extended Reality on Campus — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Among the findings:

  • VR makes people feel like they’re really there. The “intellectual and physiological reactions” to constructs and events in VR are the same — “and sometimes identical” — to a person’s reactions in the real world;
  • 3D technologies facilitate active and experiential learning. AR, for example, lets users interact with an object in ways that aren’t possible in the physical world — such as seeing through surfaces or viewing data about underlying objects. And with 3D printing, learners can create “physical objects that might otherwise exist only simulations”; and
  • Simulations allow for scaling up of “high-touch, high-cost learning experiences.” Students may be able to go through virtual lab activities, for instance, even when a physical lab isn’t available.

Common challenges included implementation learning curves, instructional design, data storage of 3D images and effective cross-departmental collaboration.

“One significant result from this research is that it shows that these extended reality technologies are applicable across a wide spectrum of academic disciplines,” said Malcolm Brown, director of learning initiatives at Educause, in a statement. “In addition to the scientific disciplines, students in the humanities, for example, can re-construct cities and structures that no longer exist. I think this study will go a long way in encouraging faculty, instructional designers and educational technologists across higher education to further experiment with these technologies to vivify learning experiences in nearly all courses of study.”

 



 

 

Adobe Announces the 2019 Release of Adobe Captivate, Introducing Virtual Reality for eLearning Design — from theblog.adobe.com

Excerpt:

  • Immersive learning with VR experiences: Design learning scenarios that your learners can experience in Virtual Reality using VR headsets. Import 360° media assets and add hotspots, quizzes and other interactive elements to engage your learners with near real-life scenarios
  • Interactive videos: Liven up demos and training videos by making them interactive with the new Adobe Captivate. Create your own or bring in existing YouTube videos, add questions at specific points and conduct knowledge checks to aid learner remediation
  • Fluid Boxes 2.0: Explore the building blocks of Smart eLearning design with intelligent containers that use white space optimally. Objects placed in Fluid Boxes get aligned automatically so that learners always get fully responsive experience regardless of their device or browser.
  • 360° learning experiences: Augment the learning landscape with 360° images and videos and convert them into interactive eLearning material with customizable overlay items such as information blurbs, audio content & quizzes.

 

 

Blippar unveils indoor visual positioning system to anchor AR — from martechtoday.com by Barry Levine
Employing machine vision to recognize mapped objects, the company says it can determine which way a user is looking and can calculate positioning down to a centimeter.

A Blippar visualization of AR using its new indoor visual positioning system

 

The Storyteller’s Guide to the Virtual Reality Audience — from medium.com by Katy Newton

Excerpt:

To even scratch the surface of these questions, we need to better understand the audience’s experience in VR — not just their experience of the technology, but the way that they understand story and their role within it.

 

 

Hospital introducing HoloLens augmented reality into the operating room — from medgadget.com

Excerpt:

HoloLens technology is being paired with Microsoft’s Surface Hub, a kind of digital whiteboard. The idea is that the surgical team can gather together around a Surface Hub to review patient information, discuss the details of a procedure, and select what information should be readily accessible during surgery. During the procedure, a surgeon wearing a HoloLens would be able to review a CT or MRI scan, access other data in the electronic medical records, and to be able to manipulate these so as to get a clear picture of what is being worked on and what needs to be done.

 

 

Raleigh Fire Department invests in virtual reality to enrich training — from vrfocus.com by Nikholai Koolon
New system allows department personnel to learn new skills through immersive experiences.

Excerpt:

The VR solution allows emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to dive into a rich and detailed environment which allows them to pinpoint portions of the body to dissect. This then allows them then see each part of the body in great detail along with viewing it from any angle. The goal is to allow for users to gain the experience to diagnose injuries from a variety of vantage points all where working within an virtual environment capable of displaying countless scenarios.

 

 

For another emerging technology, see:

Someday this tiny spider bot could perform surgery inside your body — from fastcompany.com by Jesus Diaz
The experimental robots could also fix airplane engines and find disaster victims.

Excerpt:

A team of Harvard University researchers recently achieved a major breakthrough in robotics, engineering a tiny spider robot using tech that could one day work inside your body to repair tissues or destroy tumors. Their work could not only change medicine–by eliminating invasive surgeries–but could also have an impact on everything from how industrial machines are maintained to how disaster victims are rescued.

Until now, most advanced, small-scale robots followed a certain model: They tend to be built at the centimeter scale and have only one degree of freedom, which means they can only perform one movement. Not so with this new ‘bot, developed by scientists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Boston University. It’s built at the millimeter scale, and because it’s made of flexible materials–easily moved by pneumatic and hydraulic power–the critter has an unprecedented 18 degrees of freedom.

 


Plus some items from a few weeks ago


 

After almost a decade and billions in outside investment, Magic Leap’s first product is finally on sale for $2,295. Here’s what it’s like. — from

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

I liked that it gave a new perspective to the video clip I’d watched: It threw the actual game up on the wall alongside the kind of information a basketball fan would want, including 3-D renderings and stats. Today, you might turn to your phone for that information. With Magic Leap, you wouldn’t have to.

Abovitz also said that intelligent assistants will play a big role in Magic Leap’s future. I didn’t get to test one, but Abovitz says he’s working with a team in Los Angeles that’s developing high-definition people that will appear to Magic Leap users and assist with tasks. Think Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant, but instead of speaking to your phone, you’d be speaking to a realistic-looking human through Magic Leap. Or you might be speaking to an avatar of someone real.

“You might need a doctor who can come to you,” Abovitz said. “AI that appears in front of you can give you eye contact and empathy.”

 

And I loved the idea of being able to place a digital TV screen anywhere I wanted.

 

 

Magic Leap One Available For Purchase, Starting At $2,295 — from vrscout.com by Kyle Melnick

Excerpt:

December of last year U.S. startup Magic Leap unveiled its long-awaited mixed reality headset, a secretive device five years and $2.44B USD in the making.

This morning that same headset, now referred to as the Magic Leap One Creator Edition, became available for purchase in the U.S. On sale to creators at a hefty starting price of $2,275, the computer spatial device utilizes synthetic lightfields to capture natural lightwaves and superimpose interactive, 3D content over the real-world.

 

 

 

Magic Leap One First Hands-On Impressions for HoloLens Developers — from magic-leap.reality.news

Excerpt:

After spending about an hour with the headset running through set up and poking around its UI and a couple of the launch day apps, I thought it would be helpful to share a quick list of some of my first impressions as someone who’s spent a lot of time with a HoloLens over the past couple years and try to start answering many of the burning questions I’ve had about the device.

 

 

World Campus researches effectiveness of VR headsets and video in online classes — from news.psu.edu

Excerpt:

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State instructional designers are researching whether using virtual reality and 360-degree video can help students in online classes learn more effectively.

Designers worked with professors in the College of Nursing to incorporate 360-degree video into Nursing 352, a class on Advanced Health Assessment. Students in the class, offered online through Penn State World Campus, were offered free VR headsets to use with their smartphones to create a more immersive experience while watching the video, which shows safety and health hazards in a patient’s home.

Bill Egan, the lead designer for the Penn State World Campus RN to BSN nursing program, said students in the class were surveyed as part of a study approved by the Institutional Review Board and overwhelmingly said that they enjoyed the videos and thought they provided educational value. Eighty percent of the students said they would like to see more immersive content such as 360-degree videos in their online courses, he said.

 

 

7 Practical Problems with VR for eLearning — from learnupon.com

Excerpt:

In this post, we run through some practical stumbling blocks that prevent VR training from being feasible for most.

There are quite a number of practical considerations which prevent VR from totally overhauling the corporate training world. Some are obvious, whilst others only become apparent after using the technology a number of times. It’s important to be made aware of these limitations so that a large investment isn’t made in tech that isn’t really practical for corporate training.

 

Augmented reality – the next big thing for HR? — from hrdconnect.com
Augmented reality (AR) could have a huge impact on HR, transforming long-established processes into engaging and exciting something. What will this look like? How can we shape this into our everyday working lives?

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

AR also has the potential to revolutionise our work lives, changing the way we think about office spaces and equipment forever.

Most of us still commute to an office every day, which can be a time-consuming and stressful experience. AR has the potential to turn any space into your own customisable workspace, complete with digital notes, folders and files – even a digital photo of your loved ones. This would give you access to all the information and tools that you would typically find in an office, but wherever and whenever you need them.

And instead of working on a flat, stationary, two-dimensional screen, your workspace would be a customisable three-dimensional space, where objects and information are manipulated with gestures rather than hardware. All you would need is an AR headset.

AR could also transform the way we advertise brands and share information. Imagine if your organisation had an AR stand at a conference – how engaging would that be for potential customers? How much more interesting and fun would meetings be if we used AR to present information instead of slides on a projector?

AR could transform the on-boarding experience into something fun and interactive – imagine taking an AR tour of your office, where information about key places, company history or your new colleagues pops into view as you go from place to place. 

 

 

RETINA Are Bringing Augmented Reality To Air Traffic Control Towers — from vrfocus.com by Nikholai Koolonavi

Excerpt:

A new project is aiming to make it easier for staff in airport control towers to visualize information to help make their job easier by leveraging augmented reality (AR) technology. The project, dubbed RETINA, is looking to modernise Europe’s air traffic management for safer, smarter and even smoother air travel.

 

 

 

Guiding faculty into immersive environments — from campustechnology.com by David Raths
What’s the best way to get faculty to engage with emerging technologies and incorporate new learning spaces into their teaching? Five institutions share their experiences.

Guiding faculty into immersive environments -- by David Raths

Excerpt:

One of the biggest hurdles for universities has been the high cost of VR-enabled computers and headsets, and some executives say prices must continue to drop before we’ll see more widespread usage. But John Bowditch, director of the Game Research and Immersive Design Lab at Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication, is already seeing promising developments on that front as he prepares to open a new 20-seat VR classroom. “Probably the best thing about VR in 2018 is that it is a lot more affordable now and that democratizes it,” he said. “We purchased a VR helmet 13 years ago, and it was $12,000 just for the headset. The machine that ran it cost about $20,000. That would be a nonstarter beyond purchasing just one or two. Today, you can get a VR-enabled laptop and headset for under $2,000. That makes it much easier to think about integrating it into classes.”

 

 

Colleges and universities face several hurdles in getting faculty to incorporate virtual reality or immersive experiences in their courses. For one, instructional designers, instructional technologists and directors of teaching and learning centers may not have access to these tools yet, and the budgets aren’t always there to get the labs off the ground, noted Daniel Christian, instructional services director at Western Michigan University‘s Cooley Law School. “Many faculty members’ job plates are already jam-packed — allowing little time to even look at emerging technologies,” he said. “Even if they wanted to experiment with such technologies and potential learning experiences, they don’t have the time to do so. Tight budgets are impacting this situation even further.”

 

 

 

 

Computing in the Camera — from blog.torch3d.com by Paul Reynolds
Mobile AR, with its ubiquitous camera, is set to transform what and how human experience designers create.

One of the points Allison [Woods, CEO, Camera IQ] made repeatedly on that call (and in this wonderful blog post of the same time period) was that the camera is going to be at the center of computing going forward, an indispensable element. Spatial computing could not exist without it. Simple, obvious, straightforward, but not earth shaking. We all heard what she had to say, but I don’t think any of us really understood just how profound or prophetic that statement turned out to be.

 

“[T]he camera will bring the internet and the real world into a single time and space.”

— Allison Woods, CEO, Camera IQ

 

 

The Camera As Platform — from shift.newco.co by Allison Wood
When the operating system moves to the viewfinder, the world will literally change

“Every day two billion people carry around an optical data input device — the smartphone Camera — connected to supercomputers and informed by massive amounts of data that can have nearly limitless context, position, recognition and direction to accomplish tasks.”

– Jacob Mullins, Shasta Ventures

 

 

 

The State Of The ARt At AWE 18 — from forbes.com by Charlie Fink

Excerpt:

The bigger story, however, is how fast the enterprise segment is growing as applications as straightforward as schematics on a head-mounted monocular microdisplay are transforming manufacturing, assembly, and warehousing. Use cases abounded.

After traveling the country and most recently to Europe, I’ve now experienced almost every major VR/AR/MR/XR related conference out there. AWE’s exhibit area was by far the largest display of VR and AR companies to date (with the exception of CES).

 

AR is being used to identify features and parts within cars

 

 

 

 

Student Learning and Virtual Reality: The Embodied Experience — from er.educause.edu by Jaime Hannans, Jill Leafstedt and Talya Drescher

Excerpts:

Specifically, we explored the potential for how virtual reality can help create a more empathetic nurse, which, we hypothesize, will lead to increased development of nursing students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes. We aim to integrate these virtual experiences into early program coursework, with the intent of changing nursing behavior by providing a deeper understanding of the patient’s perspective during clinical interactions.

In addition to these compelling student reflections and the nearly immediate change in reporting practice, survey findings show that students unanimously felt that this type of patient-perspective VR experience should be integrated and become a staple of the nursing curriculum. Seeing, hearing, and feeling these moments results in significant and memorable learning experiences compared to traditional classroom learning alone. The potential that this type of immersive experience can have in the field of nursing and beyond is only limited by the imagination and creation of other virtual experiences to explore. We look forward to continued exploration of the impact of VR on student learning and to establishing ongoing partnerships with developers.

 

Also see:

 

 

 

Immersive VR Education showcases the power of learning through virtual reality — from vrfocus.com by Nina Salomons
Pixar co-founder Loren Carpenter was ‘teleported’ live into a virtual classroom in the UK.

Excerpt:

Virtual reality (VR) has often been mentioned as the empathy machine, however it has many use cases. When it comes to memory and retention it looks like VR is not only useful for simulation but for education as well. Immersive VR Education teamed up with HTC Vive and Windsor Forest Colleges Group to create a memorable experience of virtual teaching.

On the April 25th ten students from Windsor Forest Colleges Group in the UK put on an HTC Vive headset and guided by David Whelan CEO & Founder of Immersive VR Education and Mike Armstrong, Senior/Lead Developer of Immersive VR Education using the free VR social education and presentation platform ENGAGE. ENGAGE allows users to hold meetings, classes, private lessons and presentations. Users can record, create their own lessons and presentations as well as allow users to interact with virtual objects.

 

 

 

 

 

The difference between Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality — from forbes.com Julia Tokareva

 

 

 


Addendum on 5/5/18


 

Oculus Go Has Arrived and It’s a Big Deal — from vrscout.com by Jonathan Nafarrete

Excerpt:

The $200 Oculus Go is the most accessible VR headset today.

Up until now, one of the biggest barriers to entry for VR has been price. Headset adoption has taken a conservative growth path, mostly due in part to high prices of PC-required systems or just requiring consumers to own a specific line of VR compatible phones to pair with mobile headsets.

But now the Oculus Go is finally here and it’s a big deal, especially for the millions of iPhone users out there who up until today have had limited options to get into VR.

Starting today, the Oculus Go standalone VR headset is available for purchase for $199. Available for sale on Oculus.com in 23 countries, you can also pick up one online from Amazon or in Best Buy Stores in the U.S. The Oculus companion app used for initial setup is available for both iPhone or Android devices.

 

 
 

 

How to Set Up a VR Pilot — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser
As Washington & Lee University has found, there is no best approach for introducing virtual reality into your classrooms — just stages of faculty commitment.

Excerpt:

The work at the IQ Center offers a model for how other institutions might want to approach their own VR experimentation. The secret to success, suggested IQ Center Coordinator David Pfaff, “is to not be afraid to develop your own stuff” — in other words, diving right in. But first, there’s dipping a toe.

The IQ Center is a collaborative workspace housed in the science building but providing services to “departments all over campus,” said Pfaff. The facilities include three labs: one loaded with high-performance workstations, another decked out for 3D visualization and a third packed with physical/mechanical equipment, including 3D printers, a laser cutter and a motion-capture system.

 

 

 

The Future of Language Learning: Augmented Reality vs Virtual Reality — from medium.com by Denis Hurley

Excerpts:

Here, I would like to stick to the challenges and opportunities presented by augmented reality and virtual reality for language learning.

While the challenge is a significant one, I am more optimistic than most that wearable AR will be available and popular soon. We don’t yet know how Snap Spectacles will evolve, and, of course, there’s always Apple.

I suspect we will see a flurry of new VR apps from language learning startups soon, especially from Duolingo and in combination with their AI chat bots. I am curious if users will quickly abandon the isolating experiences or become dedicated users.

 

 

Bose has a plan to make AR glasses — from cnet.com by David Carnoy
Best known for its speakers and headphones, the company has created a $50 million development fund to back a new AR platform that’s all about audio.

Excerpts:

“Unlike other augmented reality products and platforms, Bose AR doesn’t change what you see, but knows what you’re looking at — without an integrated lens or phone camera,” Bose said. “And rather than superimposing visual objects on the real world, Bose AR adds an audible layer of information and experiences, making every day better, easier, more meaningful, and more productive.”

The secret sauce seems to be the tiny, “wafer-thin” acoustics package developed for the platform. Bose said it represents the future of mobile micro-sound and features “jaw-dropping power and clarity.”

Bose adds the technology can “be built into headphones, eyewear, helmets and more and it allows simple head gestures, voice, or a tap on the wearable to control content.”

 

Bose is making AR glasses focused on audio, not visuals

Here are some examples Bose gave for how it might be used:

    • For travel, the Bose AR could simulate historic events at landmarks as you view them — “so voices and horses are heard charging in from your left, then passing right in front of you before riding off in the direction of their original route, fading as they go.” You could hear a statue make a famous speech when you approach it. Or get told which way to turn towards your departure gate while checking in at the airport.
    • Bose AR could translate a sign you’re reading. Or tell you the word or phrase for what you’re looking at in any language. Or explain the story behind the painting you’ve just approached.
  • With gesture controls, you could choose or change your music with simple head nods indicating yes, no, or next (Bragi headphones already do this).
  • Bose AR would add useful information based on where you look. Like the forecast when you look up or information about restaurants on the street you look down.

 

 

The 10 Best VR Apps for Classrooms Using Merge VR’s New Merge Cube — from edsurge.com

 

Google Lens arrives on iOS — from techcrunch.com by Sarah Perez

Excerpt:

On the heels of last week’s rollout on Android, Google’s  new AI-powered technology, Google Lens, is now arriving on iOS. The feature is available within the Google Photos iOS application, where it can do things like identify objects, buildings, and landmarks, and tell you more information about them, including helpful details like their phone number, address, or open hours. It can also identify things like books, paintings in museums, plants, and animals. In the case of some objects, it can also take actions.

For example, you can add an event to your calendar from a photo of a flyer or event billboard, or you can snap a photo of a business card to store the person’s phone number or address to your Contacts.

 

The eventual goal is to allow smartphone cameras to understand what it is they’re seeing across any type of photo, then helping you take action on that information, if need be – whether that’s calling a business, saving contact information, or just learning about the world on the other side of the camera.

 

 

15 Top Augmented Reality (AR) Apps Changing Education — from vudream.com by Steven Wesley

 

 

 

CNN VR App Brings News to Oculus Rift — from vrscout.com by Jonathan Nafarrete

 

 

 

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian