journalism

Ikea’s New App Flaunts What You’ll Love Most About AR — from wired.com by Arielle Pardes

Excerpt:

Tap through the app’s catalogue of over 2,000 products—nearly the company’s full collection of umlauted sofas, armchairs, coffee tables, and storage units—then hold up your phone and use the camera to place the digital furniture anywhere in a room. Want to see how the Strandmon winged chair looks by the window? Done. Can you really squeeze in that 7-foot-long area rug? Open the app, point your camera at the floor, and watch it appear at scale. You can even place a futon where it would go in the guest room, then see what it looks like when it unfolds into a bed.

Ikea built the app with Apple’s ARKit, a developer toolkit created to usher in the augmented reality revolution on iOS devices. The app is free and available now, as long as your iPhone is updated to iOS 11.

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Every ARKit app you can install right now — from imore.com by Russell Holly

Excerpt:

One of the biggest features to come to iOS 11 is ARKit, enabling developers to open up your world to a whole new kind of gaming and discovery system. Instead of being limited to the screen, you can play on surfaces big and small and you can play with others. The only thing limiting you right now is not knowing which ARKit apps are out there right now, so you can dive in and see which apps are your new favorite.

Searching Apple’s massive App Store can take a long time, so we’ve compiled a big friendly list for you to pick out the real winners!

Everything You Need to Know About Augmented Reality Now That It’s Invading Your Phone — from fieldguide.gizmodo.com by David Nield

Excerpt:

The majority of these apps are still at the demo stage for now, but it’s not difficult to see the potential. Games can take place in the real world, whether that’s on your living room floor or around your neighborhood, while you’ll be able to imagine anything from a new sofa to a new house extension through your phone’s camera.

Further down the line you’ll be able to point your phone at anything and get information overlaid about what you’re seeing with a whole new level of accuracy—the distance to the pin on a golf course, the current stats for players out on a baseball field, or precise directions to the store you need in the mall you’ve just got lost in. You can measure distances, land a rocket in your backyard, and so much more.

Of course AR (or “mixed reality”) headsets are going to provide a much more immersive experience and are a more natural fit than having to hold your phone or tablet in front of you to see anything in AR land. Until those headsets hit the mainstream though, ARKit and ARCore are about to introduce millions of people to the potential of augmented reality. Instead of looking down at your phone you’re going to be holding it up to access all the information of the internet with a swipe.

Amazon working on Alexa-powered smart glasses, says report — from theverge.com by Sam Byford
And a home security camera

Excerpt:

Amazon’s first wearable device will be a pair of smart glasses with the Alexa voice assistant built in, according to a report in the Financial Times. The device will reportedly look like a regular pair of glasses and use bone-conduction technology so that the user can hear Alexa without the need for earphones or conventional speakers. It won’t, however, likely have a screen or camera, although Google Glass founder Babak Parviz has apparently been working on the project following his hiring by Amazon in 2014.

What does Google want with HTC’s smartphone business? — from theguardian.com by Samuel Gibbs
Google is acquiring a $1bn chunk of HTC’s smartphone arm, including 2,000 employees and access to intellectual property, as it bets big on hardware

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Google has announced it’s acquiring a $1.1bn chunk of HTC’s smartphone business, and with it providing the once leading Taiwanese phone brand a much needed lifeline. But what does Google want with part of a smartphone business?

Google isn’t buying the whole of HTC, just a relatively large part of the Taipei-based company’s smartphone business and not its Vive virtual reality headset business. Google gains half of HTC’s research and development team – about 2,000 people – and a non-exclusive license for HTC’s intellectual property, allowing it to take advantage of some of HTC’s advances in smartphone technology.

HTC gets a cash injection, which will help it survive in some very competitive markets, and Google gets to continue its “big bet on hardware” according to Rick Osterloh, the company’s senior vice president for hardware.

It’s “a business decision to have access to one of the best R&D teams”, said Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research. But it’s also “a sort of emotional decision to save its close partners”.

The Washington Post enhances in-app augmented reality experience — from washingtonpost.com

Excerpt:

The Washington Post today announced the launch of its first embedded augmented reality story. The Post built an industry-first embed code that lets users trigger an augmented reality experience with 3D visuals and audio narration.

“We were excited to be the first news publisher to support augmented reality in a news application, but for our second iteration in our iconic building series we needed to make augmented reality even simpler,” said Jeremy Gilbert, director of strategic initiatives at The Post. “We’ve been working to reduce the friction to make augmented reality as easily accessible as a photo gallery or a video—those are played inline and augmented reality should be too.”

After Successful Pilot Testing Ford Is Expanding Its HoloLens Program — from uploadvr.com by Jamie Feltham

Excerpt:

You can get a sense for what this expansion means in the video below. Ford has already been using HoloLens to help design new cars; bringing 3D models into the real world using the augmented reality headset. Now, however, the company is introducing new processes, like overlaying new features onto existing car models and creating guided tours of cars using voice recording. The company also says it’s developing new apps for better collaboration in AR.

Five lessons for libraries looking to innovate in the 21st Century [Wilansky]

On 08/04/2017, in 21st century, education, experimentation, ideas, innovation, journalism, learning, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, library / librarians, love of learning, productivity / tips and tricks, society, by Daniel Christian

Five lessons for libraries looking to innovate in the 21st Century — from knightfoundation.org by Laura Sue Wilansky

Excerpt:

In June, Knight Foundation sent a cohort of U.S. librarians from institutions around the country to the Next Library Conference, an annual gathering held in Aarhus, Denmark that brings together library leaders from around the world to discuss innovative programs, services and ideas in the field. 20 U.S. librarians from 11 cities joined hundreds of colleagues who attended the conference from around the globe, from China to Kenya to the Caribbean.

The goal was to spread best practices in library innovation, while helping their capacity to meet new digital age demands. The initiative is part of Knight’s larger work to help libraries better serve 21st century information needs. We believe libraries are essential to addressing information challenges and creating opportunities for communities to engage with information, new ideas and each other. The conference was an opportunity to connect U.S. libraries in order to share practices and approaches being used to attract new patrons around the world, as well as gather insights from them that can help to further inform our strategy.

Here are some of the lessons the librarians brought home…

“We need to focus intently on making our buildings locations for experimentation, innovation, education, recreation and relaxation.”

“Chatbots-The Next Big Thing,” + “MyPrivateTutor Releases Chatbot for Finding Tutors” + other resources/reflections re: chatbots

On 01/17/2017, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, education technology, emerging technologies, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, India, intelligent systems, interactivity, interface design, journalism, languages and translation, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, by Daniel Christian

Chatbots: The next big thing — from dw.com
Excerpt:

More and more European developers are discovering the potential of chatbots. These mini-programs interact automatically with users and could be particularly useful in areas like online shopping and news delivery. The potential of chatbots is diverse. These tiny programs can do everything from recognizing customers’ tastes to relaying the latest weather forecast. Berlin start-up Spectrm is currently devising bots that deliver customized news. Users can contact the bot via Facebook Messenger, and receive updates on topics that interest them within just a few seconds.

MyPrivateTutor releases chatbot for finding tutors — from digitaljournal.com
MyPrivateTutor, based in Kolkata, matches tutors to students using proprietary machine learning algorithms

Excerpt:

Using artificial intelligence, the chatbot helps us reach a wider segment of users who are still not comfortable navigating websites and apps but are quite savvy with messaging apps”, said Sandip Kar, co-founder & CEO of MyPrivateTutor (www.myprivatetutor.com), an online marketplace for tutors, has released a chatbot for helping students and parents find tutors, trainers, coaching classes and training institutes near them.

Story idea: Covering the world of chatbots — from businessjournalism.org by Susan Johnston Taylor

Excerpt:

Chatbots, computer programs designed to converse with humans, can perform all sorts of activities. They can help users book a vacation, order a pizza, negotiate with Comcast or even communicate with POTUS. Instead of calling or emailing a representative at the company, consumers chat with a robot that uses artificial intelligence to simulate natural conversation. A growing number of startups and more established companies now use them to interact with users via Facebook Messenger, SMS, chat-specific apps such as Kik or the company’s own site.
…
To cover this emerging business story, reporters can seek out companies in their area that use chatbots, or find local tech firms that are building them. Local universities may have professors or other experts available who can provide big-picture context, too. (Expertise Finder can help you identify professors and their specific areas of study.)

How chatbots are addressing summer melt for colleges — from ecampusnews.com

Excerpt:

AdmitHub, an edtech startup which builds conversational artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to guide students on the path to and through college, has raised $2.95 million in seed funding.

Why higher education chatbots will take over university mobile apps — from blog.admithub.com by Kirk Daulerio

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Chatbots are the new apps and websites combined
Chatbots are simple, easy to use, and present zero friction. They exist on the channels that people are most familiar with like Messenger, Twitter, SMS text message, Kik, and expanding onto other messaging applications. Unlike apps, bots don’t take up space, users don’t have to take time to get familiar with a new user interface, and bots will give you an instant reply. The biggest difference with chatbots compared to apps and websites is that they use language as the main interface. Websites and apps have to be searched and clicked, while bots and people use language, the most natural interface, to communicate and inform.

From DSC:
I think messaging-based chatbots will definitely continue to grow in usage — in numerous industries, including higher education. But I also think that the human voice — working in conjunction with technologies that provide natural language processing (NLP) capabilities — will play an increasingly larger role in how we interface with our devices. Whether it’s via a typed/textual message or whether it’s via a command or a query relayed by the human voice, working with bots needs to be on our radars. These conversational messaging agents are likely to be around for a while.

Addendum:

How to plan your next vacation with a chatbot — from nytimes.com by Justin Sablichjan

“10 Incredible Uses of Virtual Reality” plus 7 other items re: AR, MR, and VR

On 09/26/2016, in A/V -- audio/visual, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), computer science, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, Google, health, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, interactivity, journalism, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile technologies, online learning, online media, programming, society, story, storytelling, UK, user experience (UX), vendors, virtual field trips, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

10 Incredible Uses of Virtual Reality — from fortune.com by Rose Leadem
It’s not just for video games.

Excerpt:

Virtual reality technology holds enormous potential to change the future for a number of fields, from medicine, business, architecture to manufacturing.

Psychologists and other medical professionals are using VR to heighten traditional therapy methods and find effective solutions for treatments of PTSD, anxiety and social disorders. Doctors are employing VR to train medical students in surgery, treat patients’ pains and even help paraplegics regain body functions.

In business, a variety of industries are benefiting from VR. Carmakers are creating safer vehicles, architects are constructing stronger buildings and even travel agencies are using it to simplify vacation planning.

Check out these 10 amazing uses of VR.

Visit the U.K. Prime Minister’s Home in This Virtual 10 Downing Street Experience — from uploadvr.com by

Excerpt:

Google has unveiled a new interactive online exhibit that take users on a tour of 10 Downing street in London — home of the U.K. Prime Minister.

The building has served as home to countless British political leaders, from Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher through to Tony Blair and — as of a few months ago — Theresa May. But, as you’d expect in today’s security-conscious age, gaining access to the residence isn’t easy; the street itself is gated off from the public. This is why the 10 Downing Street exhibit may capture the imagination of politics aficionados and history buffs from around the world.

The tour features 360-degree views of the various rooms, punctuated by photos and audio and video clips.

Microsoft’s HoloLens Now Helps Elevator Technicians Work Smarter — from uploadvr.com by Charles Singletary

Excerpt:

In a slightly more grounded environment, the HoloLens is being used to assist technicians in elevator repairs.

Traversal via elevator is such a regular part of our lifestyles, its importance is rarely recognized…until they’re not working as they should be. ThyssenKrupp AG, one of the largest suppliers for elevators, recognizes how essential they are as well as how the simplest malfunctions can deter the lives of millions. Announced on their blog, Microsoft is partnering with Thyssenkrupp to equip 24,000 of their technicians with HoloLens.

Insert from DSC re: the above piece re: HoloLens:

Will technical communicators need to augment their skillsets? It appears so.

Phiona: A Virtual Reality Portrait of ‘Queen of Katwe’ — from abcnews.com by Angel Canales and Adam Rivera

Get a front-row seat in Harvard’s largest class, thanks to virtual reality — from medium.freecodecamp.com by Dhawal Shah

Intro video here: This is CS50 2016

The future of mobile video is virtual reality — from techcrunch.com by Mike Wadhera

Excerpt:

But in a world where no moment is too small to record with a mobile sensor, and one in which time spent in virtual reality keeps going up, interesting parallels start to emerge with our smartphones and headsets.

Let’s look at how the future could play out in the real world by observing three key drivers: VR video adoption, mobile-video user needs and the smartphone camera rising tide.

Now, a virtual reality programme to improve social skills in autistic kids — from cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com by
The VR training platform creates a safe place for participants to practice social situations without the intense fear of consequence.

Excerpt:

“Individuals with autism may become overwhelmed and anxious in social situations,” research clinician Dr Nyaz Didehbani said.

“The virtual reality training platform creates a safe place for participants to practice social situations without the intense fear of consequence,” said Didehbani.

The participants who completed the training demonstrated improved social cognition skills and reported better relationships, researchers said.

Also see:

The Top 10 Companies Working on Education in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality — from touchstoneresearch.com by Drew Lewis

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.

Star Trek in VR – Why can’t we do this with VR in education? — from digitalbodies.net by Maya Georgieva

Excerpt:

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.

…
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.

Not just for gamers: CSU launching Virtual Reality Initiative — from source.colostate.edu by Lauren Klamm

Excerpt:

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.

VR Learning: How Virtual Reality Will Democratize Learning — from iamvr.co

Excerpt:

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.

Augmented reality has surgical application — from thestack.com by Nicky Cappella

Excerpt:

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.

Stanford Journalism Program’s Guide to Using Virtual Reality for Storytelling — from storybench.org by Geri Migielicz and Janine Zacharia

Excerpt:

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.

12 ways to use Google Cardboard in your class — from ditchthattextbook.com

Excerpt:

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.

These 5 Incredible HoloLens Videos Will Make You A VR/AR Believer — from uploadvr.com

Upload And Make School Graduate Their First Class Of VR Developers — from uploadvr.com

Stanford’s virtual reality lab cultivates empathy for the homeless — from kqed.org by Rachael Myrow

Excerpt:

The burgeoning field of Virtual Reality — or VR as it is commonly known — is a vehicle for telling stories through 360-degree visuals and sound that put you right in the middle of the action, be it at a crowded Syrian refugee camp, or inside the body of an 85-year-old with a bad hip and cataracts. Because of VR’s immersive properties, some people describe the medium as “the ultimate empathy machine.” But can it make people care about something as fraught and multi-faceted as homelessness?

A study in progress at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab explores that question, and I strapped on an Oculus Rift headset (one of the most popular devices people currently use to experience VR) to look for an answer.

A new way of understanding homelessness
The study, called Empathy at Scale, puts participants in a variety of scenes designed to help them imagine the experience of being homeless themselves.

Virtual reality: The Next Big Thing for college creatives — from college.usatoday.com by Morgan Buckley, University of Southern California

Excerpt:

College students across the country — from the University of Southern California to the University of Minnesota to Southern Methodist University — are also experimenting with virtual reality applications via clubs, design labs and hackathons.

The tech industry is taking note.

Among the bigger showcases for the technology took place last month, when the University of Southern California’s Virtual Reality Club (VRSC) hosted its first annual Virtual Reality Festival and Demo Day, a showcase of projects and panels with The Walt Disney Company as its title sponsor.

Students traveled from the University of California-San Diego, UCLA, Chapman University, Loyola Marymount University and the University of Colorado-Boulder to attend the fest. The judges were industry professionals from companies including NVIDIA, Google, Maker Studios and Industrial Light and Magic’s X Lab.

Some $25,000 in prizes were split among winners in four categories: 360 Live-Action Videos, 360 Animation, Interactive VR Games and Immersive Technology/Augmented Reality (AR). VR/AR categories ranged from health care to games, journalism, interactive design and interpretive dance.

Harvard’s new official tour app leverages augmented reality — from betaboston.com

New York Times showcases virtual reality technology — from browndailyherald.com by Harry August
Virtual reality, used to craft more immersive storytelling, risks providing less narrative context

Oculus preview event to highlight multiplayer games — from uploadvr.com

Woofbert are using VR to bring great art to everyone — from roadtovr.com by Kent Bye
Voices of VR Podcast – Episode #303

Woofbert VR

Microsoft developing video calling that projects people in front of yYou — from gadgets.ndtv.com by Robin Sinha

Facebook has created a new ‘Social VR’ team to explore how we’ll communicate in virtual reality — from businessinsider.com by Jillian D’Onfro

I planned out my last vacation in virtual reality — here’s what it was like — from Business Insider By Brandt Ranj

Augmented reality looks to future where screens vanish — from interaksyon.com by Glenn Chapman

VR And AR will be mobile’s demand driver, not its replacement — from techcrunch.com by Mike Hoefflinger

Excerpt:

Projections for the big players
If things go in this direction, here’s how it may play out for The Big Six:

Apple…
Google…
Facebook…
Samsung…
Sony…
Microsoft…

Addendum:

HTC Vive is launching, here’s what we know — from futurism.com
Leap Motion: Orion (video)
Reach into the future with Orion, Leap Motion’s new hand tracking software that’s built from the ground up for virtual reality.

“2020 Vision: Experts Predict the Future of Virtual Reality”; using VR to train teachers; plus 7 other items re: VR/AR

On 02/19/2016, in Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), education technology, emerging technologies, Europe, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, journalism, student teaching/teacher education, teachers, teaching & learning, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

2020 Vision: Experts Predict the Future of Virtual Reality — from vrscout.com by Eric Chevalier

Excerpt:

VR will be the new internet.
You will spend your flights in virtual reality.
AR will beat VR.
There will be no MMO. [yet]
Virtual reality will change the film industry.
Parallax technology won’t be able to support augmented reality.
The space we’ll explore won’t be in the sky.
We will see a MMO game with a million subscribers.
The Divine Comedy will provide a model for successful VR storytelling.
Robots will touch you in VR and you’ll like it.
Journalism will be forever transformed.

Teachers-in-training learn through virtual reality — from thedmonline.com by Madeleine Beck

Excerpt:

The UM School of Education is using a program that allows teachers-in-training to practice classroom skills in a virtual setting before sending them into local elementary and secondary schools.

The simulated TeachLivE classroom consists of an 80-inch monitor with five student avatars. Each avatar has his or her own personality.

“All five avatar children are actually controlled by somebody in Florida, an actor or actress,” Dean of the School of Education David Rock said. “They’re set up with equipment so that if the actor raises his hand in Florida, the avatar child will raise his hand on the screen.”

EON Reality launches EON Creator AVR, a do-it-yourself augmented and virtual reality knowledge content creation application for teachers and students
EON Creator AVR empowers students and teachers to make engaging AR and VR knowledge transfer applications without programming skills.

Excerpt:

IRVINE, CA, February 16th, 2016 – EON Reality Inc., the world leader in Virtual Reality based knowledge transfer for industry, education, and edutainment, announced the upcoming release of EON Creator AVR (Augmented Virtual Reality), a mobile based application that enables users to easily create, share, collaborate, and publish Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) knowledge content. Using EON Reality’s patent pending Augmented Virtual Reality (AVR) technology, EON Creator AVR combines both Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality with a large AR/VR component library and assessment database to create one of a kind learning experiences. EON Creator AVR also leverages built in intelligence to help students and teachers quickly create highly interactive learning content directly on their tablets, smart phones, VR headsets, or AR glasses without requiring programming skills.

5 top augmented reality apps for education — from hongkiat.com by Gabriela Jugaru

Excerpt:

1. Google Sky Map
This is an augmented reality app which makes learning about astronomy interesting and fun. Instead of looking at descriptions of constellations in a book and then attempting to identify them in the sky, you can use Google Sky Map to directly identify stars and constellations using the camera on your smartphone.

Google Sky Map

How virtual reality could soon help stroke victims recover — from cnet.com by Max Taves
A $100 million investment in a Swiss startup highlights how VR offers more than just fun and games.

Excerpt:

Doctors could soon start prescribing an unusual solution to help stroke victims in the US: virtual reality goggles.

That’s the hope of Switzerland-based MindMaze, which on Wednesday got a $100 million investment to bring its blend of virtual reality hardware and neuroscience to market. The four-year-old startup’s technology has already won approval from regulators in Europe, where its applications for brain injury victims showcase what could soon be possible in the United States.

MindMaze’s 34-year-old founder and CEO Tej Tadi explains how: Imagine a stroke victim who’s lost control of her left hand but can still move her right hand. After putting on MindMaze goggles, the patient sees a 3-D image, or avatar, of her left hand that moves as she moves her right hand.

“That triggers areas in the brain to say, ‘Wait, let’s regain control of this hand’,” says Tadi. “The hand that was not working now works.” And that process of tricking the brain into seeing something that’s actually not there in the real world accelerates recovery, he says.

The Associated Press is partnering with AMD for more virtual reality journalism — from theverge.com by Adi Robertson

Excerpt:

After moving into virtual reality video journalism last year, the Associated Press is partnering with chip maker AMD for a new push into VR. Today, the companies announced that they’re launching a web portal for AP virtual reality, promising more journalistic endeavors soon — including “lifelike VR environments” built with the help of AMD.

Several news outlets have now started producing 360-degree videos, which can be watched through a Google Cardboard headset or a smartphone. The New York Times, which partnered with production house Vrse.works, offers documentary video about topics like child refugees and the 2016 presidential election in a dedicated NYT VR app. Vice has similarly partnered with Vrse.works, and ABC News worked with Jaunt to record a 360-degree version of a tour in North Korea. So far, the AP has partnered with a VR studio called RYOT, whose past work includes a short film about the April 2015 earthquake in Nepal.

Blippar’s new augmented reality app is supposed to recognize any object you point it at (video) — from recode.net by Lauren Goode

Excerpt:

But it’s safe to say that augmented reality is coming into a new phase: The contextual information being supplied is getting smarter, and people are gradually becoming more aware of the capabilities of AR and virtual reality (some are even excited to wear headsets, if you can believe it). So Blippar, in an effort to evolve along with the rest of the AR world, has just launched a new version of its smartphone app that is supposed to recognize literally any object you point at it — whether it has been “tagged” with an AR code or not.

Meta Unveils Incredible Augmented Reality Headset at TED — from uploadvr.com

Excerpt:

Redwood City-based Meta showed its latest AR glasses live on stage at TED in Vancouver.

The Meta 2 was demonstrated live by CEO Meron Gribetz with a person-to-person “call” showing a hand-off of a 3D model from a holographic person. Gribetz’ perspective was shown through the glasses as he reached out and took a model of a brain — a 3D hologram — from the hands of a colleague he saw projected in front of him.

“We’re all going to be throwing away our external monitors,” Gribetz said.

50 of the best teaching & learning apps for 2016 — from teachthought.com

Excerpt:

What are the best teaching and learning apps for 2016? That’s a good question this post looks to answer.

Every year, we put together a collection of what we believe are the best teaching and learning apps for that year. (Here, for example, is our 2015 version of the list below, where you will notice about half the apps are the same, and half have changed. That’s not bad for progress, is it?

This year, we were asked by the good folks at Easelly (the infographic and visual data platform) to create a collection of resources that while including their apps, would curate a lot of good stuff teachers would benefit from in 2016. Since we were preparing to release our TeachThought Editor’s Choice: 2016 Best Teaching and Learning Apps–and have used Easelly for years ourselves–we combined the two projects to give you something you can use to guide your #edtech integration this year.

6 ed tech tools to try in 2016 — from cultofpedagogy.com by Jennifer Gonzalez

Excerpt:

About a year ago, I published an e-book called the Teacher’s Guide to Tech. Over the last month, I have been updating it for 2016, adding over 30 new tools and refreshing the information I had about the original ones. I have to say, the 2015 version was excellent, but now it’s SO MUCH BETTER. (To take a peek at the guide, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

In the process, I discovered some tools that I absolutely fell in love with, and I wanted to share them with you here. Each of these tools can make your teaching more efficient and effective, and your students’ learning deeper and more engaging.

Let’s take a look.

Visit Shakespeare’s London at FIU’s new virtual reality facility — from cec.fiu.edu

Excerpt:

It’s 1598, and you’re on your way to the Globe Theater to watch one of Shakespeare’s plays. You walk along the dirt roads and the green fields of London and you realize you can see the London Bridge in the distance. A vagabond asks you for a coin, and you find the village houses and the town market bustling with customers. Once you arrive at the theater, you watch the first few minutes of the opening monologue of “Henry V.”

This is a virtual world created by a multidisciplinary team of FIU students – and you can immerse yourself in this time-travel journey starting Jan. 29 when the I-CAVE opens at Modesto A. Maidique Campus.

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Google brings commenting to sheets and slides on mobile— from techcrunch.com by Frederic Lardinois

Excerpt:

Google announced [on 1/28/16] a couple of updates to the commenting features in its Google Apps productivity suite.

These include the launch of mobile commenting in the iOS and Android apps for Slides and Sheets. Thanks to this, the commenting experience in Google’s apps is now (almost) the same across all of its apps — whether on the web or on mobile. I’m not sure why Google didn’t already offer this before, but better late than never, right?

10 very good tools for student researchers — from educatorstechnology.com

Excerpt:

One of the onerous parts in essay and academic writing is the bibliography section. Managing, organizing and citing references can sometimes be a real challenge especially if you don’t keep track of what and who you cite. The last thing you want after a strenuous writing task is a messy bibliography with one reference missing a page number, the other needs publication date or, worse of all, having to go back to your sources to check for the source of that quotation you included in your conclusion. If you find yourself constantly grappling with problems such as these, the web tools below are absolutely something you might need to consider. These are some of the best applications for organizing, managing, and publishing bibliographies, citations and references. Some of these softwares are integrated with Google Scholar.

Fresco News app brings crowdsourced journalism to Apple TV — from imore.com by Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Excerpt:

Fresco News, an app that crowdsources news footage by allowing citizen journalists to upload and share their photos videos of current events around the globe, has officially launched an Apple TV app. With the app, users can check out first-hand accounts of events around the world on the big screen through their Apple TV.

5 Apple TV fitness apps to get in shape on a budget — from macworld.com by Caitlin McGarry
There are tons of streaming TV apps, but I’m on the hunt for a streaming workout app that won’t cost a fortune.

Excerpt:

The fourth-generation Apple TV now has more than 3,600 tvOS apps, Apple revealed in its first-quarter earnings call Tuesday. Most of those are games or streaming video apps, and there are tons of great options in both categories. When it comes to fitness, which seems to me a natural fit for the TV, the selection is sparse. But still, I was sure at least one Apple TV app would have what I was looking for: a cheap way to stay in shape. But it wasn’t that easy.

Codespark.org

Codemonkey

Best iPhone 6 and 6s tripods for stablizing and mounting — from imore.com by Brent Zaniewski
A dependable tripod can enhance your iPhone photography skills and help you get an otherwise impossible shot.

Livestream unveils new device for affordable multi-camera productions — from bizbash.com by Mitra Sorrells
The tiny Movi camera links with an iOS app for real-time recording, editing, and streaming from events.

Excerpt:

Planners interested in creating multi-camera video productions at their events will soon have a new, inexpensive option. Livestream, the company behind live online events for brands such as Tesla, Salesforce.com, the N.B.A., and more, has created a 2.5-inch device that lets users record and edit in real time between nine virtual high-definition cameras. Movi is available for preorder for delivery in April, currently at a price of $299.

This lens can widen your view into a classroom for only $10 — from blog.edthena.com

How Five EdTech Start-Ups Are Using Big Data To Boost Business Education — from by Seb Murray
MOOC platforms explore analytics with b-school partners

Excerpt:

Education tech companies including Coursera, edX, Udacity and their b-school and university partners are delving deeper into big data analytics to improve teaching and student learning.

Simon Nelson, CEO of online learning company FutureLearn, says: “The potential is incredible — and we are just scratching the surface.”

A report to be published in January by the UK’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) envisages that big data will help identify risk of failure; give students instant feedback; and benchmark their performance against peers.

Addendum on 2/1/16:

Free Audio Sound Effects for E-Learning — from blogs.articulate.com

Addendum on 2/2/16:

The 25 Best Free iPhone Apps For Business — from fastcompany.com by Doug Aamoth
Make meetings actually useful. Brainstorm like a champ. Take the boredom out of busywork. And much more.
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Apps that will revolutionize how you work from home — from chicagotribune.com by Sheila Marikar

10 hot consumer trends for 2016 [ericsson.com]

On 12/21/2015, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, innovation, intelligent systems, journalism, machine-to-machine communications, Near Field Communication (NFC), society, trends, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

Topics covered:

The lifestyle network effect
Streaming natives
AI ends the screen age
Virtual gets real
Sensing homes
Smart commuters
Emergy chat
Internables
Everything gets hacked
Netizen journalists

7 unexpected virtual reality use cases — from techcrunch.com by Andrew Thomson

Excerpt:

How VR will be used, and the changes that the technology will make to the day-to-day lives of regular people is still a matter of speculation. Gamers are warming up their trigger fingers for a new level of immersive gaming, and the field of entertainment will be transformed by the changes. But use cases in other industries could be just as transformative.

Indeed, some amazing and inventive new ways to use VR technology are already appearing that could dramatically impact people in their daily lives.

Also see:

Our virtual reality future is bigger than it appears — from ft.com by Jonathan Margolis

Excerpt:

“VR is an individual experience. We’re looking at less obvious VR applications.”

One of these is education. To which end, Mr Hirsch took me into another room to watch a two-minute educational VR video Zypre have made with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, along with some of the Avatar team, using AMD’s technology. It depicts the Wright brothers’ 1903 flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

The film took six months to make, with computer-generated photorealistic visuals and every detail overseen by historians. I watched it on a prototype of the much-heralded Oculus Rift VR headset, expected out early next year.

It was several times more startling than the VR footage I described in April. It was more than virtual reality; it was pretty much . . . reality.

It’s not enough to say that, standing in a stuffy, darkened room in LA, I truly felt I was on a beach in North Carolina in 1903.

It was way more vivid than that. I even thought I felt the sea breeze in my face, then the backdraught from the propeller of the brothers’ flying machine. I shouted out that I could feel the wind and the techies surrounding me laughed. Apparently, a lot of people say that. It seems the brain is so fooled that it extrapolates and adds effects it thinks should be there. I have to confess, my American history is so sketchy I didn’t even know the flight was on a beach.

Also see:

See more information re:the
Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition.

A virtual reality revolution, coming to a headset near you [Lorne Manly at nytimes.com]

On 11/19/2015, in art, journalism, media/film, multimedia, music, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

A virtual reality revolution, coming to a headset near you — from nytimes.com by Lorne Manly

Excerpts:

Virtual reality — once the stuff of science fiction — is still in its infancy. But there’s already a gold rush around the technology, which plunges viewers into a simulated 3-D environment and lets them explore their surroundings as if they were really there.

Technology and entertainment giants are betting billions that virtual reality is much more than a passing fad, one that will revolutionize the way we experience movies, news, sporting events, video games and more.

Meanwhile, filmmakers and other creators are grappling with an entirely new storytelling language and dealing with some formidable challenges — claustrophobic headsets that can make people cybersick.
…
Here, some of the other pioneers in film, journalism, sports and gaming talk about the potential and struggles of building a new art form from the ground up.
…
“You really engage on scene in a way that gives you this incredible connection to where you are,” Ms. de la Peña said. “And that’s why, early on, I was calling it an empathy generator, an empathy machine.”

tvOS: The days of developing for a “TV”-based OS are now upon us.

On 10/22/2015, in 21st century, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bring your own device (BYOD), change, collaboration, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, e-books, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, journalism, K-12 related, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, more voice more choice more control, multi-touch, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, second screen apps, simulations, social learning / networks, story, storytelling, streams of content, student-related, tablets, technologies for your home, telecommunications, telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, TVs, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, by Daniel Christian

Apple puts out call for Apple TV apps — from bizjournals.com by Gina Hall

Excerpt:

The company put out the call for app submissions on Wednesday for tvOS. The Apple TV App Store will debut as Apple TV units are shipped out next week.
…
The main attraction of Apple TV is a remote with a glass touch surface and a Siri button that allows users to search by voice. Apple tvOS is capable of running apps ranging from Airbnb to Zillow and games like Crossy Road. Another major perk of Apple TV will be universal search, which allows users to scan for movies and television shows and see results from multiple sources, instead of having to conduct the same search within multiple apps.

Apple CEO Tim Cook hopes the device will simplify how viewers consume content.

From DSC:
The days of developing for a “TV”-based OS are now upon us: tvOS is here. I put “TV” in quotes because what we know of the television in the year 2015 may look entirely different 5-10 years from now.

Once developed, things like lifelong learning, web-based learner profiles, badges and/or certifications, communities of practice, learning hubs, smart classrooms, virtual tutoring, virtual field trips, AI-based digital learning playlists, and more will never be the same again.

Also see:

tvOS for Developers – Apple Developer
An Introduction to tvOS Development — from code.tutsplus.com by Davis Allie

Addendum on 10/26/15:
The article below discusses one piece of the bundle of technologies that I’m trying to get at via my Learning from the Living [Class] Room Vision:

No More Pencils, No More Books — from by Will Oremus
Artificially intelligent software is replacing the textbook—and reshaping American education.
Excerpt:
ALEKS starts everyone at the same point. But from the moment students begin to answer the practice questions that it automatically generates for them, ALEKS’ machine-learning algorithms are analyzing their responses to figure out which concepts they understand and which they don’t. A few wrong answers to a given type of question, and the program may prompt them to read some background materials, watch a short video lecture, or view some hints on what they might be doing wrong. But if they’re breezing through a set of questions on, say, linear inequalities, it may whisk them on to polynomials and factoring. Master that, and ALEKS will ask if they’re ready to take a test. Pass, and they’re on to exponents—unless they’d prefer to take a detour into a different topic, like data analysis and probability. So long as they’ve mastered the prerequisites, which topic comes next is up to them.

New York Times, Google team up on virtual reality films [mercurynews.com]

On 10/20/2015, in experimentation, Google, ideas, innovation, journalism, psychology, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

New York Times, Google team up on virtual reality films — from mercurynews.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

NEW YORK — The New York Times is collaborating with Google to launch a virtual reality project that includes a free app to view films on devices like smartphones.

The newspaper publisher said Tuesday the NYT VR app that will be available for download in both iOS and Google Play app stores starting Nov. 5. The first virtual-reality film in the project is titled “The Displaced” and follows the experiences of child refugees from south Sudan, eastern Ukraine and Syria.

Google will supply cardboard viewers that allow customers to view a three-dimensional version of the films. More than 1 million of the viewers will be distributed to home delivery subscribers early next month, and digital subscribers will receive emails with details on how to get the free viewers.

Learning Ecosystems

Five lessons for libraries looking to innovate in the 21st Century [Wilansky]

Stanford’s virtual reality lab cultivates empathy for the homeless [Myrow]

10 new items re: AR and VR

“2020 Vision: Experts Predict the Future of Virtual Reality”; using VR to train teachers; plus 7 other items re: VR/AR

A virtual reality revolution, coming to a headset near you [Lorne Manly at nytimes.com]

New York Times, Google team up on virtual reality films [mercurynews.com]

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