Native American Students Build STEM Skills While Exploring Their Cultural Stories with VR/AR Design Projects — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush and Tilanka Chandrasekera

Excerpt:

Through a $1.5million, four-year NSF grant, Oklahoma State University researchers are leveraging their earlier work with proven, college-level design courses that incorporate VR, AR, and 3D printing technologies. But this time, they are helping underserved Native American middle school students develop STEM skills.

Here, Campus Technology talks with Principal Investigator Dr. Tilanka Chandrasekera, who is an endowed professor at OSU and director of the Mixed Reality Lab, to find out more about the grant that the NSF titled, “Engaging Native American Students in STEM Career Development Through a Culturally Responsive After School Program Using Virtual Environments and 3D Printing.”

 

NVIDIA OMNIVERSE: Creating and Connecting Virtual Worlds

A NEW ERA OF 3D DESIGN COLLABORATION AND SIMULATION
NVIDIA Omniverse™ is an easily extensible, open platform built for virtual collaboration and real-time physically accurate simulation. Creators, designers, researchers, and engineers can connect major design tools, assets, and projects to collaborate and iterate in a shared virtual space. Developers and software providers can also easily build and sell Extensions, Apps, Connectors, and Microservices on Omniverse’s modular platform to expand its functionality.



Also see:

 
 

The Metaverse is Taking Over the Physical World — from interestingengineering.com by Rupendra Brahambhatt; with thanks to Dan Lejerskar for this resource
The virtual world is expanding with real world avatars and digital economy.

Excerpt:

The advent of AR, blockchain, and VR devices in the last few years has sparked the development of the metaverse. Moreover, the unprecedented growth of highly advanced technologies in the gaming industry, which offer immersive gameplay experiences, not only provides us a glimpse of how the metaverse would look like but also indicates that we are closer than ever to experience a virtual world of our own.

What is the metaverse?

The Metaverse is Taking Over the Physical WorldSource: Kelvin Han/Unsplash

A metaverse is a group of persistent, shared 3D virtual environments where you (in the form of your digital avatar) can visit places, shop for products, subscribe to services, work with your colleagues, play games, and even customize the scenes around you to meet your personal tastes and requirements, and the digital assets you own. So essentially, a metaverse is a virtual world or worlds, that would allow you to go inside the digital world — to be in rather than on the digital space.

 

From DSC:
Again I wonder….on the legal side of things…how will this impact what lawyers, judges, legislators, general counsels, and more need to know? Along these lines see:

To do this well, legal department heads and the lawyers and professionals in the department will have to learn, and practice, some new skills: embracing technology, project management, change management, and adaptability.

The first, and likely most obvious, skill an attorney needs in a rapidly evolving business environment is a firm grasp on existing and emerging technology. There are two important categories of technology to consider—the first is legal technology and the second is broader technology trends.

 

 
 

BlueJeans Video Conferencing Giant to Launch Native Google Glass App for Remote Assistance — from next.reality.news by Adario Strange

Excerpt:

Starting in 2022, Glass Enterprise Edition 2 users will have the option of using a native version of the BlueJeans meeting software.

Like other enterprise AR wearables on the market, the primary use case for the dynamic will be in the realm of remote assistance, in which an expert in a faraway location can see what a Google Glass wearer sees and advise that team member accordingly.

From DSC:
Remote support is also occurring in healthcare. What might “telehealth” morph into?

Remote support is also occurring in healthcare. What might telehealth morph into?

 

Could AR and/or VR enable a massive 3D-based type of “Voicethread?” [Christian]

From DSC:
What if we could quickly submit items for a group to discuss, annotate, and respond to — using whichever media format is available/preferable for a person — like a massive 3D-based Voicethread? What if this type of discussion could be contributed to and accessed via Augmented Reality (AR) and/or via Virtual Reality (VR) types of devices?

It could be a new 3D format that a person could essentially blow all the way up into the size of a billboard. Think, “Honey, I shrunk the kids” type of stuff.  

Input devices might include:

  • Augmented Reality (AR) glasses
  • Virtual Reality (VR) headsets/glasses
  • Scanners
  • Smartphones
  • Tablets
  • Desktops and laptops
  • SmartTVs
  • Other types of input devices

For example, a person could take a picture of a document or something else and then save that image into a new file format that would be vector-based. I say a vector-based file format so that the image could be enlarged to the size of a billboard without losing any resolution (i.e., wouldn’t become grainy; the image would remain crystal clear regardless of how big the image is). I’m thinking here along the lines of “Honey, I shrunk the kids!”

Other thoughts here:

  • The files could be accessible online for attendees of classes or for audiences of presentations/webinars
  • The files could be displayed on the walls of learning/presentation spaces for marking them up
  • One could manipulate the 3D image if that person was using a virtual/immersive environment
  • Users should be able to annotate on those images and/or be able to save such annotations and notes

A question for phase II:
Could this concept also be used if virtual courts take off?

Hmmmm…just thinking out loud.

 

Boston startup fights seniors’ isolation with VR — from bizjournals.com by Emma Campbell

Excerpts:

Social isolation is a term that more Americans have become familiar with due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it’s a concept that was already intimately familiar to one segment of the population: the elderly.

Isolation disproportionately affects the aging population in the U.S. and can lead to significant mental and physical health issues for seniors. But there’s a Boston-based startup, Rendever, using a unique tool to fight it.

“We’ve always thought that the foundation of all human connection is shared positive experience,” Rand said. “So what we’ve done is we’ve spent the past five years building a really strong experience platform that allows people to come together, put on their headsets, and go and check off a bucket list item.”

 

 

Dreamscape Learn Pod Unveiled at ASU+GSV Summit — from gettingsmart.com by Rachelle Dene Poth

Excerpt:

At the ASU+GSV Summit, a leading digital learning summit held in San Diego, California, virtual reality (VR) enthusiasts had an opportunity to experience Dreamscape Learn pod, a first-of-its-kind, full-body tracking, immersive VR experience. Created in partnership with Steven Spielberg, Dreamscape Immersive and Arizona State University (ASU) unveiled the pod for the first time during the event.

ASU President Michael M. Crow and Dreamscape Immersive founder/president and former DreamWorks Pictures studio head Walter Parkes, worked together to create Dreamscape Learn. President Crow and Parkes together merged the ideas of creating Hollywood storytelling with the innovation from ASU. ASU has been a leader in innovation and cutting-edge technology and has been ranked number one in innovation for the sixth year by the US News and World Report.

 

 

“In person” classes offered in virtual reality — from zdnet.com by Greg Nichols; with thanks to Will Richardson for the resource
A virtual reality college campus welcomes students this fall.

Excerpt:

“With this cadaver lab, our pre-med students will no longer need to rely on other universities for advanced anatomy and biology classes,” said Dr. Shirley Brown, Dean of Fisk University. “Virtual reality technology takes our university to a level equal to the most advanced schools in the country.”

 

What doors does this type of real-time translation feature open up for learning? [Christian]

From DSC:
For that matter, what does it open up for #JusticeTech? #Legaltech? #A2J? #Telehealth?

 

Learning from the living class room

 

Could VR Stadiums Be The Future Of Live Esports? — from vrscout.com by Kyle Melnick
Virtex wants to revolutionize the way we view live esports by replicating the IRL stadium experience in VR.

Virtex wants to revolutionize the way we view live esports by replicating the IRL stadium experience in VR.

Also see:

  • Augmented, Virtual Realties Hold Promise for Government — from govtech.com
    Excerpts:
    From firefighting and social services to increased accessibility, public-sector agencies are using virtual and augmented reality to improve how staff train to interact with citizens — and it’s only the beginning.

    From field operations to personnel training to service delivery, “there are a lot of opportunities to improve government through these immersive experiences,” she said. While state and local governments are still in the early stages of AR and VR adoption, a number of emerging use cases suggest the technology’s potential power.
 

No, it doesn’t need to be a Zoom — from wired.com by Chris Stokel-Walker
We’re wasting hours of our lives on inefficient video calls. Here’s how to decide when you should jump on a Zoom – and when not to

Excerpt:

Academic research has pinpointed four reasons why we’re growing sick of video calls. For one thing, we’re engaged in an unnaturally large amount of eye contact, which can prove exhausting, according to Jeremy Bailenson professor at Stanford University and founding director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab. We’re also stressed out by being confronted with our own face for hours on end (even if you can’t stop staring at it). Bailenson compares it to be followed around with a mirror all day.

From DSC:
What comes to my mind here is that videoconferencing — and meeting in general — requires mental work — and thus energy. Why? Because, as I mentioned in this posting, we are constantly processing auditory and visual channels. 

 

What is cognitive load? And why should I care about it?
What is cognitive load? And why should I care about it?

Transcript here.

 

From DSC:
So having to process auditory and visual information hour after hour takes major energy! And some presentations/presenters require a lot more energy than others.

Having to process auditory and visual information hour after hour takes major energy!

 

watching a presentation by Steve Jobs requires a lot less auditory and visual processing

 
 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian