From DSC — in regards to the below item involving Intel:

In the future, will we be able to bring remote students into our face-to-face-based classrooms using technologies similar to what Intel is working on? If so, that would offer some serious opportunities for learners worldwide. More choice, more control.

 



How Intel is using VR to try to change sports viewing now and into the future — from fastcompany.com by Daniel Terdiman

The tech giant has grand ambitions, and thinks that fully immersive live sports is the key to giving fans what they want–someday.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

There are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of passionate sports fans around the world. And yet, according to Intel, no more than 1% of those people will ever get to see their favorite team in person.

That massive experience gap is at the center of Intel’s ambitious live-sports virtual reality efforts, a series of initiatives that over the next couple of years should solidify the company’s “as if you’re there” philosophy about sports, said Jeff Hopper, the business strategy lead at Intel Sports Group.

In the short term, those efforts will focus on single-user, individual experiences. But over time, Intel plans on making it possible for fans to be right in the middle of their favorite team’s action, create personalized 3D highlights, and share them with friends.

Fans watching the games—via Intel’s True VR app on Samsung’s Gear VR headset—will be able to choose from multiple camera angles around a stadium, each of which will give them a wide, immersive view of the action.

 



 

 

 

 



 

 

From Apple itself:

 

  • HomePod reinvents music in the home
    San Jose, California — Apple today announced HomePod, a breakthrough wireless speaker for the home that delivers amazing audio quality and uses spatial awareness to sense its location in a room and automatically adjust the audio. Designed to work with an Apple Music subscription for access to over 40 million songs, HomePod provides deep knowledge of personal music preferences and tastes and helps users discover new music.

    As a home assistant, HomePod is a great way to send messages, get updates on news, sports and weather, or control smart home devices by simply asking Siri to turn on the lights, close the shades or activate a scene. When away from home, HomePod is the perfect home hub, providing remote access and home automations through the Home app on iPhone or iPad.

 

 

 

 



Also see:



 

The 8 biggest announcements from Apple WWDC 2017 — from theverge.copm by Natt Garun

Excerpt:

Apple introduced a new ARKit to let developers build augmented reality apps for the iPhone. The kit can help find planes, track motion, and estimate scale and ambient lighting. Popular apps like Pokémon Go will also use ARKit for improved real-time renders.

Rather than requiring external hardware like Microsoft’s HoloLens, Apple seems to be betting on ARKit to provide impressive quality imaging through a device most people already own. We’ll know more on how the quality actually compares when we get to try it out ourselves.

 

 

Everything Apple Announced Today at WWDC — from wired.com by Arielle Pardes

Excerpt:

On Monday, over 5,000 developers packed the San Jose Convention Center to listen to Tim Cook and other Apple execs share the latest innovations out of Cupertino. Over the course of two and a half hours, the company unveiled its most powerful Mac yet, a long-awaited Siri speaker, and tons of new software upgrades across all of the Apple platforms, from your iPhone to your Apple Watch. Missed the keynote speech? Here’s a recap of the nine biggest announcements from WWDC 2017.

 

 

Apple is launching an iOS ‘ARKit’ for augmented reality apps — from theverge.com by Adi Robertson

Excerpt:

Apple has announced a tool it calls ARKit, which will provide advanced augmented reality capabilities on iOS. It’s supposed to allow for “fast and stable motion tracking” that makes objects look like they’re actually being placed in real space, instead of simply hovering over it.

 

 

Apple is finally bringing virtual reality to the Mac – from businessinsider.com by Matt Weinberger

Excerpt:

Apple is finally bringing virtual reality support to its Mac laptops and desktops, bringing the company up to speed with what many see as the next phase of computing.

At Monday’s Apple WWDC event in San Jose, the company announced that with this fall’s MacOS High Sierra update, the Mac will support external graphics hardware — meaning you can plug in a box and greatly increase your machine’s graphical capabilities.

In turn, that external hardware will give the Mac the boost it needs to support virtual reality headsets, which require superior performance to create an immersive experience.

 

 

Complete Guide to Virtual Reality Careers — from vudream.com by Mark Metry

Excerpt:

So you want to jump in the illustrious intricate pool of Virtual Reality?

Come on in my friend. The water is warm with confusion and camaraderie. To be honest, few people have any idea what’s going on in the industry.

VR is a brand new industry, hardly anyone has experience.

That’s a good thing for you.

Marxent Labs reports that there are 5 virtual reality jobs.
UX/UI Designers:
UX/UI Designers create roadmaps demonstrating how the app should flow and design the look and feel of the app, in order to ensure user-friendly experiences.
Unity Developers:
Specializing in Unity 3D software, Unity Developers create the foundation of the experience.
3D Modelers:
3D artists render lifelike digital imagery.
Animators:
Animators bring the 3D models to life. Many 3D modelers are cross-trained in animation, which is a highly recommended combination a 3D candidate to possess.
Project Manager:
The Project Manager is responsible for communicating deadlines, budgets, requirements, roadblocks, and more between the client and the internal team.
Videographer:
Each project is captured and edited into clips to make showcase videos for marketing and entertainment.

 

 

Virtual Reality (VR) jobs jump in the job market — from forbes.com by Karsten Strauss

Excerpt:

One of the more vibrant, up-and-coming sectors of the tech industry these days is virtual reality. From the added dimension it brings to gaming and media consumption to the level of immersion the technology can bring to marketing, VR is expected to see a bump in the near future.

And major players have not been blind to that potential. Most famously, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg laid down a $2 billion bet on the technology in the spring of 2014 when his company acquired virtual reality firm, Oculus Rift. That investment put a stamp of confidence on the space and it’s grown ever since.

So it makes sense, then, that tech-facing companies are scanning for developers and coders who can help them build out their VR capabilities. Though still early, some in the job-search industry are noticing a trend in the hiring market.

 

 

 

 

 

Ed Dept. Names Finalists for Virtual and Augmented Reality Competition — from campustechnology.com by Sri Ravipati

Excerpt:

The finalists are:

  • Case Western Reserve University, which developed “Holographic Anatomy to Transform Healthcare,” a simulation that provides an alternative to using cadavers to teach medical anatomy. Combining the Microsoft HoloLens and the VR experience, medical students can practice dissection techniques in a virtual environment.
  • Embodied Labs for a series of VR patient experiences called “The Alfred Lab,” designed to teach students how to take better care of elderly populations.
  • Octothorpe, the creator behind “The Irregular: Sherlock Holmes,” which challenges students to work together on chemistry and psychology problems.
  • Osso VR, for its realistic, hands-on orthopaedic surgical training platform; and
  • Smart Sparrow, an education company that created “LifeCraft,” which explores life on Earth through various archaeology, biology and astronomy expeditions.

 

 

EON CREATOR AVR

The EON Creator AVR Enterprise and Education content builder empowers non-technical users to create compelling AR and VR applications in minutes, not weeks.

ENTERPRISE
With no programming required, EON Creator AVR Enterprise empowers workers to accelerate learning and improve performance, safety, and efficiency in the workplace.

EDUCATION
Teachers and students can create, experience, and share AVR learning applications with EON Creator AVR and quickly add them to their current classroom, seamlessly.

 

 

 

 

Also see:

 

 

 

Also see:

 

 

 
 
 

109 ways companies are using virtual & augmented reality right now — from metavrse.com by Alan Smithson

Excerpt:

By 2035, Citi Financial Estimates the vCommerce industry to be worth $1.3 trillion.  Yes, that is trillion with a “T”, we’re talking 4 comma club!  Now that is a massive number and surely not all of this is from virtual and augmented reality… or is it.  According to VR evangelist and author of the Fourth Transformation, A book about the transformative potential of VR/AR, Robert Scoble suggests ‘Users will start expecting brands to have mixed reality experiences in 2018.

 

 

 

Lithodomosvr.com: Archaeology Virtual Reality Content for Tourism, Education and Entertainment

 

 

 

An excerpt from their website:

Head mounted virtual reality devices have an enormous potential to provide non-destructive immersive experiences for visitors to archaeological sites and museums as well as for researchers and educators. By creating a model that suggests an anastylosis of a building, the user can simply put on a headset and view the streetscape and its suggested reconstruction.

VR simulations are a much cheaper and more flexible solution than on-site physical reconstruction. Of course, necessary checks and measures are important to signify what is certain and what is guesswork, and as such, Lithodomos adheres to section 2.4 of the ICOMOS Charter for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites.

By using photogrammetry, texturing and mesh modelling, Lithodomos VR creates immersive experiences of the Greek and Roman worlds for viewing on Virtual Reality Head Mounted devices, for example: the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and many others. Unlike many VR content creators, our point of difference is that we specialse in VR content for the Greek and Roman worlds. Our reconstructions stem from years of research and firsthand knowledge, and they reflect the best academic practices to ensure that the end product is both as accurate as can be possible and informative for the viewer.

 

 

 

 

 

The 82 Hottest EdTech Tools of 2017 According to Education Experts — from tutora.co.uk by Giorgio Cassella

Excerpt:

If you work in education, you’ll know there’s a HUGE array of applications, services, products and tools created to serve a multitude of functions in education.

Tools for teaching and learning, parent-teacher communication apps, lesson planning software, home-tutoring websites, revision blogs, SEN education information, professional development qualifications and more.

There are so many companies creating new products for education, though, that it can be difficult to keep up – especially with the massive volumes of planning and marking teachers have to do, never mind finding the time to actually teach!

So how do you know which ones are the best?

Well, as a team of people passionate about education and learning, we decided to do a bit of research to help you out.

We’ve asked some of the best and brightest in education for their opinions on the hottest EdTech of 2017. These guys are the real deal – experts in education, teaching and new tech from all over the world from England to India, to New York and San Francisco.

They’ve given us a list of 82 amazing, tried and tested tools…


From DSC:
The ones that I mentioned that Giorgio included in his excellent article were:

  • AdmitHub – Free, Expert College Admissions Advice
  • Labster – Empowering the Next Generation of Scientists to Change the World
  • Unimersiv – Virtual Reality Educational Experiences
  • Lifeliqe – Interactive 3D Models to Augment Classroom Learning

 


 

 

 

 

From DSC:
The use of virtual reality in industries such as architecture, construction, and real estate is growing. Below are some articles that speak to this trend.

In the future, it’s highly likely we’ll be able to get a nice VR-based tour of a space before building it, or renting it, or moving into it. Schools and universities will benefit from this as well, as they can use VR to refine the vision for a space with the appropriate stakeholders and donors.

 


 

 

Coming Soon: A Virtual Reality Revolution — from builderonline.com by Jennifer Goodman
American consumers will soon expect homes to be viewable before they are built. Are you ready?

Excerpt:

In what ways are builders using VR today?
There are two primary uses of the panoramic style VR that I mentioned above being used: 1) photography based experiences and 2) computer generated (CG) experiences. The former is getting quite a bit of traction right now through technologies like Matterport. They are what I consider a modern version of iPix, using a camera to photograph an existing environment and special software to move through the space. But it is limited to real world environments. The CG experiences don’t require the environments to be built which gives builders a huge advantage to pre-market their properties. And since it is computer generated, there is a tremendous amount of flexibility in what is presented, such as various structural options or cabinet selections. And not only homes! Developers are using the technology to market the amenities of a new master planned community.

 

 

Local builders step further into virtual reality — from richmondbizsense.com by Jonathan Spiers

Excerpt:

While 3D modeling and online virtual tours have become more commonplace in the home design industry, at least one local builder is taking the custom home building and buying process into a new dimension.

At a recent preview event for this year’s Homearama, an annual home design showcase to be held this May at Chesterfield County’s NewMarket Estates, Midlothian-based Lifestyle Home Builders let attendees virtually walk through and look around a completed version of the house it is building – while standing within the same unfinished home under construction.

Participants were invited to wear virtual reality (VR) headsets for a full immersion, 360-degree experience, or they could navigate the finished product via a virtual tour on a computer screen. LifeStyle is using the technology, which it adapted from building information modeling (BIM) and off-the-shelf software, to allow homebuyers a chance to see their custom home before it is built and make any changes prior to construction starting.

 

 

How Virtual Reality Could Revolutionize The Real Estate Industry — from forbes.com by Azad Abbasi

Excerpt:

Consider the top two hurdles of the average real estate agent:

  • Agents have to manage the time it takes to go from one visit to the other, dealing with traffic among other elements out of their control.
  • The most commonly heard phrase in real estate is, “It doesn’t look like the pictures.”

Virtual reality can help immediately resolve both of these issues. It offers the possibility to virtually visit a lot more homes in a lot less time. This will naturally increase sales efficiency, as well as allow the ability to see more potential buyers.

Here are three different options you can explore using virtual reality to heighten real estate experiences:

 

 

From DSC:
After reviewing the article and video (below), it will be interesting to see how machine-to-machine (M2M) communications will be used in combination with augmented reality — and perhaps with virtual reality and mixed reality as well. That is, get to within a certain range of an object, and something automatically happens on your mobile device or your head mounted device. Perhaps that’s the sort of thing Apple is building into their next smart phone. It would sure open up some interesting learning and entertainment-related experiences — as such new affordances could help foster anticipation and curiosity, while grabbing someone’s attention.

This type of thing could easily become a piece of the future of art and creativity.


 

Mini-Mirages Emerge in an Augmented Reality Art Exhibition — from creators.vice.com by Nathaniel Ainley
Adrien M and Claire B’s latest series of installations basically looks like Harry Potter magic come to life.

Excerpt:

Even in its early beta stages, the new live exhibition from digital artists Adrien M and Claire B will have you rubbing your eyes in disbelief. Throughout their Mirages & Miracles display, the artist duo uses wondrous applications of augmented reality to create an orchestra of new installations, both small and large. Much like their live dance performance work at BAM, the new bundle merges the digital with the material, blurring the lines between what is real and what is fake. The multi-pronged ensemble uses augmented drawings, holographic illusions, virtual-reality headsets, and large-scale projections to create a number of unbelievable scenarios “that take root in both the mirage and the miracle,” according to the duo.

 

 

Mirages & miracles, premier aperçu… from Adrien M & Claire B on Vimeo.

 

 

 
 

 

 

Adobe unveils new Microsoft HoloLens and Amazon Alexa integrations — from geekwire.com by Nat Levy

 

 

 

 

Introducing the AR Landscape — from medium.com by Super Ventures
Mapping out the augmented reality ecosystem

 

 

 

 

Alibaba leads $18M investment in car navigation augmented reality outfit WayRay — from siliconangle.com by Kyt Dotson

Excerpt:

WayRay boasts the 2015 launch of Navion, what it calls the “first ever holographic navigator” for cars that uses AR technology to project a Global Positioning System, or GPS, info overlay onto the car’s windshield.

Just like a video game, users of the GPS need only follow green arrows projected as if onto the road in front of the car providing visual directions. More importantly, because the system displays on the windscreen, it does not require a cumbersome headset or eyewear worn by the driver. It integrates directly into the dashboard of the car.

The system also recognizes simple voice and gesture commands from the driver — eschewing turning of knobs or pressing buttons. The objective of the system is to allow the driver to spend more time paying attention to the road, with hands on the wheel. Many modern-day onboard GPS systems also recognize voice commands but require the driver to glance over at a screen.

 

 

Viro Media Is A Tool For Creating Simple Mobile VR Apps For Businesses — from uploadvr.com by Charles Singletary

Excerpt:

Viro Media is supplying a platform of their own and their hope is to be the simplest experience where companies can code once and have their content available on multiple mobile platforms. We chatted with Viro Media CEO Danny Moon about the tool and what creators can expect to accomplish with it.

 

 

Listen to these podcasts to dive into virtual reality — from haptic.al by Deniz Ergürel
We curated some great episodes with our friends at RadioPublic

Excerpt:

Virtual reality can transport us to new places, where we can experience new worlds and people, like no other. It is a whole new medium poised to change the future of gaming, education, health care and enterprise. Today we are starting a new series to help you discover what this new technology promises. With the help of our friends at RadioPublic, we are curating a quick library of podcasts related to virtual reality technology.

 

Psychologists using virtual reality to help treat PTSD in veterans — from kxan.com by Amanda Brandeis

Excerpt:

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Virtual reality is no longer reserved for entertainment and gamers, its helping solve real-world problems. Some of the latest advancements are being demonstrated at South by Southwest.

Dr. Skip Rizzo directs the Medical Virtual Reality Lab at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies. He’s helping veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He’s up teamed with Dell to develop and spread the technology to more people.

 

 

 

NVIDIA Jetson Enables Artec 3D, Live Planet to Create VR Content in Real Time — from blogs.nvidia.com
While VR revolutionizes fields across everyday life — entertainment, medicine, architecture, education and product design — creating VR content remains among its biggest challenges.

Excerpt:

At NVIDIA Jetson TX2 launch [on March 7, 2017], in San Francisco, [NVIDIA] showed how the platform not only accelerates AI computing, graphics and computer vision, but also powers the workflows used to create VR content. Artec 3D debuted at the event the first handheld scanner offering real-time 3D capture, fusion, modeling and visualization on its own display or streamed to phones and tablets.

 

 

Project Empathy
A collection of virtual reality experiences that help us see the world through the eyes of another

Excerpt:

Benefit Studio’s virtual reality series, Project Empathy is a collection of thoughtful, evocative and surprising experiences by some of the finest creators in entertainment, technology and journalism.

Each film is designed to create empathy through a first-person experience–from being a child inside the U.S. prison system to being a widow cast away from society in India.  Individually, each of the films in this series presents its filmmaker’s unique vision, portraying an intimate experience through the eyes of someone whose story has been lost or overlooked and yet is integral to the larger story of our global society. Collectively, these creatively distinct films weave together a colorful tapestry of what it means to be human today.

 

 

 

 

Work in a high-risk industry? Virtual reality may soon become part of routine training — from ibtimes.cok.uk by Owen Hughes
Immersive training videos could be used to train workers in construction, mining and nuclear power.

 

 

 

At Syracuse University, more students are getting ahold of virtual reality — from dailyorange.com by Haley Kim

 

 

 

As Instructors Experiment With VR, a Shift From ‘Looking’ to ‘Interacting’ — from edsurge.com by Marguerite McNeal

Excerpt:

Most introductory geology professors teach students about earthquakes by assigning readings and showing diagrams of tectonic plates and fault lines to the class. But Paul Low is not most instructors.

“You guys can go wherever you like,” he tells a group of learners. “I’m going to go over to the epicenter and fly through and just kind of get a feel.”

Low is leading a virtual tour of the Earth’s bowels, directly beneath New Zealand’s south island, where a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck last November. Outfitted with headsets and hand controllers, the students are “flying” around the seismic hotbed and navigating through layers of the Earth’s surface.

Low, who taught undergraduate geology and environmental sciences and is now a research associate at Washington and Lee University, is among a small group of profs-turned-technologists who are experimenting with virtual reality’s applications in higher education.

 

 

 

These University Courses Are Teaching Students the Skills to Work in VR — from uploadvr.com

Excerpt:

“As virtual reality moves more towards the mainstream through the development of new, more affordable consumer technologies, a way needs to be found for students to translate what they learn in academic situations into careers within the industry,” says Frankie Cavanagh, a lecturer at Northumbria University. He founded a company called Somniator last year with the aim not only of developing VR games, but to provide a bridge between higher education and the technology sector. Over 70 students from Newcastle University, Northumbria University and Gateshead College in the UK have been placed so far through the program, working on real games as part of their degrees and getting paid for additional work commissioned.

 

Working with VR already translates into an extraordinarily diverse range of possible career paths, and those options are only going to become even broader as the industry matures in the next few years.

 

 

Scope AR Brings Live, Interactive AR Video Support to Caterpillar Customers — from augmented.reality.news by Tommy Palladino

Excerpt:

Customer service just got a lot more interesting. Construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar just announced official availability of what they’re calling the CAT LIVESHARE solution to customer support, which builds augmented reality capabilities into the platform. They’ve partnered with Scope AR, a company who develops technical support and training documentation tools using augmented reality. The CAT LIVESHARE support system uses Scope AR’s Remote AR software as the backbone.

 

 

 

New virtual reality tool helps architects create dementia-friendly environments — from dezzen.com by Jessica Mairs

 

Visual showing appearance of a room without and with the Virtual Reality Empathy Platform headset

 

 

 

 

 

 
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