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Creative studio SunnyBoy entertainment, based in Old Town-Pansadena, have announced a new immersive virtual reality (VR) experience that allows users the chance to throw pies at the President of the United States.

Humble Pie, as the title is called, transports players to a dimly lit, virtual rendition of the iconic White House Oval Office for a late-night pie standoff with the President of the United States himself, Donald Trump. The satire-driven videogame offers players a chance to stand up to Donald Trump and throw a number of freshly baked pies directly into his face in a three-round videogame designed to entertain and serve as a comical form of “VR Therapy”, fusing parody with immersive gameplay features. All while providing a laughable antidote to the continues political headlines that fill our daily lives.

Stepping into the shoes of the Head Chef at the White House, players will need to take aim and land pies on the President of the United States in order to advance to the next round. The confrontation with the demanding snack-obsessed President of the United States. will put players aim to the test as they need to land five hits to make him stumble and fall into a sugar-induced trance. If players progress into the third round, two pie-wielding Secret Service agents will emerge to defend the President of the United States and the player must avoid taking hits as they continue their attack.

“Humble Pie started as a fun experiment between two of our employees, Kevin Shah and Ethan Stickley, who began developing it on the side. Once we played their prototype, we saw the promise of the game and immediately greenlit it for full production.” SunnyBoy Entertainment Co-Founder and Creative Director Craig Phillips explains. “This satirical game is about making you smile with the power of VR. Who doesn’t want to have some clean fun throwing pies at the President? It’s virtual therapy!”

Humble Pie is available now on Steam for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, with a trailer of the title available to view below. SunnyBoy Entertainment, known for their work on creating top tier storytelling and cinematic visuals for original and branded content, have stated they will be continuing to add original content to its impressive slate of VR projects following the launch of Humble Pie.

For all the latest on Humble Pie and SunnyBoy Entertainment in the future, keep reading VRFocus.

HTC Announces New Education Partnerships, VR Ad Service And More For HTC Vive

HTC Corporation today announced a series of new partnerships for the HTC Vive at the start of the 2017 Vive Ecosystem Conference (VEC2017). Ranging from virtual reality (VR) content development to education initiatives, the VEC2017 event has kicked-off the HTC Vive’s second year as a consumer product with a bang.

Improvements in the speed of data transmission has implications for many industries, and visual effects studio and virtual reality (VR) content creators Digital Domain are hoping to tap into innovation surrounding 5G networks to improve the VR experience.

5G networks would offer higher speeds, lower latencies and better overall performance and reliability compared to existing 4G and 3G networks. This is key to the development of several technology areas, including VR, augmented reality (AR), autonomous vehicles and connected workplaces.

To explore the possibilities offered by 5G, Digital Domain has joined the ‘5G Networks Slicing Association’ along with prominent firms such as Huawei, Deutsche Telekom, Tencent, Vokwagen and China Mobile. The Association will look at what different industries require from 5G, and how technical issues and new standards will affect development.

Daniel Seah, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Digital Domain, commented, “It’s a great honor for us to be able to work with global well-known partners across industries to form the 5G Network Slicing Association. 5G brings the promise of future innovation and invention. As XR technology and content continues to flourish and evolve, consumer demand for consistency in higher data rates and lower latency will grow exponentially. This association will ensure that we are all optimizing 5G to its highest capacity to provide an enhanced mobile broadband experience for the world.”

Digital Domain are probably best known for their visual effects work on films such as Titanic and Spider-Man: homecoming, though the company has also been heavily involved in VR, developing original VR films such as Micro Giants, which was featured at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Daniel Seah added, “The 5G network’s higher data speeds and lower latency rates will bring substantial improvements to the VR experience. In addition to exploring 5G technology, Digital Domain will continue to focus on creating premium VR content to drive the evolution of technologies and the transformation of the industry.”

For the latest news from the VR and AR sectors, keep checking back with VRFocus.

“Oh yeah, I was drunk on vodka and cranberry and then somebody stole my cheese.” Said a clearly outraged Nina.

It was, frankly, too early for my mind to properly process the discussion going on. Either that or it had already thrown in the towel for the day at 5:30am. Which would be something of a record. I rubbed my eyes and stared at the four people hovering around me. Quite the collection of individuals, me included, that shuffled and shivered their way through the airport terminal.

It’s nice to get away from it all and for some reason it had been decided that the entire VRFocus team – yes, all five of us – would be heading to Malta for a couple of days of… Actually, I mused, I wasn’t exactly sure. It wasn’t exactly rest and relaxation since we were still working and would need to work remotely meaning we were all going off laptops and it wouldn’t be until day three we’d be able to really go out and see the place. Plus, two of the five were actually quite ill. Poor Rebecca, who presently needs surgery as part of her is quite literally failing, was being powered along purely by willpower and painkillers. Peter, who would later be strapped into a virtual reality (VR) headset to review Fallout 4 VR was a coughing and spluttering walking plague factory. I was surprised no one from the airport had come up and painted a big cross on the front of his t-shirt.

A warmer climate? A change of scene? Whatever it was we were going and leaving behind us the blizzard that had descended on the UK behind. All of us.

Yes, all of us. For once myself and Rebecca, or as I’d dubbed us #TeamLeftBehind, were also featuring in the travel plans. We were quickly learning that it was probably for the best we didn’t know all the nonsense that went on during a regular trip.  For a start we were heading to the wrong island. Which was something of a faux pas. We’d need to make an additional trip via a ferry when we got there. Meaning that in a twenty-four hour period I would have travelled by train, underground, bus, taxi, aeroplane and ferry. I think I just got a transport bingo.

Kevin and Nina, so often travelling companions to events bickered like an old married couple. Who was looking after the Vive we were taking with us, who had the best seat, who was the best organised. Where they could actually get some cheese right now. The dealing with airports thing was pretty old news for them at this point. Kevin had the philosophy throughout the trip that the plane would, somehow, just wait for us. Me and Rebecca, mortified, wanted to get on as soon as possible.

Eventually after we got on the plane and it was at this point I remembered something very important about plane travel.

It sucks.

Think about it. You’re sealed inside a pressurised metal tube for hours at a time. There’s only so much you can do if there’s no in-flight entertainment. For me, smack bang in the middle of three seats it was an impossible situation. There was no room in the overhead compartment thanks to a guy in row 3 apparently taking every piece of clothing in his possession with him in a blue plastic tarp and filling up our bin with it. Meaning my carry-on only bag had to be jammed between my legs, pinning them to the side at an awkward angle. It was too uncomfortable to sleep. No room to use my laptop. Not to mention too awkward to read and get into the book I’d bought with me. In that situation all you have to look forward to is a battle of wits over the armrest against whichever person next to you turns out to be Elbows McGee.

With all of that is it that much of a surprise that we see hotels and airliners investing in VR so much? For the first time in a very long time indeed I was clamouring to have my Gear VR with and be ensconced on a beach somewhere. Or taking in a film via it, or going to the moon. Or literally anywhere else.  After all, no one wants to be on the plane, you want to get to your destination. It’s more a necessary inconvenience. So having something that transports you to somewhere else other than, well, where you are, suddenly becomes a great idea.  We’ve all seen photos or even videos from phones of people wearing a VR headset on a plane or a bus or on the underground and they’re usually accompanied by much sniggering and pointing of fingers at the ‘silly looking’ man or woman in VR.

You know what? Point and laugh all you want. They’re smart. They’re enjoying themselves and are unconcerned about what you think of them. In fact, let me ask a question in return. You’re on the bus, plane, train, whatever with them, right? How’s your journey going so far?  Because unless you’ve spent a small fortune I’m willing to bet the answer is it’s awful and you’re kind of stressed.  They on the other hand look pretty relaxed.

Funny that.

Virtual reality (VR) has already shown it can be a highly useful tool for not only tourism, but also just travelling the world, immersing you in far away lands. Today, Virtual Guide.com has announced the launch of a VR/e-commerce/3D tourism app made in collaboration with several companies.

From today, you’ll be able to visit the Coca-Cola Orlando Eye virtually and buy tickets to The Coca-Cola Orlando Eye without stepping foot onto the property, as part of a pilot for the $3.5M B2b Virtual Guide E-commerce Project by The Bee2Bee Network, The Orlando Eye, I-Drive 360, Samsung and Google.

The app allows online and mobile users to virtually walk into any venue, make reservations, purchase goods and services and locate accessible areas for people with disabilities. And while Coca-Cola Orlando Eye is the first venue, the project also features I-Drive 360 campus with additional venues along International Drive, Florida to be added.

Created by Bee2Bee Network’s co-ed team of Google-Certified millennial interns, the aim is to position International Drive as the technological Leader in the global tourism Industry.

The B2b Virtual Guide.com web application includes support for Samsung Gear VR and their new mobile app for iPhone and Android due to launch by end of third quarter 2018.

The B2b Virtual Guide’s community-focused business model is straightforward, being financed and sustained by local participating businesses by invitation only.  Selected businesses can be virtualized and added to the B2b Virtual Guide’s proprietary Google PPC platform for an initial set-up and monthly fee.

Founded in 2011 in Palm Beach Gardens by Yasmine Clarke, a 20+ year software industry veteran, the Bee2Bee Network offers year-round free training, industry certification and work-study opportunities for students currently attending Palm Beach State College, Windermere High School, Celebration High School, Dr. Phillips High School, and Rollins College.

For the latest VR tourism news, keep reading VRFocus.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have already supplied a number of tools and applications aimed at improving various aspects of medicine. Such applications include using VR to train medical personal or allow patients an escape from the clinical environment, to AR for designing new hospital spaces such as Operating Theatres. AR Solutions company Artanim is working on another, a way to use mixed reality (MR) and AR to help in sports medicine.

Artanim are working on a new project called HoloMed, which uses Microsoft’s HoloLens to provide assistance in the field of sports medicine and rehabilitation. The A applications has been created to provide visualisation of joint movements, focussing on certain orthopaedic activities.

Sports medicine is a complicated field that deals with a large variety of injuries that can be sudden and traumatic, or build up over time. If not treated properly, some injuries can cause life-long problems, something that the HoloMed applications hopes to alleviate by providing a tool for prompt and accurate diagnosis.

The HoloMed application builds on Artanim’s previous work in anatomical modelling and motion capture to allow and accurate AR rendering of where bones and joints are on a subject, presenting a view akin to ‘X-Ray Vision’. The tool can also provide information on range of movement and can be recorded for later playback for further examination and consultation.

Artanim are hoping the project can contribute to the future of medicine and the development of AR.

VRFocus will bring you further information on HoloMed and other uses of AR and VR in medicine as it becomes available.

Welcome back to yet another week of everything immersive on VRFocus. As usual we begin Monday’s with another dose of 360 degree video, and much like how we ended last week we’re dealing with a music based experience.

It’s created by the Human Pyramids – a punk rock orchestra lead by Scottish musician Paul Russell, one part of the music group Axes. Human Pyramids previously took to the stage last year at Glastonbury and now they’ve moved on to a new music video that utilises 360 degree video technology. The video is called Crackle Pop, the same name as the band’s single, the first taken from their new album Home.

Teaming with filmmaker John Lynch the duo have produced a video that ties in with the idea of synesthesia. Synesthesia is an ability, neurological in nature, that allows some individuals to process information in the world around them through multiple senses. Regular VRFocus readers will remember we have discussed synesthesia on occasion, most notably when  discussing virtual reality (VR) videogame Rez Infinite and its synesthesia suit. The suit was developed by series creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who we discussed Rez Infinite with at length, as well as his thoughts on VR within the entertainment industry, in a recent interview.

By gathering individuals who had a specific type of synesthesia, that of ‘sound to sight’ or ‘chromesthesia’ they were able to get descriptions of what the music actually looked like. What colours and shapes were produced when the various instruments played. This was then translated into vibrant and colourful graphical representations and the whole thing combined into the video that you are about to see, allowing you to experience what having chromesthesia would be like.  Headphones are recommended to aid with the spatial audio.

There will be a further VR documentary released in the future also called Crackle Pop, and when VRFocus has more information.

Augmented reality (AR) has already seen use in online shopping, helping customers choose items in furniture and fashion. Now online artistic marketplace Redbubble is letting customers explore its gallery of art and merchandise with AR.

Redbubble was started in 2006 to act as an online marketplace for independent artists who wanted to sell their works. The site allows artists to offer customers various different types of merchandise featuring their designs, such as t-shirts and other apparel, bags, stationary and wall art, among other things.

The updated version of the Redbubble iOS app allows customers to try items before they buy, such as place virtual cushions on a sofa, try out different colours and designs of t-shirt, test out the best placement of stickers, or virtually decorate their walls with Redbubble artwork, testing out if they prefer canvas or metal, portrait or landscape.

The use of AR allows users to test out products to find the perfect fit, even to the point of trying on clothing to find what size, colour and design in the perfect fit. Since Redbubble is populated by independent artists, users will be able to buy the product they decide on knowing it will go straight to the artist.

Redbubble have also announced that they are also offering cases for the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, to tie in to the updated app and the announcement of Apple’s new product.

The Redbubble AR app is currently only available on iOS through the Apple App Store. There has been no word on plans to port it to Android.

VRFocus will continue to report on new and innovative uses for AR technology.