#wevr

Luis Blackaller

Meditation in virtual reality: it’s like French philosophy meets the Matrix

The cosmos swirls, wisps of purple, yellow and orange light flickering across the darkness of space, then across the visage of Buddha. An otherworldly plain fills the horizon, framed by the branches of a tree – the tree of enlightenment.

A familiar voice intrudes. “What or who is having this experience right this moment, right now?” Pause. “It is your own being. It is your innermost being that is having the experience, your true self.”

The voice continues. “Live here, with no regrets, no anticipation, no resistance, and you will be free. Freedom is always now. Being is now.”

Even if you enjoy psychedelic animation graphics you may struggle to live here, however, because visits last just 20 minutes and they are not real, not free and not quite now.

Welcome – if you have the headset or appropriate app – to Deepak Chopra’s latest venture: virtual reality (VR) meditation.

The new age entrepreneur and self-help guru unveiled the simulation, titled “Finding your true self”, this week at the headquarters of Wevr, a VR firm in Silicon Beach, Los Angeles’ tech hub.

Chopra, who narrates the simulation, hopes to sell the experience via booths at airports, hospitals and other locations, and via phones and laptops enabled with VR platforms.

“In 20 minutes you get a journey to enlightenment. The goal is to feel grounded and understand yourself a little better,” he told the Guardian. The technology, he said, facilitated an understanding of consciousness which eluded even René Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher. “He was good for his time but didn’t have VR to take it to the next level.”

In the past several years, as the nascent medium of virtual reality has come into its own, scientists and creators have begun to explore its potential effects on the human mind. Some are undoubtedly positive—as, for instance, when the technology is used to help war veterans overcome P.T.S.D., or as a means to expand a person’s capacity for compassion. But the immediacy of V.R. has a dark side, too. Several months ago, Michael Madary and Thomas K. Metzinger, researchers from the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, in Germany, published a series of recommendations on the ethical design and implementation of virtual reality. Their appraisal of the medium’s psychological force is both studious and foreboding. “The power of V.R. to induce particular kinds of emotions could be used deliberately to cause suffering,” they write. “Conceivably, the suffering could be so extreme as to be considered torture.” In filmmaking, the director must perform a kind of seduction of dread, leading viewers through an escalating series of psychological states. In the immersive world of V.R., no such dance is required.

“I’m neither a neurologist nor an anthropologist, but that kind of—I don’t know—that, like, deep-lizard stuff in our brains comes alive in virtual reality,” Scott Stephan, a designer at Wevr, a V.R. studio in Los Angeles, told me recently.

GoPro is finally shipping its massive professional VR rig

After months of delays, the 16-camera virtual reality rig that GoPro built with Google has finally shipped. GoPro tells The Verge that Odyssey, as it's called, has made it out to the first few companies that were vetted as part of a "limited access" pilot program.

GoPro declined to comment on the exact number of customers who have received or even applied to buy Odyssey, but did name VR production companies WEVR, VRSE, Specular, Surreal, Theory, and Two Bit Circus as some of the first to receive the rig.

Odyssey is not your everyday virtual reality capture device. The big, spaceship-like rig costs $15,000 and uses 16 cameras to shoot three-dimensional 360-degree video. The price tag includes 16 of the company's flagship Hero 4 Black cameras, a microphone, the rig structure itself, all the necessary cables, and a Pelican case, as well as a warranty, support, and access to Google's servers.

That makes it an attractive option for all types of filmmakers and companies with a bit of a budget. For comparison, Nokia's all-in-oneHollywood-ready VR camera offers similar capabilities and costs $60,000. GoPro, meanwhile, also sells a six-camera rig (much more like the commonly used homebrewsolutions) for $5,000, and other companies sell rigs for even less — albeit with little to no software support. Other high-end solutions, like the Jaunt One, have no publicly stated price.

Sounds cool......

.....but I’m not behind exclusives.  VR is a whole new field, and we already have exclusive content between the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.  If you go to the site linked in the article, you’ll find that the company has released a version for the HTC Vive and plans on one for Samsung’s Gear VR, but has no listing for the Rift at all.

Stuff like this concerns me, as I would like to see VR as a whole flourish.  It’s a budding industry, and I would rather everyone prosper instead of just one company over another.