worldsum

Information Age explores a talk by Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, about making the NBA experience available via virtual reality.

‘It’s truly immersive and it’s truly 360 to the point where the players are running right at you and jumping over you. Those are some of the ways we’re using technology.’

However, the NBA isn’t just experimenting with innovation that improves the experience for existing fans, but also considering technologies that will attract new fans.

To do that, the league needs to create new engagement and ways to help people better understand the sport, according to Silver.

One thing I didn’t see is a description of how this would be distributed.  VR broadcast?  Downloads?  Viewing parlors?  They describe a need and a technology but not a product (yet).

This was pretty much the same reaction I got from a Managing Director I demoed the Rift to.  He’s on planes a lot, and was enthusiastic about the idea of the Rift putting him back in front of his large-screen television while in flight…

Think about it. Not only are airplanes and airports terrible places filled with strangers that you will feel absolutely no guilt whatsoever in shutting out of your life for all eternity, they’re also maybe the only public location where it’s socially acceptable to strap an opaque black mask to your eyes and zone out for several hours.

Apparently Oculus VR is now making movies, and I’m sure it’s not lost on some of them that Pixar started out as a rendering technology company that created fun shorts to show off their technology.  It sounds like they’re putting a lot of thought into these…

“Initially we thought we needed to figure out how film language works in VR,” explains Unseld, but trying to reproduce the conventions of movies was missing the point entirely. “Cinema is a sequential medium,” he says. “It’s like a dictatorship of the director. Look at this, look at this face, look at this detail.” VR, on the other hand, puts control back in the hands of the viewer, fundamentally changing the concept of storytelling itself.

This study, referenced from Reddit, explored how the use of VR in assertiveness training had a better outcome when avoiding sexual victimization.  This is the sort of thing that, while it’s not going to drive millions of headset sales, might actually make a big difference in some people’s lives.  In five years I wonder if any University will be able to afford not to have a VR lab…

“One advantage the virtual simulations offer is the ability to actually observe whether, and how, the girls are using the skills in coercive situations that feel very real,” McDonald said. “This provides girls with opportunities for immediate feedback and accelerated learning, and for facilitators to easily spot areas in need of further strengthening. The value of this advantage can’t be overstated.”

Popular Science has a fascinating look about how certain optical illusions, when applied in the right context, can affect one’s implicit racial biases, increasing empathy and changing biases.

With a consumer Oculus Rift on its way, immersive virtual reality isn’t too far from the living room. “Seeing the world from the point of view of another person, literally having their body, may change empathy regarding certain kinds of people. So I think it could be something that’s for good in the world,” Slater says.

The article also cautions that not all virtual gender or racial swapping leads to positive outcomes, so understanding these effects are important for designers of virtual experiences.

“As more and more of us use and interact via avatars, whether in online games or VR environments, it becomes more important that we understand the different ways in which avatars change us,” says Yee.

It’s worth a read.

From the Detroit Auto Show, The Verge describes a demonstration by Toyota of the effects of distracted driving through a VR simulation.

The Rift’s head tracking makes it an inspired choice here, since Toyota can actually tell if you’re not paying attention to the road. The immersion reduces distractions from the outside and can create a sense of urgency — even, in a crash, fear.

The descriptions I’ve seen in this article, on TechCrunch’s coverage, and elsewhere make it sound extremely immersive.  Now that they have a good driving experience, I wonder what else they’re going to do with it.

ScienceDaily summarizes research being conducted which can help diagnose Alzheimer’s.  With a VR headset the researchers have been able to produce clinically significant diagnosis results that detect Mild Cognitive Impairment, which can be a precursor to Alzheimer’s.

A large number of older adults use computerized cognitive training exercises/games as an easy and enjoyable means of exercising their brain. If these games and exercises can also detect cognitive disorders, the whole cognitive screening process could become more pleasurable, thus motivating more people to be evaluated. With the majority of older adults examining their cognitive health regularly through such games, possible cognitive impairment will be detected at the MCI stage thus allowing patients to enjoy a better quality of life and remain independent for a longer time.

TheMarySue writes about a project called the “Forensic Holodeck,” which allows the recreation of a crime scene in virtual reality.

Ebert and his colleagues are currently developing a program they’re calling the “Forensic Holodeck,” which uses the immersive technology of virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift to place viewers directly inside 3d reconstructions of crime scenes.

It also mentions allowing jurors to see the reconstruction from the point of view of potential witnesses to help judge their veracity.

A brief article on Salon discusses the work of Kokiri Lab, which is attempting to create the experience of eating in virtual reality:

“What makes this so unique is that the experience merges physical and virtual environments into one, which means you can still chew, feel, smell and taste, but without taking in calories,” An said in an interview with the Telegraph. “We think this experience could be used to allow people with obesity, diabetes or any dietary restrictions to eat anything they desire without the negative consequences.”

I’m actually kind of curious what the body’s reaction is to it.  Would it release insulin if you thought you were eating sugar but were really eating virtually nothing?

Another round of funding was closed by Virtuix, the company making the Omni Treadmill.

Jan Goetgeluk, the chief executive of Houston, Texas-based Virtuix, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the company will use the new money to continue research and development on new virtual reality applications even as it readies its treadmill for its launch.

R&D is nice, but it seems like they should focus on actually shipping their product…

CNN has a story today about the increasing role of VR in film, and specifically how the Sundance Film Festival is rapidly expanding its VR footprint.

After bringing a handful of Oculus Rift installations to Sundance in 2014, the festival’s New Frontier program, which focuses on innovation in filmmaking, is doubling down and bringing in a much larger slate of virtual reality experiences for 2015. Of the 13 installations in the program, nine feature VR and one of the remaining four—a videogame-esque piece about the Iranian Revolution in 1979—could have a virtual version one day.

For one person to whom I demoed an Oculus Rift, movies was his first thought.  He travels a lot, and was thinking he could sit on a plane and instead of a tiny little seat-back or iPad screen, he could be looking at the biggest home theater system in existence through the goggles.  In a previous post I mentioned that the corporate training market is several times bigger than the video game market.  Well, movies are another market that is significantly larger than games (although the gap is narrowing), so it’s not crazy to think that this is where VR could impact the average consumer.

TechCrunch covers MediaSpike’s demo reel of how they can put ads into VR.  I’m not sure many people would say they like ads, but a lot of people do seem to like the “freemium” model of software distribution.  I suppose bringing it to VR might expand the available content substantially.  And as the author notes:

My overall impression of the demo was positive. Was it kind of weird to see ads splattered every I went driving around in the city? Not really, because there were fewer than I’d see in the same amount of time walking or driving around in an actual city.

ABC News covers a tourist app created by Destination British Columbia that gives a Rift user a “choose your own adventure” tour of the Great Bear Rainforest.  It looks pretty cool, and I like the idea of using virtual reality to give people a taste of travel to an area.  They even have a making-of video.  But…

Destination British Columbia said they hope to bring the virtual trip to trade shows in 2015 and make it free to download as soon as the headsets are available to consumers.

Why not just release it now?  Seems like it would get more attention and developers are tourists, too.

Virtual Reality Reviewer has a really interesting review of the latest five VR experiments from Tore Knabe.  I love these VR experiments, and really like the way Virtual Reality Reviewer does a movie (worth watching for the clips from the experiences) and a text version of the same review.

She will look you in the eyes, following you if you move your head, and then, seemingly of her own accord look away. Sometimes this is quite socially uncomfortable – without any conversation you’re forced to read body language, and it’s very easy to feel like you’ve been dropped in at the end of an unpleasant conversation. You’ll try to recapture her attention by leaning into her line of site. She will often, but not always, then turn her attention back to you – this unpredictability has a big impact on making this character opposite you feel like they have an inner life.

A “New Scientist” article is making waves in the VR community which describes a team using sound waves to allow virtual reality users with a Leap Motion to feel what they see.  It uses precise, directed sound waves to cause a sensation in the fingertips when the Leap senses they’re in the right place, tricking the mind into “feeling” the surface.

The level of detail in the virtual objects is limited, but using more, smaller, speakers should improve the resolution of what can be projected, says Long. The shapes do not need to be perfect to conjure an immersive experience, though. “Even if there are discrepancies, the brain will bend what it sees and feels to fit the overall picture,” says Kuntz.

Mayank Mehta, a UCLA professor of physics, neurology and neurobiology, tested rats in a virtual maze and compared their brain activity to rats in the exact same environment in real life.  The result?

The scientists were surprised to find that the results from the virtual and real environments were entirely different. In the virtual world, the rats’ hippocampal neurons seemed to fire completely randomly, as if the neurons had no idea where the rat was — even though the rats seemed to behave perfectly normally in the real and virtual worlds.

“The ‘map’ disappeared completely,” said Mehta, director of a W.M. Keck Foundation Neurophysics center and a member of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute. “Nobody expected this. The neuron activity was a random function of the rat’s position in the virtual world.”

At least in rats, the mental model built from a VR environment is nothing like the real thing.  Curious results.

Also, in a lab somewhere in California, rats now have Holodecks.

Another article about using VR in a training context where making the mistakes in real life have serious consequences.  This time police officers must choose levels of force to use in a 360 degree screen simulation.

While in simulation training, deputies are watched closely for their level of force, communication skills, stance and situational awareness, he said. “Deputies are held accountable during the scenarios,” he said.