This year’s 2017 Google Play Awards include new categories for top VR and AR apps, to which Google has nominated five apps each. The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, May 18th at 6:30PM PT during Google I/O, the company’s annual developer festival.
The forthcoming Alien: Covenant movie is getting a VR experience, Alien: Covenant In Utero and it launches this Wednesday on Oculus platforms.
Google today announced what the company is calling the “next-generation” of its ‘Jump‘ 3D 360 camera initiative. In partnership with Google, Yi Technology has created the Yi Halo, a 17-camera clock-synchronized array that is designed to be optimized for Google’s automated Jump stitching process which creates impressively seamless 3D 360 output.
In the context of AR and VR systems, predictive tracking refers to the process of predicting the future orientation and/or position of an object or body part. For instance, one might want to predict the orientation of the head or the position of the hand.
Oculus Story Studio Art Director Goro Fujita has teased an unreleased build of the Quill VR paint app with experimental animation features. Released earlier this year, Quill allows users to create still 3D drawings in VR. Using the new animation tools Fujita shows what the app’s animation tools can do.
On April 12th, Oculus Medium received the 1.1 ‘Large’ update, which added several highly-requested features, including the ability to import reference images. Medium is Oculus’ flagship creative tool for the Touch motion controllers, recognised for its intuitive sculpting and modelling features.
Mark Pesce is a VR pioneer who has been thinking about networked virtual and augmented reality for over 20 years now. He developed the Ono-Sendai Sega VR helmet prototype, co-created VRML, and presented his Cyberspace Protocol spec at the first Web conference in 1994. This CP spec evolved into the Mixed Reality Services spec, which aims to be a distributed system that would grant geospatial permissions for mixed reality applications.
Developer Lucas Rizzotto has created CyberSnake, a free game for Microsoft HoloLens. As explained in the game’s launch video (above), the game is inspired by the 2D Snake arcade game, moved into a mixed reality environment, and played in first person.
Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality (2017) is finally here, launching today on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. And yes, it’s all the wonderful weirdness of the show mixed in with some seriously fun object interaction courtesy of the game’s spiritual predecessor, Job Simulator (2016).
You’re dying for season 3 of Rick and Morty (2013) to come out, and the release of episode 1 on April Fool’s Day isn’t helping. You’ve got a fever that only the drunken ramblings of the genius Rick Sanchez and his level-headed, albeit hopelessly outmatched grandson Morty Smith can cure. The good news: Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality (2017) is here to fill the void in your meaningless existence. The less good news: it’s basically Job Simulator (2016) expertly grafted to an episode of Rick and Morty. And you know what? Th-th-th*ugghhb*at’s just fine by me, Jack. Don’t know why I’m calling you Jack all of a sudden. Let’s just get on with the review.
A novel use of a single Vive Tracker is to stick it to a rotating platform in order to create a virtual potter’s wheel. Patrick Hackett, co-creator of Tilt Brush, tweeted a short clip of the tracker in action as experimented with by an intern.
Back in 2015, Neuroscientist David Eagleman gave a TED talk about the potential to expand and create new senses. He showed off a haptic vest prototype that could translate audio input into an array of 32 vibrating motors that could be fed directly into your body. The signals would reach the brain and create a neural input that is indistinguishable from what the cochlea would produce, meaning that it’s possible to turn the torso into an ear. The principle of sensory substitution shows that the brain doesn’t care where the data comes from as long as it’s structured in the right format and correlated to feedback within the environment.
Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Oculus, as-ever delivered an inspiring presentation at today’s F8 conference, this time on the topic of Augmented Reality. AR has received top billing at this year’s event, with Facebook introducing a camera-based platform to develop today’s technology; Abrash’s talk looked further ahead to glasses-based AR which he says will transform how we work and play.
Regina Dugan, VP of Engineering at Facebook’s Building 8 skunkworks and former head of DARPA, took the stage today at F8, the company’s annual developer conference, to highlight some of the research into brain-computer interfaces going on at the world’s most far-reaching social network. While it’s still early days, Facebook wants to start solving some of the AR input problem today by using tech that will essentially read your mind.
Facebook has officially launched React VR, an open-source JavaScript library that lets developers create cross-platform WebVR experiences.
