Road to VR

Biometric Data Streams and the Unknown Ethical Threshold of Predicting & Controlling Behavior

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Mar 20, 2017

behavior-tracking-vr-privacy — Photo courtesy iMations

I recently attended the Experiential Technology Conference where there were a lot of companies looking at how to use biometric data to get insights into health & wellness, education for cognitive enhancement, market research, and more. Over the next couple of years, virtual reality platforms will be integrating more and more of these biometric data streams, and I wanted to learn about what kind of insights can be extrapolated from them. I talked with behavioral neuroscientist John Burkhardt from iMotions, one of the leading biometric platforms, about what metrics that can be captured from eye tracking, facial tracking, galvanic skin response, EEG, EMG, and ECG.

‘Witcher 3’ Developer “observing [VR] with interest”, Awaiting Compelling Content

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Mar 19, 2017

Developed by Polish studio CD Projekt RED, 2015’s Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is surely one of the best regarded games to launch in recent memory. Studio co-founder Marcin Iwinski says the studio is watching VR carefully, but he’s still waiting to see what compelling made-for VR content looks like.

NASA’s ‘Mission: ISS’ is an Impressively Detailed View of Life in Zero Gravity

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Mar 19, 2017

NASA and Oculus have launched their collaborative project ‘Mission: ISS’ for the Oculus Rift for free and it’s offers a detailed, visually sumptuous virtual reality trip to space that most of us would otherwise never experience.

Report Predicts AR and VR Headset Shipments to Approach 100 Million by 2021

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Mar 19, 2017

windows-holographic-vr-headsets-featured — Images courtesy Windows Central

In a new report from IDC (International Data Corporation), the market research firm predicts a near 10 fold increase in the shipments of augmented and virtual reality headsets in the next 4 years, bolstered by a plethora of new devices and “expanding array of content for both consumer and enterprise users.”

First All-in-one VR Headsets Based on Qualcomm’s VRDK Expected in 2H 2017

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Mar 19, 2017

Qualcomm’s latest VRDK headset is a reference design that the company has positioned to act as a foundation for consumer electronics makers to create their own headsets based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon VR hardware. Now with manufacturing partners on board, the first consumer headsets based on the VRDK reference design are expected to launch in the second half of 2017.

HTC to Sell Shanghai Phone Factory for $91 Million, Invest Proceeds in VR Business

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Mar 18, 2017

htc-vive-scatter — Image courtesy HTC

Despite its major role in the growing VR space, HTC’s overall business continues to struggle financially, posting significant losses over the last two years. Working to turn things around with a restructuring of assets and priorities, the company is facing the sale of a smartphone factory in Shanghai. The proceeds from the $91 million sale will largely funnel toward the company’s Vive VR business, according to China Daily.

Privacy in VR Is Complicated and It’ll Take the Entire VR Community to Figure It Out

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Mar 17, 2017

When I was at the GDC VR Mixer, Jim Preston struck up a conversation about his concerns about privacy in VR. He works at FOVE which is making a VR headset with eye-tracking, but wanted to speak to me on his own behalf about some of the deeper philosophical questions and conceptual frameworks around the types of intimate data that will become available to VR headsets. As more and more biometric data streams are integrated into VR there a lot of complicated and complex ethical questions that he thinks will take the entire VR community needs to figure out.

Epic Games Busts ‘Robo Recall’s’ $10 Million Myth

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Mar 17, 2017

Good news. Robo Recall, one of the best looking games available on a VR headset today, actually cost a lot less to produce than the rumored $10 million.

‘Raw Data’ Early Access Review, Now with Oculus Touch Support

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Mar 16, 2017

Raw Data, a first-person combat game from Survios currently in Early Access, is one of the most fast-paced and exciting games out for HTC Vive and Oculus Touch right now. Far from being a simple shooting gallery, Raw Data gives you an impressive range of abilities and physical agency, making you feel like you’re in real danger. And if you can master the controls, you’ll feel like a superhuman badass too.

NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti vs. 1080 VR Performance Review: Supersampling Showdown

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Mar 16, 2017

NVIDIA’s latest GPU is here and it offers a big performance bump, but what exactly does that power deliver the VR gaming enthusiast? We pit the new Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti against the GTX 1080 to see just how far each card can enhance VR image quality through supersampling.

‘Lone Echo’ Developer Shows Impressive Procedural Hand-posing System for VR

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Dominic Brennan

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Mar 16, 2017

Lone Echo, Ready At Dawn’s upcoming space-based VR game, employs a physics-based movement system where the player pushes and pulls themselves around a zero-gravity environment. A video presented at GDC highlights their procedural animation system that allows for convincing grip postures on arbitrarily shaped surfaces.

Embodied Cognition Experiments with EleVR’s Math Museums & Hyperbolic Space

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Mar 16, 2017

I believe that the principle of Embodied Cognition is probably one of the most significant and important concepts to understand about virtual reality. Cognitive science researchers have been connecting the dots the importance of our bodies when it comes to perception, the subjective construction of reality, and how we process and think about information. We use our entire body and surrounding environment in our cognitive processes, and virtual reality is bringing our entire bodies into computing in a way that takes full advantage of the insights coming from embodied cognition research.

‘Robo Recall’ Behind-the-scenes – Insights & Artwork from Epic Games

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Mar 16, 2017

robo-recall-hero — Robo Recall | Image courtesy Epic Games

After years of making some of the most impressive VR tech demos of their time, Epic’s Robo Recall is not only the company’s first VR game proper, but a culmination of what the company has learned about VR game and engine design since the beginning. We speak with Epic’s Technical Director of VR & AR, Nick Whiting, about how the game came to fruition.

Analysis: Latest VR Ready GPUs Benchmarked and Compared with NVIDIA ‘FCAT VR’

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Mar 15, 2017

While it’s been possible to run basic benchmarks on VR-capable GPUs for a rough understanding of performance, NVIDIA’s new FCAT VR tool allows detailed logging and analysis of runtime data captured from any VR app on any GPU. We’ve thrown the latest VR Ready GPUs at the tool to see what we find.

Oculus Publishes Touch CAD Files for Custom-made Accessories

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Dominic Brennan

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Mar 14, 2017

Oculus has provided the ‘Touch Accessory Guidelines 1.0’ for download, which contains 3D CAD files of the Touch VR controller. This data can be used to help designers and manufacturers create new accessories that integrate with the Touch hardware.

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