VR Pioneer Nonny de la Peña Discusses Empathy in VR
Chris Milk’s TED talk last year popularized the idea that virtual reality has the potential to be the ultimate ’empathy machine.’ Emblematic Group‘s Nonny de la Peña has been one of the original pioneers of exploring empathy in VR through a series of immersive journalism pieces ranging from torture in Guantanamo Bay, homelessness in LA, the Syrian refugee crisis, and most recently domestic violence with Kiya and what it’s like to walk through an abortion clinic protest with Across the Line. I had a chance to catch up with Nonny at Sundance to get more insight into how she cultivates empathy within VR, but also why she’s so motivated to always stand up for the underdog within her work.
Secretary of Defense Peers into the Future at Navy VR Research Lab
The Secretary of Defense—second only to the President in control of the US military—recently stopped by the Navy’s BEMR lab to see the latest work being done with VR, AR, and mixed reality technology.
Oculus Launch Avatar Lip Sync Plugin for Unity
Oculus have released a dedicated Unity plugin which aims to automatically detect and transform an audio stream from speech into virtual character lip movements automatically.
SteamVR and HTC Vive Pre Gets ‘Direct Mode’
Valve has just announced that the latest release of SteamVR beta, its virtual reality platform SteamVR just upgraded its rendering pipeline to support Direct Mode, a way to bypass unnecessary operating system clutter to render directly to a VR headset. In this case, the HTC Vive Pre.
Casinos Go Virtual at the ICE 2016 Show
Kevin Williams continues his look at the wider VR landscape, and this time turns his attention to another, potentially enormous component of the virtual reality industry, VR gambling.
How NASA is Using VR to Explore the Universe
Dr. Jeff Norris works on Mission Operations Innovation at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Ops Lab. They’ve been partnering with all of the major virtual reality & augmented reality companies to accelerate the progress in space exploration, designing spacecraft, and assisting astronauts with augmented expert assistants. Jeff was at the Unity AR/VR Vision Summit where he provided an inspiring speech about how NASA is using all of the latest immersive technologies to explore and discover more about our Universe.
Here are the Winners of the Vision VR/AR Summit 2016 Awards
The judges at Vision Summit 2016 sorted through nearly 250 applicants to find the top three VR/AR creations spanning a number of categories. The award ceremony represents the best out of these three competing games, experiences, or 360 videos.
These 21 VR Creations are Nominated for Tonight’s Vision VR/AR Summit Awards
Tonight’s 21 finalists at the Vision AR/VR Awards are in, and the AR/VR cross-industry event in Hollywood, California will be honoring a diverse range of AR/VR content spanning 8 categories. The winners will be announced this evening ceremony starting at 8PM Pacific Time (click here for local time).
Consumer Oculus Rift to Arrive with 4-Month Free Trial of Unity Pro
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey revealed today at Vision Summit 2016 that the company would be giving away 4 months of Unity Professional Edition for free with the purchase of an Oculus Rift.
Unity Will Soon Let Developers Build Games Inside of VR Itself
Today at Vision Summit 2016 in Hollywood, Timoni West, principal designer at Unity Technologies, took the stage to show Unity’s answer to the recently revealed Unreal Engine 4 VR editor.
Every Developer at Vision Summit is Taking Home an HTC Vive
Unity and Valve have jointly announced that in addition to bringing native support for SteamVR to Unity, Valve will be sending every developer home with an HTC Vive Pre development kit.
Watch the Vision Summit Livestream Here at 10AM PT, Including Special Address by Valve’s Gabe Newell
Today kicks off two days of the inaugural Vision Summit, an AR/VR conference hosted by Unity with many of the major players in the virtual reality space signed on as partners. The keynote, which will feature a rare address by Valve’s Gabe Newell, will be livestreamed right here.
