Tag: vr

We need a magic leap for the other senses

Good friend Dave mentioned Magic Leap and sent me a link to how it may work. I had a read and although it was a reasonable read, I was less impressed than I maybe should have been. I get Magic Leap is the thing lots of people are getting a little moist about, its seems incredible but I share a small amount of the view-point of the blogger..

Regardless if it turns out to be a consumer success or not, this is the first example of real innovation the tech industry has seen in some time. I am extremely excited to see what happens next for them and looking forward to the shake up this will put on the industry in general.

To be clear, I’m not down on Magic Leap, it is innovative but its more of the same. I only really interested in disruption right now. Something the tech industry needs (imho).

I already mentioned my thoughts about mixed reality and it hinges off the fact it’s not just visual and audible. I draw your attention to the interaction design rant (Touch), Smell and media (Smell) and of course the deeply problematic (Taste).

This paper‘s summary, sums up my thoughts, I feel…

The senses we call upon when interacting with technology are very restricted. We mostly rely on vision and audition, increasingly harnessing touch, whilst taste and smell remain largely underexploited. In spite of our current knowledge about sensory systems and sensory devices, the biggest stumbling block for progress concerns the need for a deeper understanding of people’s multisensory experiences in HCI. It is essential to determine what tactile, gustatory, and olfactory experiences we can design for, and how we can meaningfully stimulate such experiences when interacting with technology. Importantly, we need to determine the contribution of the different senses along with their interactions in order to design more effective and engaging digital multisensory experiences. Finally, it is vital to understand what the limitations are that come into play when users need to monitor more than one sense at a time.

Being able to drive and combine all these things together (even in a basic way – multisensory) has the potential to be far more exciting and immersive than Magic leap could even dream about. And its happening in dark and acdemic corners (I was maybe more excited by the vibrate API draft than learning about how magic leap may work – sad, who knows?). I’m sure they might be thinking the same but the fascination of the tech industry is on higher density A/V. Multisensory is moon shot. Being able to drive these on demand in an ethical, sustainable and contextual way is something I think a lot about with Perceptive Media. Being able to enable anyone to create their own experiences to share is the next thing.

Mixed reality with compound documents?

WebVR-Logo

There is something quite exciting which i dont think most people have spotted. VR is nice and getting alot of attention recently. In theory, webvr could be more flexible that other vr engines because it’s the web; the browser’s are use to compound documents. While the other engines have to build all this stuff into their engines. My guess this might be the 2nd or 3rd reason why GearVR supports WebVR? It kinda already works in the lastest Firefox & Chrome, even works on Android Chrome (works for me without the dev version of Chrome, try it yourself)? Although polyfill might have some use here.

The nature of a compound document can enable multiple types of technology to be triggered from the same source. Say for example I could mix webvr with the geolocation api, orientation api and the webaudio api. Can you imagine the crazy experiences you can build with those things? I believe the JavaScript can run at the same time as everything else but this might be browser dependant.

It’s still a bit of a theory, but this could enable true mixed reality or (VisuoHaptic Mixed Reality if you must). Not that crappy stuff you currently see. Still like to see magic leap myself but to be honest Project foxeye interest me.

I’m looking to research this area with a bunch of smart people…

Peak inside BBC R&D via Facebook

LJ Rich contacted me asking if I was up for an experiment. Of course I said yes, and without really knowing a few weeks later I was roped into taking part in BBC News #24Live stream on Facebook. It was a bit of surprise but an enjoyable one, shame about the technical difficults at the start.
Unfortunately the only way to get the video out Facebook without hacking away at it, is to embed it complete with the javascript code. So enjoy it and flush your cache afterwards if you are not a FB fan.

 

 

We’re back!#24Live NOW: We’re taking an interactive look inside BBC Research and Development. Ever wanted to know what…

Posted by BBC News on Thursday, 7 April 2016

VR on a rollercoaster

Galactica_Logo_Alton_Towers

Alton Towers seems to be refitting Air with Virtual Reality glasses and calling it Galactica?

Alton Towers is to open what it claims is the world’s first rollercoaster that combines a physical ride with virtual reality, giving passengers a “customised journey into space” via headsets that use groundbreaking technology.

The ride, called Galactica, will launch in April and is the first major new ride at the Staffordshire theme park since 16 people were injured, including five seriously, in a rollercoaster crash last June.

Its a nice idea but I’m still unsure if this warrants a yearly pass. I mean I like Air but adding VR doesn’t really justify the yearly price?

I feel if they had added another coaster I might have been more interested but right now, it feels like a compromise. Heck if they had added VR to one time Th13teen, that would have made more sense.

Guess my Alton Towers pass still sits waiting for me to pick it up.

Is it really wasted human effort?

Si Lumb once said something like

“We could be on Mars by now but instead we’re wasting effort stopping people stealing Coldplay records!”

Theres been a lot of focus on VR recently and I found Philip Rosedale’s Ted talk interesting in relation to si’s thoughts above, especially since Si is a fan of VR.

ROSEDALE: Why build a virtual world at all? For me, I know that when the Internet came around and I was doing computer programming and generally trying to run my own little company and figure out what to do with the Internet and with computers, I was just immediately struck by how the ultimate thing that you would really want to do with the Internet and with computers would be to use the Internet and connected computers to simulate a world to sort of recreate the laws of physics and how to make things, and do that inside a computer so that we could all get in there and make stuff.

The next frontier may not be space (no Mars or interstellar space trips yet sorry si) but instead the inner space of the virtual reality or rather a space we create and imagine for ourselves and others. Can be equally interesting?

Mindmapping the VR space

Chris McCann started mapping  out the VR ecosystem on his medium blog. I found it interesting but noticed a few missing things. I was going to craft a tweet to him but decided actually this might make better sense in a mindmap, because the stated aim is…

I wanted to get a better understanding of all of the different players and how the whole ecosystem fits together.

So I created a mindmap using the excellent mindmup and I got a chance to try out their new atlas service to show and share. I’m already thinking about collaborating with people I know and connecting some of the items together. I also wouldn’t mind doing the same on the AR side of things.