Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Network

From two hours to under twelve minutes, we've distilled, titrated, evaporated and reconstituted Google's annual launch event into something a little bit mor

Virtual reality is emerging as a new medium with the potential of having as strong an impact as radio or television did in the past century. We have the opportunity to build the foundations of interface, experience and interaction design specific for this medium without taking already existing solutions for granted.

"If you can afford the headset and the inevitable PC upgrade required, you won’t regret buying an HTC Vive. Gaming – computing even – has changed forever. Our verdict of the HTC Vive: 10/10"

In a series of videos on the live-streaming app Periscope, she said that her name was Océane, that she was 19 and that she worked in a retirement home. Seated on a couch, she smoked cigarettes, played with her cat, and showed off her tattoos: a rose on her left forearm, a small heart on her right thumb. She engaged with Periscope followers, who asked about her life and her hobbies.

At 4:29 p.m. on Tuesday, while recording herself on Periscope, the woman threw herself under a train at the Égly station, about 25 miles south of Paris, on the C line of the regional train system known as the R.E.R.

Tonight at NVIDIA's event in Texas, the company showed off some new tools that should help developers make VR experiences even more realistic. CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said its VR Works suite of APIs is getting a "major" upgrade, with the ability to connect haptic controllers to its PhysX physics engine for more realistic feedback, and the "world's first real time physically modeled acoustic simulator." As he described it, the audio engine works on top of the optics API to help it match what you can see. Sight, sound, physics and touch are all enhanced with its new Pascal-based GPUs, and NVIDIA says game developers are already working on implementing the new effects.

"HTC held a conference in Beijing, China on April 26 to announce the formation of a new Accelerator Program for the HTC Vive, which includes a San Francisco location.

"During the conference, HTC Chairwoman and CEO, Cher Wang, announced the establishment of the Asia-Pacific Virtual Reality Industry Alliance (APVRA) to help “accelerate the development of the [VR] market.” A China-based news source reported that the alliance will include a number of companies like Valve, Warner Bros., Disney, Wevr, Lionsgate, Ali Baba, NVIDIA, AMD, Epic Games, Ubisoft, and others.

"Through this new formed VR alliance, Wang announced HTC’s Vive X Accelerator program. The HTC Vive website describes the mission of Vive X as helping “cultivate, foster and grow the global VR ecosystem by supporting startups and providing them with education, investment and mentorship.”

"Applications for the Vive X program are now open, with locations in Beijing, Taipei and San Francisco!"

In an industry that is still in a research & development phase, it’s a jumble of big names and new players laying the foundation for the future of VR. Piper Jaffray calls the current state of virtual reality “similar to the state of mobile phones 15 years ago” and that it “will likely take a decade” to truly hit “mainstream”.

Just as mobile transformed the ways we communicate, socialize, work and live, VR is a step further into this paradigm. This flowchart is intended to provide a birds-eye-view of the companies at the heart of this revolution:"

When an industry is nascent, it’s hard to dream big. But that doesn’t mean time and resources shouldn’t be dedicated to doing it anyway.
VR teams would do well to put aside time each week to engage in divergent thinking on truly revolutionary applications of VR, in order to avoid this mistake. (We do it in our office).
As it stands, very industry-detrimental hardware & OS wars are brewing and low-quality VR titles are published daily. Rollercoaster or jump-scare haunted asylum VR titles are the equivalent of the Hamster Dance. They are early, obvious, and of little long-term significance. What incentive is needed for VR content, software & hardware creators to push past the obvious and go straight toward sophisticated, elegant solutions that democratize institutionalized power and opportunity?

Google is moving beyond Cardboard.

The company will reportedly be announcing a standalone Android VR headset at next week’s Google I/O event. Entrepreneur and former tech journalist Peter Rojas has tweeted that Google will launch an untethered Android VR headset next week according to his multiple sources.

Swiss startup MindMaze has raised $100 million in funding to create virtual reality hardware and software to provide clinical treatments for stroke victims.

The funding is one more example of how VR is spreading far beyond games and entertainment. As major VR headsets, such as the Oculus Rift, launch this year, the industry is drawing hundreds of new startups. By 2020, VR and augmented reality are expected to become a $10 billion industry, according to tech adviser Digi-Capital.

VR was everywhere at the Tribeca FilmFest, where the standouts were animation productions, not video. Expect more, not necessarily better, as headsets spread.

“This is going to be the year of a lot of bad VR,” predicted the New York Times’ Sam Dolnick. The reason? Headsets just went on sale, and media productions are rushing onto different platforms to make it worth your while to buy one. But there’s also going to be some good stuff.

"It’s still a time of great experiment. After all, the basic grammar of this immersive form is still being worked out, as a recent Documentary article points out. But makers were drawing on experience in sharing tips at the festival."

"The newspaper also is launching six new video series that will cover everything from the Olympics to how music is made.

The New York Times is continuing to invest in virtual reality, announcing Monday (May 2, 2016) several new efforts in the world of immersive video. 

The newspaper's New York Times Magazine is bringing its annual Voyages issue into 360 degrees with its first episodic VR series. Debuting this fall, Voyages will give viewers an inside look as the magazine's photographers travel around the world on assignment. 

T Magazine also will release its first VR films this falls, which will go behind-the-scenes in the art, design, fashion and entertainment industries."