VRScout

OCTOBER 30, 2017

Visit the ‘Upside Down’ in Snapchat’s most impressive World Lens to date. Stranger Things Season 2 is now officially out on Netflix, but you probably already knew that seeing as you can’t not run into some kind of advertisement for the massively-popular show. Billboards, buses, TV commercials, customized Lyft rides, specialized Spotify playlists, even a new Reebok sneaker designed like the pair worn by one of the shows characters.

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Road to VR

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

VR may still be young, and adoption still low compared to the world of traditional gaming, but it can’t be ignored that mounting sales of the Playstation VR headset—effectively a very expensive accessory for the PS4—is adding up to considerable revenue. In an era where Sony appears to have a significant lead in console sales already, and with PSVR sharpening the system’s competitive edge, pressure is mounting for Microsoft to figure out its Xbox VR strategy.

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Cats and VR

OCTOBER 31, 2017

Netflix’s Stranger Things: The VR Experience is coming soon to PlayStation VR. The short trailer does not show any gameplay but just takes us back to the iconic Christmas lights used to talk to Will. This may very well be a port of the recent San DIego Comic Con experience in which attendees used an HTC Vive to walk through the house of Joyce Byers.

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Hypergrid Business

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

With all the latest news headlines about sexual harassment, Los Angeles based startup Vantage Point thinks it can make a difference with virtual reality. The company has developed a training program aimed at universities and corporations, and is now looking for funding to build a virtual reality experience around it. The crowdfunding campaign launched today on IndieGoGo , The company hopes to have a pilot out by next summer. “We want to bridge the gap between understanding and feeling,”

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Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions

To avoid awkward and sometimes disastrous learning content, instructional designers must use authentic translation in the right context to get optimal results. For example, even a simple phrase like “got milk” translates to “are you lactating” in Mexico. Can you imagine what a straight translation might do to your course? With over 317 million people in the US and over 6.7 billion potential customers in the world, personalizing training seems logical.

Mexico

VRScout

OCTOBER 31, 2017

CSIs just jumped into the future with tuServ , a new generation of policing software developed by Black Marble that uses the power of Augmented Reality via Microsoft HoloLens. AR is finding its way into all sorts of existing industries, and now the groundbreaking technology is helping law enforcement solve crimes. tuServ is an AR application that embraces the power of the Microsoft HoloLens to assist police officers in the field by mapping out the environment of a crime scene in real time and

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Cats and VR

OCTOBER 30, 2017

Today there was a significant restructuring to CCP games, known in the VR world for the excellent EVE Valkyrie and Gunjack games. Recently we reported on how EVE Valkyrie was transitioning away from just the VR elements and into cross platform gaming. [link]. This transition may have been a look at things to come. CCP is stepping back from VR and has closed it Atlanta office responsible for Sparc and is selling its Newcastle office responsible for Eve Valkyrie.

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Slashgear

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

HTC and Logitech have announced the new Logitech BRIDGE SDK, a way for developers to add keyboard support to their virtual reality apps. The support aims to make it possible for VR users to enter text in their virtual reality environment, doing so using a Logitech G gaming keyboard alongside an HTC Vive Tracker and a special accessory that positions … Continue reading.

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VRScout

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm, and Nissan team up to launch Star Wars: Droid Repair Bay in select dealerships. Leia Organa needs your help. The Resistance is deep in conflict with the evil New Order and sustaining heavy damage. As a Resistance mechanic, it’s up to you to repair and maintain their crucial line-up of astromechs. Can you help keep the Resistance support droids alive long enough for our heroes to finish the job?

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Road to VR

OCTOBER 28, 2017

Announced at the Samsung Developer conference last week, the 360 Round is the company’s new camera for creating and streaming 4K 3D content. The camera appears to be a reboot of the ‘Project Beyond’ camera that the company introduced back in 2014 but never brought to market. A total of 17 lenses (eight stereo pairs aligned horizontal, and one centered vertical lens), and 6 internal microphones allows for capturing 3D 360 video and spatial audio.

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With a rapidly changing economy, Avangrid Renewables looked to virtual reality to develop a standardized form of immersive training in order to onboard and upskill technicians faster than ever before.

Virtual Reality

Cats and VR

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

Morgan Mercer and the team at Vantage Point are looking to eradicate sexual assault and sexual harassment, with the help of virtual reality. The team says that existing educational programs fail in several way to truly help victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment. Morgan Mercer has started a crowdfunding campaign for a virtual reality tool to help people combat the issues of sexual assault and sexual harassment faced by many in campuses and the workplace.

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AllThingsVR

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

‘Stranger Things’ Comes to Gear VR in Latest 'Face Your Fears’ Update, Face the Demogorgan via @RtoVR [link] [link] — allthingsvr (@allthingsvr) November 1, 2017.

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VRScout

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

An all-new home for your Tilt Brush and Blocks masterpieces. If you’ve been one of the creators working with Tilt Brush and Blocks, you’re probably aware of the two different galleries Google created for you to showcase your work: Sketches and Objects. But now, Google has announced Poly, a tool aimed at accelerating the development of VR/AR experiences by bringing together the Tilt Brush and Blocks display platforms.

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Road to VR

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

HTC could be showing off its standalone VR headset at the company’s November 14th Vive Developer Conference (VDC) in Beijing. As reported by YiVian , the conference has recently published promotional material featuring a veiled image of the company’s upcoming headset. To wit, HTC says it will have ‘some important announcements’ to make.

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Speaker: Nik Gowing, Brenda Laurel, Sheridan Tatsuno, Archie Kasnet, and Bruce Armstrong Taylor

With 191 country signatories to the Paris Climate Agreement now hard at work in the race to zero carbon by 2050, much of the heavy lifting in ecosystem sustainability falls on the shoulders of the world's densely populated urban centers. This conversation considers how today's AI-enabled simulation media, such as AR/VR, can be effectively applied to accelerate learning, understanding, training, and solutions-modeling to sustainability planning and design.

Simulation

Cats and VR

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

ILMxLAB and Lucasfilm announced a new VR experience in partnership with Nissan, Star Wars: Droid Repair Bay — Astro-Mechanic for the Resistance. Participants must play the role of an technician aboard General Leia’s ship and repair BB-8 and other astromechs. Star Wars: Droid Repair Bay is the official VR experience connected to Star Wars: The Last Jedi , and will see the debut of brand new astromechs, complete with their own unique personalities and original designs.

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Slashgear

OCTOBER 29, 2017

The medium of virtual reality has just taken a big step forward towards being recognized as a legitimate form of storytelling. The Academy of the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that it’s awarding a special Oscar to director Alejandro González Iñárritu for his VR experience titled Carne y Arena (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible), part of an exhibit that … Continue reading.

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VRScout

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

Amazon’s AR View lets you see items inside your home. Following in the footsteps of Ikea , Houzz , and Target, Amazon is now the latest retailer to make it easier to buy items from home thanks to AR. An update to the Amazon iOS shopping app enables what the company calls AR View , a tool that lets you drop a virtual item like a toaster or chair on any flat surface in your home.

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Road to VR

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

According to the just-released October figures from Steam’s Hardware & Software Survey, the Oculus Rift has picked up an additional 0.71%, totalling 47.61% of the market share of VR headsets on Steam. With the price of the Rift dropping permanently to $400 last month, the headset has set its new record high for the fourth month in a row. The HTC Vive maintains a razor thin lead with 48.76% share of headsets in use on Steam.

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Speaker: Richard Goring, Director at BrightCarbon

Remote meetings are here to stay - and many are BORING. If you are trying to engage your learners (or any audience), compelling content is critical. But trying to create stimulating content with the same tools you’ve always had is hard, right? Thankfully, wrong! Terrific tools in PowerPoint along with visual assets help you create the kind of dynamic content you need to capture your remote audience’s attention, with functions that allow for interactive sequences and navigation.

How To

Cats and VR

OCTOBER 31, 2017

Here is a surprise Halloween treat Turtle Rock Studios, the developer of Left 4 Dead and Face Your Fears for Gear VR have just launched a Stranger Things door of Face Your Fears for free on Gear VR. The latest Face Your Fears door takes you to the sleepy town of Hawkins, Indiana, where you'll encounter a series of spine-tingling events in the everyday world and its uncanny reflection, the Upside Down.

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AllThingsVR

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

HTC to Unveil Standalone VR Headset at Vive Developer Conference in November via @RtoVR [link] [link] — allthingsvr (@allthingsvr) November 1, 2017.

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VRScout

OCTOBER 30, 2017

A major first for the VR industry. On Friday, the Board Of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that it would award Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Carne y Arena (Virtually present, Physically invisible) , an honorary Academy Award, “in recognition of a visionary and powerful experience in storytelling.” This is the first time a VR experience has actually landed a statuette, following a near-miss for Google Spotlight’s Pearl last year.

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Road to VR

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

Launched on November 2nd, the crowdfunding campaign for ZephVR , a VR fan accessory that “adds realistic wind at the right moments” achieved its $30,000 goal on Kickstarter in just a few hours, with 30 days remaining in the campaign. VR hardware startup Weasel Labs aims to deliver the first ZephVR units to customers in May 2018. As described on the campaign page, ZephVR is designed to work with all VR games and experiences by reacting to audio cues, using machine learning to trigger the two fans

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Speaker: Treion Muller, Chief Strategy Officer at ELB Learning

Since when has learning and development (L&D) become such a negative experience with its intended learners? Could it be because learners have been conditioned by very poor learning experiences over the past two decades, combined with the kinks of technological innovation? Or is it because learning has typically been designed as a one-size-fits-all solution, despite the fact that humans are not clones?

Technology

Cats and VR

OCTOBER 30, 2017

Many gaming pundits have been saying the PSVR has been missing from Sony's long term battle strategy due to a lackluster presence at both E3 and Tokyo Game Show. Despite the over 1 million PSVR units sold and the acclaim of content like Resident Evil 7 it does not seem to get the credit that the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift get. Well it looks like Sony's strategy may be to the go to VR platform for all of Europe given the multitude of content presented today at the Paris Game Show event today.

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Slashgear

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

There has been a lot of attention shed on mixed and augmented reality these days, especially with Microsoft’s big push and the launch of Apple’s ARKit and Google’s own ARCore. Even Samsung has seemingly decided to go with the flow, announcing its support for ARCore. HTC, however, is firmly staying within virtual reality territory and might, in fact, try to … Continue reading.

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VRScout

OCTOBER 29, 2017

MasterCard, Osterhout Design Group (ODG), and Qualcomm turn to AR and eye technology to provide consumers a secure and seamless way to pay for items. Consumers and retailers just got a sneak peek into the future of shopping during the Money2020 event in Las Vegas. The AR shopping experience not only included a way to browse items and and read about product details—it also included a checkout process that uses your eyes for authentication.

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Road to VR

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

Logitech is creating a new system called BRIDGE which aims to make it possible to bring a properly tracked keyboard into VR while showing the user’s hands for accurate typing. Though retail plans haven’t yet been announced, the company is offering a development kit to select developers. VR promises to one day take computer productivity to the next level by letting us trade physical monitors for an infinite spatial desktop that unlocks our applications from flat windows.

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Speaker: Micah Eppler, Account Executive for Rehearsal of eLearning Brothers

Did you know that companies such as Paychex, 3M, and Honeywell are getting better results by incorporating video-based practice and coaching within their L&D strategy? From sales pitches to soft skills, learners are becoming top performers by applying and validating knowledge transfer using the unique benefits of video. Whether used as a stand-alone application or integrated with a learning platform, video-based practice and coaching platforms give learners the ultimate opportunity to repeatedly

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