Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
Kapanu AG is a startup and spin-off from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. They have developed an impressive AR System to communicate and educate patients. It allows for a preview before dental Implantation takes place to decide on color and shape of teeth to recreate an individual smile.
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Scopis launched a Holographic Navigation Platform for use in surgery using the Microsoft Hololens. As Scopis is claiming, the Company has „developed this platform to offer higher precision and speed to surgeons, and better outcomes to patients undergoing open and minimally-invasive spinal procedures“. Their target application is planning of the positioning and alignment of pedicle screws during multiple vertebrae fixation surgeries, for example.
“Scopis’ holographic solution has the potential to make spine surgery more effective, safe, and precise,” said Professor Christian Woiciechowsky, Chief of the Spinal Surgery Clinic at Vivantes Humboldt Hospital in Berlin. “Integrating mixed-reality tools into surgery is a huge technological advancement toward enhancing a surgeon’s vision and may provide greater benefits to patients.”
How many times has this happened to you: you’re grinding across the galaxy in Elite Dangerous and the minutes are starting to tick by rather slowly. You sigh and try to remind yourself how amazing it is to be hurtling through the stars in an immersive virtual reality headset. As amazing as this technology is, it would be great if you could just peek outside of your HMD and watch videos of cats befriending animals they would typically be enemies with during this slightly tedious part of the game. Well, now you can.
V is a dashboard for virtual reality that brings some of your favorite entertainment and productivity with you inside of the Oculus Rift. This week it is launching an open beta for consumers that is absolutely free.
With V, a tap on the side of your headset brings up the content hub. From there you can select YouTube, Spotify, Slack, Twitch, Soundcloud and even social media applications like Facebook and Twitter.
Once you’ve made your selection, V opens up a small window inside of any VR experience so that you can watch, browse, listen and explore without ever having to take your eyes off the action. This is perfect for games with some down-time like Elite, but it’s also good for games in which you need a bit of a hint like Chronos.
V was founded by Tyler Andersen and Brian Eppert. The pair recently graduated from the Boost VC accelerator. They are actively seeking investment from interested parties.
According to the pairs official statement accompanying the beta, “Our goal is to broaden the spectrum of what is possible inside virtual reality by creating a platform that empowers third-party developers to create the first metaversal layer of applications and utilities.”
The duo plans to add more apps as V continues to develop and anticipates some tweaks for the UI will be made following user feedback in the beta.
Tagged with: Applications, apps, dashboard, hub, spotify, V, Youtube
I’m very happy that one of my projects, the MedicalAR Mirror, has become part of the fantastic exhibition „Body Works“ at Carnegie Science Center. Here is a video report about the exhibition with a small part showing also the Augmented Reality mirror (~ sec 50).
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2016/10/10/body-works-new-exhibit-opens-at-carnegie-science-center/
In mid-October this year, HTC made a few announcements signaling a major push forward with VR content. Those announcements included a content partnership with the Alibaba Group, a VR arcade publishing model, and the mobile VR platform Viveport M. Later into October we saw the fruits of the VR arcade initiative with the launch of the first virtual reality arcade in Shenzhen, China and now the rest of those plans are bearing fruit. HTC Vive has finally launched the dedicated mobile content platform Viveport M.
“Viveport is currently the leading VR content distribution platform in China,” said Regional President of HTC Vive in China, Alvin Graylin, in a prepared statement. “It’s an honor for Viveport M to be selected by so many top-level partners as their preferred distribution platform.”
Viveport M is a mobile application compatible with most Android phones with a dedicated VR ecosystem, helping users to find VR apps and videos for consumption. There will be mobile VR games across tons of genres too, and HTC has a referral program with Youku VR to provide video content from a large library. HTC is also capitalizing on the shopping craze as Alibaba’s Double 11 event nears. Double 11, or “Singles Day”, has become one of the largest online shopping events in the world and users can earn a Vive-branded VR cardboard display if they download two apps from Viveport M (one must be a paid app) and send a screenshot to the public Vive WeChat account. Also, if users purchase two or more apps on the Viveport client for PC they can earn RMB 50 virtual credits (roughly $7.37 USD).
Vivepaper, a platform we previously covered that combines VR and AR technology to deliver an innovative print publication experience, is also available on Viveport M. Viveport M can be downloaded using Alibaba’s PP Helper mobile application.
Augmented Reality has the power of equipping our environments with virtual elements to make life more efficient, more interesting, or simply more playful. We can also use AR to support our imagination in case of “what if … ” scenarios, e.g. placing virtual furniture into our new living room. This experience can become very personal, when planning to change things related to the own body, e.g. dental implants that may change the look of our smile.
Plastic surgery addresses among other things also the reconstruction of the aesthetics of our body. This may happen when for example a face got deformed or skin and further tissue had been burned as a consequence of an accident. Breast reconstruction of one or both breasts that were removed along with the treatment of breast cancer is another application. From one of my earlier projects, I learned that the wish of restoring the symmetry of the own body is very strong and it is mostly driven by extremely emotional reasons. Reconstructing the body can have a significant effect on the self-confidence of patients and their quality of life.
Of course, breast surgery addresses not only treatment of cancer patients. There is a significant number of pure aesthetic reasons that lead into such surgeries.
Screenshot taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8r7PXMmOs8
The company Illusio Imaging based in California, USA introduces a tablet-PC based Augmented Reality application (Illusio), which can be used to consult the patient by presenting possible outcomes of a breast surgery.
Exploring microscopic worlds is fascinating by its own. But when things become interactive and additional information is presented at the right place the learning experience becomes even better. Great Job Markus Santoso!