A few weeks ago we reported that a VR spin-off of popular survival game, ARK: Survival Evolved was coming. This week we’ve got a much better look at it.
Below is the first trailer for ARK Park, being developed by Snail Games as standalone product to the main ARK made by Studio Wildcard. Rather than surviving in a dinosaur-infested world, ARK Park is a much more educational experience than will bring you up close with long-lost beasts without the fear of having your head bitten off.
If it sounds a little like Jurassic Park (before things went wrong) that’s because it is. The trailer even looks a little like the opening of 2015’s Jurassic World. ARK Park wears its inspirations on its sleeves and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The trailer shows a young girl getting up close to raptors, the tyrannosaurus rex, and even our good old friend the dodo. Launching in 2017, the game will have more than 100 different creatures to meet and let you travel to diverse landscapes.
It’s not just about looking, though, ARK Park will have you capturing creatures with items and weapons and also solving puzzles. Hopefully it will be able to capture some of the original ARK‘s spirit in the gameplay, then. We could use a deeper dinosaur VR game after Crytek’s Robinson: The Journey [Review: 7/10] came up a little on the short side.
It’s also been confirmed that ARK Park will be coming to the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR. The PlayStation 4 version of Survival Evolved also hit recently, though doesn’t feature PlayStation VR support as previously promised when it was announced last year. We’ve reached out to the developer to see if it’s still planning to bring support to the platform. Survival Evolved still supports the Oculus Rift on Steam, however.
“Every child has the potential to be a genius, but today’s teaching models have failed to realize this truth.” Explains HTC’s China Regional President of Vive, Alvin W. Graylin. “VR unleashes children’s potential by letting them learn new concepts using a multi-modal model, thereby enabling the brain to grasp new concepts in the way that’s most natural to them.” Mr. Graylin was commenting after the reveal of a new research report that found that the application of virtual reality (VR) into the curriculum proved beneficial to student learning.
Entitled The Impact of VR on Academic Performance, the report lists the results of tests given to 40 children by Beijing Bluefocus E-Commerce Co., Ltd. and Beijing iBokan Wisdom Mobile Internet Technology Training in a number of Chinese schools involving VR – and specifically involving the HTC Vive.
The evidence is particularly encouraging. With increased retention of knowledge shown by students who have used VR, and those students who were deemed to be under-performing scholastically in tests taken beforehand able to top the scores set by the highest scoring children after adding VR into their education. The test, which also utilised Universe Sandbox showed use of VR led to an increase in 20% in the score average. With normally educated students on average scoring 73% and VR taught children scoring 93%.
It proved a popular experience for those who had the chance to try VR out. “I feel like I am in the middle of the universe. It’s so beautiful.” One is reported to have said. “I hope that VR can be available in my school as soon as possible – I will be extremely interested in the VR-based subjects.”
One parent interviewed also saw the potential. “Traditional ways of teaching lags behind in igniting the desire to learn among students. However, VR-based teaching inspires students to learn and presents to students the abstract content that occurs in the learning process in a vivid way, making it easier for students to understand and retain complex concepts.”
“I hope these amazing findings will encourage more academic institutions to deploy VR-based teaching methods broadly.” Added Graylin.
If you’d like to investigate the test and learn more about the findings you can download the report from here. VRFocus will bring you more about VR in the field of education soon.
One of the surprising results of accessible virtual reality has been the rise of documentaries that use 360-video to transport you somewhere to experience a place and situation unlike your own. And that makes empathy for the people there more possible and accessible itself.
“In America, the Developed World, we take for granted being able to go to bed at night safely, without the fear of a deadly disease attacking us while we sleep. Making this film really opened my eyes,” Justin Perkinson, writer and director of Under the Net, told Upload VR in an interview.
In a 10th anniversary event, the Nothing But Nets campaign from the UN Foundation premiered the VR documentary Under the Net. The campaign is focused on providing protective nets to the people of Africa, where mosquitoes pass Malaria to people at night. The disease can be lethal to children.
The origin of the charity is not what you would expect. Sports journalist Rick Reilly, who has a long history of writing stories for Sports Illustrated and ESPN, found out about the threat of Malaria to the children of Africa and realized he could make a difference.
“There was a documentary on Malaria. It said that every 30 seconds a child was dying of Malaria. And it said there was such a simple fix: hang a net over them. The mosquitoes only comes out from midnight to four. And if you can get a kid to six or seven years old, they are probably not going to die of Malaria. I was like, ‘That’s all we need? A net? Nothing has to be cured?’ This is a no-brainer charitable act,” said Reilly
He wrote a column about it in SI, worked with the UN to get the $10 donations which would buy a net to help a family. They raised $100,000 in the first week alone. Soon, he worked with others, and Nothing But Nets became an ongoing campaign.
Basketball star Stephen Curry became involved, and Reilly and him went to Tanzania together to meet those that needed the nets. The help of a sports star got the word out about the charity, besides donating himself.
Reilly explained, “Steph gives three nets every time he makes a three pointer. That’s kind of like your 13-year old daughter giving three nets every time she checks her phone. He makes that many threes. I made the mistake this year of giving $10 for every three he makes and he’s killing me! He took the three-point record from 286 to 402. That’s insane.”
In the 10 years since NBN began taking donations, along with the work of UNICEF, Malaria No More, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and others, deaths from Malaria have dropped by 60%. NBN has raised over $60 million, providing nearly 10 million nets to families. But, after all of that progress, Under the Net reminds the audience, a child dies every two minutes from the disease.
If star power worked to spread the word about Malaria and the work of Nothing But Nets, how much could tech power help? Working with Samsung and the Discovery channel, the team at NBN returned last summer to Tanzania, with Perkinson, to capture the reality there in a way that couldn’t be done when the charity began.
Crafting a documentary in virtual reality can be a powerful thing. Anyone who has seen Clouds Over Sidra or Notes on Blindness can attest to that. Even with a brief 8-minute running time, making such a VR doc takes a lot of work, a lot of planning, and a lot of fortune.
Parkinson and the team from production company Secret Location scouted locations and spoke with the people, all within the constraints presented by daily life there. Afterall, they were in Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, the largest refugee camp in Tanzania with over 130,000 living there, making it the 5th largest in the world.
“We were in Tanzania for a week and a half, but we only had five days of access to the refugee camp. And the first day we spent location scouting,” said Perkinson. “All the planning you put in informs what you are doing, but then when it’s a living and breathing organism, which is a refugee camp, things change minute by minute.”
The result is a visually striking film. It starts with swamp buzzing with insects. You soon see the camp and the people taking refuge there. You see the harsh conditions of living there. You visit an under-staffed hospital. And then you see how the nets make a difference. It is all filmed in a way that puts you there, living in the huts, riding a truck to the hospital, waiting on line to get the life-saving net.
Under the Net has a sharp and vibrant picture. The assembling of the 360-degree image is nearly flawless, with no signs of the seams where they stitched the image together in post-production. The years of others working on 360-video has helped mature this kind of production, both artistically and technically. The result is not only interesting and captivating to look at, but easy to watch and absorb.
“I want to go back. Something about VR, it makes me feel like I’m right there again, you know? I want to see the kids gain. For a situation that is so terrible, they were so fun and hopeful,” said Reilly.
To make it a powerful story and not just another VR tech demo, Perkinson and his team had to find the visuals they needed, the places and situations to document, and even the person whose story would make the plight of Malaria approachable.
“We knew we wanted a story that was driven by a child, that could be the voice to carry a Western audience. We spoke to several different kids, all of whom were special, but for various reasons they weren’t the right person,” said Perkinson. “We got to the end of the day, and then we met Amisa. She was the last one we saw. She had presence and just a special spirit. She just had Malaria a couple of months prior, her two siblings were exhibiting symptoms, and she wanted to be a nurse. You couldn’t write a story better than that.”
So the documentary follows Amisa, as we see her life there at camp, the ups and downs. We are there with her, witnessing what she goes through. But halfway through, Perkinson shifts the story’s tone from grim to joyous. Amisa and her family have the nets. They are in a camp. They are safe. She is going back to school. She shows all the resilience that children somehow find in the worst situations. You are left feeling that these people can be helped, that this work does make a difference.
And that is what Under the Net is ultimately about. Like other documentaries, it is to inform, to entertain, and maybe inspire action of some kind. When the short is released early next year, if you go watch it on the Gear VR because of it’s technical and cinematic qualities, it may inspire you to donate to NBN or do even more than that.
Reilly said, “I hope this video puts us out of business; we never have to fight Malaria again. I hope VR gets that big. ‘Oh! Who can forget the groundbreaking Justin Perkinson video?!’ ”
Sometimes you get a press release in your inbox as a journalist and you think to yourself, “Well yeah, of course. This makes perfect sense.” In the case of ARK Park, the new VR experience spin-off that’s coming to the world of ARK: Survival Evolved, this was precisely my reaction.
Snail Games, creators of the prehistoric survival-based multiplayer game, ARK: Survival Evolved, announced a partnership with Studio Wildcard last week to create a new adaptation based on the popular brand. This VR journey takes a decidedly different approach to the area with a focus on education and interaction, rather than killing and hunting. It will retain the multiplayer angle of the existing brand, with large areas to explore, and dynamic weather effects. It’s shaping up to be much more than an abbreviated 360-degree educational experience.
We took the time to ask the CEO of Snail Games, Shi Hai, a few questions about the upcoming experience and where the idea came from.
UploadVR: This sounds like a great natural evolution of the ARK brand. What spurred this idea?
Shi Hai: Our team really enjoyed ARK: Survival Evolved and was fascinated by all the gigantic creatures in the game. Our love for dinosaurs made us want to invent a new experience where players get to interact with them. Instead of killing and hunting them, we want to build a world where you get to appreciate and learn about them. That’s how the idea of a theme park came to life. Taking out the brutal fights from the original game but keeping the exploration element, we imagined a place where players can get up close and personal with these creatures and observe them in their natural habitat. And VR is the perfect way to experience it. At the same time Justin Stieglitz, Founder of Studio Wildcard saw a great opportunity, in that ARK Park can broaden the ARK franchise and bring this robust world to younger audiences.
UploadVR: Did the idea come about first, then the VR integration, or was the team specifically trying to create something for VR?
Shi Hai: Snail Games is devoted to being a “Virtual World Architect” and VR is a high priority for us. After all, what better way than VR to make the digital world as real as possible? Studio Wildcard also loved the idea of re-creating their title as a new experience in this emerging new medium.
UploadVR: What are the team’s thoughts about the future of VR, especially as we move into 2017?
Shi Hai: Even though everyone is jumping on the VR trend and its certainly progressing rapidly, there’s still a long way to go. And to hit real momentum, the industry needs effort from both VR hardware and VR content. Snail Games wants to be part of the leading force in this progression by being an innovator in VR content creation. VR is not perfect yet, but we have a lot of faith in it. When facial recognition, sense of touch and all the minute details are perfected in the future, VR will be one of the strongest mediums to transfer virtual worlds into reality.
UploadVR: Finally, how heavily did Jurassic Park inspire the standard game itself, and this new ARK Park mode?
Shi Hai: Jurassic Park is such an iconic movie franchise and is probably most people’s first memory of dinosaurs. It might even be the thing that ignited my love for dinosaurs in the first place. When we were creating ARK Park, we focused on presenting the beloved primitive creatures from ARK: Survival Evolved in an environment that is safe but stays true to the fictional world that the original title created. And the idea of a theme park came naturally to us.
You can sign up for updates about ARK Park’s development and eventual release on the official website.
“Every child is a genius in his or her own way. VR can be the key to awakening the genius inside.”
This is the closing line of a new research study currently making its way out of China. Conducted by Beijing Bluefocus E-Commerce Co., Ltd and Beijing iBokan Wisdom Mobile Internet Technology Training Institution, the study takes a detailed look at the different ways virtual reality can make public education more effective.
“Compared with traditional education, VR-based education is of obvious advantage in theoretical knowledge teaching as well as practical skills training. In theoretical knowledge teaching, it boasts the ability to make abstract problems concrete, and theoretical thinking well-supported. In practical skills training, it helps sharpen students’ operational skills, provides an immersive learning experience, and enhances students’ sense of involvement in class, making learning more fun, more secure, and more active,” the study states.
Even though this study centers around Chinese education systems, the problems it hopes to address are global. According to the report, “Most students lack interest in boring teaching and learning. They are easily distracted if the knowledge taught in class is dry and plain.”
This could describe any school in The United States as well as countless others around the world. It’s no secret that education systems have struggled to find the funding, personnel and technology to keep up with the modern era’s breakneck pace for innovation. This research suggests that VR could be the cure for this institutional ailment.
The thesis of this study is that, “VR can simulate great learning scenarios and facilitate the communication expression and application of knowledge, thus effectively creating a favorable learning environment where students are inspired to learn.”
To test this theory, the subject of astrophysics was chosen to be a guinea pig of sorts. Researchers pulled abstract concepts directly from the sixth chapter of a typical Chinese, high school physics textbook. Then, “By presenting to students those abstract contents in the textbook in a three-dimensional way, VR takes the advantage of helping students better understand and acquire the knowledge,” reads the report.
A class of 40 students was divided into four groups of ten. Each group was given a test on the same subject matter, but the lessons to each group were delivered in different ways. The first group took the test directly after a VR education course, powered by the HTC Vive. The second group took its test two weeks after the VR lesson. The third group took a test immediately after a non-VR lesson. The final group took their test two weeks after a non-VR lesson.
The results of the test were right in line with the researcher’s hypothesis. Namely that, “Students from each grade level achieved more progress by VR-based learning than traditional teaching.”
The passing rate for the groups that engaged with the subject matter in VR were 90 percent, meanwhile the pass rate for the non-VR group was only 40 percent. These are significant numbers and the researchers attribute the disparity to VR’s unique ability to help students connect with the subject matter:
“As astrophysics is a science which students cannot really conduct experiments on in class, students can only try to understand it by their imagination and teachers’ explanation. However, VR-based teaching makes it possible to present to students the abstract aerospace in a three-dimensional way, conduct simulated operations and let students experience the scenarios at different cosmic velocity. VR-based teaching is vivid and interactive. It helps students get better test scores by enhancing their ability of understanding and memorizing knowledge.”
Education is one of the most exciting use cases for this emerging technology and results like these speak for themselves. The full study can be downloaded for free.
Impaired driving is a danger that costs $44 billion in damages annually and takes roughly 28 lives daily. Many states have invested in initiatives that attempt to regularly police in ways that get drunk drivers off the streets but there are still dangerous drivers out there. Virtual reality, in its early stages, has been used to educate in a handful of different ways: From exploring the human anatomy to learning new languages. Now, alcohol maker Diageo is using virtual reality headsets to give drinkers a close-up experience with a drunk driver’s car crash.
The video shows three different vehicles: One with a solitary woman, another with two new parents, and the last with a group of friends. The woman alone in her car had been drinking at a previous work celebration and attempts to overtake one of the others with horrible results.
While the project is a good idea at its foundation, it misses a great opportunity to utilize the immersion of virtual reality in this instance. Much of the impact of VR revolves around the fact that events unfold from a first-person perspective, but this is more of a 360-degree video that has a free flowing camera showing different perspectives from the crash, the build up to it, and the aftermath. In the video, the driver survives but others do not. The project is also focused on those of drinking age, but should possibly consider younger drivers that are on the verge of being able to drink legally and who could also already be partaking illegally. Nevertheless, this is another idea of how 360-degree media and VR can be used to educate and there’s no doubt more and more companies will be using it for the same.
We’ve reported several times at VRFocus on colleges and universities in the US and the UK working to develop virtual reality (VR) laboratories and educational programmes. The latest to discuss in this field isn’t in the Northern Hemisphere however, but the Southern – and it certainly isn’t a new project.
Over in Australia, Macquarie University has enacted a plan to upgrade its visual systems and by extension its virtual experiences that can be run from its Simulation Hub – a VR environment collective. It’s VR Lab, is not a new endeavour, however. As the suite which was able to simulate a number of scenarios was originally established over a decade ago in 2003 and has been of use to the VISOR (Virtual and Interactive Simulations of Reality) research group.
The upgrade, overseen by GHD “opted for an 8m diameter (18.8 wide) 240 degree, cylindrical, fully immersive laser projection system” – a Digital Projection HIGHlite Laser. Which will now allow a much upgraded capacity for 3D-capable projections and far richer immersion in line with what is currently being produced.
“Moving from the aging system to the laser projection system has been a huge technological upgrade.” Explains John Porte, technical support specialist for Macquarie University. “It is important to us in the University to use current technology to drive our research forward, and provide relevant expertise to our students. The new VR system is designed to be multipurpose and adaptable. There are many projects now utilising the space that were not conceived at the time of the build.”
We’ll bring you more updates about the work being done by Macquarie University as it becomes known. For more information about VR and its use in the field of education you can find previous stories on VRFocus via our search bar.
Google will undoubtedly be remembered for its influence in virtual reality’s exposure whenever we look back on things in the future. The Google Cardboard platform has been an accessible and inexpensive option for skeptics and the Google Daydream is shaping up to be a worthy contender across from the Samsung Gear VR, which is healthy competition needed if the mobile VR industry is to thrive.
In the UK, Google is looking to initiate a different type of influence, one that will utilize the growing VR medium as a tool. Via Wired’s UK page, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai is set to announce an initiative that will expand its King’s Cross campus and bring VR to a million school children.
During his first visit to the UK as Google’s CEO, Pichai will be unveiling Google Expeditions to inspire teachers to incorporate virtual reality into their curriculum.
“Virtual reality can spark students’ imagination and help them learn about topics like how blood flows through the human body or the impact climate change is having on the Great Barrier Reef, in an engaging and immersive way,” says Pichai. In the video trailer for Expeditions, students were taken to locales like the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. In addition to the VR focus on young students, Google will be improving its skills program The Digital Garage by adding 5 hours of training content focused on growing businesses.
“No matter where you live, no matter where you’re from, no matter what your job is – you deserve access to all the information, education and opportunity the web has to offer,” he says. “Our aim is to make sure that every individual and business in the UK has the support they need to make the most of online tools to innovate, compete and have fruitful careers in the digital age.”
The King’s Cross facility is Google’s new headquarters that started moving staff in around June this year. It houses many engineers that work on Google projects like Android and the 11-story building is a sight to see. There’s no telling what the new building they’re adding to the campus will involve, but one would hope virtual and augmented reality will get some sort of priority. We’ll update later as more information from Pichai’s visit is revealed.
There are only so many hours in a day, as I am sure you are aware. As 2016 ticks down and I slowly approach the end of my second year on VRFocus it’s incredible how much things have changed since those early days. You remember. The pre-retail days when people were chattering on about what the newfangled Oculus Rift DK1 and DK2 signified. Amazing isn’t it? Barely a handful of years and things have already changed so dramatically. In those early days there was of course a lot less news, which obviously follows since what “the product” of virtual reality (VR) was going to be was still very much up for discussion. Now there are breaking stories all over the place. With all manner of industries and platforms taking an interest in an ever increasing number (no, really we should probably make a list at some point) of head-mounted displays (HMDs) for VR, augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and…some… other terms people are touting mostly so they can perhaps trademark them.
Something you probably don’t know is, among the various hats I wear at VRFocus – I occasionally joke that my true job title is ‘hatstand’ – is I find a lot of the stories we write about. As such I can confirm that we’ve gone from a trickle of stories we could tell you about to ‘Oh dear God, it’s coming into the house! The barricade is doing nothing – everyone get to the roof!’. It’s one of the benefits to there being several VR specialist websites out there. I would hope you get, to a degree, different viewpoints and different stories through this; as I likewise hope you believe that we at VRFocus give you a great variety of stories and topics. but the truth of the matter is we simply can’t tell you everything so we give you as good a selection as we can before they are deemed to old to really bring up any more. As, naturally, other stories come up to replace them. I was thinking on this when deciding what to write for this week’s VR vs, and I thought ‘why not actually cover these’. Not just some either. What if I actually gave you a rapid fire summary of things we’ve not covered. Because the items we aren’t able or in the end choose not to write about as they are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things come from all over the place and is indicative of just how the technology is spreading.
A note before we begin: There may be things you know, and there may be things you’ve seen elsewhere. Not being you, I don’t know that. So telling me in the comments that you saw it on VR So-and-so last Wednesday is kind of irrelevant, as that’s not the point of this. So here we go…
We start though with AR and with Pokémon GO, which is now the subject of a second class action lawsuit. It seems a number of people weren’t very happy about having crowds of people descend on their property just because a Snorlax is in their back garden or their driveway is a Pokéstop. This “intentional, unauthorised” placement of gyms and stops represents, according to (the ironically sounding like it should be a Pokémon name) law firm Pomerantz LLP, a “continued invasion” of their privacy. An attorney on the case stated that ,”Defendants recklessly developed and marketed a product without properly considering its impact on private homeowners, depriving them of their right to enjoy their property without nuisance. The Pokémon Company, Nintendo, and Niantic failed to realize that their virtual game has very real-world consequences.”
It is probably something of a blessed relief to our American readers that the election is nearly over. However if everything somehow spirals down into a worse hell than it already seems to be you may want to escape into the bliss of VR – and thanks to a tour going on which re-commences tomorrow in Chicago you might well be able to do that. Entitled the Virtual Reality Experience Tour, the tour is being run by VR Voice in conjunction with the Creating IT Futures Foundation. Running from 1AM to 5PM, local time at the Conference Center at University of Chicago advanced registration in free. Future stops for the tour are New York (November 15th), Boston (November 17th) and Las Vegas on January 6th 2016.
Onto education, Virtualspeech have launched a new application called Language VR, as you might imagine with company and application names such as those it is a vocabulary learning app. It offers an array of different options as it aims not just to teach you the language but teach you about the culture of the language you are studying too. Allowing you to listen to literary classics such as Treasure Island and Alice In Wonderland in audiobook form with both language texts on screen, take in 360 degree images of various locations around the world with descriptions about their history. The app even has roleplay tasks for you to help hone your skills.
Sony’s recent financial results for Q2 of 2016 missed their target according to a report over at Bloomberg, in part due to an earthquake back in April which damaged one of its chip making facilities. The main direction and focus of profit generation for the company at present is the PlayStation however which enjoyed 320 Billion Yen in sales netting the company a cool 19 Billion Yen in profit. PlayStation VR is believed to be the driving force for this future push, however according to one quoted analyst Sony’s setup to launch wasn’t the best. “Their guidance for PSVR shipments didn’t sound particularly strong, so perhaps that didn’t meet expectations which is why we’re seeing some disappointment.” Hmm, I seem to recall someone saying something about Sony not doing enough on this very column…
Drinks company Mountain Dew is not a stranger to appearing on VRFocus. Previously we’ve covered representatives being high on the potential for VR advertising, a snowboarding experience from them, a NASCAR related tie-in from them and the company used 360 degree video as part of a campaign back in May. The company has just wrapped on the first appearance of art, fashion and technology showcase The Camo Collective which also featured the debut of CamoFlector. Created by Portland-based studio dotdotdash, CamoFlector is an AR experience that uses special mirrors to ‘virtually’ outfit people in custom patterns from the Collective’s “Camo Out” campaign and then puts you in a music video. You can expect to find it, and other aspects of the convention at other Mountain Dew promotional events throughout the remainder of 2016 and into 2017.
Over to Education, Canada’s Groupe Média TFO has launched LUV – an incubator for the next generation of content and specifically for virtual universe production. It’s a laboratory designed to create French-language educational content. Speaking at the launch, Minister for Education Mitzie Hunter said, “It’s important that Ontario’s students engage with technology and develop global competencies like critical thinking, problem solving and creativity. Thanks to partners like Groupe Média TFO, students have access to online educational resources that will allow them to build on these skills and ensure they thrive in tomorrow’s economy.”
Next more AR and the field of healthcare: AR companies such as Vuzix, Ubimax and Pristine are amongst those mentioned as those expected to lead the way in medical training by ABI Research. An impact that will truly begin to be seen and felt not in 2017 but during 2018 and 2019. “Before medical AR reaches its inflection point, several key milestones need to be met,” according to Michael Inouye, the Principal Analyst at ABI Research whose reported findings can be viewed here. “Early first responder trials need to move forward to deployments. Expansion into more medical education applications will be critical, because they will ensure that AR becomes a tool that future professionals learn and can use after graduation, in the medical field and beyond. Interest for AR in surgery shows great promise but will require significant investment as well as safety trials. We expect to see this all start to take shape as early as 2017.”
Speaking of market predictions, a report from Scalar Market Research indicates that the wearable technology sector – of which AR is included, alongside such technologies as smart watches – is set to have a total market worth of over 71 Billion US Dollars by 2021. North America and Europe are expected to lead the way in terms of adoption and “key players” are expected to include Sony, Microsoft and Google, as well as company’s such as Xiaomi.
Back to health, and among a number of topics Digital Health Summit at CES 2017 will be examining the role of technology in modern medicine from everything from training to prevention to cure and rehabilitation. Naturally VR and AR are a part of the conversation and their use in treatment for mental illness, trauma and other afflictions as well as its use in pain reduction will be a topic discussed. The session takes place on January 6 at 11:30 AM, PT.
Lastly film, and one from a little bit further back as this was mid-October: At Paramount Pictures’ VR On The Lot a keynote speech from Robert Stromberg (winner of an Oscar for special effects and more recently the crafter of the VR tie-in for The Martian) discussed Steven Spielberg’s reaction to putting on a modern-era VR headset for the first time. “I remember how truly excited he was when he took the headset off… it was like he was a kid again.” A promising statement indeed, one can only imagine what someone like Spielberg could craft with the medium. Stromberg himself finished with the assertion that “I truly believe that VR will reach into all of our lives.”
There we go, a quick helter-skelter rider through just some of the other stories out there we never even got a chance to cover. It shows you just how much VR and AR there is out there. Games, film, education, health, industry – it’s all happening. Changing, evolving all the time. What will be revealed next? Let’s find out…
Just like children, VR and AR are the future, so we should be creating experiences that have both in mind. In fact, the U.S. government wants you to do just that with its new education competition.
The U.S. Department of Education this week announced the EdSim Challenge, looking for new educational simulations that use virtual and augmented reality technology, created by the VR, AR and videogame development communities. That means apps that demonstrate genuine use cases for VR and AR in the classroom, be it through an Oculus Rift or a HoloLens.
The official site notes that simulations must “strengthen academic, technical, and employability skills,” with a particular interest in software that has “clearly defined learning goals” and builds “diverse skill sets.” That means software the goes beyond initiatives like Google Expeditions and helps students to develop skills that they could some day use in the workplace.
If you need a clearer picture, the department has put together the above video, though we’ll warn you in advance that it’s more than a little cheesy. An Informational Webinar will also be hosted on November 16th for those hoping to find out more.
The deadline for submissions is January 17th 2017. Five finalists will be announced later that winter. Following that, they’ll experience a virtual accelerator and innovator’s boot camp in the spring to enhance their projects before a winner is announced next summer.
Official criteria for the finalists selection includes content that considers learning outcomes, engagement, commitment, implementation strategy, and scalability and expansion. Five finalists will be selected, each winning a $50,000 cash prize, with one grand winner then getting $430,000. Samsung is also offering up a bunch of products to each finalist, including a Galaxy S7 edge and a Gear VR. Along with the Korean electronics giant, Oculus, Microsoft, and IBM are sponsoring the competition.
It’s a great chance to demonstrate the educational value of VR, something that companies are only just beginning to tap into.
