Education – Page 25 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

October 13, 2016

Sharecare Acquires BioLucid to Bring Your Body into Virtual Reality With ‘YOU VR’

Virtual realiy and augmented reality applications outside of entertainment are becoming more and more prevalent as companies learn the practicality, efficiency, and overall benefits of the technology. Just in the last few weeks, we’ve seen elevator technicians equipped with Hololens and electric and gas company PG&E is aiming to give their electricians safer havens to sort out issues though the use of virtually recreated substations. Now Sharecare is taking to VR to enhance their visual health care services.

Sharecare aims to give you a deeply informative look at your personal health through things like a web health profile and AskMD mobile application. Your profile gives you a home to track your habits and receive guidance through a slew of resources, like Sharecare health challenges, ASKMD consultations, and habit quizzes, so you can embrace a healthy lifestyle.

YOU VR (shown in the video above) is taking this ideal to a new extreme, giving professionals an intimate and personal look into the bodies we inhabit through virtual reality. 2D video and textbooks are incredibly informative, no doubt, but stepping into a virtual heart to see how a heart functions or malfunctions can pay dividends for students, professors, healthcare providers, and, most importantly, patients.

In September, Sharecare acquired the VR company BioLucid. BioLucid created the 3D YOU platform that Sharecare will be bringing to VR, AR, and 360° videos. “By differentiating our platform with BioLucid’s immersive simulation of the human body, we can turn data into actionable, visual intelligence, and make a transformative impact on patient engagement, health literacy, medical education and therapy adherence,” said Sharecare CEO Jeff Arnold when addressing the acquisition.

Sharecare is also bringing a visual experience to their web profile via Sharecare Reality Lab. A living avatar is in its beta phases, changing as a person’s health shifts. BioLucid is providing YOU VR strictly to pharmaceutical or medical companies, healthcare systems, consumer-facing healthcare companies, and educational institutions. Get in touch on their website.

October 12, 2016

MEL Science Bolsters Their VR/AR Learning Tool With $2.5 Million

Hands-on experiences can often provide better results when it comes to education, deeply embedding the knowledge and processes within the student. Some things will stick when reading and absorbing information tossed at a large group, but some subjects certainly require action. MEL Science embraces this ideal fully, providing a subscription service that includes 38 hands-on chemistry sets with a 3D microscope phone/tablet app to bolster the experience by showing what happens on a molecular level. It also is the first to include VR/AR implementation, further immersing their students in the practical project. Today, MEL Science announces that they’ve secured $2.5 million to take their education to the next level.

A look inside the MEL Science starter kit.

The MEL Science kit includes a smartphone macro lens, smartphone stand, syringes, a fuel stove, VR goggles, and other tools. It’s pretty neat to see a set of items that provides the essential things to experiment with chemistry while also tapping into the evolving digital culture that our children are growing up deeply embedded in. Kids and adults alike tend to have regular access to smartphones and tablets, so why not use these powerful devices to bolster the education process.

“First you touch the science physically with your hands, then you can look inside and see the processes at the molecular level,” says Vassili Philippov, who founded MEL Science in 2014, in a prepared statement. “This combination of practical training and virtual reality is the ideal form of learning. It helps you not just memorize but actually understand the essence of the event.”

Upload has previously reported on education initiatives involving virtual and augmented reality, including OpenSesame’s $9 million expansion of their e-Learning into VR and AR. Online language learning system Fluent Worlds is even planning the jump to VR. These types of programs are here to stay and potentially evolve as more investors recognize the huge potential in front of them.

October 3, 2016

‘The Body VR’ Brings Educational Tour Of The Human Body To HTC Vive Today

September 30, 2016

Viveport Launches In U.S., HTC Execs Weigh In On Exclusivity Rumors

September 27, 2016

Google, Udacity and Upload Join Forces For New VR Education Program

September 27, 2016

How VR gave us beer goggles, but not as we know them

Virtual reality is a fast expanding market – from pubs to medicine, forward-thinking entrepreneurs are testing its limits

Virtual reality (VR) has finally come of age and a diverse array of new businesses have recently set up to capitalise on this rapidly expanding market. From ‘beer goggles’ that aim to improve the experience of having a pint, to an app that lets medical students ‘sit-in’ on operations, entrepreneurs are exploring the possibilities VR presents.

Forecasts from Deloitte suggest that 2016 will be VR’s “first billion dollar” year, with hardware sales hitting $700m and the remainder coming from content.

September 26, 2016

The ‘Chernobyl VR Project’ Lets You Explore A Nuclear Ghost Town

September 18, 2016

From Dutch hospital to Afghan clinic: new VR app aims to link 8.5m doctors

MDLinking aims to be a WhatsApp, LinkedIn and virtual reality video library rolled into one to allow doctors from Afghanistan to Angola to share skills

Imagine you’re a doctor in Swindon and a patient with a chewing tobacco habit turns up with unusual tongue lesions. What if you could, at the press of a few buttons, locate and get instant advice from the Mumbai-based world expert on cancers related to chewing tobacco?

This is the vision for a new app which aims to transform the way in which 8.5 million doctors around the world share their knowledge and skills.

August 30, 2016