SPACES – Page 3 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

January 14, 2017

SPACES Inc. Secures Additional $6.5 Million to Continue its VR-Enabled Parks and Attractions Vision

Earlier last year VRFocus reported on the newly formed virtual reality (VR) company SPACES Inc., securing millions in funding to support the creation of immersive experiences for the entertainment industry, theme parks in particular. This week the company has announced an additional $6.5 million USD in funding has been raised, led by China-based Songcheng Performances Development Co. Ltd.

This SPACES’ funding round includes additional investment from Comcast Ventures, the venture-capital affiliate of Comcast Corporation, as well as Boost VC; Colopl VR Fund; GREE Inc.; Kai Huang; The Venture Reality Fund; and Youku Global Media Fund and CRCM VC – all of whom were initial investors in SPACES Inc. This new investment will be combined with a previously announced $30-million SPACES-Songcheng theme-park joint venture from 2016.

Spaces_Logo_HiRes_Vector_v2

“Through our SPACES Parks & Attractions division, we’re fundamentally reimagining the theme park experience with stunning advances in VR technology,” said SPACES co-founder and CEO Shiraz Akmal. “Together with our Songcheng joint venture, this new capital expands our efforts to create entirely new kinds of VR-enabled destinations.”

Co-founder and CTO Brad Herman added, “It’s exciting to be at the center of the convergence of creativity, technology and theme parks. The future of VR and mixed reality will bring to life immersive experiences on a grand scale.”

Alongside the funding announcement SPACES also revealed that former DreamWorks Animation CFO Fazal Merchant; Comcast Ventures’ managing director Michael Yang; and Ethan Wang, general manager of Songcheng Technology, will serve on its newly established board of directors. “SPACES is poised for unprecedented opportunity in the global theme-park market,” Yang said. “I look forward to helping the team navigate the quickly growing VR entertainment space as a board member and investor.”

In the coming months SPACES and Songcheng will be unveiling more details about their theme park projects, so keep reading VRFocus for further details.

October 10, 2016

SPACES Creates Implicit Bias VR Programme for Researchers and Trainers

SPACES Inc., a company that specialises in enabling businesses and brands to bring virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) experiences to consumers, has announced the creation today of an implicit bias VR programme.

Implicit bias refers to measurable, objective attitudes and stereotypes that everyone carries, which has in recent months become a growing topic of interest. The creation of the programme is to aid both scientific researchers, corporate trainers and law-enforcement organizations.

VR Implicit Bias

“VR is enabling us to understand how implicit bias affects our views of the world and the way we work and interact with others,” said SPACES CEO Shiraz Akmal. “The work we’ve done with researchers indicates that VR could possibly reduce the effects of implicit bias. The idea that VR can be used for much more than entertainment is one of our core philosophies, and is particularly important at a time when the issue of racial sensitivity is reaching a critical point in our society.”

It was initially developed to assist an academic research examination of implicit bias, allowing participants embody the age-old adage of “stepping into someone else’s skin” to develop greater sensitivity. Using SPACES VR technology, the programme aims to show how immersive tech could reduce implicit bias in the future.

Implicit bias was brought up by Hillary Clinton during the first presidential debate with Donald Trump, to which she said: “I think it’s a problem for everyone, not just police. I think unfortunately too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other.”

Back in May SPACES secured $3 million USD in funding to continue its VR projects, and in June the company teamed up with Songcheng Performance Development Co. to bring VR and MR to both rides and performances that take place in Songcheng’s theme parks.

For all the latest news on SPACES, keep reading VRFocus.

October 4, 2016

Sketchfab Hosts 1 Million Online Scenes While Matterport Posts 250K Virtual Spaces

Virtual reality’s web presence is heating up. In separate announcements, two of VR’s most prolific online companies are celebrating big milestones.

The first comes from Sketfchfab — which is announcing 1 million scenes live online — and the second is Matterport — which is announcing over 250,000 spaces published in virtual reality. Let’s break these down one at a time shall we?

First, there’s Sketchfab. In its essence, Sketchfab is attempting to do for online 3D models what YouTube did for videos. Sketchfab models are somewhat interactive and can be embedded online. Take a look at the example below.

Miss Seagull
by Julien Kaspar
on Sketchfab

These 3D models are clearly impressive enough on their own merit, but their real hook is in their VR compatibility. Sketchfab models can be viewed in VR with the appropriate headset, which effectively makes this platform the most varied immersive content provider on the Internet. Sketchfab hosts content from more than 600,000 contributors and offers support for all major VR headsets.

Founded in 2011, Matterport is an immersive technology company built on mapping real places as 3D models. The Matterport founder’s vision is to have a complete virtual model of the world and their $4500 3D sensing camera is helping to make it a reality. We mentioned the company as one of the premier AR and VR companies leading the charge and now Matterport is making 250,000 3D spaces you can check out in VR through a new CoreVR program.

Matterport revealed they would be publishing over all those space with their new CoreVR option and will continue to offer this option through 2016 — for free. After 2016, the CoreVR option will be available for $19 per new 3D space.

Matterport’s 3D camera has been used to map a vast collection of places, from a Maori village in New Zealand to a huge lava tube in Hawaii. There are even vehicles to be explored in their gallery: a yacht in Vancouver, the first Boeing 737 plane, and a lavish Mercedes g-wagon limousine.

CoreVR will be available on Matterport Apps on Google Cardboard and the Samsung Gear VR with more platform options “coming soon.”

Charles Singletary contributed to this report. Featured image credit: Crunchbase