Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
Walmart is no stranger to VR, from its nation-wide VR training program, to its recent traveling VR installation to promote How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019). Now, the company is putting the technology ever closer to the heart of its business by using it to determine if prospective middle managers have the right stuff to make it up the corporate ladder.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Walmart has partnered with Menlo Park-based VR training startup Strivr yet again to create a VR skills assessment program that will help the company promote its mid-level employees.
A prospective candidate dons a VR headset and is tested to see how they respond to a number of situations in VR—everything from an angry shopper to an underperforming worker. WSJ reports that the program tests a worker’s strengths, weaknesses and potential, and is being deployed to stores ultimately with the aim of determining who gets raises and who gets demoted.
While it could sound somewhat dystopian, a comprehensive and impartial test could better help limit traditional biases in the hiring process. Beth Nagel, Walmart human resources market manager for the Pittsburgh area, however calls VR a “touchpoint in our selection process. It’s not a disqualifier,” but rather another tool to help the company substantiate “what we as a manager see in someone as potential.”
“What we’re trying to do is understand the capacity of the individual from a leadership perspective and how they view situations,” said Drew Holler, Walmart’s senior vice president of associate experience.
More surprising still, the program has already been used to assess over 10,000 employees; WSJ reports it’s been used in a new store management structure to help reduce the number of managers needed. In essence, it appears Walmart is looking for better managers that help them reduce overall labor costs.
Strivr also worked with Walmart on their nation-wide VR training program, which launched last year alongside the purchase of over 17,000 Oculus Go headsets by the big-box store. The two companies are also working to further integrate data points such as a worker’s body movement and attention data to get a clearer picture of employee potential. For now though, employees are only assessed on the answers they give, although it’s not hard to imagine in the near future that a company may use any number of data points, such as eye-tracking data, to better approximate what’s going on in their employee’s heads.
The post Walmart is Using VR to Assess & Promote Employees appeared first on Road to VR.
Walmart is saving consumers up to $60 with a new Nintendo Switch bundle deal. Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and two others are the game options available as you put together your custom bundle.
The post Customize this Walmart Nintendo Switch bundle deal with 1 of 5 great games appeared first on Digital Trends.
Walmart is currently offering several big-name video games on its website at reduced prices. Games include Just Cause 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Grand Theft Auto V on Xbox One and PS4.
The post Walmart nets you big savings on games for Xbox, PS4, and Switch appeared first on Digital Trends.
US retail giant Walmart is selling a range of ultra low price VR headsets.
Three models of the SteamVR headset are listed. A 960×1080 per eye model for $20, a 1280×1440 per eye model for $30, and a 1440×1440 per eye model with IPD adjustment for $45.
Like most other PC VR headsets they connect to your PC via HDMI and USB. But unlike other PC VR headsets, they do not feature 6DoF positional tracking. That means you can rotate your head, but not move around.
The cheaper models run at 60Hz, whereas the $45 model is claimed to run at 90Hz. They all use cheap, small lenses so don’t expect a wide sweet spot or good sharpness.
All three models come with a USB gamepad, so in theory you can play any SteamVR game which doesn’t require tracked controllers- as long as your PC is capable.
Two models of the standalone headset are listed. One uses a 1080p screen for 960×1080 per eye, the other has the same 1280×1440 per eye resolution as Oculus Go.
The headsets run a modified Android OS. The app store is called Nibiru– used by various Chinese mobile headsets. Therefore the content available won’t come close to Oculus or Daydream.
They’re powered by a low end chipset from 2014. That makes them significantly less powerful than other standalones. Stunningly, the GPU in the chipset is actually an overclocked variant of that used on the iPhone 4S back in 2011. If you think normal mobile VR graphics are bad, you probably don’t want to use these headsets.
You control the headsets with buttons built onto the top. Or if that gets tedious, you can pick up a remote for $20 extra.
While we haven’t tried them ourselves yet it’s hard to recommend buying these headets given their likely quality. They’re a great example of how low the price of VR could get if too many compromises are made. Hopefully buyers of these headsets realize that they don’t represent what VR truly has to offer.
Tagged with: Daydream, Oculus Go, walmart
The post Walmart Is Selling A $30 SteamVR Headset And $80 Standalone appeared first on UploadVR.
Walmart’s cavernous stores apparently aren’t large enough to hold the Hidden World in DreamWorks’ latest How to Train Your Dragon film. Instead, the retailer announced today that it will use its parking lots to host free five-minute VR dragon-riding experiences — and the expected significant lines of people — in an effort to spur merchandise sales at matching gift shops.
Developed by Walmart-backed Spatial& in partnership with DreamWorks, the endeavor looks more like a theme park installation than a traditional retail experience. Visitors as young as 8 years old are allowed to participate in the action, which starts with a character greeting at an onboarding tent before moving into a VR world powered by headsets and motion VR chairs. Since the goal of the free ride is to sell merchandise, guests are led directly to a themed gift shop right after they take off the VR gear.
A YouTube video of the experience shows fully computer-generated fantasy scenes that look as if they could be straight out of a modern video game, though kids and adults aren’t handed controllers or actually playing anything. Instead, they get to see 360-degree videos and high-resolution images with VR head tracking, all designed to elicit emotional responses.
Walmart and Spatial& specifically expect that people will want to buy items “featuring the characters they befriended and created deep connections with during the activation,” including toys, DVDs, and video games. The immersive virtual tour of the Hidden World includes How to Train Your Dragon characters such as Astrid, Hiccup, Hookfang, and Toothless, with greetings during onboarding by Ruffnut and Tuffnut.
“Collaborating with DreamWorks Animation and its iconic How to Train Your Dragon franchise is such an exciting way to bring Spatial&’s first ever activation to the public,” said Spatial& CEO Katie Finnegan. “Spatial& was founded based on the belief that VR will transform merchandising and retail and we can’t wait to finally share this uniquely immersive shopping experience with consumers across the country.”
Though the collaboration certainly isn’t the first to leverage VR to sell things, it’s a particularly interesting experiment in that correlations between the experience and purchases will be fairly easy to track, and the promise of free VR experiences based on a well-liked movie franchise could be enough to draw crowds. It’s also somewhat unique in that Walmart has chosen to site the project outside of its stores — in winter, no less — rather than utilizing space inside.
Walmart will start offering the experiences over several days at multiple stores in one city before moving on to another city. The seven-city run begins at noon February 15 in Los Angeles, California, and concludes in Bentonville, Arkansas on April 9.
Last year, Amazon used VR to create virtual selling spaces inside Indian shopping malls where it wasn’t operating physical stores. Similarly, retailers such as Macy’s have started to use VR inside their stores to let customers browse inventory that would otherwise be too broad or large to stock locally.
This post by Jeremy Horwitz originally appeared on VentureBeat.
Tagged with: How To Train Your Dragon, venturebeat, walmart
The post Walmart Will Set Up VR-enhanced DreamWorks Gift Shops In Parking Lots appeared first on UploadVR.
Walmart is continuing its onward journey to think outside of the big-box with the help of VR, this time bringing 50-foot tractor-trailers to their megalithic parking lots across the US to let shoppers go head-first into a VR experience for DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming film, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
Walmart says in a press release that the experience begins in an on-boarding room where the film’s mischievous twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut greet guests. Participants then don HP Windows VR headsets outfitted with Leap Motion sensors, and sit in specialized Positron Voyager motion chairs powered by the HP VR backpack.
In the VR activation, users get a chance to experience a five-minute journey through the film’s dragon utopia called ‘The Hidden World’, of course accompanied by series regulars Astrid, Hiccup, Toothless, and Hookfang. The experience serves ages eight and up.
Parents and waiting participants can follow along with the VR content their kids and friends are experiencing inside by viewing on HP Chromebooks, and play on HP’s Omen Gaming Laptops located outside the venue while they wait.
The VR experience was developed by DreamWorks and Spatial&, Walmart’s second portfolio company to launch from their incubator Store N°8. The experience is made up of “high-resolution images and 360-degree VR videos,” the company says.
Unsurprisingly, the activation also features a How to Train Your Dragon gift shop, because … Walmart. Merchandise includes plush toys, action figures, franchise DVDs, and video games.
The How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Virtual Tour will visit select cities and Walmart stores between February 15th and April 9th.
The post Walmart Brings Tricked Out ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ VR Experience to Select Stores appeared first on Road to VR.