The Texas Medical Center (TMC) Innovation Institute has begun the fourth installment of TMCx, an accelerator program for startups. 24 companies have been selected, two of which specialise in virtual reality (VR), Psious and Oncomfort.
TMCx is designed to meet the needs of startups at every stage, aiming to introduce their health IT applications to the Houston health care market with companies from around the world being selected. Psious is located in Barcelona, Spain, working with immersion therapy for mental health disorders. While Oncomfort has locations in Houston and Brussels, Belgium, utilising VR technology to help ease patients’ stress, pain and anxiety during their medical journey.
“The Texas Medical Center hosts more than eight million patient visits each year, with people coming to Houston from all over the world, so it is fitting that this new cohort includes the best of the best in digital health startups from several international locations,” said Erik M. Halvorsen, Ph.D., director of the TMC Innovation Institute. “Our mission is to help these startups connect their promising technology to the leading minds in medicine and business in our network.”
Through the TMCx accelerator program the startups are provided a practical curriculum to assist participating founders on their entrepreneurial path. Successful investors, entrepreneurs, subject-matter experts, industry professionals and hospital leaders guide each startup in the areas of intellectual property, product development, regulatory strategies, health policy, marketing, fundraising, contract negotiations and communications.
The 24 companies will present their final pitch to an audience of advisors, hospital stakeholders and investors as part of Demo Day on 8th June 2017.
For further VR news from around the world, keep reading VRFocus.
Sony’s PlayStation VR (PSVR) is a great headset, but tracking quality is a common complaint from users. A new patent from the company, however, suggests it could be working on a fix for that.
A new patent from Sony Interactive Entertainment, filed last year and published earlier this month, reveals the company is working on a new tracking system that looks similar in concept and setup to the Lighthouse tracking seen in HTC and Valve’s Vive. As reported by CGM, the patent details a “method for determining an orientation of a photosensor of a controller with respect to a projector” which uses beam forming to pick up the location of both a “head-mounted display” like the PSVR and a controller like the DualShock 4.
The above image shows how these beams will “further determine a position” of a headset “with respect to a projector.” It is similar to the Lighthouse stations that come with the Vive and were developed as part of Valve’s SteamVR system. Two of these stations shoot beams across the room, which allows the headset’s location to be tracked.
Currently, PSVR uses the PlayStation Camera to track a series of lights fitted around the front and back of the device. While the system works, light interference and a reliance on a single tracking sensor can cause drift, with users observing movement inside even if they aren’t moving their head or controllers. It could be that this alternative method of tracking is more accurate, solving what is one of the biggest complaints for the headset.
Of course, patents aren’t confirmation of products, and even if Sony is planning to more effective means of tracking, who’s to say it’s for this iteration of PlayStation VR and the PlayStation 4? This could just as easily be the company laying the foundation for future versions of its tech.
Intriguingly, the description for this figure notes that the headset may be linked to a computing device (aka: the PS4) wirelessly via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, radio frequency, protocol or other methods. Could that suggest that Sony is also working on a wireless version of PSVR? At the very least the documentation doesn’t rule out the possibility, but it could also just be overly-descriptive.
Until this concept turns into a reality, you might want to keep closing your blinds and turning off the lights when using PSVR.
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Oculus VR now offers a full suite of accessories for Rift owners, letting them buy replacement controllers, face pads, and cables for their headset. These are now offered at reasonable rates alongside the headphones and camera sensors.
While virtual reality (VR) has had a consumer resurgence over the last few years its industrial and military applications have been used for decades. Taking place later this month is WEST 2017, a naval conference and exposition that’s now in its 27th year. Taking part in the proceedings is Cubic Global Defense (CGD), there to discuss virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) use for naval aviation training.
Andre Balta, chief technical manager of CGD’s Orlando operations, will be the sole defense industry representative on a government panel discussing VR and AR training opportunities titled ‘Virtual/Augmented Reality in Naval Aviation Training: A Window into the Future’.
The company will also showcase the latest in air combat and maritime virtual training systems as well as end-to-end Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) solutions.
These solutions include: Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation (ACMI) which enables aircrew to train for combat missions more effectively and with less risk. Cubic integrates ACMI airborne and ground subsystems into a common operational picture that provides situational awareness for aircrew at training sites throughout the world. And Immersive Virtual Ship Environment (IVSE), a gamification training technology that supports the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program by putting trainees in a cutting edge, 3-D virtual environment, teaching tasks in settings virtually identical to real-life, shipboard scenarios.
“Cubic’s vast array of innovations puts us at the forefront of military training, mission support and end-to-end C4ISR solutions,” said retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Dave Buss, president of Cubic Global Defense. “We remain committed to providing our customers with the most effective, efficient and proven technologies to advance their aviation and maritime training and support their C4ISR capabilities for the most critical expeditions.”
For the latest VR news from around the world keep reading VRFocus.
Yesterday we reported on Robinson: The Journey’s launch on Steam which lacks support for the platform’s most populous VR headset, the HTC Vive, and still unfortunately doesn’t include motion controls. Until now, those were the least of developer Crytek’s worries, because a critical bug was preventing a significant majority of owners from even launching the game. The recent Oculus Home release of the game didn’t exhibit the same issue.
The bug, apparently in place for nearly six days since the game’s Steam release, caused a ‘Platform Error’ pop-up at launch which prevented the game from running. Today a 140MB patch has cleared that issue. Here’s the changelog as shared by Crytek:
We implemented an Update to address the Steam entitlement issue reported by our community. Players will no longer get blocked by an entitlement error on Steam if they launch the game. We also added a few more minor improvements:
• Fixed an issue which blocked players from launching the game with an “User not entitled” message. Players are now able to launch the game without the entitlement message being triggered. • Minor improvements on SSDO, Antialiasing and Shadow settings which could cause rendering issues. • General improvement on game stability with specific hardware setups
Now Rift owners can actually play Robinson: The Journey through Steam. And while reports of the bug on the game’s discussion board have been quelled, the board is now largely consists of questions about the lack of Vive and motion controller support.
One bright spot for Robinson on PC is new graphics settings which let players with beefier hardware crank the graphics up, allowing the game’s AAA visuals to really shine.
Some superheroes are just annoying. Take Hal Jordan, for example, the most popular Green Lantern. Though he may have matured into a grizzled veteran over time, his early days as a member of the space police cast him as a cocky pretty boy that grated on his fellow members of the Justice League. I never thought I’d be that type of hero; I always pictured myself as a slightly happier take on Batman, or maybe Spider-Man just with less terrible jokes.
Though there’s very little content to it right now, this superhero simulation from Pseudocode Games showed me why some heroes turn into arrogant so-and-so’s: because it’s so much fun being them. By giving you eight diverse, polished abilities, Powers creates a joyous playground of grin-enduing experimentation. Whereas First Impact tried to do a little too much with its abilities, Pseudocode has stripped things back to an enticing core experience.
One-man development team Christian Ignatov has been working on the game for around five to six months now. Funnily enough, it started out with the developer wanting to make himself Iron Man, a character that topped our own list of superheroes that would make awesome VR games last week.
As he tinkered away with Tony Stark’s tools, though, he began to look at other powers he might be able to use: “at one point I just looked at what I had and decided it’s something others might enjoy too,” he tells me over Skype. “So I sat down and thought more seriously on how this could work as a game.”
That’s got him this far; a relatively small island that you can explore to locate eight different powers. They range from some standard VR mechanics like teleportation and shooting with (an amazing) prosthetic minigun, to abilities we’ve only dreamed of using in VR like laser eye beams and, of course, flight. There are some basic enemies dotted around the map but they’re kind of placeholder for now as they don’t pose much of a threat.
The real joy of this demo comes from getting used to your powers, a lot like any superhero would when they start out their career. Personally, I found myself addicted to charging round the city with super speed, burning my eye beams into robots. I became so immersed in the experience I actually leaned forward to imitate running, and may or may not have cracked some terrible jokes as I stopped to shower bullets on unsuspecting enemies. Even in this early form, PowersVR capture the innocent and pure joy of being a superhero. I felt like the Roadrunner; nothing could touch me.
“My number one priority was that the abilities feel fun and powerful,” Ignatov tells me, “and I think that’s been fulfilled for most of them.” I have to agree, although there isn’t enough here to sustain a full game just yet.
Fortunately, the developer has grand ambitions for PowersVR moving forward. His current roadmap insoles superhero genre essentials like challenges and new powers in the near future, building up to a full release with a stor-based campaign. Here you’ll play as specific characters during missions, getting to learn their skill sets. As the game progresses, heroes will need to team up and you’ll add more abilities to your arsenal as a result.
“This means that the challenges in that story section will be tailored specifically for whoever it is you’re controlling,” Ignatov explains. “Without spoiling much (and since everything is subject to change), imagine dodging traffic with the speedster Zap, pursuing a criminal, or solving puzzles using Phaser’s teleportation ability.”
This could be key to creating a varied, memorable campaign for the game, and the developer says he’ll be improving enemy AI too. He pictures a game made up of parts familiar to VR gamers, like wave shooters, mixed up with sections more akin to classic superhero games, where enemies patrol the streets. The aim is to get that campaign into people’s hands by the end of the year, though Igantov is conscious that he might not make that deadline.
For now, I’d recommend buying into PowersVR at its Early Access price to help fund development. Though it offers only a small amount of content right now, the near future will bring more; Ignatov tells me that fans have requested a telekinesis power, which he’ll likely implement in a future update.
“I’m also working on a movement power to be released alongside the telekinetic character, which should remind people of a certain friendly neighbourhood hero,” he teases. Let’s just hope Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t beat him to that last one.
“I also really have to thank the community,” the developer states. “It’s only been a few days since the game’s release in Early Access and already a lot of things I hadn’t noticed were pointed out to me. I feel like a good mixture of content and bugfix patches, both guided by community feedback will push the game in the right direction.”
From what I’ve played that direction is already hugely promising,
Microsoft’s new Game Mode promises to push your PC to its limits and deliver unparalleled gaming performance. That sounds impressive, but does it really work? We put it to the test.
Showing off what Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed reality can do is difficult without actually putting it on someone’s head, but the company’s new camera hack is providing a helping hand.
Whenever we’ve seen HoloLens on-stage at shows like E3, or Microsoft’s own press conferences, the company will have one person wearing the kit, while the audience sees what they see using a special camera. After today, however, anyone with two HoloLens units can also record what one user is seeing thanks to what the company is calling ‘Spectator View‘.
It’s a pretty simple concept but you’ll likely need to do some shopping if you want to try it out. First off, you’ll have to download a specific app that enables other software to run as a shared experience. From there, you’ll have to assemble a camera rig with a camera that has an HDMI-out or photo capture SDK. You’ll need an aluminum bracket that connects the bottom of your HoloLens to the top of your camera, and a 3D printed adapter that will link the two together.
Fear not; Microsoft has an in-depth guide to assembling the rig, complete with the nuts and bolts you’ll need.
Spectator Mode is similar in concept to the mixed reality filming seen in the VR industry, though has added complications given HoloLens’ entirely independent solution and the fact that holograms can be viewed from anywhere, not just within a specific, tracked space.
Requiring a second $3,000 HoloLens means this isn’t the most cost-effective solution for demoing AR, but it does open up your HoloLens apps to a much larger viewing audience. It’s a first step in bringing mixed reality into YouTube videos or sharing images on social networks; imagine giving talks and swapping out Powerpoint slides for 3D data visuals that are far more engaging for the audience.
Ultimately we’d like to see dedicated cameras for this use, or perhaps a cheaper alternative from Google as its Project Tango AR tech continues to evolve. Given HoloLens itself is still in its developer kit stages, we wouldn’t expect to see official products from Microsoft that film in MR until the device itself is available to consumers. For now, this is a great way to show what HoloLens can do to as many people as possible.
Ahead of Valentine's Day, Google has an adorable Doodle game that also doubles as an awareness campaign to save the vulnerable and sometimes critically endangered pangolin. In the game, you have to help a pangolin meet his long-distance soulmate.
