Now with just under $800 million in funding, Florida startup Magic Leap has applied for a patent for its VR/AR headsets, bringing them one step closer to market.
From healthcare to the military, VR/AR is being applied to industries far beyond its humble roots in gaming.
Florida-based startup Magic Leap has been getting considerable attention thanks in no small part to the awesome-looking augmented reality video demos it has released. Apart from these videos and the info we could glean from some interviews and Twitter posts, however, we haven’t yet been given a complete explanation of what the company has in store for consumers. What we do know is that it promises an AR experience unlike any other by delivering “neurologically true visual perception.” In short, the brain won’t be able to tell the difference between reality and virtual reality when you are using Magic Leap’s device.
Florida-headquartered Magic Leap has set up a company in Helsinki to gain access to Finland’s vast, Nokia- and gaming-driven reservoir of VR and AR talent.
In July, Magic Leap registered a company in Helsinki with CFO Scott Henry as the chairman of the board. The company did not return my request for a comment.
The Finnish VR and AR companies I spoke with would not confirm or deny working with the company dubbed one of the most secretive startups in the world. But considering the country’s strong know-how in technologies (especially in optics, hardware, and software) that are all highly relevant in the quest for VR/AR domination, it’s no surprise that multinational giants and hot startups are courting the country’s talent pool.
In Playtest, a developer creates an augmented reality horror adventure that uses the player’s own memories to scare them. This is closer to reality than you may think.
Augmented reality is one of the most promising digital technologies at present – look at the success of Pokémon Go – and it has the potential to change healthcare and everyday medicine completely for physicians and patients alike.
NASA-funded project sends holographic recordings of real humans in Virtual Reality to crew members of 12-month Simulated Mars Isolation Study
October 13 2016 — As NASA prepares for its Journey to Mars in mid 2030’s, an experiment recently concluded in a remote University of Hawaii Mars simulation site to study the effects of long term isolation on an international team of six scientists, and the potential for virtual reality as an asynchronous communication tool. In a first of its kind pilot, the subjects at the facility called HI-SEAS have received holographic recordings of astronaut Buzz Aldrin and vocal artist/comedian Reggie Watts, which when viewed in virtual reality, simulate true presence and could help mitigate the feeling of isolation.
The research, led by R&D consulting company SIFT (Smart Information Flow Technologies), is enabled by holographic software company 8i, which developed proprietary technology to bring photorealistic holograms of humans into virtual and augmented reality experiences.
This Video is an end times update, showing the latest end times events that occurred on August 26–29 2016. Child Soldiers, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Flooding, Outbreaks, Demon Attacks and Gay Propaganda in the news. Events are happening on a daily basis that prove we are in the End Times.
Valorem has another HoloLens release this week — it is truly out of this world! Watch a video here.
Do you remember that aha moment, when you saw Princess Leia projected as a hologram from R2-D2’s holographic projector? From science fiction of yesteryear to today, the crew at Valorem has been working on an innovative telepresence technology that is becoming a reality! We have produced a holographic streaming technology, which allows the likeness of a person to be captured using a stereoscopic camera as 3D point cloud data. The point cloud data is then streamed or “beamed” (for you Trekkies out there), across the Internet. The holographic stream is decoded and rendered via Microsoft HoloLens, providing a shockingly good representation of the sender’s likeness.
Finally, they may have a chance as we have seen the prediction of the phasing out of smartphones by 2021. Although not all will be phased out by then; the continue struggle of companies trying to play catch up with smartphones is not an ideal route to take anymore especially with technologies such as the AR Contacts with Bluetooth headsets, other things such as BMI technology, etc. it is smart to focus in the next 3 to 5 years on these technologies instead of playing catch up with Apple.
He says the company’s “pivot to software is taking hold”, pointing to the recent launch of BlackBerry Radar, an asset tracking system, and BlackBerry Hub+ for Android, a set of productivity apps.
BlackBerry may not be designing its own smartphones anymore, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see new devices sporting the BlackBerry logo. The company plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners.
It’s been a long wait, but BlackBerry has decided pulled the plug on its ailing hardware business and will now focus on its software business instead. That’s if we can trust BlackBerry to ensure that future hardware partners maintain its high standards for design and build quality, of course.
Given the demands of the modern world, many people find solace and relaxation when they disconnect from their smart phones, computers and email. But what if you could improve your overall happiness simply by playing games on your phone? In a recent interview, tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Happify Ofer Leidner said gamification can make people “happier”, and that the development of technology that improves well-being is only just getting beginning.
Image credit: x-bility.com
It should be noted that not just any game on your phone can help one live a happier, healthier life. Instead, Happify and other comparable platforms use science-based games to drive behavior and to help people learn skills for generally improving their outlook on life. It’s still gaming and gamification, but gaming done with a meaningful purpose.
“After telling us a little bit about themselves, we recommend a certain track, which is a topic around which (Happify users) want to build those skills for greater emotional fitness. We then prescribe for them a set of activities and interventions that have been transformed into an interactive app,” Leidner said. “You can do them on your phone, when you’re commuting, or you can do it at night. What we’re doing, in terms of the measurement of improved outcome, is we’re actually measuring them based on scientific event reports.”
Leidner said that Happify and other apps like it aren’t inventing the science, but rather translating existing interventions, studies, and research; this data suggests that an overall happiness index is determined by one’s ability to experience positive emotions and overall life satisfaction. While that may seem like a nebulous target, he said there’s plenty of research to back it up.
In addition to the behavioral science aspect of gamification technology, Leidner also cites evidence of its efficacy in a neuroscientific approach. Seeing the notable changes in functional MRI brain scans as a result of gamification-driven behavior is what led him to make applications that could engage and benefit society on a grander scale.
Leidner acknowledges that happiness is a charged term that can mean many things to different people. But in a world with both objective and self-reported measurements, it’s what the user does with the feedback from those gaming measurements that will make the difference. “To give you a simple example, you will not be able to be happy if you’re sleep deprived. It doesn’t matter. Sleep deprivation is the number one technique to make you unhappy,” Leidner said. “I think the important thing is not just to measure, but what do you do with the measurements.”
Looking to the future, Leidner sees more gamification-driven applications and hardware on the horizon that will help people learn to live happier, healthier lives, including existing health applications like HealthKeep. Future app technologies will likely also collaborate with sensors in your body to help calibrate self-reported information (like mental state) with objective physical measurements, in turn improving recommended activities and better tailoring apps to enhance an individual user’s happiness and well-being.
“There is a theme that says technology is not the way. If you want to live well and live happier lives, disconnect from technology, shut down your devices,” Leidner said. “We’re basically saying, ‘We’re not gonna’ shut down our devices. We’re just gonna’ turn the focus to apps and technology and services that help us create more meaningful lives. Augmented reality can play a very important role (in that) I think.” As with anything else, our new apps are a tool, one that can be used for ill or for good; eliminating this technology from our lives may not be realistic, but choosing how we use these technologies is within every free person’s realm of personal choice.
