While VR training tools are already relatively commonplace for players and coaches in many professional sports, such technologies are not often seen at the high-school, college and amateur level. When it comes to lacrosse — and as VRWorld has learned, possibly other sports in the near future — that may be changing, thanks to the father and son team at Nelson Design Group. Doug, a high school lacrosse coach with nearly two decades of experience, and his son, who is well-versed in software development, have combined their efforts to create a comprehensive lacrosse goalie practice system. Leveraging an Oculus headset, their software allows lacrosse goalies
Kia uses VR to market their new Stinger sports sedan
Kia Motors America has incorporated a virtual reality experience into its marketing efforts for their new Kia Stinger sports car. Visitors to the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, which runs from January 13-28, will be among the first to experience what the company is referring to as a “four-dimension virtual reality test drive” of the new vehicle. The company says the 360-degree test drive experience immerses drivers in real-world environments, while also adding haptic feedback. The result is that one can “feel the speed, agility, responsiveness and handling” of the vehicle, while virtually driving in California’s Big Sur, through the South of
CES: Lenovo introduces quartet of new AR and VR technologies
Lenovo used this week’s CES in Las Vegas to highlight several aspects of their 2018 product and service lineup in the augmented reality and virtual reality spaces. These announcements spanned both consumer and commercial/industrial applications, and include the Lenovo Mirage Solo headset, Mirage Camera, C220 Smart Glasses and NBD AH Cloud 2.0. Lenovo Mirage Solo and Mirage Camera with Daydream Billed as a “new take on VR consumption and creation,” this complementary product duo is targeted primarily at consumer markets. The Mirage Solo stands as the first stand-alone headset offering that is part of Google’s Daydream platform; an ill-fated offering from HTC was announced and
CES: Pico Interactive and uSens join hands
Headset manufacturer Pico Interactive, Inc. and HCI system developer uSens., Inc. have established a partnership that will see the Pico Goblin all-in-one VR headset incorporate uSens’ hand-tracking technology. The announcement came at this week’s CES 2018 in Las Vegas. “uSens and Pico already have a long-standing relationship, originating from developing custom business solutions together,” said uSens CTO and co-founder Dr. Yue Fei. “We are excited to formally work together into 2018 to bring our HCI solutions to their user base, as we see all-in-one and mobile headsets as the driving force behind growth in the VR market,” he continued. The partnership will see uSens’ 26DOF
CES: HiScene demos communication-focused AR glasses
HiScene, a Chinese provider of AR products and services is demoing it’s recently-launched HiAR augmented reality glasses at this year’s CES in Las Vegas. The product, which is intended for fields including aerospace, power, automotive manufacturing and education, previously won an Innovation Award at CES Asia and the Red Dot Design Award 2017. Notably, the company says their product is the first mass-produced binocular AR smart glasses in China. According to HiScene, the glasses improve brightness and heat dissipation compared to earlier models, while also featuring a minimalist user interface that is particularly well-suited to augmented reality. Of further interest is that the glasses integrate
CES: uSens strives to bring augmented reality to billions of users
HCI systems manufacturer uSens, Inc. announced the availability of uSensAr, a smartphone augmented reality engine, this week at CES 2018 in Las Vegas. uSensAR is designed to run optimally on lower-end Android hardware, including systems with lower-resolution cameras and comparatively underpowered CPUs. “ARcore currently only serves about 30 million Android phones, which is just five percent of the entire Android smartphone ecosystem,” said Dr. Yue Fei, uSens CTO and co-founder. The company indicated their platform could expand the reach of AR technologies to an estimated two billion smartphones. “With the release of uSensAR, we are allowing developers, smartphone manufacturers, and content creators to build those
HTC ends year on sour fiscal note
Smartphone and VR headset manufacturer HTC ended the year with a steep decline in revenue, according to a news release issued by the company last week. The company announced unaudited consolidated revenue for December 2017 of $4.02 billion TWD (approximately $136 million USD), and total unaudited consolidated revenue from January to December 2017 of $62.12 billion TWD (approximately $2.1 billion USD). Those revenue numbers represent a 29% month-to-month decline and 36% year-over-year decline. Reports indicate that HTC’s yearly revenue marks its worst performance in over a decade. Some of the revenue decline may be due to aggressive price cuts during 2017, which saw both HTC
CES: LUCI shows off immersion-on-demand wearable and VR headset
Entertainment experience company LUCI has unveiled their immersion-on-demand wearable and VR headset products at this week’s CES 2018 in Las Vegas. Dubbed “LUCI immers” and “LUCI alyx,” respectively, the company appears to be looking to be a transformative player in the burgeoning wearable and VR sectors. “LUCI wants to fundamentally change how people consume content by giving users the most visually stunning experience possible through wearable technology,” said Josh Littlefield, vice president of global sales and marketing for LUCI. “We want users to be amazed by the nuances of every frame, every scene and every minute detail through an uncompromised viewing experience,” he continued. The
CES: LooxidVR headset will track your eyes and brain
Tech startup Looxid Labs announced this week that it was awarded a Best of Innovation Award in CES 2018’s Virtual Reality category for its LooxidVR headset. Previous winners in the category have included Samsung, for their Gear VR headset, and Google, for their Tilt Brush 3D/VR painting system. LooxidVR is a mobile-based VR headset, similar in design to Samsung’s Gear VR and Google Daydream View, with the added features of having embedded EEG sensors and eye-tracking cameras. The result is that the headset can empower tracking its wearer’s brain activity, eye movement and pupil dilation. “It is really encouraging to see our technology and potential
CES: Lumus provides sneak peak of its AR pipeline
Lumus, a developer of transparent displays for augmented reality hardware is showcasing its latest technological innovations this week, at CES 2018. The company is demoing both its new Vision optical engine — a solution in the AR visor space — and is also providing a sneak-peak of technologies that will be used to empower a glasses-style AR device. The Vision engine boasts a top-down, 40 degree field of view at 1080 pixel resolution in full colour and daylight viewability, displayed via transparent lenses that do not distort the user’s view of their natural environment. “From ongoing discussions with tier one companies and major ODMs working
CES: DisplayLink unveils their latest untethered VR solution
DisplayLink, a maker of graphics products including wireless VR solutions, announced that it is showcasing their newest multi-user wireless VR solution at CES 2018. The technology demo features the virtual racketball game Racket: Nx, and places participants in a mixed reality arena that boasts complete freedom-of-movement in a cable free environment. Spectators can view the competition, in real time, in mixed reality. “VR opens so many new opportunities for business, enterprise and gaming. We cut the cord last year and now we’re showcasing VR in an untethered, multi-player virtual arena,” said John Cummins, Senior Vice President Sales and Marketing at DisplayLink. Wireless VR technologies are
CES: Coffee machine and AR mirror turn conversational
SoundHound Inc., a developer of AI and conversational intelligence technologies, this week introduced a range of integrations empowered by their Houndify Voice AI platform. Demonstrations of some of those integrations will occur at this week’s CES in Las Vegas. The integrations run a very wide range of IoT categories, including automotive, connected speakers, robotics, appliances, augmented reality experiences, smart home, and wearables, from companies including Hyundai, HUMAX, Mayfield Robotics, AvatarMind Robots, PhotoSpring and Onkyo. “Conversational voice interfaces represent the next shift in how we interact with the devices around us and the user behavior of speaking to things will quickly become an integral part of
CES: YI Technology and Google introduce VR camera
Imaging technology firm YI Technology today announced details of its YI Horizon VR180 Camera at CES 2018 in Las Vegas. The camera, created in collaboration with Google’s Virtual Reality team, is billed as an easy-to-use, stereoscopic 3D camera. The camera features seamless integration with YouTube and Google Photos, and is compatible with Google Cardboard, Google Daydream, PlayStation VR and other certified viewers. Notably, content created by the camera can also be viewed easily in 2D. “We truly believe that it should be easy for everyone to create and share virtual reality experiences,” said Sean Da, CEO of YI Technology. The camera supports 3D video at
CES: Rokid unveils AR glasses prototype
AI and robotics firm Rokid has unveiled a prototype of its planned augmented reality product, Rokid Glass, this week at CES. The company, better known for its home assistant products (that bear similarities in looks and functionality to Amazon’s Alexa Dot and Google’s Home Mini), appears to be making its first foray into the augmented reality space. Reportedly, the glasses will operate as a standalone headset, but also provide functionality to connect to smartphones or other devices via Bluetooth or WiFi to bolster processing power and network range. The glasses run a variant of Android 6.0 — suggesting it may eventually leverage Google’s ARCore to
CES: Intel CEO Krzanich keynote highlights AI and VR
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich used Monday’s CES 2018 keynote to highlight how data is changing our work and personal lives, while simultaneously pushing forward technological innovation both at his company and within the larger technology sector. His keynote also specifically addressed Intel’s new initiatives in the VR space. “Data is going to introduce social and economic changes that we see perhaps once or twice in a century,” Krzanich said. “We not only find data everywhere today, but it will be the creative force behind the innovations of the future. Data is going to redefine how we experience life – in our work, in our homes,
CES: NextVR announces realism-boosting upgrades
NextVR, a leading provider of systems for broadcasting live sports and music events in virtual reality, yesterday previewed several upgrades to its technology platform. The announcement was made in conjunction with the opening of CES 2018 in Las Vegas. In what was billed as a “sneak peek,” NextVR unveiled three major initiatives: introducing Six Degrees of Freedom (6DoF) technology; improving fidelity of transmitted content; and adding augmented reality to their platform. NextVR is currently compatible with the Samsung Gear VR headset or Google Daydream View combined with an appropriate smartphone, PlayStation VR, or Windows Mixed Reality system. “VR is the most demanding visual medium ever
Smartphones gain PC-strength VR capabilities via new codec
NGCodec, a company that specializes in developing algorithms, silicon logic and FPGA implementations for cloud video processing, this week announced the availability of their potentially transformative cloud-based encoding technologies via the Amazon AWS Marketplace. The company’s RealityCodec acts as a low-delay H.265/HEVC encoder, which allows much of the processing load of VR video streams to be shifted into the cloud. The codec also boasts sufficiently low latency that it can reliably deliver VR streams to untethered, mobile, VR head-mounted displays. “We have worked diligently to bring our advanced video codecs to the Amazon Cloud and to demonstrate the potential for cloud media and virtual reality,”
Amazon patent reflects another push into 1.7 trillion dollar industry
A patent issued on the first business day of the new year may herald a breakthrough in online fashion retailing. US Patent 9,858,719 was Issued on January 2nd to Amazon Services Inc. It suggests the company is developing an augmented reality-type system consisting of a mirror, display and camera combination that allows individuals to virtually preview the look of clothing prior to purchase, and to do so while also virtualizing their locale. The invention, as described, appears to go a long way towards solving the many issues pertaining to look and fit that tend to plague the purchase of fashion items online. Currently, these challenges
Sony announces new VR music campaign featuring Khalid
Sony last week announced that it will be showcasing its technologies as part of a brand campaign centered on singer-songwriter, Khalid. Named “Lost in Music,” the campaign will debut with a live event at the LA Hangar in January. Spatial audio technology will play a role in creating immersive experiences “which can create space where sounds are virtually moving around.” They have named these two experiences “Odyssey” and “Dreamscape.” A follow-on event will occur in New York in February, and at SXSW in March. A new VR music video will also be unveiled at SXSW. Although the company is short on details of what it
VR and AR shipments to grow 517% by 2021
Market intelligence firm IDC sees substantial growth in store for the VR and AR markets, with shipments expected to reach 59.2 million headsets by 2021, up from 9.6 million this year. These projects come in IDC’s “Worldwide Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker” research report, published last week. The firm notes that low-cost, screenless VR viewers (e.g. headsets that utilize smartphones) have dominated the market to date, but sees this category losing market share going forward, with a shift into tethered and standalone VR/AR solutions. According to their report, screenless viewers will represent less than 15% of the total VR/AR market in 2021, with