ADVANCING USER EXPERIENCES BY BRIDGING THE CLIENT, CLOUD, AND NETWORK ECOSYSTEMS

Taking place July 24-28, 2016, Siggraph promises to offer a rich program featuring virtual reality and augmented reality.  They are also holding a new VR Village this year. The VR Village hosts a wide range of experimental ideas and projects with virtual reality, and this year’s edition features everything from a collaborative VR environment put together by Eon Reality to MechVR, an experimental simulator where you ride a giant biped robot – lots of fun!

This year’s flagship exhibit is the VR Storylab which blends narrative-driven, 360-degree VR content in a physical lab environment. It provides an immersive adventure by showcasing a wide range of art, entertainment, academic, scientific, and experiential VR.  In addition to the exhibition, there will be educational immersive content and discussions! The ITA proudly supports Siggraph each year; we hope to see you there.

VRLA takes place August 5-6, 2016 at the LA Convention Center.  This is a great opportunity to join thousands of immersive technology professionals and enthusiasts to see cutting ­edge demos of the most exciting projects in development for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Microsoft Hololens and Samsung Gear VR.Event highlights include:

• 100+ VR exhibitors including companies like HTC, GoPro, Google, Dolby, Deluxe, Envelop VR, MSI, Technicolor, Boost VC, Otoy, and Nokia.
• Musician and comedian Reggie Watts as Saturday’s keynote speaker.
• The world’s first VR Rave, presented by Skullcandy, the Official Audio Partner of VRLA Summer Expo.

In collaboration with The Wave, Phasespace, SubPac, 3D Live, and WeLens, attendees will be able to experience DJs mixing live music inside VR.VR arcades, 360­cameras, motion simulators, 3D scanners, and the latest in CG and VFX technology.

This GPU launch is a big deal because it offers the core of what modern virtual reality solutions like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift need from a graphics processor for just $199 USD.  To date, other solutions have been priced anywhere from $350 to $550 a unit, and not necessarily at an equal or better level of performance.  The base unit features HDMI 2.0b and Displayport 1.3/1.4 support, 4GB GDDR5 RAM (there is an 8GB RAM option), and does its magic with just 150 watts of power.  While intended for budget gamers looking to jump in to VR without the trade-offs of under-performing equipment, it can be inexpensively run in CrossFireX setups with multiple GPUs contributing to the overall performance.  Congrats AMD!

Earlier this week, we highlighted that Dr. Michael Madary will be heading up a special ITA working group pertaining to responsible virtual reality.  This episode of Neil’s Messy Basement talks about the core issues of responsible virtual reality and why it’s important for the market to regularly get together and compare notes on the subject.  The program also features an on-camera interview with Alon Melchner, President of WakingApp.  WakingApp is an ITA member that creates the Entiti Reality Creator software which makes it possible for anyone to create virtual reality content without having programming expertise.

Dr. Michael Madary, Responsible Consumer VR Experience Working Group Lead

“Immersive technology holds great promise for new forms of education, social interaction, medical treatment, and artistic expression. My own work, in collaboration with the ITA, is about enabling the well being of end users and the positive outcome of technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality. We are all still learning what this powerful media is capable of, and the alliance provides a valuable opportunity for technology and content makers to build the required tool sets for safe and viable experiences.” – Dr. Michael Madary, Responsible Consumer VR Experiences Working Group Lead.

Dr. Michael Madary, one of the foremost experts on virtual reality (VR) ethics, is leading a new ITA working group to develop safe practices and responsible consumer targeting for VR content and products.  Dr. Madary works on the ethics of emerging technology, especially immersive technology such as virtual reality. His research is interdisciplinary and draws from philosophy of mind, psychology, and neuroscience. In February 2016, in collaboration with Thomas Metzinger, Michael published the first code of ethics for research and consumer use of VR, which received widespread media attention. He has published widely in the philosophy of perception, including a book, “Visual Phenomenology,” currently in production with MIT Press. Read More

Starbreeze Studios’ Walking Dead demo at Immersed 2015, sourced from Tom’s Hardware

Immersive Technology Alliance member Starbreeze AB and Acer Inc. have signed a letter of intent to form a joint venture for the StarVR Virtual Reality (VR) Head-Mounted Display (HMD). The two companies are going to collaborate on the design, manufacturing, promotion, marketing and sales of the StarVR HMD to the professional and location-based entertainment market.

“Since our launch in June 2015, we have had an amazing start with StarVR. By partnering with Acer we shift gears yet again to firmly position us as the leader in top-end VR experiences. Acer is an excellent, experienced and prominent hardware partner that will accelerate us in realizing and producing a high-definition, high-fidelity VR headset,” said Bo Andersson Klint, Starbreeze CEO. “We’ve been working with a clear roadmap for our VR strategy from day one, and are now about to realize one of the first major collaborations we set out to achieve. The future for StarVR is now set and extremely exciting.” Read More