A couple of months ago I went to the VR Sports and Entertainment Summit in San Francisco, where I had a chance to try out the virtual Hockey training kit from Sense Arena, so am really not surprised the company has made such a splash in the much bigger CES pond these past few days.

The brain is the most important ‘muscle’ in an athlete’s body
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Even for someone who had never played hockey before, I found the experience incredibly entertaining
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Even for someone who had never played hockey before, I found the experience incredibly entertaining, and could swear I improved my performance from appalling to merely dismal in the short space of time I was allowed to play. Best of all, having tried A LOT of different controllers and experiences over the years, I was thoroughly impressed with how realistic the physics felt between the physical stick and the virtual puck. My brain really had a hard time believing that both weren’t real, which, of course, is the point.

“This is more than just a game. It’s a tool for kids or even professional players,” explains Patrik Elias, a top ranked 20- year NHL player for the New Jersey Devils, who attended CES in support of Sense Arena. “Everyone is trying to find tools to get better because the competition is getting tougher and tougher. Tech is a big part of any professional sport now,” he added.

The technology has been developed with extensive input from hockey coaches and professional players
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The technology has been developed with extensive input from hockey coaches and professional players such as Bruin’s Right Winger – David Pastrnak and NHL ex pro-player Jan Ludvig, current Bruins Pro Scout.

“The technology and the reality of the environment are just amazing and so far, we’ve only seen half of what Sense Arena can be further developed into! I would definitely encourage you to try Sense Arena – you have to try it to believe it,” said Boston Bruins David Pastrnak.

The whole kit – which comes ready for commercial or in-home use - is portable, and the self-contained case is hardly more cumbersome than the real-life sports equipment would be
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This system is designed to let players improve their cognitive skills (much like surgeons already do with VR training tools) and overall “hockey sense” by simulating game situations, while focusing on reaction speed and decision making skills to test a player’s hockey intelligence.

“The brain is the most important ‘muscle’ in an athlete’s body. Every command to our bodies starts in the brain. Improving cognitive functions of players is going to be the new game changer. VR gives you the benefit to work on speed of reaction, decision making, reading of the game etc.,” explains Bob Tetiva, Sense Arena Founder and CEO.

This system is designed to let players improve their cognitive skills
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The whole kit – which comes ready for commercial or in-home use – is portable, and the self-contained case is hardly more cumbersome than the real-life sports equipment would be. It is, however, a considerable investment the Pro Pack will set you back $5,480 (which includes a HTC Vive Pro, two HTC lighthouses, four trackers, one wireless adapter, and VR-ready PC with a touch monitor. You also require a $199 monthly subscription. As a training tool for an entire team, however, it is easy to see how that investment could quickly pay off.

This article originally appeared on VRScout

Strengthening Your Muscle Memory With VR Hockey Training via @alicebonasio https://t.co/aSXfAdJb5g pic.twitter.com/aJQwpzGpnA

— VRScout (@VRScout) January 14, 2019

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies our VR Consultancy service offers comprehensive support in strategic deployment of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Training Your Brain Muscles with VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

Back in 2016, Oculus’s chief scientist Michael Abrash predicted that within five years, VR headsets would have a monocular 4K resolution and 140-degree FoV. So by that measure, Pimax over-delivered at CES 2019 with its Leap Motion bundle featuring 8K VR headset with built-in speakers, 200° FOV and optional eye tracking being developed in partnership with 7invensun.

Pimax is now working with partners to make the headsets more extendable with wireless transmission module and bring more content dedicated to the headsets with developers
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Pimax over-delivered at CES 2019 with its Leap Motion bundle featuring 8K VR headset with built-in speakers, 200° FOV and optional eye tracking
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Pimax holds the Guinness World Record for the most successful crowdfunded VR project with over $4m in funding. At CES, they showcased a prototype of its upcoming open-palm controllers, which are compatible with the 8K VR headset as well as other devices such as the Steam VR tracking 1.0 and 2.0. These are ergonomically comfortable with new industrial design, and come in both a thumbstick and trackpad version.

“Science fiction stories like Minority Report and more recently Ready Player One gave us a glimpse into the future for immersive experiences and UI control. Today we’re ready to prove that era is closer than ever before by bringing VR 2.0 to the industry,” says Kevin Henderson, Head of US Operations of Pimax VR, touting thatwith their headsets, users can experience VR with extensive peripheral vision, thus solving the “screen door effect” (whereby you notice fine black lines between the pixels of a digitally projected image) which can sometimes be a problem in VR.

VR 2.0 brings high resolution, wide field of view (FoV) and a more natural interaction as well as the application of innovative technologies, such as foveated rendering, focal surface displays and wireless transmission, will bring a more immersive experience to users in the virtual world.

“In terms of display and optics, in the time of VR 1.0, users suffered from low resolution and narrow FoV, but eye-tracking technology for high viewing performance Foveated rendering technology reduces GPU load power consumption and dizziness, which brings high viewing performance to VR,” adds Henderson, saying they are now closely working with 7invensum, focusing on R&D for eye-tracking technologies to achieve this goal, as well as NVIDIA – the inventor of GPU.

Minority Report and Ready Player One gave us a glimpse into the future for immersive experiences and today we’re ready to prove that era is closer than ever before by bringing VR 2.0 to the industry
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“As a contributor to the industry, we are eager to work with our partners to integrate more innovative technologies into our headsets and make these features easily accessible. We want to provide world-leading technologies to our community and users with a highly effective global customer service and support system and help VR enthusiasts realize their dreams in VR.”

Pimax is now working with partners to make the headsets more extendable with wireless transmission module as well as to bring more content dedicated to the headsets with developers. The company also plans to open customer service centers in North America and Europe customers, with a U.S. based support center due to open in March 2019.

Pimax holds the Guinness World Record for the most successful crowdfunded VR project with over $4m in funding
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For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies our VR Consultancy service offers comprehensive support in strategic deployment of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Showing Off VR 2.0 at #CES2019 appeared first on Tech Trends.