Meet Zappar, a British start-up with the big ambition to become the “Google Cardboard of MR.”

The truth is that once you try out Mixed Reality it’s really hard to go back. Other tech – from smartphones and computers to VR headsets – feels clunky in comparison, and the world seems a much duller place without those friendly and convenient holograms, as you start seeing potential use cases for the MR literally everywhere.

But as Microsoft made very clear when we met, HoloLens is nowhere near a consumer launch yet. Sure, if you’re a dev with $3,000 spare and live in one of the 8 countries they currently supply, you can get your hands on one, but mere mortals will have to wait a long time to experience MR for themselves. Or so I thought.

ZapBox – a Kickstarter-funded project from UK start-up Zappar – is proposing to leapfrog Microsoft (and everyone else) by making a MR equivalent of Google Cardboard for a hundredth of the HoloLens cost – a mere $30. They launched it just over a week ago, aiming to raise $30,000 toward development. At the time of writing, however, they had already exceeded that goal, with 19 days still left to go.

The truth is that once you try out Mixed Reality it’s really hard to go back. Other tech – from smartphones and computers to VR headsets – feels clunky in comparison
Share on X

Although I kept an open mind as I went down to London* to try this out for myself, it was hard to picture how it would be possible to replicate the complex tech of the HoloLens on a cardboard device. It’s one thing to project 360 video on one of those, but quite another to integrate computer-generated elements in your real-world environment, in real time.

But as I put on the prototype headset – endearingly held together with brown tape – that Zappar’s Co-Founder Simon Taylor handed me, I was immediately impressed. The feed it displayed from Taylor’s iPhone 6 camera was accurate – if very slightly blurry at times – in every detail except for the rabbit peeking out of a hole on the table in front of me.

Like my Wonderland namesake I felt the urge to investigate further, and took a peek down that rabbit hole. As I stood above it I could actually see quite a way down, with no sign of the table underneath it. When I reached out my hand, it of course went straight through the rabbit hologram, but – crucially – it did touch the edge of the table exactly where I expected it to be. That’s when I started to get excited.

I tested my boundaries by walking around the small room, and was able to accurately and effortlessly navigate around obstacles such as chairs and laptops. I picked up my glass of water, and saw the half-eaten mince pie that Simon had been working on as he setup the demo. It all felt natural and real, in spite of the big blue bunny insistently waving at me, which reminded me of the opening scenes of that Playtest episode in Black Mirror.

This “video see-through” approach (in contrast to the optical see-through employed by HoloLens) works through a code that uses the smartphone’s camera to scan the environment for a set of specific physical markers. This allow for accurate, real-time mapping of the user’s location in relation to objects (both real and computer-generated).

“We call these markers pointcodes, and they’re the fundamental unit that makes all of this possible on a smartphone” explains Taylor, who did his Cambridge University PhD on Fast Object Localisation for Mobile Augmented Reality Applications before becoming Zappar’s Head of Research. “We lay out our marker codes onto the world like we want it and they help us map out the environment, whether that’s a table-top setup or a combination of wall and floor if you want a larger play area.”

The next demo is more interactive, so I get to try out the hand controllers; a pair of origami-like paper devices featuring pointcodes in every facet, neatly held together with Sellotape. And that’s another thing that shows how different this is from a regular VR experience: I put on the headset and by default look straight ahead, expecting Taylor to guide me and put the controllers in my hands. He does, before pointing out politely that I can look down and see my own hands – not a pair of floating gloves or a graphic representation of the controllers, but my hands – and so can do the job much better myself.

After I get the hang of it – it’s all pretty intuitive, specially if you’re familiar with devices like the Vive and the Oculus Touch – I then use one of the controllers as a laser pointer, which interacts with a hologram of a building projected on the table. It’s easy to see how that setup would be useful in educational settings or for presentations. Next up I’m instructed to use the other controller to press a holographic button with a moon symbol on it, which immediately dims the ambient light in the room. Pressing the sun-symbol button next to it undoes the effect, and I spend a fun few extra seconds just turning the lights on and off for kicks. It’s surprising how, in these virtual worlds, the simplest experiences are often the most compelling.

ZapBox – a Kickstarter-funded project from UK start-up Zappar – is proposing to leapfrog Microsoft (and everyone else) by making a MR equivalent of Google Cardboard
Share on X

Finally, I indulge in some “air finger painting” with their ZapBrush tool. And although this was nowhere near as slick as Tilt Brush, the potential is evident once they get around to refining colors, textures and templates properly. The main thing is that the 3D element worked flawlessly, and I could see my handiwork from all angles as I walked around the room, smugly avoiding the laptop bag I had left on the floor (something that surely would have sent me flat on my face had I been wearing the Vive).

There are certainly a few kinks yet to be ironed out; there’s a slight lag issue if you move around too quickly, and some design work on the controllers is needed to make them easier to self-assemble. There are also plans to fit a wide-angle adaptor for the phone camera lens that would allow it to continually scan for pointcodes without the need to keep your target area at the centre of your FOV. But the fact that this was supposed to be such an early Beta and that they felt confident in shipping to their 800+ current Kickstarter backers by April next year almost seems too good to be true.

ZapBox is proposing to give users a Mixed Reality experience for a hundredth of the HoloLens cost
Share on X

But it starts to make sense once you look at the company’s background. These are not newbies to this space, as Zappar has been experimenting with Augmented Reality and delivering commercial AR projects with a broad range of partners for the past 4 years. Their existing technology uses “zapcodes” (an evolution of bar/QR codes) to help devices recognize real-world objects and trigger interactions, and that is what they built on to create the pointcodes that make ZapBox MR possible.

Their ever-growing list of backers is a healthy mix of developers and consumers, and Taylor says that this is the main reason they decided to go for Kickstarter in the first place.

“It’s not about the money,” he said. “If we want to make this work as an ecosystem we need to build that community.”

In addition to the flat-packed headset and hand controllers, those first users will get access to ZapWorks Studio, which uses an integrated Javascript-based API and promises to be user-friendly, making it easy to develop original content for the device without a lot of assets or code. The SDK should work seamlessly with the latest generation of iOS and Android smartphones.

When I was a kid, I remember building a “computer” out of cardboard and sticky tape. Back then I had to rely on my imagination to make that work of course, so it’s funny how I lived to see the day where cutting-edge technology actually does work with cardboard in such interesting ways. And if Zappar succeeds in making this an affordable and intuitive entry-level device for Mixed Reality – and fostering an ecosystem that produces the content to make people want to use it – they could very well do for MR what Google Cardboard did for VR.

This article was originally published on UploadVR

.@ZapparApp is bringing a mixed reality experience for just $30. via @alicebonasio#AR#MRhttps://t.co/Q50UbqsmEmpic.twitter.com/dprweL6CtQ

— Upload (@UploadVR) November 29, 2016

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as 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 and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post A Google Cardboard for Mixed Reality? Yes please! appeared first on Tech Trends.

To coincide with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games The Financial Times partnered up with Google on a Virtual Reality project that immersed viewers in the “Cidade Maravilhosa”

The FT and Google offered readers a different way to look at Rio that went beyond the games
Share on X

This is an expansion of the FT’s  Hidden Cities project, which helps readers discover fresh perspectives on some of the world’s cultural and political capitals such as London and Brussels. It’s the first time, however, that the series has included a Virtual Reality element.

The City Within is an immersive 360 documentary with reporting and voiceover by Brazil correspondent Samantha Pearson, exploring the landscape and social dynamics of Rio’s favelas for a look at life behind the games.

“Hidden Cities Rio is a good example of how technology and journalism can work together,” says Sian Cox-Brooker from Google. “It builds on Google’s technology, combined with the FT’s editorial depth, to help people discover Rio’s hidden gems.”

The City Within is an immersive 360 documentary by Brazil correspondent Samantha Pearson
Share on X

Hidden Cities: Rio is free to experience and viewable across devices or with on Google Cardboard. A specially designed Cardboard edition will also be distributed to FT readers in London and the Home Counties with this Saturday’s paper.

A specially designed Google Cardboard edition will be distributed to FT readers this Saturday
Share on X

PS. As a Brazilian myself, I can tell you that if you’re going to Rio (and are not a vegetarian) trying out the picanha at a churrascaria is one experience well-worth having in the real world. Just remember to turn your tabletop sign to red when you’re full, or they’ll keep bringing you food until you explode…

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as 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 and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post FT and Google Launch Rio 2016 Olympics VR Project appeared first on Tech Trends.

A new project in Sweden is using VR technology to help hydrophobic children learn to swim.

Fear isn’t always such a bad thing. It is, after all, a self-preservation response programmed into our DNA that can be useful in keeping us out of harm’s way.

A new Swedish project is helping children overcome their phobia of swimming with VR
Share on X

When that fear is constant and irrational, however, it can become a crippling problem, and one that a whole lot of us struggle with every day. Nearly 25 million Americans report having the fear of flying phobia, and almost 9% of the adult population in the U.S. have at least one extreme specific fear.

This is a problem that interested Swedish Psychologist Philip Lindner, who believes that virtual reality can be the key to overcoming these irrational fears.

“If you experience something you are afraid of in VR, and you manage to stay in that situation despite the discomfort, then you have most likely lowered the barriers for trying it in real life,” he explains.

Lindner tested out this theory by exposing arachnophobic patients to their biggest fear: Big, hairy spiders – albeit virtual ones. The initial findings of the study were extremely encouraging, with even severely phobic patients reporting diminished anxiety, and they felt able to interact with increasingly realistic-looking creepy-crawlers.

“Via VR you can virtually recreate in detail a realistic and safe experience, where you can try and expose yourself to – and stay in a situation – that you feel is uncomfortable, so that you can experience that the discomfort actually disappears by itself. The things you thought would happen, most likely did not.”

The same principle of gradual immersion was applied – perhaps more literally – to his next project, The Power of Swimming, a partnership between the Swedish Swimming Federation, energy company E.ON, and M&C Saatchi Stockholm.

In a land full of lakes and surrounded by the sea, it’s perhaps surprising that one in five Swedish children can’s swim, so the project wanted to inspire young people who were nervous around water to overcome their fear and dive in.

Almost 9% of the adult population in the U.S. have at least one extreme specific fear
Share on X

Saatchi worked with production company Apartment5 to create a VR experience where hydrophobic children were introduced to three members of the Swedish swim team, who coached and guided them in a virtual swimming pool environment. During the second phase of the project, the children then met the same swimmers in the flesh, and began to swim in real life.

Early results seem to bode well for all sorts of therapeutic uses of Virtual Reality technology
Share on X

Gradual exposure to what makes you afraid (also known as desensitisation therapy) is acknowledged as the most effective way to treat phobias, yet depending on the type of phobia this is often challenging; A patient who experiences severe fear of flying, for example, would have to actually board a flight, and their reaction could well prove upsetting and dangerous not only for the patient but for fellow passengers.

Virtual Reality is a very effective delivery mechanism for desensitisation therapy
Share on X

In VR, however, this gradual exposure can be safely adjusted and controlled. In Dr Lindner’s spider experiment, for instance, patients first interacted with quite cartoon-like spiders, which eventually became more photo-realistic as the therapy progressed and their tolerance threshold increased.

The way that our brain naturally responds to Virtual Reality in similar or identical ways to real-world experiences means that the technology naturally lends itself to that kind of use. It might seem strange that virtual swimming can feel this realistic, yet anybody who tries VR for the first time will usually be surprised at how real it feels. I recently spoke to the team behind Google Expeditions, and they reported how children trying on the Great Barrier Reef experience would often instinctively hold their breath as they saw the water close in around them.

In VR, gradual exposure to what makes us afraid can be safely adjusted and controlled
Share on X

It was no different for the Swedish children taking part in the project: Even within a short period of immersion, the children’s response to water was completely changed, and many who were quite anxious to start with visibly started to have fun, saying things like: “I was in the water in a second,” “I think that’s what I want to do when I grow up,” and “It feels good to be under water now.”

Considering how VR is still very much in its infancy, these early results seem to bode well for a lot of therapeutic uses of the technology, which can only be good news for the millions of us who could use a helping hand in conquering our fears.

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

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 and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Facing Down Your Fears with Virtual Reality appeared first on Tech Trends.

Things are getting hot in the virtual world and the Adult industry is playing a big part in spurring adoption of the technology.

Talking about virtual reality is a bit like “dancing” about “architecture;” we lack the vocabulary to do it properly, and you have to experience it to understand. That quickly becomes evident when watching someone try it out for the first time. People are invariably blown away — they gasp, they laugh, and they usually can’t help reaching out their hands to touch things that aren’t really there.

“I’ve been introducing a lot of people to VR over the past few months, and that first experience is incredibly intense,” Ian Paul, Chief Information Officer of Naughty America, tells me as he sets up our demo in a San Francisco hotel room. “But when you’re throwing hardcore pornography at them on top of that, it can sometimes feel like a bit of sensory overload,” he laughs.

Paul never imagined he’d end up as a world ambassador for virtual reality porn. In his slick-yet-conservative business suit, he looks much more like an IBM executive, which is exactly what he was before being lured away to become Naughty America’s CIO six years ago.

The real test for any new technology is how quickly it gets picked up by the adult industry
Share on X

As porn embraces virtual reality, what does that mean for the rest of us?
Share on X

Then again, when I first started writing about VR I wasn’t exactly thinking about pornography either. Life sure takes some interesting turns, and sometimes all you can do is merrily plunge down the rabbit hole—which is how I found myself in that hotel room, wearing Samsung’s Gear VR headset and watching my first fully immersive virtual sex scene.

As the foreplay unfolded between two female protagonists, I effectively embodied one of them, since the stereoscopic camera gear had been mounted on her head. The other performer maintained constant eye contact with that camera to create the illusion of first-person engagement.

As the foreplay unfolded between two female protagonists, I effectively embodied one of them, since the stereoscopic camera gear had been mounted on her head
Share on X

Without giving too much of the plot away, the two girls are soon joined by a guy, and let’s just say that they all get really friendly. During the action my gaze was free to wander around the room; I could look at the floor, a picture on the wall or the shelf bulging with creative-looking dildos to my left. Or I could look down at the model’s body — which effectively stood in for my own—and take in what is being vigorously done to it. It’s all very close-up and personal.

Things get curiouser and curiouser as we switch to the male point of view. Staring at my newly acquired — and rather large — penis sent me into fits of freaked-out giggling. It’s very hard to convey just how weird—and real—that experience feels. Given that those making virtual reality tech have only started scratching the surface of what the technology can do, that’s both frightening and exciting.

It’s very hard to convey just how weird—and real—that experience feels
Share on X

Gender bender

Image courtesy Naughty America

Randy’s Roadstop is the series that Naughty America recently released to lay its claim to the growing adult VR space. As the name suggests, in these episodes you effectively become Randy (the main character). The female POV demo I tried earlier hasn’t been commercially released, but it’s part of the company’s efforts to nail the female market. “Nobody’s figured out how to crack that yet, because what stimulates men and women is entirely different,” says Paul.

The videos got mixed reactions, so they’re busy tweaking the format building feedback from women into the product. One example of how that works is how they decided to give the first-person characters a voice.

“It’s the first time we’ve experimented with the person that you ‘play’ actually speaking, because we thought it would break immersion,” Paul continues. “But with the female POV it felt problematic for some people to have the character silent; it can make you start wondering whether she’s enjoying herself.”

As I finish my demo I get the impression everyone did enjoy themselves, but I’m after a second opinion. So our photographer gets drafted in to try the female angle. As he looks down at himself with the goggles on, the first thing Tom blurts is that he “always wanted a pair of tits”. When the action intensifies he goes a bit silent though, and just as things get close to the ‘business end’ he suddenly tears off the gear. That’s a common reaction Paul sees from men in that position; they can’t quite take it in.

I know that, for myself and other men I talked to, it was really eye-opening. It makes you a bit more sensitive to the experience from a woman’s perspective. To have a man on you, actually entering you, it’s like, wow, this is intense, especially given the fact that the perspective makes the performers really tower over you.

This sense of experiencing something from someone else’s perspective is probably the most powerful thing about VR, and filmmakers are keen to explore that. Chris Milk, who was commissioned by the UN to make a project highlighting the plight of Syrian refugees, called it “the ultimate empathy machine” in his TED talk.

Researchers at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab have conducted a variety of experiments that show how virtual reality can be used to make us more empathetic and directly change our attitudes toward disability, age, ethnicity and yes, gender. But while that’s all very interesting and noble, what stands out after seeing men instantly reassess their deeply ingrained attitudes toward sex after just a few minutes spent in VR is that it could make them much better lovers.

This sense of experiencing something from someone else’s perspective is probably the most powerful thing about VR
Share on X

Playing with yourself

Ian Paul (photo by Tom Atkinson)

VR can make people feel more empathy for the people involved, and also have a more considerate approach to sex in their private lives
Share on X

Librarian turned porn entrepreneur Ela Darling is a rising star in the VR adult industry, making what she describes as “Pretty Porn for Smart People.” She agrees that virtual reality can make people feel more empathy for the people involved, and also have a more considerate approach to sex in their private lives.

“Men might believe that half-hearted attempts to make a woman have an orgasm will lead her to the throes of ecstasy,” she tells me, “but if you live in a female body, you see all the reasons why it’s not authentically pleasing.”

Virtual reality can create incredibly intimate experiences, where some of the shock and awe of hardcore sex can feel overwhelming. Paul suspects this might lead to some toning down, at least at first. “But it also opens up opportunities to do much more interesting things that perhaps haven’t been possible before,” he says.

Some of those opportunities are in teledildonics, which are devices that can be programmed to react with content and provide stimuli at specific times. Naughty America and VirtualRealPorn are already working with companies like Kiiroo to incorporate smart toys into their films, and PornHub recently launched its TwerkingButt, which promises “the ultimate experience in online passion,” Pornhub Vice President Corey Price told me, by combining a VR headset and a device that “sensually gyrates to the motion of videos.”

Yet this isn’t just about plugging a vibrator into your smartphone.

Advanced teledildonics will make the virtual feel a whole lot more real, and technology is advancing quickly, according to Nonny de la Peña, who has the funny honor of being known as the “Godmother of VR” . She earned the nickname at Sundance last year when, during an interview, she was continuously interrupted by various people who had pieces in the show paying their respect and telling her how she had got them hooked on the medium. The Endgadget reporter noted the Corleone-like vibe and coined the phrase, which stuck.

“We’re already getting into second generation models, but there will be countless devices ranging from game controllers to haptic suits that track your entire body in a virtual environment, so I think you’ll see pretty much anything you can imagine becoming productized over the next few years,“ she says.

Darling is also excited about the possibilities: “The idea of being able to touch a device in my bedroom and stimulate the sexual senses of someone across the world is thrilling to me, especially if I can touch one device at home and reach thousands of viewers all experiencing a simulation of my touch at the same time. I could jerk off thousands of guys with one stroke! That’s incredible,” she laughs.

In the future these devices will probably sense your physical data, such as heart-rate or the direction of your gaze, and adapt accordingly to personalize and optimize that experience, Paul predicts.

Virtual reality can create incredibly intimate experiences, where some of the shock and awe of hardcore sex can feel overwhelming
Share on X

Imagine being in a virtual room with many different characters/avatars, and all you need to do is look at each one before the device you’re wearing determines, based on your physical reaction, which one turns you on the most. Then that’s the one that walks towards you. It might seem like science fiction, but although we’re not quite there yet, it wouldn’t require that much of a leap in technology to make that sort of experience entirely possible.

I think as a society we need to accept that people not only look at this content, but that it’s a valid way to explore your sexuality
Share on X

In order to do that, the system would need to collect data about your likes and dislikes, perhaps building an adult version of the predictive search and recommendations systems used by companies like Netflix and Google. If systems were able to collect granular data about what you like and adapt those experiences to suit you, it could be incredibly powerful, but collecting that kind of data brings its own problematic issues.

Paul believes that we first need to collectively decide whether it’s OK to consume pornography. “I think as a society we need to accept that people not only look at this content, but that it’s a valid way to explore your sexuality, and that it’s not a problem to look at something and enjoy it in a virtual sense,” he says.

This would be particularly empowering for women, he believes, many of whom still feel pornography is taboo. “We know that about 30% of women watch pornography, but very few will buy it,” Paul says. “So the conundrum is: how do you monetize? It’s not an economic issue at all, it’s more a psychological barrier, where the act of buying is adding friction so they’re less likely to consume that content.

“With this level of intimacy, aspects like storyline become much more important,” he continues. “Subtle things, like how close someone is standing to you, start to make a big difference. Where with the Internet we’ve seen a rise in amateur porn, I believe VR will favor professional production values such as camera placing, lighting and scripting. I think there will also be a space for female filmmakers to produce more artistic and thoughtful content that will appeal to both men and women.”

About 30% of women watch pornography, but very few will buy it
Share on X

“People make lots of false assumptions about what women want in porn,” adds Darling. “Some believe that porn for women must be romantic and story-driven with less hardcore imagery. I think that’s false. Women’s taste in porn is as diverse as that of men. The difference is that women want porn that is believable and made well, so production quality is important, as are natural, genuine orgasms. Women know what makes a woman feel good and what doesn’t.”

Coming together

Image courtesy AliceX

Monetizing VR is a challenge that the major players have yet to figure out.
Share on X

That also brings in the possibility of real social interactions mediated through virtual reality, which is something that AliceX is betting on. It pairs up users with live webcam models so that you interact directly with them on a pay-per-minute basis. Their CEO, Fabian Grey, tells me that users have been pleased with the service so far: “VR users are three times more likely to come back within the next couple of days and are spending four times more coins than non VR users,” he says.

Yet trying out AliceX brought home just how easy it is to be heavy-handed with the medium, as the experience can feel intimidating rather than pleasurable. Perhaps until people get a little more used to it, Adult VR might lend itself more to a voyeuristic experience rather than direct interaction. “Right now VR is very singular,” agrees Corey Price from Pornhub. “But when the technology advances I think it will become a much more social experience, and when it gets there, completely immersive environments in VR will be huge.”

Porn is big business of course, but monetizing VR is a challenge that the major players have yet to figure out. Pornhub partnered with BaDoink to offer free content (giving away 10,000 VR headsets to mark the occasion) and started serving adverts against those videos in its proprietary player. “These are adverts for mainstream companies like Amazon and Dell, and I wonder if they’re aware of that,” Paul muses. The idea of adverts intruding in such an immersive experience does seem a bit odd, like the digital equivalent of someone barging into your bedroom during an intimate moment, tapping you on the shoulder and asking you whether you might like to buy this vacuum all your friends seem to like.

There’s no medium that hasn’t made porn a big thing, because it’s what humans want to do
Share on X

That said, the size of the opportunity is staggering. “VR is growing faster than any format we’ve ever tracked,” says Paul. “Mobile had a fairly steep adoption curve from around 2006 onwards, but this is much steeper. We’re seeing exponential growth.” Based on Gaming Industry predictions that project 2.5 billion VR headsets being sold by 2022 he estimates — given the demographic involved in this uptake — that by the end of the year 10 to 20 million users will be watching adult content in VR.

“It’s no longer a nascent idea,” agrees Price. “We’re going to start seeing a lot more adult content, in every niche style, available in VR.”

What’s driving that growth is the fact that so many industries are backing the new technology—not only mobile, but major technology players like Google and Facebook, as well as the games industry. It’s coming from all sides, and Paul reckons that we will see a tipping point with the rollout of 5G speeds for mobile networks (expected no sooner than 2020, according to CNET), which will allow people to stream high-resolution VR content to their devices without having to download large files.

Millions of VR headsets are expected to be sold this year — an incredible 200 million by 2020 — so the experience will soon cease to be such a novelty. Quality content for those platforms, however, is still relatively thin on the ground, and it remains to be seen how big a chunk of the market the adult industry will claim for its own.

Like a VRgin: How the porn industry is taking over virtual reality https://t.co/ojD09ZAL8Z pic.twitter.com/tRkvAb2sWq

— Playboy (@Playboy) July 2, 2016

Oculus VR Founder Palmer Luckey has gone back and forth on adult VR content. Paul is actually sympathetic to Oculus’s position. “You don’t want people to start thinking of it as a masturbation assisting tool, that’s not good for business. If the technology is really going to take off you need multiple use cases that integrate into our day-to-day lives. So we need gaming, we need social sharing, and we also need pornography. It’s all part of the human experience,” he says.

Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab, agrees that it’s easy for some types of content to quickly become dominant on certain platforms, and then go on to define them. His company, which for the past 13 years has successfully run the online virtual world Second Life, is keen not to let that happen with its virtual reality platform Project Sansar, which is due to launch in the summer.

“I’m anti-censorship, pro-freedom, we just have to figure out a way to best compartmentalize it, and play it carefully. There’s no doubt that will be one aspect of it though. There’s no medium that hasn’t made this a big thing, because it’s what humans want to do. They’ll shape any medium to suit that purpose, from writing, to painting to VR. They will find their way, it’s just human nature,” concludes Altberg.

Better than the real thing

Image courtesy Naughty America

I’m very interested in how the technology could help you learn to become a better lover with your partner in real life, almost like a personal trainer
Share on X

Professor Jeremy Bailenson agrees. As the founding director of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, he is one of the world’s leading authorities on VR, and in his book Infinite Reality he points out that “Throughout history, virtual depictions of attractive people — whether in stories, painting, sculpture, audio, etc. have always been good business for their creators.”

For over a decade Bailenson has conducted experiments that test how humans use these virtual environments and how this affects their behavior, both online and offline. Many of those experiments were done in Second Life, including one where 80 students monitored the frequency of sexual encounters on the platform, which was described as “startlingly high.”

“For a lot of people, Second Life has been a very useful way to explore their own identity,” explains Altberg. “I have this shell in the physical world, but a lot of people are not comfortable with it, so in the virtual space you have an opportunity to explore another side of yourself, which could turn out to be the real side. I know of many people who discovered themselves through that process and helped them come around to who they are in the physical world.”

That begs the question: will virtual sex ever be better than the real thing? If we have technology that’s able to anticipate our every desire and stimulate us accordingly at our convenience, will we still have the desire and patience to interact with real people?

“I’m very interested in how the technology could help you learn to become a better lover with your partner in real life, almost like a personal trainer,” muses Paul. But he thinks they’re very different propositions that will remain separate for the time being.

Grey, AliceX CEO, agrees that the human touch and experiences that stimulate all your senses will be hard to replicate. But “people will be able to get virtual experiences that are either not possible in real life or very hard to attain,” he predicts.

Bailenson paints a much more dystopian picture. In a scenario that mixes Black Mirror and Weird Science, he describes a future where we’d be able to reconstruct someone’s personality based on the wealth of information collected through their digital interactions over the course of a lifetime spent online. “When you combine advances in teledildonics with the idea that you might be able to, in future, ‘archive’ certain people and animate those models with devices designed for sexual pleasure, the potential for addiction becomes scary,” he says.

He paraphrases comedian and social commentator Dennis Miller in saying that “the day a teenage boy can buy an avatar that looks like a supermodel for $19.95, virtual reality is going to make crack look like a cup of weak, instant, decaffeinated coffee.”

Darling believes we’ll get there eventually. First, however, we have to get artificial intelligence that passes the Turing Test (where you effectively cannot tell whether you’re interacting with a person or a machine). “I don’t see that happening in the foreseeable future, but I hope I live to see the day it comes,” She says, perhaps not even realizing how it sounds.

Originally published on Playboy

How the porn industry is taking over virtual reality! by @alicebonasio, photog @r3digital https://t.co/N7av6rjFAp pic.twitter.com/6JgReuAsVo

— Mike Rougeau (@RogueCheddar) June 29, 2016

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as 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 and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Virtual Reality Gets Sexy appeared first on Tech Trends.

“It all started with a Hackathon,” Jennifer Holland, Google Apps for Education Program Manager tells me. In typical tech fashion, a bunch of Googlers thought it would be great to combine the Virtual Reality technology being rolled out with Google Cardboard with their education offering already embraced by teachers from all over the world. Throw in Google Maps/Earth/Streetview into the mix, and the idea for Google Expeditions was born.

Google Expeditions was born out of a Hackathon project
Share on X

They started testing out these virtual field trips in classrooms a year ago, and since then have worked with content partners to create more than 200 immersive experiences that take students to places like Versailles, Machu Pichu, Buckingham Palace and the Burj Khalifa building in Dubai.

In one year, Google's Virtual Reality made over 200 immersive experiences available to a million students
Share on X

Since then VR has taken off in a big way, and many companies realized the great potential of the technology to engage students in the classroom. I recently talked to San Francisco-based start-up Nearpod about how their VR lesson plans have been a huge hit with both teachers and students in the 6 months since they started incorporating the technology into their platform:

“kids go from looking at 2×4 pictures of corals to literally being immersed into a coral reef that reacts to their movements, but it goes beyond just visual immersion. The fact that students can control what they look at gives a personalized feel of exploration to their experience,” their CEO Guido Kovalskys told me.

Google also took their users underwater when it worked with Sir David Attenborough and Alchemy VR to create a virtual expedition to the Great Barrier Reef:

“Through virtual reality, I’m lucky enough to be able to share my experiences with audiences of all ages to allow them to explore and learn about these diverse ecosystems in a more immersive way,” said Sir David, who has always been a pioneer in using technology to educate the public about the wonders of the natural world.

Google worked with Sir David Attenborough to let users experience the Great Barrier Reef in Virtual Reality
Share on X

Cody Karutz from Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab also agrees that virtual reality has definite advantages in creating empathy for the environment and thus aiding conservation. His own coral-related project Crystal Reef was showcased in this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, and the VHIL created a version of it for Expeditions that Google has been using for many months now, says the lab’s Director Jeremy Bailenson.

Google says they’re “thrilled by the potential” of VR technology, and announced new partnerships with the Associated Press and Getty Images to incorporate current affairs content into the platform and give teachers more options to work Virtual Reality into lesson plans.

With companies like Facebook investing heavily VR, Google is also making larger moves towards staking its claim in that space. At their annual developer conference this week they also unveiled Daydream, their new mobile Virtual Reality platform to enable high quality VR on Android smartphones. Also significant is the announcement that they will be building an intuitive controller that works in tandem with the headset to produce richer and more immersive experiences.

Google will launch its own Mobile VR platform and build intuitive controller to create better experiences
Share on X

Next month EdTech Trends will be visiting Google’s New York office to talk to their VR and Education teams about how new products and developments will mean for students and teachers around the world, and what we can expect next in these exciting times for virtual reality, and for education. Watch this space.

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

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 and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Taking a Million Kids on Virtual Reality Field Trips appeared first on Tech Trends.

Virtual Reality (VR) is really FUN. Go on, if you haven’t tried it yet, there’s no excuse not to at least invest a few dollars on a Google Cardboard viewer to see what all the fuss is about.

Admittedly the technology is far from perfect, but I still challenge you to hold back the giggles of delight that usually come with that initial experience. The possibilities for Virtual Reality to fundamentally transform education are also very powerful.

At The Next Web conference in New York my friend – an avid Barcelona supporter – tried out the Beyond Sports virtual reality simulation, which allowed her to literally step into the boots of her favourite footballer – Lionel Messi. Much delighted giggling (that default reaction to one’s first VR immersion) followed, and suffice to say we were impressed.

At The Next Web conference in New York my friend – an avid Barcelona supporter - tried the Beyond Sports virtual reality simulation, which allowed her to step into the boots of her favourite footballer - Lionel Messi
Share on X

So I caught up with their founder, Sander J Schouten, to find out more about how VR will be a real game changer (excuse the pun) for sports as well as education.

“We develop our simulations based on real match data, and then use tools to create a variety of customized experiences, from professional match analysis to personalised fan experiences and specially tailored training programmes, all in Virtual Reality viewable through the Oculus Rift or mobile VR.”

The sophistication of the Oculus seems a long way from Sander’s first love – an original Atari console. But it was that interest in gaming that also led him to an interest in Virtual Reality, which is why he believes that engaging children with technology in fun ways can have a really positive impact in their education.

This is where that game-changing potential of Virtual Reality really kicks in. You get all the benefits of real-world interaction, but in a controlled environment
Share on X

“There’s a really big trend towards gamification of learning, and Virtual Reality immersive environments are going to make those experiences even more powerful,” he explains.

In future he believes there will be much less separation between the “work” and “play” and learning will be a continuous process that blends into our lives, both real and virtual.

“A lot of Sports coaching is based on trying to explain tactics (just think of a coach’s old tactical magnet board in the dressing room) but showing is so much more effective than explaining, and experiencing something first-hand is that much more powerful again.”

Engaging children with technology in fun ways can have a really positive impact in their education
Share on X

This is where that game-changing potential of Virtual Reality really kicks in. You get all the benefits of real-world interaction, but in a controlled environment. This means you’re able to gather data and adapt your tactics and coaching style much more accurately, in a way targeted to each individual’s needs and abilities as well as to the particular requirements of a club, for example. It is easy to see how this is a no-brainer in sports training, but it is also the broader trend for learning in general, as Mark Zuckerberg’s investment in personalized learning clearly indicates.

Since being founded less than a year ago, Beyond Sports licenced its product to several clubs, but they’re only getting started:

“The potential for VR in sports in endless, but there’s a long way to go yet, specially around improving the visuals and implementing better AI. Our primary focus at the moment is to grow our client base in Europe, focusing first on Football clubs, broadcasters and fans. However others sports will soon follow, and we’re also looking at developing a separate product solely focused on the learning side called Beyond Education, which will be launched shortly.” Watch this space.

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as 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 How Virtual Reality Will Shape Up Sports Coaching appeared first on Tech Trends.