This year’s Raindance Film Festival in London showcased an amazing selection of immersive stories. Here’s what got Tech Trends really excited:

Raindance is a very well-established and well-respected independent film festival, but it isn’t a particularly flashy one. Yet that lack of over-the-top glamour actually suits it very well. There’s a certain tongue-in-cheek, down-to-earth British vibe here (right down to its playfully deprecating name) that makes it feel really accessible, so that people can feel comfortable coming in and discovering content they wouldn’t have come across otherwise.

Raindance is a very well-established and well-respected independent film festival, but it isn’t a particularly flashy one
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And that’s also one of the reasons why VR pieces suit it so well. The festival does a great job of making this all about the stories, and the technology takes a back seat. Just like people in a movie theater aren’t constantly marveling at how a projector works, punters who actually paid to experience the whopping 9 hours of VR content at the festival were after new stories and new experiences. And they got those in spades.

The other reason why this year’s festival has been such a success on the VR front is down to the tireless work of its curator Mária Rakušanová, who has managed to scale this year’s VR showcase in a really impressive way. Whereas last year’s setup still felt a bit like a tag-on, the 2018 edition received well over 500 submissions from all over the world, from which they shortlisted 33. In the space of a year, Rakušanová also found that the quality bar had been considerably raised across the board, which was reflected in the fact that the Raindance Gallery of Immersive Stories and Interactive Worlds was entirely sold out over the 3 days when it was open.

Just like people in a movie theater aren’t constantly marveling at how a projector works, punters who actually paid to experience the whopping 9 hours of VR content at the festival were after new stories
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Below are some of the highlights from the Gallery, including various VR category winners for the Raindance awards (3 new categories were also introduced for the first time this year) some of which we’ve previously covered, such as the BBC project Nothing To Be Written which won Best UK experience and 7 Miracles which bagged the Spirit of Raindance: VR Film Of The Festival gong.

Three new VR award categories were introduced
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Raindance Festival this year received well over 500 submissions from all over the world, from which they shortlisted 33
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Transference, which was co-directed by Elijah Wood and produced by his company SpectreVision, was the winner of Best Interactive Narrative Experience award. It’s a psychological thriller placing you face-to-face with a fractured family as you delve into their minds. As you navigate a home filled with secrets you need to collect evidence of the family’s history in order to find out how you can help repair their lives.

Transference, co-directed by Elijah Wood and produced by his company SpectreVision, won Best Interactive Narrative Experience award
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The Apple is a Chinese, Japanese and Korean co-production which won Best Multi-Person Experience award at Raindance
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The Apple is a Chinese, Japanese and Korean co-production which won Best Multi-Person Experience award at Raindance . This is a room-scale (50m2) multi-person VR experience for up to 4 people. You don a Vive Pro headset, equipped with leap-motion sensors for hand tracking, and are also able to communicate with your partner via voice. Together you journey through various stages of life entering new fantasy worlds. Here and there you’re guided by a cute cat that appears out of nowhere and disappears when you jointly arrive to a new destination. Each life stage is represented by distinctive styles of movement that are a metaphor for the human journey from beginning to end.

“The experience has references to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Newton and Gravity (you move up and down various platforms to enter new worlds), and the lead character, The Philosopher, resembles Steve Jobs,” explains Rakušanová, who said it was one of their most popular experiences. “Audience members intuitively held hands during the entire experience, and freely walked around the space.”

My Africa allows you to become an elephant keeper and care for Dudu, an orphaned baby elephant, nursing her back to health.
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My Africa is a project by Conservation International to educate audiences about Reteti, a community run Elephant Sanctuary in Kenya, working to save elephants, reknitting an ancient coexistence between people and wildlife. The VR experience consists of two elements. The first is a 360 film, shot by British cinematographer Chris Campkin, who literally had to battle lions running off with his camera rig during the shoot, as this video shows. The room-scale interactive VR experience created Elliott Round, on the other hand, allows you to become an elephant keeper and care for Dudu, an orphaned baby elephant, nursing her back to health. Dudu was created from thousands of photographs and detailed CGI to look incredibly real. Rakušanová says the experience proved extremely popular with kids and adults alike at the festival, and rates it as the most engaging VR for Social Impact experience she’s seen in 2018.

Madrid Noir (winner of Discovery Award: Best Debut Experience that recognises first-time VR creators) A beautifully animated, fun and playful VR short in which you encounter Manolo, a detective from Madrid, who falls in love with Paquita, an almost painfully cute pug puppy that Rakušanová swears behaves more like a pug than real-life pugs (I have a feeling that she might have a thing for pugs, but then that’s hardly unusual, hence the popularity of the experience).

Madrid Noir is a beautifully animated and playful VR short where you encounter Manolo, a detective from Madrid, who falls in love with a pugpy
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Hotel Zentai This is another piece that explores what can be done with longer-form VR content. Clocking in at 40 minutes long, this 360 film is a surprising mix of comedy and sensuality. For those not familiar with it, Zentai is the practice of having sex without actually having sex – by wearing full body suits while rubbing and hugging one another. The film takes place in the eponymous hotel based in Santiago De Chile, and through music and dance tells four intertwining stories: a mother and daughter recognise each other in a ritual, a man can’t decide what to wear, a coach loses his authority, and two lovers never see each other’s faces. Ambitious and intriguing, this really shows how VR enables people to tell different stories in a different way. Well worth checking out.

VR enables people to tell different stories in a different way
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Inside Tumumaque is A room-scale animated VR documentary featuring Tumucumaque, the largest rainforest preserve in north-eastern Brazil You switch between a third-person POV and first-person through the eyes of five different animals: a poison dart frog, a black caiman, an eagle, a tarantula, and a vampire bat. When you’re embodying each animal, their perceptions are interpreted as sensory experiences using a huge range of tools such as ultraviolet colour spectra, movements in super-slow motion, visualizations of echo sounder tracking and colour night-vision as well as spatial 3D sound. There has clearly been a huge amount of work and care poured into this, and Rakušanová tells me that the team at the Interactive Media Foundation meticulously recreated over 2000 plants in CG, developing the models, textures and animations of plants in collaboration with scientists from the Berlin Museum of Natural History. The binaural sound design incorporates original sounds which were recorded on site and atmospheric acoustics developed with original animal voices to create an authentic spatial sound impression of the Amazon region.

You switch between a third-person POV and first-person through the eyes of five different animals
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Best Documentary Experience 
went to Grenfell, Our Home combines witness testimonials from the London Grenfell Tower fire (filmed in 360) with computer-generated animation to offer a view not only of how the fire affected the lives of those survivors, but also of the vibrant community that existed there before the tragedy, something that can now only be experienced through this type of virtual reconstruction. It opens up some interesting possibilities around the power of VR pieces to help address trauma and repair communities.

Awake: Episode One also won a Special Jury Mention for Best Interactive Narrative Experience, telling the story of Harry, a prisoner in his own house and lost in his mind, obsessed with discovering the truth behind a recurring dream of his departed wife.

The Evolution of Testicles won the Best Social Impact Experience category at Raindance this year
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We’ve won for a film about men checking their balls!
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But if there were a prize for best-named experience, surely it would have to go to the piece named The Evolution of Testicles which in fact won the Best Social Impact Experience category. Produced for the Male Cancer Awareness Campaign, this is part of the Oculus VR for Good Creators Lab, where filmmakers are paired with nonprofits to make great VR in the name of social good. As the name suggests, the experience aims to raise awareness about testicular cancer, but does so through the medium of laughter, brilliantly delivered by one of my favorite comedians, Chris O’Dowd, who can pretty much make any topic sound hilarious. O’Dowd commented after the win that the social impact of the medium was very important, but also marveled at the fact that, in his words, “we’ve won for a film about men checking their balls!”

It’s a brave and exciting new world for VR content. Can’t wait for next year.

This article was originally published on VRScout

The Best VR Experiences From Raindance Film Festival 2018 via @alicebonasio https://t.co/dwjztwiiw7 pic.twitter.com/NHpXGL3lg0

— VRScout (@VRScout) October 24, 2018

Want to leverage Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality to take your brand to the next level? Tech Trends offers comprehensive Immersive Technologies Consultancy to help you get there.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation 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 Upgrading VR Storytelling appeared first on Tech Trends.

From your very own Einstein to an awesome Virtual Reality HMD, and some solar panels to keep them powered up on the go. Tech Trends has your back in the gear department. 

Professor Einstein

I bring out the magic and fun of astronomy, physics, biology, geology and much more. Want to know the weather in Capetown? What is a quark? The exploits of Isaac Newton? Just say “Hey Professor…?” and ask away.

RRP $249

Penclic K2 Wireless Keyboard

Swedish company Penclic have a mission to reduce your RSI and we have tested several of their products here on Tech Trends and can vouch for their effectiveness. Today we are testing their latest version of their wireless keyboard the K2 which retails for €69 or £62. This new version has a slightly nicer feel to the keys but is still not as nice to use as the fractionally more expensive, minimalist KB3 Bluetooth keyboard they make. Overall the K2 is a comfortable keyboard to use and the small size and low profile do keep my arms relaxed when typing and my only mild frustration is that the wi-fi only works within a radius of about a meter from the computer, probably not an issue for most users but something to bear in mind.

RRP: €69.99

BioLite SolarPanel 10+

Fans of hiking, kayaking, camping and outdoor pursuits in general still need their mobile devices and when they’re miles from the nearest power socket and need their GPS to get them home, they often let them down at the worst possible time.

Enter the BioLite SolarPanel 10+ a super thin and lightweight smart power device. The two High-efficiency monocrystaline solar panels will suck 10 watts of power from the sun and fill up the built in 3000 mAh rechargeable battery for charging all your essential devices, tablets and phones. BioLite’s Optimal Sun System includes a built in sundial for aligning the panels to the sun’s rays and a 360 degree kickstand to simplify positioning on uneven terrain. When you are done, simply fold the 10+ up and pop it in your rucksack or you can charge on the move by hanging it from you backpack and keep going. Oh and it’s splash proof, so go ahead and jump in those puddles!

RRP: $129.95

DigiBit

A Kickstarter funded, funky new wearable motion capture device, DigiBit gives you responsive in-game control for VR and non VR environments on iOS and Android (Marshmallow and above) devices. Control your in-game movements and actions with smart sensors that attach to the hands or feet for a gaming experience like never before!

These elegant little wearables are the creation of DigiBit Founder, Colt Correa and his family. This is one of those great stories of an engineer who, when disappointed by commercial products, knew he could do better, and with the help of a Kickstarter campaign plans to deliver an affordable product even the big games and console manufacturers would be proud of. DigiBit is an open platform and includes an open source Air Hockey game, a free Unity3D plugin and an open Bluetooth API. The patent-pending wearable motion and communication technology captures your body movement for responsive in-game control in VR and non-VR environments.

Read Tech Trends full review here

RRP: $79 (Super Early Bird Pledge)

TouchPoints

TouchPoints Basic are another crowdfunding success story. Founded in 2015 by Neuropsychologist Dr. Amy Serin and executive child advocate Vicki Mayo, these cunning little gadgets are a non-invasive, wearable devices that use patent-pending neuroscience to relieve stress in as little as 30 seconds.

Using quantitative electroencephalogram data, existing neuroscience research and archival data, Dr Amy Serin determined the device produced significant and quantifiable brain changes after just seconds of use. TouchPoints use Bi-Lateral Alternating Stimulation Tactile (BLAST) stimulation to give the user a gentle vibration that affects the brain and alters the body’s fight, flight or freeze response.

Read Tech Trends full review here.

RRP: $119

Avid Media Composer First

Media Composer First is a very limited version of the full programme, currently MC 8.5, but it aims to give you the basic cutting experience, plus some key functionalities of its big brother. We consume most of our video content via the web these days and Avid gets this, offering very basic options for exporting your finished video via Quicktime in the web friendly H.264 or their propriety DNxHD codec or even better, publish directly to YouTube or Vimeo. Yes you can edit 4k video in First but only downscaled to HD, output is also limited to HD but again this is still the most web friendly format and to make your 4k files work for you Avid retain the awesome FrameFlex from the pro version.

Read all the details and specs in the full review here.

RRP: $FREE

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post July 2017 Tech Trends Product Reviews appeared first on Tech Trends.

This new crowdfunded HMD (Head Mounted Display) and wearable motion controllers make for an elegant and affordable Virtual Reality solution

Crowdfunding your product is fast becoming the norm in cutting edge sectors such as VR, robotics and health tech. In fact, Tech Trends reviewed crowdfunded products in all three of those sectors just this month. Right now I am looking at a funky new wearable motion capture device from DigiBit that gives you responsive in-game control for both VR and non-VR environments and works on iOS and Android (Marshmallow and above) devices.

Control your in-game movements and actions with smart sensors that attach to the hands or feet for a gaming experience like never before!

These elegant little wearables are the creation of DigiBit Founder, Colt Correa and his family. This is one of those great stories of an engineer who, when disappointed by commercial products, knew he could do better, and with the help of a Kickstarter campaign plans to deliver an affordable product even the big games and console manufacturers would be proud of. DigiBit is an open platform and includes an open source Air Hockey game, a free Unity3D plugin and an open Bluetooth API.

DigiBit is an open platform that includes a free Unity3D plugin and open Bluetooth API
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The patent pending wearable motion and communication technology captures your body movement for responsive in-game control in VR and non-VR environments.

What’s unique about it?

• WEARABLE: Pocket sized system that is a great accessory to your existing smart devices like iPhones, Android phones and tablets
• HANDS and FEET: Only portable game system that enables games to use both feet and both hands as input. Existing systems require the player to hold the motion sensor, but with DigiBit the motion sensor holds on to you so you can use your arms and legs in a natural way while playing
• ACTIVE and SOCIAL: Focus on physically active and face-to-face social game play.
• FREE GAMES: Games from DigiBit are free and can be downloaded from the Google Play or Apple Stores
• CHILD SECURITY: Free parent app enables you to track how far away your child is. Alarm sounds on your phone if the child wanders away too far. Built in compass shows you the direction of the child. Great security feature for such things as days out at theme parks.
• BATTERY LIFE: Over 16 hours on a single charge
• LOW COST: Cost of the entire DigiBit system with the games is less than that of 2 games with most other systems
• DEVELOPER FRIENDLY: Open Source, Open Interfaces and a Unity3D API lets mobile game developers add body motion to existing or new games

DigiBit is the only portable game system enabling hand and foot inputs
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Unity3D API lets developers easily add body motion features to their games
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With a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and more than 22 years of experience working in software and hardware development for the automotive industry, and with 5 U.S. patents to his name, Colt knows what he is doing. After an initial manufacturing run of 50 units this campaign will raise money to enhance the games they have as well as develop new ones, plus create an open API so programmers around the world can develop their own games for the DigiBit ecosystem.

DigiBit focuses on physically active and face-to-face social game play
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Kickstarter backers will benefit from such perks as free games and power-ups, FOREVER
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Early Kickstarter backers will get some great perks including free downloads of all DigiBit games now and in the future, ad-free games and free in-app purchases and power ups, all in perpetuity!

Our backers will decide what games comes next. With every system, you get a vote on what is going to be our next game. Have a new game idea? Let’s us know!

The DigiBits are well designed, small, light and in trendy white. They come with sturdy straps for attaching them to your wrists or feet and the headset is a revelation for those out there who are sick of removing their phone’s case to be able to fit it into different VR goggles.

A simple elastic and velcro strap secures your phone to the headset
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A simple elastic and velcro strap secures your phone to the headset offering a truly one size fits all wearable, it is also very comfortable and adjustable for those who wear glasses.

Get active with the ability to turn static mobile games into full-body experiences! DigiBits can be worn anywhere and played anywhere, unlike traditional consoles.

To test it out I charged up the DigiBits, strapped them to my wrists and launched FunnyWings, a flying game where you chase after an evil witch, collect stars and dodge deadly red balloons. The game asks permission to turn on your Bluetooth and effortlessly pairs with the DigiBits. You are instructed to tap your chest with your right hand which tells the game which side is your right and off you go.

The gameplay of my demo was fun and intuitive. I found myself laughing
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There is a little demo on how to move and fly then you clap your hands to start the game. Gameplay is really good and the movements to control your flight are very instinctive. I found myself laughing, flailing around and definitely burning more calories than playing on my PS4. Interestingly I experienced no loss of balance or nausea during game play, so maybe moving my body and head as I played countered the unpleasant feelings I have often experienced in VR when sitting down.

I experienced no nausea or dizziness while playing the game
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DigiBit is the only portable game system that enables games to use both feet and both hands as input. Existing systems require the player to hold the motion sensor, with DigiBit the motion sensor holds on to you so you can use your arms and legs in a natural way while playing.

For the second test game I moved the straps to my feet and loaded up Dash, an endless runner based in a high school corridor. Jumping is the name of the game here. Jump side to side to weave around obstacles and jump straight up to get over objects or up onto tables. Dodge the occasional pesky banana skin by raising your right or left leg to hop past it and always stay ahead of the big bully! This was great fun and I was quickly out of breath. It was much more physically taxing than FunnyWings and I can see it being a big hit with the kids.

I definitely burned more calories than when playing on the PS4
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I enjoyed the Digibit system and was much more immersed in the games
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I really enjoyed the Digibit system and was so much more involved in the games’ action than when using VR more passively. The product is well made, easy to use and looks as good as anything made by the big games companies, so I think it is a winner. Colt and his family hope to raise $2,500 to make the Digibit system better and more affordable, and to make more games like these for it, so if you are interested in getting your hands on a Digibit and helping them out take a look at the Kickstarter page here.

For help getting your own VR/AR/MR project off the ground, get in touch about our Virtual Reality Consultancy services

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Product Review: DigiBit appeared first on Tech Trends.

HP announces their revolutionary new HP Z VR Backpack, the world’s first professional wearable VR PC. Crafted to bring the full potential of VR to-life, it is the world’s most secure and manageable wearable VR PC ever created.

HP see the potential for VR to revolutionise sectors such as industrial and military training, medical and healthcare practice, product design, architecture and to take consumer engagement to the next level. The HP Z VR Backpack is designed to help companies make the first step into using VR and give them an easy to use, end-to-end VR solution with the capabilities to easily build those immersive capabilities into their business.

HP see the potential for VR to revolutionise sectors such as industrial and military training
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Announced alongside this new technology is HP’s partnership with HTC, makers of the VIVE HMD. The new “Business Edition” VIVE will come with built-in headphones and 1 year of commercial support, and will be offered bundled with this new HP backpack.

“Virtual reality is changing the way people learn, communicate and create,” said Xavier Garcia, vice president and general manager, Z Workstations, HP Inc. “HP is uniting the right innovation and the right partners to position our customers with commercial VR solutions that matter. With our long history of insights-based innovation, and new solutions like the HP Z VR Backpack, we are empowering VR experiences our customers can use today to reinvent the future.”

This new externally untethered VR Backpack is light with an ergonomic design and hot swappable batteries to provide unrestricted freedom within any immersive experience. It packs serious high-end processing power with the latest Intel® Core i7 vPro processor and chipset, providing the power to process applications at incredible speeds.

This untethered VR Backpack is light with an ergonomic design
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It is also the first wearable VR PC in the market to use the NVIDIA® Quadro® P5200. The 16GB of video memory will provide a huge frame buffer to avoid stuttering and dropped frames that break the sense of immersion. The Quadro GPUs also ensure immersion is smooth and responsive with low latency and high frame rates which – when paired with the HTC VIVE –  should give a spectacular ride! Neither the CPU nor GPU are throttled so there is plenty of power on tap whenever you need it.

Some possible use cases include:

• Businesses can use VR to deliver safe and effective simulated training in dangerous environments,  medical training or for heavy/large equipment operations, avoiding costly mistakes
• In architectural building development, virtual walkthroughs at scale for client reviews can help quickly close the deal.
• In product development, executive agreement and sign off for new styling can be done in virtual showrooms.
• New location-based entertainment centres featuring exhilarating virtual reality experiences are now a step closer

To help market this new VR solution HP are opening thirteen immersion centres later this year in Palo Alto, Houston, Boise, Fort Collins, Stockholm, London, Paris, Barcelona, Boeblingen, Beijing, Sydney, Tokyo and Singapore. The centres have been designed so customers can have an immersive experience using HP VR technology and receive consulting on how to best deploy VR devices within their business to streamline workflows.

HP are opening thirteen immersion centres all over the world to showcase their latest VR tech
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In designing the backpack HP have addressed some major pain points their research identified:

• No trailing cables helps preserve immersion, improves freedom of movement and is safer for users and bystanders
• Hot swap batteries help retain immersion for long periods
• Lightweight at just over 10lbs
• Designed for comfort with the workstation kept off your back and air flow directed to the sides
• Durable enough for military training
• Designed as a single, unified VR solution that is a delivery rig and a true VR workstation for content creation and testing, enabling companies to design, test and develop content on the same equipment that will deliver the experience to their customers

Creators can quickly transition back and forth between design and testing
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Its docking solution lets digital creators quickly transition back and forth between high-powered desktop for content design and wearable VR PC to test out their creations. The docking station can drive two 4K Z or DreamColor displays (sold separately) and the HTC Vive Business Edition HMD (sold separately) is also part of the HP VR portfolio. The Backpack will be available in September starting at $3,299 USD. The datasheet is available here.

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.

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Connect on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

The post Product Review: HP Z VR Backpack & VR Workstation appeared first on Tech Trends.