News
ZED RUN | Digital Horse Racing
With thousands of daily viewers on their Twitch Stream, virtual horse ownership, breeding, and racing is growing fast. With non-fungible tokens (NFTs) providing clear ownership and with winning horses paying real money we can see this growing beyond its current niche audience.
Doctors Perform One-Of-A-Kind AR Surgery In Boston - VRScout
Hipinsight is the first FDA approved AR surgical guidance system for hip replacement powered by Microsoft HoloLens2, and has been used recently for its first successful surgery recently. Being able to see inside a patient is vital for diagnostics (X-Ray, ultrasound, etc.), but being able to accurately visualize a patient's body during surgery, inside and out, is beyond anything currently being done with robots and cameras placed inside a body. You can also watch a snippet from the surgery to get a sense of what surgeons saw during this historic event.
Snap Teams with LACMA & LA Artists to Launch Location-Based AR Art Monuments Around the City « Next Reality
If all you know about Los Angeles is from movies you may not know about the thriving art scene that's been growing over the last decade. Snapchat (based in LA) is teaming up with a group of local artists to create a series of location-based augmented reality monuments and murals around the city.
Reading
What is Immersive VR? - The 8 Tiers of Immersion in VR
Vive published a very easy to understand breakdown of the levels of VR immersion a user can expect with each category of currently available VR headset. We have already found this very helpful in discussing how immersive an experience can be based on how the user is experiencing it.
Health
Fortnite and Zelda can up your surgical game • tectales
We probably weren’t the only children who tried to convince their parents playing video games would give us better hand-eye-coordination. Now a study from a University of Ottawa medical student has found they could benefit surgical skills training. Laparoscopic surgery, a procedure aided by a video camera and remote controlled instruments,
Research
INOPTEC - Dimming for AR Glasses
Great advances seem obvious in hindsight but that most don't think of themselves. Dimming the glass in an AR headset to increase visibility is one of them. A large problem with AR experiences are bright lights making it difficult to read or even see elements projected into a headset. This video takes you through the thinking and the hardware Inoptec used to to make this possible.
Learning
LiDAR Enabled Templates - Lens Studio by Snap Inc.
If the real world monuments Snapchat published we featured above are something you’d be interested in learning to make these project templates are a great starting place. Run them as-is or modify them to get a feel for what goes into making this type of experience. The project has really good instructions and documentation for what you need to do to get up and running in a matter of minutes.
Oculus Quest 2 for 3D Stereo Photographers
Lenticular photographer Michael Brown shows the various apps for the Oculus Quest that are capable of showing 180° and 360° video and images, along with other kinds of dimensional photographs. If you are trying to decide which one may be for you this overview might be helpful.
One More Thing
The Importance of APOKI: Virtual Artist, Rabbit, and Trailblazer — VirtualHumans.org
We freely admit a fascination with virtual beings and constructed performance personas, so featuring this interview with APOKI should come as no surprise. The very real South Korean singer has an audience of millions of views & followers on TikTok and social media. In a world where authenticity has been the currency for drawing audiences the very talented and creative people behind virtual beings are giving audiences what they're looking for even if it's through the experiences of an avatar with rabbit ears. Check out her YouTube page for more of her work. Who knows, maybe you'll find another artist for one of your playlists.
Commentary
This has been another historic week in the world of AR/VR/XR. From successful virtual surgeries (seen below), to all-time highs for simultaneous VR users, to significant updates from Oculus that some feel may be the last updates we get for a while due to "not much else being possible for a VR headset."
This wasn't just one opinion, but we've encountered this in multiple forums and online publications.
Aside from us having released the first in a series if HMU improvements, it's somewhat saddening that more than one group can see creativity reaching its end just because we cannot imagine what could come next. The very notion that drives innovation takes creative leaps and creative advancements that can't be easily found by simply iterating what already exists.
Iteration is easy, innovation is hard. And it should be, otherwise it wouldn't be innovative.
We're going to enjoy the updates along with everyone else that has already gotten v28 updates for their Oculus Quest 2, but we're still thinking about the future and should be publishing our second installment in our series on how updates to what the HMU can offer will help open the way for innovative experiences. Look for this on the Other Realities Journal this Wednesday.
Thank you for reading and subscribing, and as always if you have any suggestions or just want to say "hi" you can message us on Twitter. Our directory is continually growing with entries for all kinds of AR/VR/MR/XR resources and interesting experiences, some that we haven't written about or featured. Yet. If you'd like to suggest an entry for the directory we have a directory suggestion form to make submissions very quick.
See you in the next issue!
Other Realities