News
rag & bone unveils its spring 2021 collection in a virtual world | Microsoft In Culture
Seeing a fashion house embrace digital releases of their new collections is a good sign that they are moving with the times. Partnering with Microsoft, designers at rag & bone were able to utilize 3D tools and a virtual runway landscape to bring their sketches to life. Creativity thrives when speedy iterations and quality are possible, and we expect to see even more brands turning to 3D and VR reinvent how they both prototype and communicate their latest visions.
Niantic Expands Developer Platform and AR Tools with Niantic Lightship – Niantic
Niantic Lightship (formerly Niantic Real World Platform) have released updates to their Niantic Lightship Augmented Reality Developer Kit (ARDK). Though still in private beta the ARDK looks very promising as an alternative to other toolkits that run only on high-end devices with Lidar sensors. Needing only an RGB camera developers can bring their content into the real world, while also benefiting from tools and data that Niantic has already demonstrated operate at a planetary scale.
Experiences
Step Inside | The Museum of Flight
The Museum of Flight's new exhibit brings guests inside many of the aircraft that could not be opened up to the public. Utilizing 360° panoramic images visitors can step inside the newly opened Aviation Pavilion to view their collection. The first Air Force One, military bombers and jet fighters spanning from World War II to the Persian Gulf, and the first Boeing 727, 737, and 747 jets are only a few of the current aircraft on exhibit. This is available as an in-person experience if you're in the Seattle, Washington area or online as a Matterport virtual tour.
Virtual Burn 2021 - Kindling
The Burning Man community will gather in the Metaverse this year, and tickets are now available to virtually experience an interactive 3D city created by independent creators honoring the 10 principles of Burning Man. There is also still time to participate as a volunteer or a world builder if you have an AltspaceVR account in good standing. The Virtual Burn will open to the world August 22 through September 7, 2021.
Reading
Lessons Learned from Hosting a VR Conference – Educators in VR
This post is a great look behind the scenes for planning, organizing, and hosting the 2020 Educators in VR International Summit. Originally a post-summit workshop given in AltspaceVR, they have generously expanded on their session to take you through decisions, change of plans they encountered, and lessons learned. The thinking behind picking a VR venue, accommodating potentially thousands of viewers, coordinating speakers and volunteers, as well as a few other areas you may want to read about if you've ever considered (or are planning) a virtual summit.
Business
Eon | Connected Products | IoT Platform | Circular Future
New York City tech startup Eon is creating a platform where fashion and apparel can create digital twins for every garment produced, applying the connected approach from the Internet of Things (IoT) to extend to clothing and footwear. With major brands already onboard, and a growing platform for their CircularID™ Protocol they may just be able to help break the cycle of clothing winding up in landfills instead of being reused or repurposed. To learn more about what the platform and their vision visit their resources page for reports and case studies, as well as the Developer Hub for more technical details.
Virtual Real Estate — really real estate?
Currently there are more than 15 virtual worlds that have some component of private land ownership to them. This post examines some things to consider before buying land, how NFTs come into play, and what you might want to do with virtual land you purchase.
Health
Innovega’s AR eMacula System Shows Promise for Visually Impaired – healthiAR+VR+MR+XR
AR use for the visually impaired is one health application for the tech that doesn't get enough press, and the work published by clinical investigators at Ohio State University (OSU) using the Innovega eMacula system. Aside from providing a comfortable AR experience the eMacula system actually improved the eyesight of participants. Study participants were chosen due to their low level of vision, and their ability to focus on both near and distant objects was drastically improved.
Research
Locomotion Vault
The ability to move (locomotion) has a dramatic impact on the user's experience, but developers and designers may not be fully aware of all of the options when they consider creating an experience. With this in mind researchers collected examples of all of the ways a person could move in VR, along with categorizing their level of agency and comfort for users. We consider this to be a fundamental research effort that should be shared and referenced when creating any experience to make sure any assumptions for how a user is allowed to move is inline with the goal of the experience. Read the abstract over on the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Digital Library, or download the full PDF file here.
One More Thing
eMacula® | Panoramic Virtual and Augmented Reality by Innovega
Though we mentioned this company in our Health section this issue we are pretty blown away by their ability to improve eyesight, the clarity of the AR overlays, and even their approach to inclusiveness in their approach. We'll be reaching out to them to see if we can schedule an interview, so look out for that when we officially launch the podcast later this year. Also, they are going through their Series A funding round if you also find them interesting enough to invest in a company doing work that stands apart from other companies in the AR space.
Commentary
This past week HTC Vive announced the business-focused VIVE Focus 3 and pro-sumer VIVE Pro 2 headsets. On their own they represent a few advances in HMU capabilities, but we’re actually more interested in what this means for more industries embracing VR. The opportunity to continue to expand virtual presence as an alternative to bring people together is a trend on the rise. Retail has added more body types to show how clothing fits different bodies, legal proceedings moved online and law students are being advised to learn new digital skills, and more aspects of life have changed in ways that are adapting to people being unable to gather in large numbers or public spaces.
Even with the world "opening up" again cultural changes have already been accelerated and made permanent changes to how we expect businesses to meet us everywhere we are, especially in our homes. By some estimates the growth in 2020 accelerated ecommerce adoption by 5 years ahead of projections. We don't see a trend like this declining, so the corresponding decline in physical stores and the need for physical presence are most likely here to stay. Growth moving away from requiring physical presence for basic services will only benefit from new headsets like those being released by HTC.
New innovations in hardware will grow from the needs to make virtual presence more immersive and reliable. Better hardware come along from virtual presence getting more adoption and becoming an expected service from organizations, businesses, and governments. The cycle of innovation both coming from and driving additional need has already started and won't be stopping any time soon.
Thank you for reading and subscribing, and we'll see you next week where we will be focusing on in-person experiences you can have now that venues are beginning to reopen.
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