News
Eyes on Pico: Training and Healthcare will accelerate enterprise XR adoption
Apprenticeship has severely suffered this year due to the lack of in-person training most institutions relied on for passing along knowledge. In this article Karen Zu, VP of Marketing at Pico, shares insights on how Extended Reality is helping fill a gap in education and on opportunities for future applications of remote instruction and training in industry.
You Can Now Bring Your Real Keyboard In VR & It's Awesome!
Having a physical keyboard to use your hands instead of a cursor is one of the features ImmersedVR makes possible. By using hand tracking to show you a keyboard in VR matching the physical location of your actual keyboard, you can see what you’re typing. Cas and Chary VR do a great job showing this off, and highlighting a few other productivity features that make ImmersedVR something to consider when thinking about going full VR with your workspace.
Business
Finance sector embraces VR to make remote working more interesting
Someone had to say it, but remote working can be quite dull and isolating. But with a healthy amount of VR the ordinary can be make interesting in ways that could never happen being in the office. It will be even more interesting when DataViz packages catch up with virtual offerings and we’re exploring our business intelligence (BI) in more than three dimensions.
Facebook Accused of Squeezing Rival Startups in Virtual Reality
Facebook has a bit of a history with stifling competition and antitrust concerns, so the warnings by other companies that it may be happening again isn’t proof but it is something for politicians and law makers must pay close attention to help prevent if it is happening.
Health
Magic Leap: Spatial Computing In Digital Health
Magic Leap and Brainlab discuss how spatial computing can be used today in the operating room and hospitals, and also for less specialized health care scenarios.
Interactive virtual reality emerges as a new tool for drug design against COVID-19
An interactive virtual reality tool was demonstrated by University of Bristol researchers to better visualize viral proteins and enzymes, allowing scientists to more rapidly evaluate potential drug and vaccines. Dubbed Narupa iMD, this open source framework makes shared observations available, and collaboration with people not in the same physical space possible.
Research
XRI Survey – XR Inclusion
The XR industry is very new, so there is not much data on inclusivity In the industry. This survey is a great step into gathering data needed to understand representation in companies currently making immersive experiences. If you work for a company currently creating XR experiences please take a look and consider filling out the survey.
Gear
Learn Science, Master STEM, Be Future Ready | AR/VR Learning & Creation
Merge uses AR to allow students to hold a physical object and overlays a vast library of lessons, teaching aids, and interactive simulations. Aside from being COVID-friendly (students don't physically share resources), Merge looks to expand how teachers engage with their students and how students can collaborate on projects.
People To Watch
Discover a stunning new way to experience comic-books!
JL Mast, a Marvel Comics artist, is using a platform normally for 360 tourism to create Virtual Reality drawings and comics that you can explore. In some cases changing the traditional linear structure across multiple dimensions and directions impossible in print. I especially like the Stan Lee homage from Marvel movies.
Inspiration
An XR Ethics Manifesto
Kent Bye, host of the Voices of VR Podcast, shares slides distilling thoughts on moral direction, privacy concerns, and an ethical framework to help extended reality navigate nuance and biases. Episode #844 of the Voices of VR Podcast goes further into the thoughts that went into creating this manifesto inspired from thousands of hours of conversations and thoughts on the potential of virtual and augmented reality.
Development
XRA'S DEVELOPERS GUIDE, CHAPTER THREE: Accessibility & Inclusive Design in Immersive Experiences
This downloadable PDF is an update to XR Association’s Developers Guide, a starter guide for designing reality-expanding experiences focusing on what industry-recommended considerations should go into extending an immersive experience. This is not solely focused with peoples with disabilities, and advises on a few good approaches that could keep a team from falling into common interactive design mistakes.
Designing Accessible VR Experiences - YouTube
Oculus produced a fairly comprehensive educational video of best practices for accessibility and inclusion in VR development. Making an experience that doesn’t account for various impairments won’t keep from being published, but it does limit the people that can engage with it. If participation is a measure of success, it only makes sense to learn how to broaden your audience.
Commentary
A large benefit to other realities is the potential to share experiences with people we may never have encountered in our day-to-day lives, or within our COVID bubbles. This issue we feature links with a central theme of enabling others to do more within other realities. Inclusion and thoughtful design are not new to the industry, but thinking how to broaden an audience should go further than adding platforms. Better design and making experiences able to support a more diverse set of users only strengthens the final project.
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Other Realities