alternaterealities
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‘Your Hands Are Feet’ describes feelings where words can’t
The interactive experience Your Hands Are Feet is a smorgasbord of feelings. Take the title example. Creators Amelia Winger-Bearskin and Sarah Rothberg wanted to pinpoint the feeling of shoes not fitting quite right. Ill-fitting footwear is not a catastrophe, but a mild annoyance that bugs you throughout the day. You can still get things done, but not as easily. It's as if, in their minds, their hands were feet. If it does not make sense in words, that's OK. The point of their demo -- whose first playable version debuted at the Engadget Experience today -- is that virtual reality can convey this feeling in a way that other media, like text, can't.
A mirror exposes AI’s inherent flaws in ‘Untrained Eyes’
In July 2015, Google's public-relations machine was in full-on crisis mode. Earlier that year, the search giant announced Photos, an AI-driven app that used machine-learning to automatically tag and organize your pictures based on the people, places and things depicted in them. It was an exciting step forward, but Photos wasn't perfect. While the app was capable of recognizing some faces, it mistook others. It would have been easy to pass this off as a routine software bug if it weren't for the nature of the failure.
‘Dinner Party’ relives an interracial couple’s alien abduction in VR
On the night of September 19th, 1961, Barney and Betty Hill were the victims of the first widely publicized alien abduction in US history. The Hills, an interracial couple active in the civil-rights movement, were on their way home from a trip to Niagara Falls when they noticed an unusual light in the sky. Shaken by the erratic behavior of the UFO, they headed in the direction of the closest town but never made it.
'Your Hands Are Feet' puts you inside a psychedelic egg yolk
Sarah Rothberg is obsessed with the bright-red silicone sponge she bought at Sur La Table. As a sponge, it's worthless -- it's too flimsy to be abrasive, and you can forget about it absorbing liquid -- but when you rub its tiny bristles together the sound is strangely familiar. It's the sound of shaving a giant's leg.
Win a trip to LA and two tickets to the Engadget Experience!
Next month Engadget is trying something a little different: We're hosting a series of futuristic art installations and panels, bringing together the brightest minds in art and technology. To make The Engadget Experience happen, we gave out the largest prizes ever in the field of immersive tech -- $100,000 apiece to five visionaries making art out of VR, artificial intelligence and even search results. We are so excited to showcase our winners next month, when the event opens at LA's Ace Hotel on November 14th. Tickets are on sale now at a temporarily reduced price, but one lucky reader can win two free tickets -- plus a boatload of other stuff. We're also throwing in a two-night stay at the Ace Hotel, a $1,000 airfare stipend and a collection of gadgets that includes the Amazon Echo, Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Gear VR and a Smarthome automation bundle. Enter here to win -- we hope to see you there!
Nonny de la Peña, Eugene Chung illuminate the Engadget Experience
Virtual reality captured the mainstream's imagination in the 1990s, but ultimately failed to deliver on the the medium's potential. Fast forward more than two decades and VR is once again the next big thing. With far more advanced hardware and billions in investment, virtual reality is on the cusp of upending storytelling but the future is still unclear. On November 14th, VR luminaries Eugene Chung and Nonny de la Peña will take the stage at the historic United Artists Theatre at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles to help shed some light on how virtual reality and augmented reality are changing the way that we see the world.
Apply now for Engadget’s $500,000 immersive art program
We're just two days away from the official deadline to apply for Engadget's unreal arts program for unreal times. But what is time, really? In the spirit of breaking with convention, we've extended the deadline to apply for Engadget's Alternate Realities grant program an entire week. If you're an artist working with emerging technologies like AR, VR or AI, you have until July 7th to apply for one of five grants of up to $100,000 a piece. If you hadn't heard, we're funding immersive art projects (no, they don't have to be AR or VR specifically) that focus on the theme of Alternate Realities. Those projects will debut at the Engadget Experience, a one-day event exploring the future of creativity at the historic United Artists Theatre in downtown LA on November 14th, 2017. For more information you can check out our event page or apply here.
Meet the people behind Engadget's $500,000 immersive art grant
Just over a month ago, I announced the Engadget Alternate Realities grant program, an initiative aimed at funding art projects that embrace new media and immersive technologies. With just two weeks left until our submission deadline (June 30th, 2017), I wanted to give you a little more information about the project and the people who helped shape it.
We're giving away $500,000 to foster art and technology
Last summer something happened. Seemingly out of nowhere, a 21-year-old Japanese video game franchise became a 21st-century runaway hit with the help of the smartphone. After years of hype around the return of virtual reality, Pokémon Go leap-frogged VR and turned augmented reality into a household name. It was clear that we were ready for new ways of looking at the world.
