virtual reality
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Kinect-driven tactile bodysuit makes you tingle in eight different places
We know the US Army has already experimented with vibrating clothing, and soon it could be our turn. The trendy figure-hugger above is rigged with haptic actuators across the arms and torso, which respond when the wearer's body 'touches' virtual objects created via Microsoft's Kinect platform. The outfit's designers at the University of Aachen spent just a few hundred dollars on components, aside from the cost of the Kinect, so this might well have commercial potential. Click the source link if you're really keen to see a concept video -- although it doesn't consist of much beyond a German dude doing the Hey Macarena in his socks. [Thanks, Jarod]
Sony London Studio chief talks 3D lessons, promises VR headsets
Haven't settled in to 3D PS3 gaming just yet? Too bad because Sony's ready to leapfrog that industry buzzword with another once-vaunted, immersive tech of yore -- virtual reality. Announced ahead of Sony London Studio chief Mick Hocking's Develop conference "3D post-mortem speech," comes word the Japanese electronics giant is underway with R&D testing for a head mounted display. Shown off at CES earlier this year, the unit incorporates twin-OLED screens that put you closer to the game, fried eyeballs and all. If any of this sounds familiar, that's because it's all very 1995. Still, Hocking seems pretty optimistic about the company's lessons learned dipping its toes into three-dimensional waters, and has even created a so-called "3D 10 Commandments" to ensure quality product output. Hit the source below for the UK division head's full 3D musings.
Sony experimenting with virtual reality games
We're not sure if the return of technology that never came to fruition can truly be called retro, but we're seriously pondering the question thanks to Sony London Studios chief Mick Hocking. In an interview with Develop, Hocking brought up the head-mounted 3D display (seen above) his company showed off at CES, saying, "We're working with a couple of games at Sony that are experimenting with virtual reality-type experiences." That's right, according to Hocking, virtual reality could be making a comeback. We're looking forward to the games that would spearhead a VR renaissance, but only if we'll get to drench ourselves in revamps of VR Troopers, VR.5 and Lawnmower Man.
Crescent's Immersive Digital Entertainment VR: it's like a Virtual Boy that you wear
From what we've gathered in the video just below the break, the graphical capabilities aren't terribly impressive on Crescent's Immersive Digital Entertainment VR system, but really -- who cares? It's a motion gaming solution... that you wear. On your head. When placed in the proper scenario, it gives gamers a full 360 degree space to interact in, with an array of HD motion capture cameras making the virtual reality that much less virtual (and in turn, that much more reality). Hard to say if this thing will ever have a life in the commercial realm, but yeah, we'd buy one.
Kinect app promises you'll wear flowery skirts, and you'll like it (video)
Don't be shy now: which of you doesn't love raiding your mother's closet and trying on her paisley dresses and velour tracksuits? That's more or less the idea behind Virtual Dressing Room, a Kinect program that taps into the clandestine thrill of sneaking into other people's boudoirs. Unlike some other shopping hacks we've seen, the app goes beyond just pilling on 2D pieces, but uses 3D models so that the items mold to your limbs, with the shadows and creases in the virtual fabric changing as you preen for the camera. That all comes courtesy of a special physics engine, while the app itself was written in C# along with Microsoft's XNA tools. Arbuzz, the group that dreamed this up, says the project's still a work in progress, though we can see this, too, being used to relieve those of who are allergic to shopping malls. Until then, you'll just have to settle for watching some other guy work a knee-length skirt.
KinectShop concept is ready to televise your shopping revolution (video)
Does anybody actually enjoy the laborious process of trying out clothes? The sheer physical effort, the risk of breaking a sweat... it's just not for us. We're much more comfortable with virtual reality fitting rooms, which is where Microsoft's Kinect motion camera has found yet another raison for its etre. Razorfish, the folks who already impressed us with some neat Kinect hacking, now have a new shopping platform that's said to actually wrap clothes around your frame and thereby provide a 3D preview of what you and they would look like together. The current iteration only shows some giddy ladies exploring the wide world of handbags, but they do look suitably impressed with the system. There are also sharing options via QR codes and NFC, plus the obligatory social networking tie-ins. Skip after the break to see the KinectShop on video.
Replicating Reality demos 3D virtual reality system powered by pixel-rich microdisplays
Kopin's a company known for diminutive displays destined for duty as electronic view finders in camcorders and digicams. At E3 this year, the company's subsidiary Forth Dimensions Displays has unveiled a new use for its teeny tiny screens -- virtual reality. Called Replicating Reality, it uses two .8-inch 1280 x 1024 LCD panels and head tracking to place you in a 3D virtual world. We got to test the system through a racing game, and found that it works pretty darn well. Graphics were of console quality, with nary a hint of image distortion from the system's magnification lenses and pixel pitch was imperceptible to our eyes. Basically, there was no indication that the screens our gaze was fixed upon were less than an inch across. The sharp picture combined with the system's head tracking -- which let us look around while taking turns and weaving through traffic -- to create quite an immersive experience. Of course, it still looked like a game, but there's a pixel packed 2048 x 1536 panel in the works that the company claims can deliver visuals nigh-indistinguishable from the real world. We were told that prototypes of these QXGA screens will be ready in ten months, and they'll be suitable for public consumption in a year. So, the real question is: will your eyeballs be prepared to handle such prodigious pixel density by then? %Gallery-125712%
Gaming gets immersive thanks to union of pico projector and eye tracking camera (video)
Although in the earliest stages of development, this virtual reality gaming rig already looks pretty intriguing. Engineered by clever kids at the University of Texas at Austin, it hot-wires an eye tracking camera to a motorised pico projector with the result that the player literally can't take their eyes off the screen. Wherever they look, that is where their view of the gaming world is projected. The rig makes most sense in a first-person shooter, although the students have also tried it in a flight simulator where the player uses their head to roll and pitch the aircraft. Yes, it looks rather similar to the Microvision PicoP laser projection gun we wielded at CES, but there's a key difference: the player does not need to hold anything or have anything attached to their body. This unencumbered Kinect-esque approach could potentially allow a greater sense of freedom -- except that, for it to work, the player is forced to sit directly in front of the eye tracker. Find a way to fix this, dear Longhorns, and you could be onto something. Video after the break.
Kinect dives into anime cyberspace, dares you to catch cute robot tanks (video)
If your foremost dream is to jack into a dystopian cyberpunk reality where hackers play with human brains (and you also happen to love Japanese anime), you'd best book your flight to Tokyo right now -- a Shibuya department store has set up a basic cyberspace simulator straight out of Ghost in the Shell. That's the film Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Solid State Society, to be precise, which just got a stereoscopic 3D re-release in Japan this week, and in its honor creative services company Kayac set about constructing a high-quality Kinect hack. Microsoft's depth camera tracks the lean of your body, while the honeyed virtual reality is projected onto a pair of nearby walls, and it's your objective to slap the Tachikoma tank silly without falling over yourself. Get a peek at what it's like to play with in the video above.
German students make life-sized VR Fruit Ninja, declare war on digital produce (video)
Do you enjoy the produce-slashing action that Fruit Ninja affords, but feel constrained by the meager display capabilities of handheld devices? Well, some German students from FH Wedel University of Applied Sciences have created a VR version of the game to make your dreams of having more massive melons fly at your face come true. Using a CAVE four-walled virtual environment to display the hurtling fruit and a modified Wiimote to do the slicing and dicing, players can exorcise their cantaloupe and kumquat demons in a life-sized fruit cleaving frenzy -- with none of the Gallagher-style mess. See it in action after the break, just be sure to don your Kikou first.
Fruit Ninja live, bring your overcoat
Your virtual overcoat, that is. Students in a virtual reality workshop at the FH Wedel University of Applied Sciences cloned Fruit Ninja, the best-selling game for smartphones and tablets, in 3D using the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). The result is a life-size, fully immersive fruit slicing experience that transforms the casual game into a serious workout where players slay seedy sprouts with their (almost) bare hands. The life-size sword-slasher runs in CAVE, a virtual environment driven by four PCs, four rear-projection 3D displays, four infrared motion-tracking cameras, a 5.1 sound system and two "buttkickers" in the floor that rumble when a player's virtual steel blade encounters a bomb. To get the juiciest experience, players wear 3D glasses and hold a Wiimote for haptic feedback when hitting a fruit. Developers Thiemo, Alex, Matze and Moritz, media-informatics students at FH Wedel in Germany, took two weeks to complete the project. Perhaps next the foursome could tackle a 3D version of Angry Birds played from the point of view of the birds, Doodle Jump with real jumping, or Plants vs. Zombies with life-size zombies breaking down the front door. In any case, the 3D clone of Fruit Ninja, the fourth best-selling paid app on the App Store, is a delicious showcase of virtual reality technology and these students' skills. Continue to the full article to watch a short gameplay video.
Emotiv EEG headset hacked into VR trapeze act, lets you fly like Superman (video)
Last year, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students built a virtual reality contraption that let them soar through the sky, held aloft by a trapeze harness and seeing through HMD-covered eyes. This year, they're controlling it with the power of their minds. For his master's thesis, project leader Yehuda Duenyas added an Emotiv headset -- the same one controlling cars and the occasional game -- to make the wearer seemingly able to levitate themselves into the air by carefully concentrating. Sure, by comparison it's a fairly simple trick, but the effect is nothing short of movie magic. See it after the break. [Thanks, Eric]
Lockheed Martin's CHIL blends motion capture with VR, creates zombie engineers (video)
Computer-aided design is a great way to build products, but does it let you bust a funky move while wearing some crazy glasses and gloves? Heck no. You need Lockheed Martin's CHIL for that. It's the Collaborative Human Immersive Laboratory, virtual reality goggles and gloves combined with motion capture enabling teams of engineers to work together in a virtual space. You can see it in action below, used first for installing polygonal munitions into a rendered version of one of the company's F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, then for doing a little VR tai chi. A Lockheed rep promises that this enables the team to ensure the plane can be more easily and affordably maintained, but we just see this as high-tech training tool for the company's world-renowned synchronized dance teams.
Wii Remote Plus joins Kinect and Vuzix shades for 2011's weirdest VR shooter yet (video)
The natural evolution to Nao_u's impressive Kinect- and Vuzix-infused already impressive virtual reality simulator? Guns, of course. A Wii Remote Plus has been added to his project, joining Microsoft's sensor and VR920 LCD glasses for a VR shooting game that involves, well, lobbing paintballs out of a P90 rifle towards flying disembodied anime characters. Make no mistake, it's a great technical demo chock full of aesthetic eccentricities. Full details via the developer's diary, video after the break.
Kinect Hacks: First-person slipping
Full-body mapping isn't new to Kinect -- not even hacking it to control the MikuMikuDance is new. But this isn't the apparent innovation put on display by a Kinect tinkerer known as "Nao_u." The adventurous programmer combines Microsoft's camera sensor with a pair of Vuzix VR920 LCD glasses, allowing a player to see through Miku's eyes (projected in the VR920 head-mounted display), while controlling her in-game actions with body movements registered by Kinect. It's total first-person VR -- J-pop style -- with a $400 add-on! Feeling confident in his new body, Nao_u steps out onto a precariously placed i-beam (just where did that come from?). High above the sim city, he takes his first, wobbly steps. You can see where this is going (after the break) ...
Kinect paired with Vuzix VR920 shades, creates zany virtual reality game (video)
It was only a matter of time before Microsoft's continually-hacked Kinect became embroiled in a VR simulation of some sort, and while we're not riding light cycles quite yet, enterprising developer Nao_u has managed to put himself in the shoes (and short skirt) of a Japanese virtual pop icon. Mapping his every move onto the virtual skeleton of Vocaloid's Miku Hatsune probably won't impress you much at this stage of the game, but there's the little matter of what Nao_u did next: he hooked up a pair of Vuzix VR920 LCD glasses to see through the digital diva's eyes, too. Find the terribly cutesy video after the break, and fast-forward to 4:30 to watch Nao attempt to walk a narrow beam set atop a virtual skyscraper.
USC Institute for Creative Technologies gets new building to amp up its military VR work
University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies has just moved into 72,000-square feet of shiny new facilities in Playa Vista, California -- on the same grounds which once served as the headquarters for Howard Hughes' aircraft company. Funded by the US Army to develop virtual reality technology, the ICT's work is now found on 65 military sites across the country. Before your brain starts wandering towards thoughts of Call of Duty on military-grade steroids though, keep in mind that much of the institute's innovations revolve around simulating surrogate interactions with so-called "virtual humans". For example, thanks to advanced AI language programming, soldier patients projected on life size semi-transparent screens help teach doctors about treating combat trauma, while virtual Army personnel characters such as Sergeant Star can interact naturally with soldiers in leadership training exercises. Still, that shouldn't imply ITC doesn't dabble in good ole' fashion combat simulation work. In fact, it's currently running a training exercise on three military bases designed to prepare soldiers for an insurgent ambush within a highly-realistic virtual town reconstructed from satellite imagery. No, it may not sound as wild as robotic exoskeletons, flying Humvees or ultrasound-based mind control, but it does make your life on The Sims seem totally fake. To judge for yourself, check out the video overview on the next page.
ARDefender augmented reality shoot-em-up hands-on
ARDefender has been out for a couple of months but surprisingly it's fallen under the radar of a lot of iPhone users. Combining augmented reality technology with a basic aim-and-shoot, ARDefender allows you to transform your physical desktop or office floor into a battleground. It costs just a buck and it's a great way to both have fun and to showcase the iPhone's [1] ability to integrate with the world around it. To use the game, print out a special PDF template on any printer, trim to size, and place it on any flat surface. As you aim your device's camera at the the template, tanks and planes start zooming around your virtual world. The template becomes a 3-D tower, so you don't actually see it on the device screen. Aim your tower's cannons by tapping on the screen and shoot with a button in the lower-right corner of the screen. Other weapon controls and information are located at the periphery. I have terrible coordination and have not managed to get past the third level, but most people will be able to shoot their way much higher. The fun is, of course, seeing these attackers interact with your real world environment and blasting them away before they manage to reach, for example, your coffee mug. There's not a whole lot more to ARDefender, but it's fun and well worth the one dollar investment. It's not a terribly deep game but it's a fun one. [1] Versions exist for the iPhone 4 (also the iPod touch 4th gen) and the Samsung Bada. Symbian S60 and Nintendo DSi iterations are forthcoming.
Vuzix Wrap 920AR dev bundle available 'nowish' with clear AR glasses 18 months away
When we got our hands on the Vuzix Wrap 920AR at CES we saw a promising piece of gear without too many practical applications. And where do things stand, nearly a year later? Available now (aside from a "30 to 45 day delay" on all orders) the headset is strictly developers only. According to Pocket-lint, the company is only eighteen months away from clear AR glasses with heads-up displays -- and, believe us, we'd love to see that -- but in the meantime, your hard earned $2,000 will get you the glasses, a Vuzix VR Manager license, and access to the Vuzix SDK. So, who's going to be the first to pitch us a system for Augmented Reality comment moderation? We'd love to some new and novel ways to "downrank" a few of our favorite commenters, if you get our drift.
Robot arm takes engineers for a virtual reality Formula 1 ride (video)
As it turns out, industrial-strength robot arms are good for more than amusing hijinks and the occasional assembly line -- a team of researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics have turned a KUKA KR 500 into the ultimate Formula 1 simulator ride. Outfitting the six-axis, half-ton lifter with a force-feedback steering wheel, pedals, video projector and curved screen, the newly-christened CyberMotion Simulator lets scientists throw a virtual Ferrari F2007 race car into the turns, while the cockpit whips around with up to 2 Gs of equal-and-opposite Newtonian force. There's actually no loftier goal for this particular science project, as the entire point was to create a racing video game that feels just like the real thing -- though to be fair, a second paper tested to see whether projectors or head-mounted displays made for better drivers. (Projectors won.) See how close they came to reality in a video after the break, while we go perform a little experiment of our own. [Thanks, Eric]
