THE BALL AND THE RACKETS EXIST IN AN AUGMENTED REALITY WORLD
Here’s two people playing AR ping pong on a table that doesn’t exist. Powered by ZED Mini and HTC Vive
Move away real-life ping pong games – a table and racket is hardly needed anymore to smash those scoreboards.
Developed by Stereolab’s’ ZED Mini and HTC vive, an augmented reality game of table tennis has the internet amazed, and gearing up for a future.
ZED Mini is the world’s first camera mixed-reality camera that uses virtual and augmented reality together. Virtual reality is a totally artificial world created through computer graphics which the user navigates and interacts with like in the real world.
Augmented reality, however, is a scenario like this one, where players can see the virtual table, rackets and balls, but also the real-world room they’re in. And HTC Vive is a headset which, “pulls virtual worlds off your computer screen and into your home”.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND TIME’S NEW APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING AUGMENTED REALITY EXPERIENCE
TIME this week launched TIME Immersive, a new iPhone and Android app that we’ll use to deliver groundbreaking augmented reality and virtual reality experiences. First up: the TIME Moon Landing experience, the world’s most accurate 3D re-creation of the Apollo 11 mission, which took place 50 years ago this month. Users can watch an approximately five-minute AR simulation of the Apollo 11 landing, narrated by TIME’s Jeffrey Kluger and featuring original NASA audio from the mission, then explore the surface of the moon on their own.
What makes the TIME Moon Landing hyper-accurate? At the experience’s core lies incredibly precise data meticulously collected over the last 20 years by John Knoll, the chief creative officer and visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic, a top Hollywood special effects company founded by George Lucas.
“I’m old enough to remember seeing the Apollo 11 landing live as a kid,” says Knoll, who gave his data to TIME. “That really left a big impression on me. In the years that followed, I was always fascinated with the space program.”
Knoll began collecting Apollo 11 landing data after stumbling upon a transcript of radio calls between the spacecraft and mission control. Those transcripts, he says, underscored the harrowing few minutes just before the “Eagle” lander touched down on the lunar surface, when it was running dangerously low on fuel. That moment, says Knoll, was largely glossed over in the Apollo 11 documentaries of his youth. “In reading the timestamped transcripts, this is white-knuckle time,” he says.
Knoll’s commitment to accuracy came in part from his disappointment with some Hollywood directors who pay lip service to scientific precision but abandon it in favor of what they or the studios believe is better storytelling. “I was very committed to making the re-creation as technically accurate as I could make it, in getting everything right about the motion of the spacecraft, the lighting conditions, the lunar terrain, where individual rocks and craters were,” says Knoll. “And to figure out if there were clever or sneaky ways to extract data from unlikely sources.”
To that end, Knoll relied on a handful of data sources, including NASA telemetry graphs, footage from a descent camera on the lunar module (LEM), and data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a probe orbiting the moon that was launched in 2009. He made up for shortcomings in the data with advanced computer vision techniques, including one process whereby the altitude of moon surface features can be estimated based on how bright or dark they appear in photographs.
“When you look at a photograph of the moon, and you see all that light and shadow, what you’re seeing is the orientation of the surface relative to the sun,” says Knoll. “If a surface is brighter, it’s because it’s inclined more towards the illuminance, and if it’s darker, it’s because it’s inclined more away. If you start on one end of an image, and if a surface is lighter than the average then it’s inclined up, so you accumulate the altitude, and if it’s darker, it’s declined, and so you decrement the altitude. By doing that, you can integrate an approximation of the terrain.”
Knoll hopes that the experience helps people better understand and take pride in the complexity of the Apollo project.
“I’m a big champion of science education, and people really understanding what we achieved,” says Knoll. “Those Apollo missions were great and amazing, and especially in these very divisive times, everyone regardless of their political affiliation can look back with some pride and look back at the accomplishment.”
The TIME Moon Landing experience was co-produced by TIME, John Knoll, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and Smithsonian’s Digitization Program Office, Trigger, RYOT, and the Yahoo News XR Program. It is available within the TIME Immersive app, which you can download for iPhone in Apple’s App Store, or for Android in the Google Play Store. Look out for more TIME Immersive projects in the near future.
These days, new and evolving technology has introduced the world to 3 very fascinating realities, Virtual Reality or VR, Augmented Reality or AR, and Mixed Reality or MR. in this article, you will see what makes them different from each other and how they are contributing in different areas of work. Let’s have a brief look at what is VR, AR, and MR
● VR — With VR app development, it engages users in a completely artificial digital setting.
● AR — It covers virtual objects on the real-world setting.
● MR — It covers and keeps the virtual objects anchored to the real world.
VIRTUAL REALITY OR VR
Virtual Reality (VR) is also called a computer-simulated reality which delivers an immersive experience. In this, computer technologies are used with the real headsets to create an imaginary world with the lifelike sounds, imageries and other feelings that are the imitation of a real environment. An accurate VR app development setting will immerse all the five senses in the human body including taste, smell, sight, sound, and touch, but in reality, it is not always possible. Nowadays, it can be said that VR has established itself in some very practical areas, especially after the years of popularity in the gaming industry. VR uses two types of main headsets:
1. PC-connected
These headsets are connected to a computer or gaming console that provides with top-quality visual experience. They can also be used with special controllers and users can interact with the virtual world.
2. Standalone
These headsets are not needed to be connected to a computer or a gaming console. Most of the standalone headsets use a smartphone screen for interacting with virtual reality. They are quite affordable and easy to use
AUGMENTED REALITY OR AR
Augmented Reality (AR) is live and direct or indirect viewing of a real-world environment where its elements are amplified or augmented using audio, video, graphics, or GPS data. It gives you a lot more freedom than what you get in the real world. Smartphones and tablets are two of the most widespread means of AR as of now. Two types of main devices are:
1. Portable devices
AR is perhaps the most reachable and handy reality technology, as people can get access to it using portable devices like smartphones and tablets in order to use applications based on augmented reality. AR apps simply use a smartphone camera in order to seize the real world. Then the virtual items are overlaid, and users can easily see them on their portable device.
2. AR glasses and headsets
Another way to enjoy augmented reality is by using smart glasses or AR headsets. As compared to VR headsets, these AR glasses and headsets don’t engage the users into a completely virtual environment. Instead, they just add virtual objects in the real world.
MIXED REALITY OR MR
Mixed Reality is also called as hybrid reality. It is the merger of real and virtual environments in order to create new environments and visuals. In that new environment, both physical and digital entities exist together, interacting in real time. It means a new imagery is placed inside a real space in such a manner that the new imagery can interact to a degree, with the real world as you know it. The distinguishing factor of MR is that the artificial content and the real or physical world content can interact with one another in real time.
There can also be a different form of mixed reality. In this new form of mixed reality, users watch and interact with a fully virtual environment which is overlapped on the real world surrounding the users. If you are finding it a bit confusing, look at it from a different perspective. Just imagine that you are fully engaged and interacting into a completely virtual environment. However, you are still walking around in your room at your place. What do you think will happen if you trip over an object lying on the floor? To prevent any such incidence, your headset must be able to keep track of the real world while you are immersed in the virtual world and adjust the virtual setting accordingly. This type of MR is a lot closer to VR as compared to AR.
There are different types of devices that can be used for mixed reality:
1. Holographic devices
These headsets comprise transparent glasses through which you will be able to keep track of your surroundings easily and avoid any kinds of unfortunate incidents while using MR. in this; Virtual experiences are generated using holograms.
2. Immersive devices
These headsets comprise of non-translucent spectacles that totally block out the real world just like VR headsets. They use cameras for tracking the real world.
CONCLUSION
It can be difficult to point out one choice from all three realities. While VR is being used for years in the gaming industry, AR and MR are also not far behind. However, while AR just overlays the virtual objects on the real environment, in MR, the digital parts of the environment are more conscious of what is happening in the real surroundings around you and thus represent a more realistic interaction.
Ogni anno 400.000 persone in Europa, 60.000 in Italia, muoiono per arresto cardiaco improvviso; molte di loro potrebbero avere maggiori possibilità di salvezza se soccorse tempestivamente e adeguatamente. Se le persone che si imbattono in una vittima di arresto cardiaco iniziassero la rianimazione cardiopolmonare prima dell’arrivo dell’ambulanza, le possibilità di sopravvivenza aumenterebbero di 2-3 volte.
Oggi solo nel 15% dei casi viene eseguita la rianimazione prima dell’arrivo dei soccorsi. Se la percentuale aumentasse al 50/60% si potrebbero salvare 100.000 ogni anno.
È per questo che, per la prima volta, da quest’anno il 16 ottobre si celebrerà il “World Restart A Heart Day” cioè il giorno mondiale di sensibilizzazione sul tema dell’arresto cardiaco che vedrà iniziative in tutto il mondo con il patrocinio dell’Organizzazione Mondiale della Salute.
In questa occasione, i ricercatori e i volontari di IRC, Italian Resuscitation Council, saranno all’interno del Parco Archeologico del Colosseo a Roma, dalle 10 alle 17 per informare sulle manovre salvavita con dimostrazioni pratiche e con la novità della realtà virtuale: sarà possibile simulare in 3D e in modo realistico una corretta procedura di rianimazione.
I ricercatori e i volontari di IRC saranno accompagnati dai volontari della Fondazione “Giorgio Castelli”, che ha formato alla rianimazione cardiopolmonare gli addetti del Parco Archeologico del Colosseo a Roma e donato 11 defibrillatori all’intera area. È prevista anche la partecipazione di volontari dell’ANPAS, della Croce Rossa Italiana, di Conacuore e di altre associazioni.
Quello del 16 ottobre, però, è solo uno degli eventi della campagna “VIVA! la settimana per la rianimazione cardiopolmonare”. Durante la settimana che quest’anno è dal 15 al 21 ottobre, saranno organizzati incontri e dimostrazioni pratiche in tutta Italia.
«Vogliamo anche quest’anno attrarre l’attenzione per spiegare come alcune semplici azioni, eseguibili da chiunque, possono salvare la vita di chi è colpito da arresto cardiaco. Per questo la nostra associazione è molto impegnata nella formazione e nella divulgazione: solo nell’ultimo anno abbiamo realizzato oltre 10.000 corsi di formazione rivolti a quasi 130.000 partecipanti tra operatori sanitari e persone comuni con particolare attenzione al mondo della scuola», dice Andrea Scapigliati, presidente di Italian Resuscitation Council e dirigente medico dell’Unità operativa di cardioanestesia e terapia intensiva cardiochirurgica della Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli.
«VIVA! rappresenta un’ottima occasione di sensibilizzazione per la popolazione nei confronti della cultura del primo soccorso e delle buone pratiche di rianimazione, cultura di vita e di attenzione ai bisogni primari del prossimo», aggiunge Vincenzo Castelli, presidente della Fondazione Giorgio Castelli onlus e dirigente medico della Unità di Medicina interna dell’Ospedale Vannini di Roma.
Per favorire la diffusione delle manovre salvavita, cioè il massaggio cardiaco, le ventilazioni di soccorso e la defibrillazione precoce, IRC ha creato un nuovo strumento che utilizza la realtà virtuale indirizzato non solo agli operatori sanitari ma anche alla gente comune e agli alunni delle scuole. Indossando il caschetto della realtà virtuale è possibile infatti simulare un primo soccorso su una vittima di arresto cardiaco.
Per favorire l’insegnamento nella scuola, IRC, ha inoltre ormai consolidato l’applicazione per cellulari “Un picnic mozzafiato” dedicato ai bambini della scuola primaria.
L’elenco delle iniziative della settimana VIVA! è disponibile sul sito dedicato all’iniziativa.
The preconception that video games are only for boys, geeks, or kids still exists in some quarters. But an insight into where the industry is heading suggests it will soon be banished entirely.
The gaming market is the fastest-growing entertainment sector in the world, worth $75.5bn last year, and expected to be worth more than $100bn by 2017. The biggest event in the video-game calendar is the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), where publishers and developers gather to reveal the most anticipated – and surprise – announcements of the year.
The industry-only event welcomed nearly 50,000 people this year for a show that requires more bandwidth than most US cities need in a year, and for the first time, gamers around the world could tune into video-streaming service Twitch to watch the shows – and millions did.
The main events take place in the LA Convention Center across a space that could fill nearly eight US football fields. E3 is bustling; everyone exhibiting wants to be the next big thing, and everyone else wants to be among the first to play it. But of the hundreds of games shown at the event, the main competition is often considered to be between Sony and Microsoft. Last year, it was all about the move into “next-gen” gaming. It was just five months before the release of their new consoles, the PlayStation 4 (PS4) and Xbox One.
