Author: ya816

1) The Oculus Connect 6 Developers Conference Summary:

I decided to watch the 12-min summary and two other posted videos, which were “Hand Tracking Deep Dive: Technology, Design, and Experiences” and “Spark AR for Places and Things”.

For the summary, there were many exciting points mentioned: hand tracking on Oculus Quest-technique, link Quest and Rift, passthrough+ to switch between reality and VR, linking to Facebook, Facebook horizon to build VR landscape on your own, Oculus TV, CTRL-labs and mixed AR with VR. The most interesting information for me was the hand tracking developments about how accurate they it can perform.

So I chose to watch a posted video about that too. The demo video showed that it even reached the precision like a glove with sensors on it. Besides how outstanding the performance is, the costs were also decreased through improving the codes and data.

Then for the second video, the new development tool for AR was introduced, to connect real-world locations to AR experiences. The public-Spark AR platform can help users easily create their own experiences. I feel it’s similar to Minecraft. And also what Spark is to AR industry is just like what Coding platform to programming. This will definitely help the whole industry a lot in the developing period.

2) Human-free pictures:

   

1) BBC Home – A VR SpaceWalk: I like this one the most. The views and models are quite real in 3D, even making audience feel a little bit dizzy after long-time focusing. Also the sense of reality helps you observe more about its 180 space, which successfully builds the environment more real. Though with the processed human voice from the phone, it doesn’t provide enough immersive background sounds, at least for me. The interactions using the gamepads are also not so sensitive and you need to try several times to get used to controlling your hands with them. However, in general, this project does work successfully to fool people’s eyes to experience what is like to be an astronaut.

2). Ghost in the Shell: This title was a movie I have watched before and I was interested in how the VR will handle it to make audience feel real. I’m satisfied with the both music and cyberpunk atmosphere with slow-motion. The 3D is quite good too, enough to provide the reality feeling. But it is far too short and just like a teaser for a 3D movie rather than an experience as stated, in which I was expecting more interactions. Either way, the effects and actions are successful.

3). Jurassic World – Apatosaurus: This one was not the third one I chose before because that one was on a different equipment. Then it is not in 3D but just like a 360 degree 2-minute movie. And the quality of the views are not so well either, compared to the other two titles I tried at least. This one doesn’t give audience a feel that they are in a virtual reality but only watching a 360-degree 3D movie instead, in a heavy helmet.

1) One or two sentences about the lesson you MOST agree with and the lesson you LEAST agree with:

Most Agree Lesson: Virtual currency will become more relevant to our lives than traditional currency. Even nowadays, virtual currency like bitcoin has been gaining more and more values and attention from people. Therefore, in the future, with better technology of VR equipment, distances among global citizens will narrow and also the traditional physical currency will be less used.

Least Agree Lesson: Everyone will become ‘Gamers’ & watching game streams will be a major pass-time. Though with high-end technology of VR and AR people can have very real-feeling experience in games or the virtual world, I still believe the reality is where people are based on and there are more things to do in real life.

2) A First SpaceWalk / Ghost in the Shell / Notes on Blindness

3) Kevin Kelly AR Article review: The mirrorworld sounds still quite far away from today though the concept and technology of AR have came into our view for a while. Besides the methods to achieve mirrorworld, what is more difficult to imagine is how people will be influenced by this, just like the people 100 years ago can’t imagine our life.