Title: “I Do.”
Location: Shanghai Marriage Market (People Square)
Subtitle: “I Do” is an immersive documentary that takes place in Shanghai’s Marriage Market located in People’s Square.

Project Description: “I Do.”, is an immersive VR experience created by NYU Shanghai senior Ben Tablada(IMB & Fashion Studies) and sophomores Molly He(ICS & IMA) and Kat Valachova(IMA). The experience is an authentic representation of Shanghai’s famed Marriage Market in which interactions were recorded with a 360-degree camera. The VR team researched the most ideal beauty and dating standards for Chinese citizens (appearance, personality, salary, etc.) and created posters that were displayed in the marriage market. The set-up was exhibited on umbrellas, similar to how marriage market posters are traditionally presented in the space. The reactions and responses of the viewers were genuine and authentic – later stitched together to form a consistent experience that is both enlightening and invasive.

Goal: The goal of the project is to create a mini-documentary type video that allows the user to feel enthralled by the space. The experience we wanted to provide should have elements that we felt during our time [the creators] within the environment. We wanted to capture moments of humor, the invasive nature of the sellers/buyers, and a moment of clarity.

Job Functions: My role for the project focused primarily on laying out the foundations of the video experience focusing heavily on organization and trouble-shooting during the pre-production, production, and post-production phases. Scheduling the shoot and adjusting accordingly based on time and weather constraints were all key parts to my duties. During the shoot, keeping the workflow, assisting during location changes, and diffusing situations were significant elements to my job functions. Lastly, I spent the post-production phase reviewing the footage with the team and cutting/blocking out footage from the production phase into (1) consistent timeline/sequence. I also took initiative by editing the written content on the VR experience and trouble-shooting editing mishaps rooted in spatial audio.

Experience: My experience with the marriage market was definitely an interesting one. The space itself was a feat in so many varying factors. There was a sense of community that can be felt in the air but also a feeling of deceit as most of the candidates on the marriage market posters are the children or grandchildren of the sellers themselves who have no knowledge that they are being “sold”/”auctioned”. My time at the marriage market was met with much contempt and aggression by most, usually as a result of the shame that parents feel when their children find out that they are there in the first place. I also met several individuals who were curious about our project and over-time we felt ourselves becoming more and more transparent with the work we were doing. Overall, the result of the shoot was a successful one – regardless of the verbal and almost physical fiascos that my team and I went through.

Demo Reel: 
Video was taken during user-testing & the IMA show! The reel is a sequence of reactions, feedback, and critiques from those who were able to try the experience. 

Demo Reel/Feedback
https://youtu.be/KO–lxTUOvo

Feedback: The feedback we received during our demonstration at NYU Shanghai’s IMA Showcase was overwhelmingly positive! The experience was praised for its accuracy and the elements/emotions that we wanted people to feel (humor, invasiveness, and clarity). We had members of the community from students, faculty, and even the Chancellor of NYU Shanghai (Chancellor Yu) praise the experience as an enjoyable one. Some of the more negative critiques the video garnered were a lack of a potential warning as some scenes were a bit surprising to the audience. We also had a professor comment on a potential parallax issue with the 3D text (later fixed after a demo) but it was a minor miscalculation.

Video:
*Used a MetaData Injector to give the video 360/VR functionalities on YouTube*

Marriage Market VR Mini-Documentary
https://youtu.be/NxazNNrrNXI

TOP 4 for accurate, prophetic, powerful

1. Is 5G a Game Changer for VR and AR? (yes!)
   Sifting Reality From Hype: What 5G Does (and Doesn’t) Mean for VR & AR

5G boosts up the speed for communication and can transfer bigger and more data, which means this is a lot better than 4G as VR and AR need huge amount of pixel data to be processed all the time, and to make sure everything work well in the user communication, fast transfer speed is definitely needed.

2.New wearable skin lets you touch things in VR and and be touched, too

Haptic interaction is a lot better than a hand controller, as your way of interaction is fixed on the shape of a controller with the touch pads and buttons on it. Wearable skin will give more ways of controlling in VR while using your tactus, and can also feel the pressure and strength, for example, when the user is grabing or catching something.

3.Brain interface

Using brain interface is a very powerful way of controlling the VR devices, as this extends the ways of interaction, we can do all the stuff based on the signals given by brain. I am thinking of using this for the application of a deep diving experience, that you can sense everything in the VR world like in real life, even though this can be dangerous, but this is very interesting.

4.Create An Entire Home Gym With Oculus Quest

The scale of VR experience can be bigger than what we have now, we can utilize the space around us in a lot more ways than we can image, we can change our rooms into any place we want. Changing the home into a gym from my perspective, is just a trial for a bigger change. There are going to be more designs for home VR. This is just a beginning.

TOP 4 for off-track, clueless, and ridiculous.

1.Phone-based VR is officially over

I do not think that phone-based VR is already over, even though the phones nowadays do not have enough spec for supporting a VR application in terms of power and many factors. But I think there are going to be improvement on phone development, so there are possibilities that the power problem will be solved, and the processing power will be a lot better.

2.Virtual graffiti

I just don’t like it, I cannot really think of a practical way of interaction of such application, nobody will keep using their phone to look around and paint around, it does not make sense for me. Also the cotent of the paintings made by users are hard to regulate.

3.Facebook: We Don’t Collect Or Store Quest Camera Or Guardian Data

Impossible, I just do not believe these kind of news. When using the VR headset, the camera is collecting the data of our whole body, this is related to user privacy.

4.Facebook announces Horizon, a VR massive-multiplayer world

This is going to be a failure. The avatar looks creepy, and how Mark has described the world makes me feel unsure, he promises to have much freedom to controll everything around you, firstly I just do not think it is possible to make everything controllable in a virtual world, especially it is a VR application, also the regulation in Horizon is going to be  a problem, how to detect the violations, what is the penalty, a lot more can be problems.

off-track news

Assignment: VR/AR News of the Week has closed for the season with 92 entries, all of which we’ve seen at least briefly in class. Some of the stories will be looked back in 5 years and be considered accurate, prophetic, powerful. Others will be looked back in 5 years and be considered off-track, clueless, and ridiculous. PLEASE SELECT YOUR TOP 4 OF EACH.

Promising

1. New wearable skin lets you touch things in VR and and be touched, too

Most of the VR contents have been confined to the audiovisual experience. Only a very few number of them include sense of touch; and yet, tactile sensation in VR environment has been no more than electronic vibrations. According to the article, this second skin can “actually make you feel are touching something real.” I am not sure if this wearable skin will be introduced to the market in 5 years; if so, it will definitely create no little excitement in the VR scene. I agree to the journalist’s opinion that “touch is the last piece needed for virtual reality’s true killer application.” The emergence of “touch” in VR will undoubtedly make our experience more rich and immersive.

2. Create An Entire Home Gym With Oculus Quest

There are a couple of problems when you try to set up home gym. It takes a lot of space, equipment not cheap, and once you get bored with your treadmill or rowing machine–it will give you a headache. Workouts in VR will remedy these disadvantages; they not only require less space, but also are cheaper and far more versatile. The writer of this article notes that “virtual reality headsets deserve serious consideration as an exercise tool.” I also believe this VR fitness will become more and more widespread as the price of standalone headsets (i.e. Oculus Quest) becomes cheaper.

3. Phone-based VR is officially over

After its first introduction to market in 2016, Daydream, Google’s phone-based VR cardboard headset contributed to lowering the entry barriers of VR experience. This article explains why companies decided to discontinue their phone-powered VR services. “Mobile VR was good for short experience,” said the spokesman of Google, “but it had clear limitations.” I think their decision to give up the mobile VR was right, because the course of development is definitely heading to a wireless, standalone equipment. Mobile VR did everything on its part, and is now making way for more powerful successors.

4. Sifting Reality From Hype: What 5G Does (and Doesn’t) Mean for VR & AR

This article gives its reader rich information and context about what 5G is and how it can or cannot impact the development of VR/AR experience. 5G, in short, provides greater bandwidth and lower latency than current mobile networks does. What this means for VR/AR is that, according to the writer, it will enable immersive video streaming and cloud-rendered VR/AR gaming, which are only theoretically possible as of now. And yet, this article points out that “possibility doesn’t always mean viability.” Even if 5G can revolutionize the immersive media, whether people are willing to open their wallet is a whole different question. I think this article has a keen-eyed insight because it is not only showing the rosy future of VR but also considering realistic issues about its market value. 

Not Likely

1. Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida: ‘The Human Brain Is Getting Used To’ VR

Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida said in an interview that people are beginning to overcome the dreaded VR simulation sickness. Simulation sickness is a syndrome similar to motion sickness, often experienced during VR exposure. Although a number of researches proved that there is a kind of “adaptation effect,” their result varies strongly between individual studies. I think the recent upgrades of equipment quality may account for a larger portion of this effect, instead of people’s brain actually getting accustomed with immersive media.

2. Facebook’s Latest Purchase Gets Inside Users’ Heads—Literally

Facebook purchased a start-up called “CTRL-Labs” that “uses a mix of machine learning and neuroscience to allow people to manipulate computer interfaces simply by brainpower.” It is remarkable that Facebook, which is often accused of getting inside of its users’ head, actually turns its eyes to this technology. Even though the entire process is supposed to be exclusive to a user, I do not think people will be willing to give someone a direct access to their brain, regardless of how “helpful” it can be. Customers will not let technology intrude into the last bastion of their privacy. 

3. Is the world ready for virtual graffiti?

The developers of Mark AR describes their app “the world’s first augmented reality social platform.” It might be the first one, but I think it has some severe limits: this type of platform heavily depends on the size of users. I am skeptical about whether this app can attract enough users in the first place to utilize its full potentials. This article writes that “the idea of wandering around a city, finding the random tags people have left behind, is fascinating.” It might sound fascinating, but in its early stage, people will not find it very interesting as there is nothing much to see.

4. Russian dairy farmers gave cows VR goggles with hopes they would be happier and make better milk

Regardless of whether cows with VR headsets are going to make better milk, this idea is just entirely impractical in many ways. First, I hardly believe someone designed a headset specifically for cow-eyes. If these farmers are just showing their cows VR video set for human-eyes, it will just make these cows confused and even more stressed. Second, let’s say cows somehow produce better milk. Will its benefit outweigh the price of giving VR goggles for every cow? There are many more reasons I can give, including ethical issues too. In short, I hope this news is just another fake news.

Top 4 accurate, prophetic, powerful:

   1). Sifting Reality From Hype: What 5G Does (and Doesn’t) Mean for VR & AR

5G has been on its rapid improving trend for a while. I’ve seen an introductory video indicating how 5G can’t help people a lot in the present time period of technology. Most of apps actually don’t have the software requirement or ability to reach that high speed and almost nobody will use mobile data to download movies or something. There’s a testing video about how different watching a movie on the mobile is between 4G and 5G; and the outcome is very slight that not influential at all. However, when it comes to the VR/AR games, movies or experiences, the difference will be more evident since the streaming speed requirement is more strict and definitely 4G can’t support them enough. I believe 5G will be an important tool for VR/AR in the future just as what 4G means for the streaming services now.

  2). Apple Is Apparently Working on AR Headphones 

It is not surprised to see Apple’s working on AR headphones while most of the others focusing on visually fooling the audience. Compared with fooling eyes, this is evidently much more easier to achieve and can be utilized to do a lot of things, such as not only in conference calls or remote workers, but also some public situations. To erase the clear differences between reality and digital world, AR headphones will be essential in the future market as a helpful weapon along with headset or glasses too. Therefore, this new trend is also fundamental and will have more marketing power with its importance for AR tools.

  3). Esqapes puts you in a VR experience while in a massage chair / VIRTUAL REALITY HEADSETS ARE INCREASINGLY BEING PUT TO USE AT THEME PARKS

I’m supposing the usage in VR massage chair is similar with the VR roller coaster and other sitting experiences. These are all the situations combining traditional services with VR technology to provide a better and more immersive experience. And in fact, they are already on the way for many years such as some riding facilities in theme amusement parks, adding VR headsets in to generate a virtual visualization within traditional roller coaster, which can definitely lead to better experiences. For instance, my personal deepest memory in USJ, besides Harry Potter theme riding, is the one I had with VR headset. The same it is for massage chair, and many other possible conditions. Combining VR can help improve them a lot for audience.

  4). AR and VR will make spatial journalism the future of reporting

This reminds me of a Chinese television programme named Legal Report, 今日说法. In every episode, a criminal case will be introduced and there’s one paragraph in which the host will be in a virtual spatial reality to help analyze the case. Though the effects of this form of spatial journalism were not that mature and that real to fool audience’ eyes, this attempt to try has shown how reporting can be more immersive if high-quality VR/AR technic being achieved.

As stated in the article, the spatial journalism has many limitations regarding to the high costs, technological obstacles, long-term production schedules. However, I believe in five years, at least for programmes like Legal Report, the improvements can be evident and bring audience more impactful memories and better empathy, as well as other news reporting situations.

Top 4 off-track, clueless, and ridiculous:

   1). Why The Music Industry Is Banking On The Growth Of VR Concerts

As a huge fan of a Japanese rock band, I can say 100 percent that I will prefer going to the concert by myself rather than VR concert even if in the future they provide it. It is so ridiculous for a fan to choose to watch a virtual concert through headset rather than be in that environment and feeling the real atmosphere plus to meet those singers in person maybe. However, there may be some people who would like to do so when they have the problem of physical location change in a certain time, or don’t have the time now; so they can experience the concert later in VR. I just feel the whole concert industry won’t be influenced a lot and the mainstream will still be the present forms. VR only adds a possibility but can’t change the essence of concerts, or the reason why fans want to go to a concert.

  2). Will virtual reality and AI help us to find love or make us lonelier?

This topic can be very completed and even a debate question. However, personally I doubt human feelings can be that easily influenced by VR or AI. There are many sci-fi works such as human in love with AI, love story starting within a VR world and so on. But these are still novelistic and real human love is much more complicated and hard to analyze or conclude. People may get company from AI and use VR to meet with friends simpler in the future, but I still believe realistic life is the main focus for us in the next decades.

  3). Russian dairy farmers gave cows VR goggles with hopes they would be happier and make better milk

I don’t see any points of doing this, even in the future it is affordable for agricultural industry to utilize huge amount of VR equipments. The cows’ production of milk has been improved and to the best situation after so many years and I doubt VR can make them “happier” therefore make better milk. Their living conditions are already the best for agricultural purposes.

  4). Can virtual reality make women’s lives better?

This one sounds the most offensive for me as a female. Sexism and racism problems should be taken more seriously. People who refuse to admit this real fact, ignore these problems, or unaware of what conditions we are in, will also not be influenced at all even if there are VR programmes like the ones mentioned in the article. The required efforts to decrease inequality should be focused on more human rights education and awareness raising. There have been lots of movements, slogans and actions used. I don’t think who have access to the VR will not have seen those, which are not less powerful than virtual reality experiences, if they have the empathy, or realize the importance.