Friday FOV: Virtual Rio-lity, New HMDs & 360 Analytics, Ozo Price Chop
The latest in virtual reality for the week ending August 19, 2016
This week in There Is Only R:
Widening use cases, social VR, the AR explosion, and the fast-approaching AI supercharge are four reasons to look way beyond Slate’s “only four good reasons to use VR.”
The mid-’90s execution and marketing flaws that doomed Nintendo’s ill-fated Virtual Boy hold lessons for the company and today’s VR industry.
Here are some other important VR stories that caught our eye:
Story of the Week: Virtual Rio-lity
In case you missed it, the Olympics are happening. And as with many other modern-day major media frenzy, brands are attempting to shoehorn in VR to show that they’re cutting edge. Getty is creating 360 photos to distinguish itself from the average smartphone-wielding audience member. Google created a 360 video tour of Rio. And NBC has proven that it can bungle Olympic coverage in any medium you throw at it. No word yet whether the alleged mugger of the American men’s swim team was actually just a botched AR project.
Content:
- Budding serial killers can now kill kittens from the comfort of their own virtual world in Kittypocalypse, a new tower defense game.
- Don’t worry, Mississippi — Badoink VR will pick up the slack and help teach your kids about sex with what they’re calling “Sex Edutainment.”
- Here’s a compilation of some pretty exciting Hololens demos. Watch this guy demo a sign:
Hardware:
- Another week, another headset… from another major tech company… with another new feature. On Tuesday, Intel announced Project Alloy, an all-in-one HMD that requires no wires. It allegedly tracks your hands and enables you to move about freely. It also doesn’t have a ship date.
- But the true innovation in hardware this week came from Ubisoft, who developed the Nosulus Rift, a device that eschews mere sight in favor of immersing you via scent — specifically the scent of farts when playing the new South Park game, The Fractured But Whole. Here, a French perfume expert explains how they crafted the perfect fart scent:
Business:
- This is what VC firms are looking for when investing in VR content creation companies.
- Nokia dropped the price of their Ozo VR camera from a whopping $60,000 to $45,000, which seems like good news for people who want to make 360 Video.
- Moreover, we can now better understand how those videos are being watched with Facebook’s new 360 video analytics tools.
Don’t forget to catch up with last week’s “Friday FOV: Brazil’s Bots, Eye-tracking Innovations & Fighting in Fallujah.”
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