This Week in Virtual Reality, 29 August 2016

This week’s top Virtual Reality stories: space tourism, exoskeletons, national parks, and more!

Virtual Reality has never been bigger than it is right now, and it’s one of the most exciting new areas of technology. VR offers an incredible experience for users, and for creators, it presents an unparalleled amount of freedom to experiment with new ideas and applications. We’re seeing exciting developments in the field every day, so to help you keep pace with everything that’s going on, we’ve created This Week in Virtual Reality, a curated list of key stories in the space. New posts will be published here first, and previous posts are archived on the Udacity blog.

Whether you’re already in the field, considering a VR career, or just interested in the subject, This Week in Virtual Reality is sure to have something to inspire you!

Environment

President Obama narrates an eleven-minute virtual reality movie spotlighting Yosemite National Park in collaboration with National Geographic and Facebook’s Oculus Rift.

Hardware

Intel announces its Project Alloy, a camera-equipped mixed-reality headset that bypasses the tangle of wires by building the computer directly into the device.

Tourism

San Francisco-based startup SpaceVR plans to launch a small satellite equipped with a 360° camera to one day offer space tourism via virtual reality.

Technology

Chinese developer Dexta Robotics teases the Dexmo, an exoskeleton glove that complements virtual reality by allowing the wearer to feel what they’re “touching.”

Society

Tech leaders in Africa suggest that as the price of virtual reality equipment falls, African developers could be well-positioned to contribute to the VR revolution.

Sports

In partnership with EON Sports VR, Penn State University athletics plans to launch a dedicated virtual reality channel, LionVision VR, showcasing its sports teams.