This Week in Virtual Reality, 18 July 2016

This week’s top Virtual Reality stories: a free Star Wars game, education hackathons, promoting understanding of refugee crises, 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!

Society

Los Angeles-based startup Ryot uses virtual reality to communicate the plight of refugees in Europe to Western audiences, “transporting” viewers to disaster-affected areas.

Entertainment

Lucasfilm releases a free Star Wars-themed VR game ‘Trials of Tatooine’ while also announcing an upcoming VR experience starring Darth Vader.

Travel

Airline Emirates begins distributing virtual reality kits as part of its in-flight amenities, while other airlines begin testing VR as a replacement for traditional in-flight entertainment.

Education

Kansas City-based virtual reality group KCVR hosts a hackathon targeting educational uses of virtual reality, such as exploring real applications of algebra and geometry.

Industry

Sources reveal that Google is exploring a stand-alone virtual reality headset that mixes in elements of augmented reality, such as those seen in its Google Glass project.

Architecture

Chipmaker Nvidia provides a virtual reality tour of its new and still-under construction headquarters, simultaneously showing off their new building and their new VR hardware.