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Archive for the ‘virtual reality’ category: Page 44

Nov 10, 2020

Concurrent sharing of an avatar body

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, internet, robotics/AI, virtual reality

The COVID-19 crisis has led to a significant increase in the use of cyberspace, enabling people to work together at distant places and interact with remote environments and individuals by embodying virtual avatars or real avatars such as robots. However, the limits of avatar embodiment are not clear. Furthermore, it is not clear how these embodiments affect the behaviors of humans.

Therefore, a research team comprising Takayoshi Hagiwara () and Professor Michiteru Kitazaki from Toyohashi University of Technology; Dr. Ganesh Gowrishankar (senior researcher) from UM-CNRS LIRMM; Professor Maki Sugimoto from Keio University; and Professor Masahiko Inami from The University of Tokyo aimed to develop a novel collaboration method with a shared avatar, which can be controlled concurrently by two individuals in VR, and to investigate human motor behaviors as the avatar is controlled in VR.

Full movements of two participants were monitored via a motion-capture system, and movements of the shared avatar were determined as the average of the movements of the two participants. Twenty participants (10 dyads) were asked to perform reaching movements with their towards target cubes that were presented at various locations. Participants exhibited superior reaction times with the shared avatar than individual reaction times, and the avatar’s hand movements were straighter and less jerky than those of the participants. The participants exhibited a sense of agency and body ownership towards the shared avatar although they only formed a part of the shared avatar.

Nov 7, 2020

Neuroscientists Reprogram Brain’s GPS Using Laser Beams

Posted by in categories: neuroscience, virtual reality

Neuroscientists at University College London (UCL) have used laser beams to “switch on” neurons in mice, providing new insight into the hidden workings of memory and showing how memories underpin the brain’s inner GPS system.

The study, published in the journal Cell, explains how researchers harnessed an ‘all-optical’ approach using twin lasers to simultaneously read and write the activity of ‘place cells’ (a type of neuron) in mice, as they navigated a virtual reality environment.

Remarkably, by stimulating the place cells, scientists were able to reactivate (or retrieve) the memory of a location where the mice obtained a reward, which in turn “mentally teleported” the mice, causing them to act as if they were in the rewarded place.

Oct 26, 2020

Samsung, Stanford make a 10,000PPI display that could lead to ‘flawless’ VR

Posted by in categories: electronics, virtual reality

Samsung and Stanford have developed a 10,000PPI OLED screen that could lead to completely seamless VR displays.

Oct 16, 2020

A virtual reality game that integrates tactile experiences using biometric feedback

Posted by in categories: entertainment, privacy, robotics/AI, virtual reality, wearables

Over the past few decades, technological advances have enabled the development of increasingly sophisticated, immersive and realistic video games. One of the most noteworthy among these advances is virtual reality (VR), which allows users to experience games or other simulated environments as if they were actually navigating them, via the use of electronic wearable devices.

Most existing VR systems primarily focus on the sense of vision, using headsets that allow users to see what is happening in a or in another simulated environment right before their eyes, rather than on a screen placed in front of them. While this can lead to highly engaging visual experiences, these experiences are not always matched by other types of sensory inputs.

Researchers at Nagoya University’s School of Informatics in Japan have recently created a new VR game that integrates immersive audiovisual experiences with . This game, presented in a paper published in the Journal of Robotics, Networking and Artificial Life, uses a player’s biometric data to create a spherical object in the VR space that beats in alignment with his/her heart. The player can thus perceive the beating of his/her heart via this object visually, auditorily and tactually.

Oct 16, 2020

Smart Prisons: Managing and Rehabilitating Prisoners with Psychology, Empathy and AI

Posted by in categories: law enforcement, policy, robotics/AI, virtual reality

Re-Imagining Prisons — with AI, VR, and Digitalization.


Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador, interviews Ms Pia Puolakka, Project Manager of the Smart Prison Project, under the Criminal Sanctions Agency, within Finland’s Central Administration Unit.

Continue reading “Smart Prisons: Managing and Rehabilitating Prisoners with Psychology, Empathy and AI” »

Oct 16, 2020

Engineers produce a fisheye lens that’s completely flat

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, virtual reality

IS THE METAMATERIAL FISHEYE LENS AN ANSWER FOR RETINAL PROJECTION? There is a race to figure out the best way to project images onto the human retina, for augmented reality devices. Since the human retina is curved, unlike a photographic plate, a wide-angled, curved image designed to fit with the inherent curvature of the retina is in order. Planetariums can use fisheye lenses to project onto a curved dome in a similar way. Can modification of the new method for creating flat, wide angled fisheye metalenses be used for this purpose? There would be three immediate applications of such a capability: 1) Augmented reality projection which is not limited to a narrow portion of the visual field. 2) Full immersion virtual reality devices. 3) Night vision glasses that take large areas of aperture and project wide-angled images through a smaller exit pupil than the human pupil. It is possible that such a lens would be used in combination with another complementing metalens to allow the proper projection.


To capture panoramic views in a single shot, photographers typically use fisheye lenses — ultra-wide-angle lenses made from multiple pieces of curved glass, which distort incoming light to produce wide, bubble-like images. Their spherical, multipiece design makes fisheye lenses inherently bulky and often costly to produce.

Now engineers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell have designed a wide-angle lens that is completely flat. It is the first flat fisheye lens to produce crisp, 180-degree panoramic images. The design is a type of “metalens,” a wafer-thin material patterned with microscopic features that work together to manipulate light in a specific way.

Continue reading “Engineers produce a fisheye lens that’s completely flat” »

Oct 15, 2020

Omni One VR Treadmill

Posted by in category: virtual reality

This ‘full-body controller’ lets you physically run, jump, and crouch in place 😲😍

Oct 13, 2020

DOD Announces $600 Million for 5G Experimentation and Testing at Five Installations

Posted by in categories: economics, engineering, internet, military, virtual reality

Today, the Department of Defense announced $600 million in awards for 5G experimentation and testing at five U.S. military test sites, representing the largest full-scale 5G tests for dual-use applications in the world. Each installation will partner military Services, industry leaders, and academic experts to advance the Department’s 5G capabilities. Projects will include piloting 5G-enabled augmented/virtual reality for mission planning and training, testing 5G-enabled Smart Warehouses, and evaluating 5G technologies to enhance distributed command and control.

“The Department of Defense is at the forefront of cutting edge 5G testing and experimentation, which will strengthen our Nation’s warfighting capabilities as well as U.S. economic competitiveness in this critical field. Through these test sites, the Department is leveraging its unique authorities to pursue bold innovation at a scale and scope unmatched anywhere else in the world. Importantly, today’s announcement demonstrates the Department’s commitment to exploring the vast potential applications and dual-use opportunities that can be built upon next-generation networks,” said Michael Kratsios, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

The test sites include: Hill Air Force Base, Utah; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Georgia; Naval Base San Diego, California; and Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Oct 13, 2020

‘Universal law of touch’ could help make VR indistinguishable from reality

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, mathematics, virtual reality

The ‘Universal law of touch’ theory was created by researchers at the University of Birmingham, who used mathematical modelling of touch receptors in humans and other animal species. By applying the mathematics of earthquakes to model how vibrations travel through the skin, the team discovered that vibration receptors beneath the skin respond to Rayleigh waves in the same way regardless of age, gender, or even species.


Breakthrough appears to support Elon Musk’s claim we are living in a simulation.

Oct 12, 2020

New virtual reality software allows scientists to ‘walk’ inside cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, nanotechnology, virtual reality

Virtual reality software which allows researchers to ‘walk’ inside and analyse individual cells could be used to understand fundamental problems in biology and develop new treatments for disease.

The software, called vLUME, was created by scientists at the University of Cambridge and 3D image analysis software company Lume VR Ltd. It allows super-resolution microscopy data to be visualised and analysed in virtual reality, and can be used to study everything from individual proteins to entire cells. Details are published in the journal Nature Methods.

Super-resolution microscopy, which was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2014, makes it possible to obtain images at the nanoscale by using clever tricks of physics to get around the limits imposed by light diffraction. This has allowed researchers to observe molecular processes as they happen. However, a problem has been the lack of ways to visualise and analyse this data in three dimensions.

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