Lifeboat Foundation

• Second Livestock is a unique application of virtual reality (VR) that could change animal husbandry and livestock farming.
• Developed by design professor Austin Stewart, this VR free-range farm world is a safe haven for chickens.

Free-range livestock is going to the next level, thanks to a unique, if seemingly silly idea that has recently gone viral. Second Livestock is a free range world for chickens in virtual reality (VR). And yes, just like most of VR’s current applications, it actually works like a game — a massively-multiplayer one full of chickens and with no AI bots.

Last month, we showed an earlier version of this robot where we’d trained its vision system using domain randomization, that is, by showing it simulated objects with a variety of color, backgrounds, and textures, without the use of any real images.

Now, we’ve developed and deployed a new algorithm, one-shot imitation learning, allowing a human to communicate how to do a new task by performing it in VR. Given a single demonstration, the robot is able to solve the same task from an arbitrary starting configuration.

Caption: Our system can learn a behavior from a single demonstration delivered within a simulator, then reproduce that behavior in different setups in reality.

Startup Vivid Vision said today it has raised $2.2 million in a seed round to build VR tools that could be used to treat eye problems known as “lazy eye.”

San Francisco-based Vivid Vision raised the money from SoftTech VC’s Jeff Clavier, as well as The Venture Reality Fund (The VR Fund), CRCM Ventures, SOS Ventures, Anorak Ventures, and Liquid 2 Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm cofounded by Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Joe Montana.

The company’s VR treatment for binocular vision disorders is now available at more than 90 clinics across the world. More than 10 percent of Americans suffer from one or more binocular vision disorders, such as amblyopia, strabismus, or convergence insufficiency. These disorders, commonly known as “lazy eye” and “crossed eyes,” can cause issues with driving and playing sports, and can even limit career choices.

Continue reading “Vivid Vision raises $2.2 million to build VR tools to treat ‘lazy eye’” »

VR medical training takes you inside the human body.

If you wear a smartwatch, you know how limiting it is to type it on or otherwise operate it. Now European researchers have developed an input method that uses a depth camera (similar to the Kinect game controller) to track fingertip touch and location on the back of the hand or in mid-air, allowing for precision control.

Continue reading “Precision typing on a smartwatch with finger gestures” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=kPJ0dKCGBg8

Security analysts could soon become the first employees asked to show up to work inside virtual reality.

Thanks to a new virtual reality tool built by the Colorado-based startup ProtectWise, cybersecurity professionals may soon be patrolling computer networks — like real world beat cops — inside a three-dimensional video game world.

Continue reading “Cybersecurity Pros Will Soon Patrol Computer Networks Like Agents in ‘The Matrix’” »

Swoop and soar in this VR simulator.

Hardly a day has gone by this month without the announcement of a new virtual reality (VR) camera system. Facebook, Google and GoPro all aim to make VR more immersive with new cameras, some of which won’t be commercially released for the foreseeable future. However, researchers at Adobe believe that you may not need new camera hardware at all for a big leap in immersion.

Adobe’s head of research Gavin Miller is going to present new cutting-edge technology at NAB in Las Vegas this Tuesday that could one day be used to turn flat, monoscopic 360-degree videos shot with consumer-grade spherical cameras into fully immersive VR video, complete with the ability to lean into the video — something that’s being called six degrees of freedom (6DoF) among industry insiders.

Continue reading “How Adobe Wants to Turn Flat 360-Degree Videos Into True Virtual Reality (EXCLUSIVE)” »

It’s like a real-life version of a “Magic Schoolbus” episode.