Lifeboat Foundation

We’re really excited to be working with the Toronto International Film Festival on a three-day event called POP showcasing some of the most inventive VR creations… and it’s coming up very soon — Friday, July 15th through Sunday, July 17th at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. Tickets are on sale now, and we’d love to see you there.

Let’s talk about what you’ll see when you’re there. The theme of this POP event is empathy and real-world storytelling — how VR can really impact your view of (and connections to) the world. We have more than a dozen pieces that you can try.

Continue reading “Here’s what you’ll see at TIFF and The Verge’s VR showcase this month” »

Good work by Microsoft.

Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning not all people that meet the classification have identical behaviors. Some of these folks are very functional, while others may struggle more to socialize, or not be able to hold jobs.

Continue reading “Microsoft uses BBC Micro Bit and virtual reality to prepare autistic kids for jobs” »

During a disaster situation, first responders benefit from one thing above anything else: accurate information about the environment that they are about to enter. Having foreknowledge of specific building layouts, the locations of impassable obstacles, fires or chemical spills can often be the only thing between life or death for anyone trapped inside. Currently first responders need to rely on their own experience and observations, or possibly a drone sent in ahead of them sending back an unreliable 2D video feed. Unfortunately neither option is optimal, and sadly many victims in a disaster situation will likely perish before they are discovered or the area is deemed safe enough to be entered.

But a team at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has developed technology that can offer first responders the option of exploring a disaster area without putting themselves in any risk. Virtual Eye is a software system that can capture and transmit video feed and convert it into a real time 3D virtual reality experience. It is made possible by combining cutting-edge 3D imaging software, powerful mobile graphics processing units (GPUs) and the video feed from two cameras, any two cameras. This allows first responders — soldiers, firefighters or anyone really — the option of walking through a real environment like a room, bunker or any enclosed area virtually without needing to physically enter.

Soon, this tech will move your entire PC interface to virtual reality.

Human civilization has always been a virtual reality. At the onset of culture, which was propagated through the proto-media of cave painting, the talking drum, music, fetish art making, oral tradition and the like, Homo sapiens began a march into cultural virtual realities, a march that would span the entirety of the human enterprise. We don’t often think of cultures as virtual realities, but there is no more apt descriptor for our widely diverse sociological organizations and interpretations than the metaphor of the “virtual reality.” Indeed, the virtual reality metaphor encompasses the complete human project.

Virtual Reality researchers, Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson, write in their book Infinite Reality; “[Cave art] is likely the first animation technology”, where it provided an early means of what they refer to as “virtual travel”. You are in the cave, but the media in that cave, the dynamic-drawn, fire-illuminated art, represents the plains and animals outside—a completely different environment, one facing entirely the opposite direction, beyond the mouth of the cave. When surrounded by cave art, alive with movement from flickering torches, you are at once inside the cave itself whilst the media experience surrounding you encourages you to indulge in fantasy, and to mentally simulate an entirely different environment. Blascovich and Bailenson suggest that in terms of the evolution of media technology, this was the very first immersive VR. Both the room and helmet-sized VRs used in the present day are but a sophistication of this original form of media VR tech.

Read entire essay here

Unlike Inception this is not a relative time form of learning though I suppose the time needed for experiments to yield their results can be dropped.

I can’t recall the last time I picked up an actual text book. As the article points out instead of reading a text book you drop into a VR and live out the history. (What was that movie where the teacher walks in and throws the text book out the window and follow ups show his class reenacting historical scenes?)

The way we learn today is just wrong.

Continue reading “This Is the Tech That Will Make Learning as Addictive as Video Games” »

“Alternatively, you could just avoid this entire first batch of VR hardware altogether.”

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My new story for Vice Motherboard on the future of political campaining:

Lest we think future elections are all about the candidates, perhaps the largest possibility on the horizon could come from digital direct democracy—the concept where citizens participate in real time input in the government. I gently advocate for a fourth branch of government, in which the people can vote on issues that matter to them and their decrees could have real legal consequence on Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency.

Of course, that’s only if government even exists anymore. It’s possible the coming age of artificial intelligence and robots may replace the need for politicians. At least human ones. Some experts think superintelligent AI might be here in 10 to 15 years, so why not have a robot president that is totally altruistic and not susceptible to lobbyists and personal desires? This machine leader would simply always calculate the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, and go with that. No more Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, or whatever else we are.

Continue reading “Wild Transhumanist Campaign Tech We’ll See in Future Presidential Elections” »

This rollercoaster will transport you to the middle of a virtual space battle.