Monthly Archives: November 2015

Full Immersion Needs Sounds

Realism

Again, paraphrasing Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson in their book Infinite Reality:

In a virtual reality version of a casino, it was “eerily quiet”. They could’t get fully into the experience without sound. Once background and situation-relevant sounds were introduced, the virtual reality became more real.

With software, this should be quite achievable:

  • record sound in the location
  • identify the sounds that trigger human responses (we block out most)
  • create a soundtrack full of randomness

The sound will be contrived but convincing. For VR to work, all of your senses need to be in agreeance.

 

 

Virtual Churches

Uncategorized

It’s only natural that the types of events I would like to attend virtually are those I have thought about the most…

church_fools_1

I’m not a church-goer, but clearly this is an important part of the lives of many. And while it is debatable, for a good portion of them attending church believe it doesn’t have to be in a particular place and time. In other words, attending virtually is juts fine (although not as lucrative for the brick and mortar church).

I can see virtual churches taking off.

  • The modern mega-churches are heavy on entertainment, so they can charge a premium, even for virtual attendance.
  • It enables a congregation to grow beyond the physical limitations of their actual location.
  • Tracking and remarketing will be easy to achieve.

 

 

 

Virtual Reality & Crime Scenes

Crime

Immersing the jury in the scene, in 3D, can only enhance their understanding of what went down. While transporting jury members to the actual crime scene might be expensive, difficult or even impossible (arson) – a 3D recreation might be affordable and achievable in the future.

Once again I quote Infinite Reality ( by Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson), this time from page 202:

Lawyers and judges can also use virtual reality to enable jury members to experience a crime or accident scene “firsthand.” Unlike a two-dimensional map, chart, or another audiovisual aid, such as a photograph, jurors can enter a re-creation in virtual reality. Jurors can experience the visual perspective of any person who was actually at the scene. Furthermore, they can move around and experience the environment from any point of view. We have worked with the Federal Judicial Center to help them use virtual reality to study how reconstructing crime scenes digitally can improve eyewitness identification via “police lineups.” Compared to witnesses looking at suspects’ photographs, which is how 151 approximately 75 percent of police lineups occur in the United States, a virtual sequence of suspects embedded in a re-creation of the crime scene itself can improve eyewitness accuracy. A witness wearing a head-mounted display and walking among the avatars can see them from novel angles. Moreover, she is able to get extremely close to their heads and faces—something actual witnesses are not only prevented from doing but are often afraid to do. If the crime occurred in a liquor store, the witness could view the lineup in a virtual re-creation of the liquor store without ever having to physically return to the scene of the crime. This is particularly useful for witnesses who would be traumatized by a return to the actual crime scene, or when the crime scene no longer exists (as is often the case with arson, for instance).

Second Life

Uncategorized

Second Life had many problems:

  • ahead of its time, like Apple’s Newton
  • allowed anarchy
  • porn and gambling reigned
  • it played like Monopoly

It was big for quite a while, and could’ve been the next thing. Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson in their book Infinite Reality say this:

“But even Second Life does not represent the ultimate example of social networking addiction. Instead of using a keyboard, joystick, Wii, Move, or Kinect-based device to navigate a future version of Second Life or Facebook, imagine donning a headset and beaming yourself into a 3-D immersive social-networking site, meeting people, building a home, going to clubs, engaging in almost every activity known in grounded reality. If avatar movements are generated by one’s corresponding physical movements, and if one’s perceptions are expanded beyond sights and sounds to also include touches and smells, then one’s “second” life will be a whole lot more like their “first” one. Given that everyone’s movements can be tracked, rendered, saved, and replayed in virtual reality, one can relive an experience or even “change the past.” Had a great virtual tryst? Play it again. Interrupted? Pause and continue later.”

That was 4-years ago, but spot on for now – Second Life is the future, it just needs to be more immersive and more relevant.