VR startup adds new skin to real world

Tech startup Wild has become the latest company to blend virtual reality with the physical world. The project uses a dedicated environment that serves as a physical framework that the user can explore while interacting with a virtual overlay as seen through a VR headset. WILD is initially aiming its creation at the marketing and visitor attraction markets. 
Merging real and virtual environments is a popular concept at the moment, with several companies such as Surreal Vision - a company recently acquired by Oculus Rift – and VOID (Vision Of Infinite Dimensions) developing similar projects. US-firm Wild’s prototype has been built in its offices in Oregon and allows a user to open a door into a world where they can speed up and slow down traffic outside the office’s virtual window and change the weather with the flick of a 'real' switch. The explorers can interact – or in some cases eat – things that exist in both the real and virtual world such as popcorn.  Wild’s prototype uses a Samsung Gear VR headset with integrated smartphone. Multiple sensors track the whereabouts of the user, and establishes their interaction with the items in the space. It is these interactions with real world objects that ‘grounds’ the experience for the user, developers believe, and ultimately makes it more believable. Wild describes itself as a firm that provides creative technology for branded environments and live events. Earlier in the year it launched an interactive game called CTRL ALT PDX which was installed on 750 square feet (or more than nine million pixels) of storefront windows in Wild’s hometown of Portland. Source: InAVate

Read More........→September 01, 2015

Scientists create ‘virtual Arctic’ to monitor impact of humans on frozen environment

The Digital Smart Arctic will simulate realistic processes taking place in the environment and predict any problems linked to mining and drilling for oil and gas. Picture: Sergey Anisimov

By The Siberian Times reporter: Hi-tech project would use computer models to predict climate change and help with safe production of oil and gas in Northern Russia. A hi-tech virtual Arctic is being created by Siberian scientists to predict climate change and monitor the impact of mining and oil production on the roof of the world. The frozen northern region is thought to be rich with natural resources, particularly oil and gas, and a number of countries including Russia plan exploiting untapped reserves. However, environmentalists have expressed concerns about the possible knock-on effect of industrialisation and pollution. But a new computer project being developed by experts at the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Science will help answer many of the questions. The Digital Smart Arctic will simulate realistic processes taking place in the environment and predict any problems linked to mining and drilling for oil and gas. It will also be able to model complex safety systems, analyse pollution sources and their impact, study volcanic activity in the area and look at the climate of the Arctic basin. Being designed at the RAS Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics (ICM&MG), it will be able to make predictions decades in advance. A presentation on the project was given to scientists in Moscow by Sergey Kabanikhin, the deputy head of the ICM&MG.

The information will be incorporated into models mimicking processes in the Arctic to monitor and predict any changes in the environment. Pictures: Sergey Anisimov, Arctica Info

While it will have many uses, including being able to monitor global weather patterns and natural disasters, it will be of particular interest in the safe development of oil and gas. The system will be able to incorporate data from a number of satellites and land stations across Europe, Siberia and the Russian Far East. That information will then be incorporated into models mimicking processes in the Arctic to monitor and predict any changes in the environment. Data on what is happening in Northern Russia will be given special emphasis with patterns used to create both short-term and long-term economic planning, for agriculture, mining and the development of transport infrastructure. According to Kabanikhin it will be vital in mapping pollution in the Arctic once the excavation of oil and gas is under way, since there will be burning flare stacks in place. The experts would be able to look at the impact of petrocarbohydrate pollution in the same way that analysis has taken place for polyaerosol nickel compounds in Norilsk. The exploration of the Arctic for oil and gas reserves is considered more technically challenging than in any environment so far as a result of the cold and ice. In 2008, a US Geological Survey found that areas north of the Arctic Circle have about 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil. Russia is eager to develop the frozen region with a new oil field discovered in October christened 'Pobeda', meaning victory. Meanwhile scientists believe there is a need to establish a Situational Analysis Centre for the Arctic, based on the Siberian supercomputer centre of the RAS and the data centre of Novosibirsk State University.Source: Article

Read More........→July 04, 2015