Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality News & Discussions

weatheriscool
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Re: Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality News & Discussions

Post by weatheriscool »

WeTac: A small, soft and ultrathin wireless electrotactile system
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-11-wet ... eless.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets are becoming increasingly advanced, enabling increasingly engaging and immersive digital experiences. To make VR and AR experiences even more realistic, engineers have been trying to create better systems that produce tactile and haptic feedback matching virtual content.

Researchers at University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) and other institutes in China have recently created WeTac, a miniaturized, soft and ultrathin wireless electrotactile system that produces tactile sensations on a user's skin. This system, introduced in Nature Machine Intelligence, works by delivering electrical current through a user's hand.

"As the tactile sensitivity among different individuals and different parts of the hand within a person varies widely, a universal method to encode tactile information into faithful feedback in hands according to sensitivity features is urgently needed," Kuanming Yao and his colleagues wrote in their paper. "In addition, existing haptic interfaces worn on the hand are usually bulky, rigid and tethered by cables, which is a hurdle for accurately and naturally providing haptic feedback."

WeTac consists of a series of electrodes, which are placed over a user's palm, and miniaturized soft electronic components that act as the device's control panel. When worn by users, the device can produce detailed and programmable spatio-temporal haptic feedback patterns, with 32 electrotactile simulation pixels on the side of the palm and high spatial resolution of 0.279 pixels per cm2 in the densest region.

"WeTac delivers current through the hand to induce tactile sensations as the skin-integrated haptic interface," the researchers wrote in their paper. "With a relatively high pixel density over the whole hand area, the WeTac can provide tactile stimulation and measure the sensation thresholds of users in a flexible way."

The device create by Yao and his colleagues has notable advantages over other electrotactile devices developed in the past. Most notably, it covers a wider surface of a user's hand (i.e., the whole hand), rather than focusing on one or more fingertips.
Tadasuke
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Re: Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality News & Discussions

Post by Tadasuke »

In 2012 I wrote many pages on how we could gradually create a living VR fantasy world, based on a very optimistic and apparently unrealistic assumption that performance [per watt per dollar] will be on average doubling every year. It's 2022 and we know how things are. I deleted the document, because it's practically useless.

The whole 2015-2016 hype around VR was just that - hype. Things are progressing slowly, VR and AR are being adapted slower than smartphones. Optimistic takes on the future of VR or AR are not materializing. There are no breakthroughs in anything. It's just a slow, gradual improvement. As seen on the previous page, number of Steam VR users is rising - slowly, linearly.

I expect things to continue like that. No stagnation, but change won't be quick either. Like +10-15% faster CPUs and +20-25% faster GPUs every year [at constant price and power consumption]. Slow decreases in the prices of screens, tracking devices, omnidirectional treadmills and haptic gloves. Which will all result in more users and better experience overall. :|
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
Nanotechandmorefuture
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Re: Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality News & Discussions

Post by Nanotechandmorefuture »

Yuli Ban wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:38 pm
Speaking at Università Degli Studi di Napoli Federico II in Naples, Italy, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that not too long from today, people will wonder how they led a life without augmented reality, stressing the "profound" impact it will have on the not so distant future.
And I agree. I can already imagine applications that would be addictive right now, long before we reach the true saturation point for AR that will inevitably result in a massive flourishing of capability. It might take a decade to realize, but realize we will the promise of augmented/mixed reality.
Indeed! Damn shame this tech didn't kick in just after the year 2000. It would have been so much fun with the wonders and all of high tech just barely taking off then. Between this, VR, and even PC games getting more realistic its going to be fun!
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Yuli Ban
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Re: Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality News & Discussions

Post by Yuli Ban »

Tadasuke wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 2:21 pm In 2012 I wrote many pages on how we could gradually create a living VR fantasy world, based on a very optimistic and apparently unrealistic assumption that performance [per watt per dollar] will be on average doubling every year. It's 2022 and we know how things are. I deleted the document, because it's practically useless.

The whole 2015-2016 hype around VR was just that - hype. Things are progressing slowly, VR and AR are being adapted slower than smartphones. Optimistic takes on the future of VR or AR are not materializing. There are no breakthroughs in anything. It's just a slow, gradual improvement. As seen on the previous page, number of Steam VR users is rising - slowly, linearly.

I expect things to continue like that. No stagnation, but change won't be quick either. Like +10-15% faster CPUs and +20-25% faster GPUs every year [at constant price and power consumption]. Slow decreases in the prices of screens, tracking devices, omnidirectional treadmills and haptic gloves. Which will all result in more users and better experience overall. :|
For me, what matters is what it'll look like when we get there, not how long we'll get there. At some point late last decade, I gave up my expectations for everything advancing all at once. I realized that AI was going to blaze forward ahead of the rest of the pack, while technologies like biotech, mixed reality, and robotics/cybernetics would lag behind. This because of the increasing efficiency and more parallel and distributed nature AI has been taking, which no longer requires raw increases in computing power to keep advancements towards generality going. Whereas raw computing power is the only way virtual reality and augmented reality are really going to get off the ground in any meaningful way.
AI will help the application of these technologies be vastly improved— voice recognition is now so good, so far beyond anything I thought possible this or next decade that I fully admit that voice recognition alone could make AR viable (when before I was sure that only brain computer interfaces could do it)— but not their raw function. What good is the smarts if you can't make a pair of AR glasses run smoothly in the first place?


That said, it's possible that demand will drive function. If there is sufficient market demand for augmented/mixed/virtual reality, perhaps there'll be incentive to push things further along than they would otherwise be, even if at a loss.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
Tadasuke
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Re: Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality News & Discussions

Post by Tadasuke »

Nanotechandmorefuture wrote: Sun Nov 13, 2022 6:41 pm Between this, VR, and even PC games getting more realistic its going to be fun!
I wouldn't equate being realistic with being fun. In fact, I would personally like to get far away from reality.

"Qualcomm today announced Snapdragon AR2, its “purpose-built headworn augmented reality platform.” Differentiating from the company’s existing Snapdragon XR2 chips, Qualcomm says the AR2 architecture is better suited for creating AR glasses with low power consumption and compact form factors."
https://www.roadtovr.com/qualcomm-snapd ... r-glasses/

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I think this a significant and important step forward in creating slim, stylish and comfortable AR glasses that could be very functional. :) The processing will be distributed over three places in the upcoming OEM AR glasses (next year?). AR2 distributed SoC will be more efficient than the XR2 SoC, because it's produced on the TSMC's 4nm process, compared to the 7nm TSMC's process in the XR2 (similar to the Snapdragon 865) from 2020. It will also feature Wi-Fi 7 up to 5.8 Gbps, which is new. I wonder when we will see XR2 Gen2. It could be around twice as fast in graphics processing than the current XR2.
Global economy doubles in product every 15-20 years. Computer performance at a constant price doubles nowadays every 4 years on average. Livestock-as-food will globally stop being a thing by ~2050 (precision fermentation and more). Human stupidity, pride and depravity are the biggest problems of our world.
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Yuli Ban
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Re: Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality News & Discussions

Post by Yuli Ban »

New artificial intelligence 'AI' powered smart glasses give deaf or hard-of-hearing people a heads-up display of live, real-time subtitles of their conversation, right in front of their eyes and let them rewind the chat, to read it again.

The technology, called XRAI Glass, uses off-the-shelf augmented reality 'AR' glasses that are tethered to a smartphone app with AI driven software that gives the user a new kind of personal assistant, one that remembers what you have forgotten.

"Imagine Alexa for your eyes," Mitchell Feldman, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer for XRAI.

The XRAI Glass technology was inspired by co-founder Dan Scarfe's 97-year-old grandfather's hearing loss and his subsequent difficulty joining in at family gatherings, although it now has potential uses for anyone.

"Where his grandfather became most alive, was watching television and using subtitles," Feldman said. "If he's enjoying subtitles, why can we not subtitle his life? And that was the genesis of how this product started."
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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caltrek
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Post by caltrek »

FTC Didn’t Stop Facebook-Instagram. How About Meta-Within?
by Barbara Orthutay
December 16, 2022

Introduction:
SAN JOSE, California (AP via Courthouse News) — Facebook parent Meta is sparring with government regulators in federal court over its pending acquisition of virtual reality fitness company Within Unlimited.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify as a witness at the trial in San Jose, California.

At issue is whether Meta's acquisition of the small company that makes a VR fitness app called Supernatural will hurt competition in the emerging virtual reality market. If the deal is allowed to go through, the Federal Trade Commission argues, it would violate antitrust laws and dampen innovation, hurting consumers who may face higher prices and fewer options outside of Meta-controlled platforms.

Meta, the FTC argued in court this week, scrapped its own plans to enter the nascent VR fitness market in the summer of 2021 when it decided to buy Within. Without the competitive threat of the tech giant's entry into the market, the agency asserts, innovation stalls, hurting end users.
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/ftc-did ... a-within/
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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funkervogt
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Re: Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality News & Discussions

Post by funkervogt »

Sales of VR headsets in the U.S. actually declined over the last year.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/28/metaver ... -2022.html
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Cyber_Rebel
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Post by Cyber_Rebel »

HTC's New Standalone VR Headset Is Like Nothing We've Ever Seen
The compact, depth-sensing, $1,099 headset arrives in February. Vive boss Dan O'Brien explains the strategy



CNET
VR has suddenly gotten more expensive. It seems like the worst possible timing, but HTC's newest high-end headset announced at CES, the Vive XR Elite, follows a similar playbook to Meta's recent Quest Pro, and possibly Apple's awaited device as well. It raises a question: Are we truly ready for the rise of the $1,000-plus VR rigs? The standalone Vive XR Elite is sleek and looks a lot more compact than the Quest Pro, and is trying to test the higher-end waters.

The $1,099 headset, available for preorder Thursday, is arriving by the end of February -- remarkably soon for a CES product. That means it'll be available alongside Sony's PlayStation 5-connected PSVR 2. While less expensive than the Quest Pro, the XR Elite's price costs about as much as buying a PS5 and a PSVR 2 together. It's far from an impulse purchase. But the hardware, which shrinks down the VR form to a pair of nearly glasses-like goggles and includes mixed-reality capabilities that could allow for AR apps, looks to solve how we'll be using the metaverse for more in our lives than just games, simulation and fitness.

No other company has really cracked this challenge either. But this Vive headset looks, more than ever, like it's a stepping stone to future AR glasses.
spryfusion
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