[Another innovative use of VR and presence; this is from The Australian, where you can see more images and watch Samsung’s 6:18 minute video (also on YouTube); the press release is available from PR Newswire; for a somewhat less enthusiastic take, see coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald. –Matthew ]
Father watches son’s birth on Galaxy VR headset from 4000km away
Virtually visiting relatives in hospital may soon be possible following the demonstration of a Perth man witnessing his son’s birth from afar in Chinchilla on a VR headset.
March 16, 2015
Chris Griffith, Senior Technology Journalist, Sydney
Wife Alison Larke gave birth to their third child Steele in suburban Perth while over in Chinchilla 300km west of Brisbane and 4000km away, husband Jace Larke watched the event using a virtual reality headset that recreated the experience of being in his wife’s hospital room.
The Larkes normally would have to overcome some insurmountable communication and technical issues. Hospitals for one are notoriously bad in terms of patient internet connectivity and even mobile communications — often you can’t use your phone at all in them for fear of interfering with equipment.
But they had Samsung onside as well as Sydney-based virtual reality firm Rapid VR who decked out the hospital delivery room with a VR camera stationed where Mr Larke would have sat in the room, and positioned at head height. A cinematographer shot a regular video of the event.
A Rapid VR spokeswoman said the film crew used a 4G Wi-Fi link to stream live a total 360-degree 3D reconstruction of the room complete with Alison across the ‘net. Broadband solutions firm BigAir installed a satellite dish on the top of the hospital so they could obtain a decent upload speed.
In Chinchilla meanwhile Jace Larke, a fly-in-fly-out electrician in the gas industry, donned a Samsung Gear VR headset and for six hours, including during labour, was able to witness a reality-like experience of being in the room with his wife. He used a Telstra 4G Wi-Fi connection for the download.
Mr Larke presumably had been left between a rock and a hard place — either miss out on a contract and attend his wife’s birth in Perth, or take the job and miss the birth of his son. The contract commitment had been in place since 7 months into the pregnancy. This setup offered him some kind of compromise.
The private streaming event — and birth — took place on February 20.
Rapid VR said the firm had put out a worldwide call for suitable people to take part in the VR project and those applying came from as far afield as New York. Finding a suitable couple like the Larkes in Perth had been like finding “a needle in a haystack”, the spokeswoman said.
The couple were members of a fly-in, fly-out community group in Perth.
Samsung chief marketing officer Arno Lenier said the company wanted to demonstrate the potential of VR and how the technology could address real challenges people faced every day.
“Through Alison and Jason’s story, we’re excited to be able to demonstrate how technology can help tackle the tyranny of distance and bring our loved ones closer.”
For everyday people, getting access to VR cameras, a satellite dish, and having the requisite internet bandwidth to stream an event is sometime off, even though the Galaxy VR headset itself already is in market.
But in future, streaming virtual reality live is likely to be big business.
For example, sports fans could pay to sit in a room with VR viewers and witness a major international event happening thousands of kilometres away. Rock concerts could be streamed across the globe in the same manner.
Rapid VR said it was currently creating a VR movie of a rock concert being held at the SXSW techno-entertainment event in the US.