[From Road to VR, where the story includes more pictures and a 5:50 minute video] Visionary VR is Reinventing Filmmaking’s Most Fundamental Concept to Tell Stories in Virtual Reality January 5, 2015 by Ben Lang Several of the founders of the VRLA Meetup are today launching Visionary VR, a technology and content development studio which is reinventing the language of filmmaking for effective storytelling in virtual reality. The frame. It’s a simple, but incredibly powerful concept within the world of filmmaking, one that has endured for film’s history of more than 100 years. The frame is the edge of the screen,…

[From The Creators Project blog, where the post includes more images] Giant Billboards Paint a Discordant Portrait of Mongolian Desertification By Emerson Rosenthal — Jan 13 2015 A large-scale museum diorama popped up in the Mongolian plains, challenging the unending ebb and flow of history by making apparent the borders between the actual and the ideal. Created by Paris-based Korean photographer Daesung Lee, the giant billboard that anchors his Futuristic archaeology project is adorned with images of desertification in Mongolia—that is, the places where, due to environmental and human factors, the drying landscape is threatening centuries-old traditions. “Environmental changes directly…

[From Slashgear, where the story includes more pictures and a 2:48 minute video] Oculus Rift Crescent Bay hands-on with 3D Audio Chris Burns Jan 12, 2015 We entered the room Oculus VR had prepared for us not knowing exactly what we were in for. Not the Samsung Gear VR – surely not – that’s already nearly a consumer product. Instead, Oculus had a padded room ready for us. Not because the SlashGear team is ready for straight jackets, but because this demonstration required that we be in as quiet an environment as possible. This demonstration – of the newest Oculus…

[From Kill Screen, where the story includes more images and a video] Sci-fi film corridors re-purposed as a videogame maze by Chris Priestman January 05, 2015 Corridors are a significant architectural space in a lot of science fiction films. Perhaps you haven’t considered this before given the brevity of their screen time. And that’s largely due to the corridor’s purpose as an interstitial space that connects rooms, meaning they are usually walked or ran through, and not dwelled upon. One of the first lessons in filmmaking is to cut out any unnecessary footage when editing, and the example used is…

[From The Creators Project blog, where the post includes more images and a 0:58 minute video] Find Missing Masterpieces Inside the Museum of Stolen Art By Becky Chung — Jan 7 2015 You’re strolling through a gallery space and out of one corner of your eye, you spot a sculpture of a pastoral landscape painting. In the next room stands an abstract bronze sculpture. “For looted art go to your right, for art theft go to your left,” says an invisible woman who guides you through the exhibit. This is not an ordinary museum: it’s the home of artworks whose…

[From Tom’s Hardware, where the story includes more images and a 4:05 minute video] Feels Real: Hands And Eyes On HP’s Zvr Virtual Reality Display By Seth Colaner January 8, 2015 We’ve seen enough “new and exciting” tech over the years to know that PR and marketing hype has little to do with how good or bad a product turns out to be (especially when the press photos look abnormally amazing). As a result, we’re typically skeptical of any new products that look too good to be true on paper, and when we caught wind of HP’s Zvr “virtual reality”…

[From Entrepreneur; for more information see “Transforming the UI—Designing Tomorrow’s Interface Today (Part 2)” on Intel’s Developer Zone website] CES 2015 This App Will Make Your Next Virtual Meeting Awesome Emily Price, Technology Writer January 05, 2015 LAS VEGAS — One new video conferencing app is looking to change how you have virtual meetings. Called Personify, the computer and mobile app transforms your average run-of-the-mill video call into an immersive 3-D experience that feels more like an in-person meeting than a conversation with your computer screen.…

[From Road to VR, where the story includes a 1:33 minute video] NailCanvasVR Lets You ‘Virtually’ Experiment With Nail Polish Designs January 3, 2015 by Scott Hayden Have a hard time getting past the character selection screen of video games because you’re too busy picking out the perfect clothes and styling your hair just right? If so, there’s some fashion-oriented VR applications popping up that might be right down your alley, namely Voxcell Design’s NailCanvasVR, a tech demo that uses the Leap Motion hand-tracking controller, letting you virtually change the color and design of your nails without all of that…

[From Technology Tell, where the story includes three different images] Hands on @ CES 2015: 3D Sound Labs Neoh by Aaron Kraus on January 5, 2015 3D sound is a pretty catchy buzzword, but how do you actually recreate the three dimensionality of sound like we hear in every day life? 3D Sound Labs’ newly-announced Neoh headphones provide the closest thing to real life sound I’ve ever heard by using a very simple bit of tech: the accelerometer.…

[From Gizmodo, where the story includes other pictures and a 1:59 minute video; the Runtastic press release is available from PR Newswire] Welcome to the Era of Virtual Reality Workout Programs Brent Rose 12/15/14 What’s better than doing your workout routine in your crappy, dank apartment? Oh, I dunno, how about doing your workout routine in a villa on the beach? Or on top of a beautiful hillside? Or what the hell why not, in the middle of a black hole? Well, that day is coming, and Runastic of Oculus VR is a sneak peek. Built as a proof on…

Warm wishes for a very healthy, happy, safe and productive new year to everyone in the ISPR/Presence community – I’m looking forward with you to lots of exciting and thought-provoking (tele)presence developments in 2015! –Matthew Lombard (managing editor, ISPR Presence News) [From Scientific American] , where the story includes a different image]   Virtual Reality Comes to the Web—Maybe for Real This Time Backed by Google and Mozilla, VR-enabled browsers and gear could soon immerse Web users in 3-D worlds December 29, 2014 |By Susan Kuchinskas Get ready to take the stage with Paul McCartney. If that’s not your thing,…

[From New Scientist] [Image: Who are you looking at? (Image: Yves Gellie/Picture Tank)] Will remote-controlled robots clean you out of a job? “Digital immigrants” in other countries could soon guide robots around your house. Some find that creepy – and that could be just the start of the trouble 04 December 2014 Magazine issue 2998 The death of distance. That was the great promise of the internet in its early days: by making cheap, immediate communication possible around the world, it would eliminate geographical constraints on relationships, media and commerce. Twenty-odd years later, much of that promise has come to…