Teslasuit’s haptic bodysuit lets VR users experience full body immersion
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Virtual Reality headsets are all well and good but they only give users a visual experience, and haptic suits literally let you feel everything. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Following on from Disney’s haptic VR jacket, that let’s...
Virtual reality is helping scientists discover new drugs faster
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Discovering new drugs is a laborious and expensive process, but VR is helping make it significantly faster and cheaper. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Virtual Reality (VR), the same technology that’s revolutionising video games and cancer treatments by...
Amazon trained their delivery bot Scout in the virtual world so it could handle the real one
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Training AI software and robots in the virtual world will dramatically accelerate disruption and the world’s rate of change. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Amazon, who are already on their way to becoming a fully autonomous retailer, recently...
Disney’s latest VR jacket lets gamers “feel the force”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Virtual reality is good, but it’s not great yet – this tech lets gamers both experience and feel the game. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Virtual Reality (VR) worlds look great, but, unless you have something like touch...
New military virtual reality system lets operators control swarms of drones
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As drone swarms become more common we need new ways to control them. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Ever since drones became a thing the standard practice for piloting one has been one operator for each unmanned vehicle....
Amazing ray tracing mod pack makes Minecraft look stunning
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As AI tools become better it’s getting easier for us to turn even the simplest graphical designs into stunning hi def visions. If you were to make a list of all the graphically intense, amazing looking games in the world, Minecraft wouldn’t be on...
Nanoscale Metalenses put Virtual Reality in perfect focus, and eliminate headsets
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today’s VR headsets are still low resolution and big, this technology would reduce them to just millimeters thick and make UHD resolution the norm. If wearing a Augmented Reality (AR) glasses or Virtual Reality (VR) headsets is ever to become commonplace then hardware manufacturers...
Qualcomm releases its first WiGig chipsets to push WiFi to gigabit speeds
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The combination of Gigabit WiFi and 5G now mean it’s possible to ditch your traditional fiber based broadband provider, and cut another chord. Earlier this month, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced that the next generation of Wi-Fi devices will be called “Wi-Fi 6,” all but...
Facebook 3D photos sources depth information straight from your camera
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The cameras in our gadgets can do alot more than take photos, and with just a minor tweak we can use them to create living 3D photos. Leveraging the extra “depth” data found in some iPhone photographs, Facebook today announced the rollout of 3D Photos – images...
Creative AI’s have learnt how to create their own video games
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI is getting increasingly capable at creating quality synthetic content, and that includes books, scripts, and worlds. Today we have AI’s building other AI’s and fake news stories, and AI’s that write their own code, and doing a better job of it than the...
Nvidia unveiled a new AI engine that renders virtual world’s in real time
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Arguably the most complex part of creating VR content is coding and building the environments, Nvidia just bought those barriers crashing down. Nvidia have announced that they’ve introduced a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) Deep Learning model that “aims to catapult the graphics industry into the AI...
Virtual reality headsets tune into users brainwaves to train people faster
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As many people worry about the rise of AI and automation, and the effect they will have on jobs, new faster and smarter ways to educate and train our children and our workforces are emerging. Before the Rio 2016 Olympic Games members of the...
Death isn’t forever, companies build digital avatars so people can “live on after death”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Digital Avatars will mean that physical human death is simply a doorway into a new digital reality where our descendants interact with our Avatars instead of the real, physical us. Over the past couple of years, asides from the giant strides we’ve seen in...
New glasses will beam augmented and virtual reality directly into your eyes
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Augmented Reality glasses and Virtual Reality headsets use complex computers and optics to create their effects, researchers believe they can eliminate these overheads by beaming the images directly into your eyes. Researchers have proposed a new way to build Augmented Reality (AR) smart glasses...
BAE is developing a “wearable” cockpit for fighter jets
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Aircraft cockpits haven’t changed much in decades, and digitising them opens up a host of new opportunities. BAE Systems has announced that it’s looking to make the fighter jet cockpit of tomorrow a much simpler place for pilots by replacing conventional instruments and controls...
Windows are the perfect lens-less cameras for AI and VR headsets
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Researchers have re-thought cameras from the point of view of today’s AI’s, and what they’ve created is as innovative as it is revolutionary. Cameras used to be their own devices with lenses and film and trips to the drug store to get the pictures...
Virtual reality without the headset, US startup debuts the “Looking Glass”
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF VR headsets create an isolating experience, so a US startup has found a way to create VR worlds without them. Many people have dreamt about being able to use free form holograms, like the ones in Star Wars, to communicate with their friends and...
Roborace’s fully autonomous race car prepares to pound the track at FoS
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In the future our sports events could be dominated by robot and drone warriors battling it out for supremacy, and at some point this could present companies with a new market opportunity. Later this week, the world’s first autonomous race car company Roborace will make history...
Plexus VR gloves give users fine grained control of their VR environments
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The best technology is invisible and frictionless to use, and virtual reality still has a way to go before the experience is simple and seamless, but these gloves could help bring more users into the sector. Bringing a user’s hands into a Virtual Reality...
CGI “Virtual influencers” on Instagram battle it out in public, snag real ad cash
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today we are used to the majority of our influencers, and contacts, being human, but as we progress into the future more of the encounters we have will be with virtual entities, in the form of avatars, bots and virtual vloggers like these. It...
