I rarely turn down the chance to try something new or strange. Reptile expo with live demos? Sounds great. Monster truck rally? Yea, why the hell not. Vape show in town? Sure, I’ll check it out. Indoor virtual reality skydiving? I AM THERE. Who cares that “indoor virtual reality skydiving” as a concept doesn’t make a…
Movies like Ready Player One and The Matrix have done it, but what about TV? Well, Netflix is about to launch a new series called Kiss Me First, and it’s also partially set in a fully functional virtual world.
If you’ve ever wanted to look like a jackass in public and maybe take home a case of conjunctivitis for the memories, well, Dave and Buster’s has a deal for you.
As many a crime documentary has made clear, eyewitness testimony is often much less accurate than you might think. But a new study published recently in Frontiers in Psychology suggests there could be a relatively simple way to improve witness recollections: Have a virtual avatar do the interviewing instead of a cop.
I’m standing in the middle of my living room, but my view is of the deck of a ship. I can hear my actual dog as he pants on the sofa I pushed against my wall so I could spin my head to explore my virtual surroundings. He’s obscured by the Oculus Go strapped to my face. I take a step forward in my living room, and sigh…
Virtual reality headsets today use your eyes and ears to make simulated experiences seem more real, but what about your other senses? Researchers at Stanford University have come up with a way for your hands and fingers to feel virtual objects with a unique robot that looks like an animated version of those Pin Art…
Are you cool with hugs? What about the most all-encompassing hug you’ve ever had? That just about sums up how Disney Research’s new force feedback jacket works. Using inflatable airbags, it can simulate physical experiences when you’re lost in VR, like getting hit by a snowball, or turning into a muscular beefcake in…
In 2018, nearly everything is in place for a descent into a Ready Player One-style dystopia. The way things are going, we should be destitute and beaten down by climate change long before the 2040s. All we’re missing, for now, is the technology. People are already more than happy to spend huge percentages of their…
Mark Zuckerberg is on the hot seat today. The billionaire CEO of Facebook will testify on Capitol Hill about the privacy scandals that have rocked his company, including the theft of data from over 87 million Facebook users by the political research firm Cambridge Analytica.
Leap Motion, the company behind the weird gesture-tracking controller for PC and VR, is showing off some pretty interesting tech in the form of an AR headset reference design. Whether or not you’ll be able to get your hands on the concept, which incorporates the company’s gesture control hardware, is another story.…
When the Vive and the Oculus Rift came out in the spring of 2016, they did something incredible: they made VR actually worth caring about. Previously, the closest thing people had come to virtual reality were weird sci-fi movies or half-baked products like the Virtual Boy. Yet even now, nearly two years later to the…
After months of teasing (including some great demos at CES), HTC’s Vive successor, the HTC Vive Pro, is finally on sale. It’ll cost $800 for the headset alone and ship beginning April 5th. While the upgraded dual-OLED displays and integrated headphones capable of 3D spatial audio are cool, the high-end Vive Pro won’t…
Ready Player One is all about people using a virtual world called the OASIS to make their dreams come true. While virtual reality has only been a thing—at least in name—since the 1980s, people have been dreaming of life in fictional worlds for thousands of years. In a new episode of “That Looks Familiar,” io9's Beth…
What Microsoft Research lacks in cinematography skills, it’s making up for with super-fun solutions to virtual reality’s biggest problem: the lack of real-world feedback. In a blog post published late last week, Microsoft detailed four different experimental methods for delivering haptic feedback, including a cane…
Somedays you’re driving around Los Angeles and suddenly find yourself on the Shattered Plains of Roshar, using stormlight to fight off Parshendi warriors.
Tonight, President Trump will deliver his first State of the Union speech to the American people at 9pm Eastern (6pm Pacific, 5am Moscow time). And if you don’t have TV, there are plenty of ways to watch on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. You can even watch in VR.
When the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive came out in 2016, we entered a new era of virtual reality. No longer would people think of half-assed fever dreams like Lawnmower Man, or ambitious but profound failures like Nintendo’s Virtual Boy anytime VR gets mentioned. Even so, modern VR still hasn’t caught on. It’s awkward,…
Every major VR player has made the same promise. A VR headset that would be completely wireless. One that would let you go anywhere without tripping over cords or being tethered to a computer/phone/PS4. Google, which has spent more than a year quietly improving its VR platform, Daydream, is now the first company to…
Back in the 90s, companies tried making virtual reality a thing, most notably Nintendo, whose Virtual Boy was so distasteful that it caused people to abandon the entire category for the next 20 years. But then in 2016, headsets from Oculus and HTC/Vive showed that the VR experiences people had been writing about in…
The essence of virtual reality’s appeal is immersing yourself in a role you normally wouldn’t or couldn’t in real life. Close your eyes and suddenly you’re a viking or a detective dressed as a bat. But, in our somber reality, teachers across the country may soon find themselves forced into virtual roles they never…
