News
Petition · Open Source Poly · Change.org
Back in issue 4 of Other Realities we highlighted Tilt Brush by Google and how it's been great for the VR community and budding creatives. Unfortunately it has been announced that the service will be shut down next year. To save the community an artist has started a petition to ask Google to open source as much of the code and community management as possible so another organization can take it over. If you care about supporting creative VR please consider signing and sharing the petition linked from this post.
Qwake Technologies Funded To Fight Fires With AR Tech
When tech is called “literally change the game for us” by the Boston Fire Department and the Federal government provides financing to accelerate development that being dubbed the future of firefighting is not an exaggeration. Using Augmented Reality visors and 5G communication a dangerous situation becomes safer by reducing the time for search and rescue and for finding hotspots in a building.
VRChat Plus — VRChat
Back in Issue 3 of Other Realities we highlighted a milestone for VRChat hitting 24,000 concurrent users being significant for VR, but this month we have also seen the release of a subscription model to help support the team and for future development. This is the early supporter phase, and we're not sure what will change later, but if you're into early adoption and want to support VRChat this month to lock in your perks.
Gaming
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 free VR update has a release date, and it's soon
Microsoft Flight Simulator was always an experience I meant to try, but now with their adding VR to it for the first time this week for free it has moved up on my list of games to try. Being able to fly one of the best flight simulators from a first person perspective sounds like a great addition, but also not trying to hop on the popularity of VR. Looking forward to the update when it comes out this week.
Gear
Welcome To Bhaptics
Haptic vests take input form an experience and translates it into the motors and fabrics in a wearable vest to help deeper immerse a user by matching physical sensations (mostly vibration) to what they are seeing. bHaptics has been working on some great units and are helping bring the price down, even though they're still pretty pricey.
People To Watch
LAVAMACHINE ~ VR Studio
Lava Machine is a studio making award winning and dynamic 360° images and videos viewable on TiltBrush, Quill, and other platforms. Aside from looking like they're having way too much fun in their live events, they are a great example of how a small group of talented and enthusiastic individuals can use tech to create content and experiences no other medium is capable.
Inspiration
Everyday Experiments
A partnership between Space10 and Ikea, this website shares explorations between how we configure our physical spaces and some solutions for how to get beyond the traditional. Delving into how we think of space, sound, and choice the experiments shown on the website will surely become the inspiration for products emerging in the next year. The one that we link to is just a brilliant way to solve how we design or pick shelving in our living space, but be sure to take a look at the other experiments as well.
Development
360° Background Render Stock - Backlot 360°
This clever stock imagery company allows you to navigate 3D rendered environments and output custom viewing angles and lighting. This is a great way to speed up certain types of production since it uses a 360° image to replace what you would normally use stock video footage in a project. I can see this becoming an indispensable tool for content creators looking to add to the production value of their projects.
Commentary
With December being the prime season for holiday shopping I've chosen not to highlight sales or best of lists since that content can be found on many, many other channels and blogs. Besides, just because the year is ending doesn't mean that there is nothing else happening that isn't more interesting than shopping.
Next issue will be the last for the year and will be very gear focused, as I feel there are a lot of interesting headsets and accessories that didn't get the attention this year. Even though this is the first year of the newsletter I think I'd like to make it a tradition. We'll see how it goes.
Thank you to everyone who's subscribed and continued to read and engage with the links. As always, if you want to recommend anything to us tweet your links. Our directory of companies, experiences, gear, and more is ever expanding do visit our directory to find resources that also may not be getting any attention.
We'll see you in the next issue.
Other RealitiesTop 10 TV Shows that Feature Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality has been in pop culture before there was color TV, but this article takes some of the top and more influential appearances in television (and streaming since TV isn't how we watch everything these days) and highlights them. The main TV reference I had is actually number one on the list, which made me happy to see.
medium.com