Virtual Reality
Latest significant advancements in virtual reality. Reporting on the far-reaching impacts of improvements in VR on society and humanity.
The Tour de France Is Going Virtual, and It Starts This Weekend
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way we do things, big-time. The events, places, and activities we were used to enjoying have been canceled, closed, or in some cases, permanently shut down. Virtual versions...
Virtual Reality Has Been Boosted by Coronavirus—Here’s How to Avoid It Leading Us to Dystopia
American R&B star John Legend is doing a major live show on Thursday June 25 to promote his new album, Bigger Love. But can he expect much of a crowd, given that many pandemic...
Epic Games’ Insane Video Game Graphics Demo Explained in Simple Terms
Most of the words that follow aren’t necessary to see why the reveal of Unreal Engine 5, an Epic Games video game graphics engine set for release in 2021, blew up the internet last...
The World’s Biggest Social Virtual Reality Gathering Is Happening Right Now
It’s one of the most under-appreciated science fiction films of the past decade, but Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (also the most expensive independent film ever made) subtly depicts...
Why Interest in Virtual Worlds for Online Collaboration Is Spiking
By now, it’s well known that usage of video-conferencing software like Zoom has exploded as a result of the Covid-19 shutdown. What is less known is that interest in avatar-based virtual worlds and business-specific...
Mojo Vision’s Augmented Reality Contact Lenses Kick off a Race to AR on Your Eye
The digital world has been creeping closer to your face. Was a time when a laptop was about as personal as you got with a computer. Then came smartphones, and a few years later,...
Synthetic ‘Skin’ Is Bringing a Sense of Touch to Virtual Reality
Virtual reality’s ability to create artificial worlds has come a long way in recent years. Now new technology could make those worlds even more realistic by simulating one of the most crucial ways in...
Avatar Love? New ‘Black Mirror’ Episode Explores How VR Could Impact Relationships
This week, the widely-anticipated fifth season of the dystopian series Black Mirror was released on Netflix. The storylines this season are less focused on far-out scenarios and increasingly aligned with current issues. With only...
5 Breakthroughs Coming Soon in Augmented and Virtual Reality
Convergence is accelerating disruption… everywhere! Exponential technologies are colliding into each other, reinventing products, services, and industries.
In this third installment of my Convergence Catalyzer series, I’ll be synthesizing key insights from my annual entrepreneurs’...
How Tech Will Let You Learn Anything, Anytime, at Any Age
Today, over 77 percent of Americans own a smartphone with access to the world’s information and near-limitless learning resources.
Yet nearly 36 million adults in the US are constrained by low literacy skills, excluding them from...
Marshmello’s Fortnite Performance Hints at the Mindblowing Potential for Huge Shared Virtual Events
An interesting moment at the intersection of digital entertainment, virtual reality, music, and gaming took place this past weekend. It may be remembered as an iconic achievement in the use of online virtual worlds...
The Rise of a New Generation of AI Avatars
I recently discovered it’s possible for someone in their 20s to feel old—just mention Microsoft’s Clippy to anyone born after the late 90s. Weirdly, there is an entire generation of people who never experienced...
How AR and VR Will Shape the Future of Work and Play
How we work and play is about to transform.
After a prolonged technology “winter”—or what I like to call the ‘deceptive growth’ phase of any exponential technology—the hardware and software that power virtual (VR) and...
How the Spatial Web Will Transform Every Element of Our Careers
What is the future of work? Is our future one of ‘technological socialism’ (where technology is taking care of our needs)? Or is our future workplace completely virtualized, whereby we hang out at home...
How One Researcher Is Using VR to Help Our Eyes Adapt to Seeing in Space
It’s not like moon-walking astronauts don’t already have plenty of hazards to deal with. There’s less gravity, extreme temperatures, radiation—and the whole place is aggressively dusty. If that weren’t enough, it also turns out...
How Virtual Reality Can Transform Who You Are
In virtual reality, as far as our brains are concerned, it’s quite possible to become an entirely different person.
At VR Days Europe, an annual gathering of augmented and virtual reality professionals, Mel Slater, professor...
Tech Interfaces Need to Get Better. Extended Reality Can Help
Throughout history, we have used tools—hammers, canes, paintbrushes—as natural extensions of our bodies. These tools seem to disappear into our hands. But today’s electronic devices are unlike the simple tools of the past; they’re...
The Many Ways Virtual Reality Promises to Improve How We Care for Our Health
Virtual reality has become a booming business. The technology has already proven its worth in real estate and banking. In healthcare, VR also shows big promise. According to Statista, the virtual reality healthcare market...
Inside a $1 Billion Real Estate Company Operating Entirely in VR
Born during the aftermath of the financial meltdown a decade ago, a publicly-traded real estate brokerage called eXp Realty is establishing itself as one of the brightest rising companies in its industry—and one of...
VR Fireside Chat: Inside a Virtual World Full of Surprises
Two weeks ago, I gave my first virtual reality presentation—a virtual fireside chat with my friend Philip Rosedale, the CEO of High Fidelity and creator of Second Life.
At the time, in conjunction with the...
Delivering VR in Perfect Focus With Nanostructure Meta-lenses
If wearing a virtual reality or augmented reality headset is ever to become commonplace, hardware manufacturers will need to figure out how to make the devices small and lightweight while ensuring their images are...
How Big Is the Gap Between ‘Ready Player One’ and Current VR Tech?
Steven Spielberg's blockbuster Ready Player One depicts a future where VR technology can transport people into a completely realistic alternate universe. But how close is real-life tech to that vision?
Much of the coverage of...
The World Needs More Scientists: How We Can Train Millions in Virtual Labs
California wild fires, melting arctic ice caps, and record setting temperatures suggest our climate is dramatically changing with potentially catastrophic outcomes for our species. Add to that an increase in the threat of infectious...
The 7 Hub Stories That Got the Most Social Media Love This Year
I bet you think 2017 was a hot mess, a relentless series of tragedies and catastrophes that exposed humanity for what little it's worth. Let us re-instill in you a sense of optimism with...
Reality 2.0: A Way to Upgrade Your Perception of Reality
Imagine enhancing your perception of the environment around you, other people nearby, and even yourself. Imagine reliving past experiences as if they are happening right now. Imagine a crumbling border between physical and virtual...
The Power to Give Anyone, Anywhere the Skills They Need Is Within Reach
On a recent Friday afternoon, I was summoned to the top floor of a technology accelerator in San Francisco’s Soma neighborhood to meet Tom Impallomeni, a serial entrepreneur who promised to teach me to...
This Self-Driving AI Is Learning to Drive Almost Entirely in a Virtual World
I don’t have to open the doors of AImotive’s white 2015 Prius to see that it’s not your average car. This particular Prius has been christened El Capitan, the name written below the rear...
Film ‘Unrest’ Is an Intimate Look Into Life With a ‘Disease Medicine Forgot’
In an interview at Exponential Medicine in San Diego, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Brea shared her difficult yet powerful journey with chronic fatigue syndrome.
Brea was a healthy PhD student at Harvard University, about to marry the...
Reactive Content Will Get to Know You Intimately—Then Tell You the Perfect Story
The best storytellers react to their audience. They look for smiles, signs of awe, or boredom; they simultaneously and skillfully read both the story and their sitters. Kevin Brooks, a seasoned storyteller working for...
Virtual Reality Is Reshaping Medical Training and Treatment
Arthur C. Clarke, a British science fiction writer, is well known for once writing, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Consumer virtual reality is going through a rough patch as high expectations and...
Future Lighthouse Sketches Out the New Language of Immersive Storytelling
In an interview with Pascal Finette at SU’s Global Summit in San Francisco, Nicolás Alcalá dived into the future of immersive filmmaking and storytelling. Alcalá is CEO and founder of Future Lighthouse, a virtual reality studio based in Los Angeles and...
VR Promises a Surprising Tech Alternative to Painkillers in Deadly Opioid Crisis
As the United States teeters on the brink of a national state of emergency, more than 100 Americans now die every day due to opioid overdose. Ted Jones, a clinical psychologist with Pain Consultants...
New Virtual World Sansar Is Ready to Pick Up Where Second Life Left Off
On its 14th birthday, a reflection on Linden Lab’s groundbreaking Second Life, and how their next project Sansar hopes to go even further.
In May 2006, Bloomberg’s Businessweek ran a cover story detailing the business...
Watch: Ray Kurzweil Predicts When We’ll Be Able to Program Matter
Ray Kurzweil is an inventor, thinker, and futurist famous for forecasting the pace of technology and predicting the world of tomorrow.
In this video, Kurzweil predicts when he thinks we’ll get programmable matter—or the...
How to Make VR Experiences That Actually Matter
It seems like everyone is making a VR app these days. From recording concerts in VR to designing your next kitchen, brands and individual developers around the world are expending incredible amounts of effort...
Cybersecurity Pros Will Soon Patrol Computer Networks Like Agents in ‘The Matrix’
Security analysts could soon become the first employees asked to show up to work inside virtual reality.
Thanks to a new virtual reality tool built by the Colorado-based startup ProtectWise, cybersecurity professionals may soon be...
These 5 Big Tech Trends Are Changing the Way We Learn
Our current education system is not fit for purpose. Student mental health is at an all-time low, and student debt is at an all-time high. Dominated by uninspiring curricula and an over-emphasis on short-term...
Is ‘Strange Beasts’ a Preview of the Sad (Augmented) Reality Ahead of Us?
Strange Beasts is a British short film reminiscent of the dystopian Netflix drama Black Mirror—and it packs an equally strong punch in about a fifth of the time.
The film starts out with a game...
The Power of VR as an ‘Empathy Machine’ and Office Holodeck
Virtual reality has a long history in science fiction. From the Lawnmower Man to the Matrix, the idea of VR has inspired artists and gamers alike. But it’s only very recently that the technology...
You Can Ban a Person, But What About Their Hologram?
If you think augmented reality is only fun and games, consider that we’ve already witnessed the first known police action taken against hologram technology. During the summer of 2015, a performance by controversial gangster-rapper,...
How Google Is Revealing Unmapped Areas of the World in Virtual Reality
Technology companies left and right are developing new gadgets to advance virtual reality as an immersive entertainment and gaming platform. Others however, like VR producer Chris Milk, have hopes that the technology’s potential will...
Why the Potential of Augmented Reality Is Greater Than You Think
Never before have businesses been able to build billion-dollar valuations in so little time. Never before have incumbent enterprises been able to go out of business so quickly. Disruption is now commonplace, and augmented...
Here’s How to Make the Best of Virtual Reality—and Avoid the Worst
“I can’t wait to see the art that people make with this.”
Those were the first words from my friend Ryan after spending ten minutes in virtual reality. He’d just tried Tilt Brush, an incredible...
Robot Cars Can Teach Themselves How to Drive in Virtual Worlds
Over the holidays, I went for a drive with a Tesla. With, not in, because the car was doing the driving.
Hearing about autonomous vehicles is one thing; experiencing it was something entirely different. When...
Art in the Age of AI: How Tech Is Redefining Our Creativity
Technology has long been considered a resource-liberating mechanism, granting us better access to resources like information, food and energy. Yet what is often overlooked is the revolutionary impact technology can have on our ability...
Get Ready to Love Math With This Sweet VR Calculator
“Our universe isn’t just described by math, but it is math in the sense that we’re all parts of a giant mathematical object.” – Max Tegmark
I knew virtual reality was going to make mathematical education...
Watch a 91-Year-Old War Vet Revisit the Town He Helped Liberate in VR
What if you could travel around the world with the click of a button, the only requirement being a headset and internet connection? Virtual reality is already making this possible for those who seek...
Is Virtual Reality the Surprising Solution to the Fermi Paradox?
“If the transcension hypothesis is correct, inner space, not outer space, is the final frontier for universal intelligence. Our destiny is density.”
–John Smart
Only decades into our “age of cosmology” — the moment when we...
Think Tech Is Blurring Fact and Fantasy? Just Wait
Are you questioning the validity of news sources and headlines lately?
You’re not alone.
As the end of 2016 is upon us, media's role in society has never been shakier. From social media bubbles to...
Can Virtual Reality Sidestep the Paradox of Time Travel?
Most physicists agree that time travel into the past is impossible, but what if virtual reality (VR) could provide a workaround?
Doron Friedman is the director of the Advanced Virtuality Lab (AVL) at the Interdisciplinary...