Finalists for LAVNCH [CODE]’s 3rd Annual Out of This World Experiences Awards (OoTWEA) have been chosen and it’s time for you, our readers, to choose the winners. Click here to vote for your three favorite installations. The three installations with the most votes will be crowned the winners with two installations being named runners-up. The winning […]

Usually, Disney is very secretive with the new tech it develops but, in this case, it wants brands to make it better, faster and start integrating with it in real-life VR environments. It’s called HoloTile. So, here’s the scenario … You develop a VR or XR game — one where the players wear either a […]

Daria Fedko worked for an information technology development company in the Ukraine. One day a client asked her, “What do you know about AR?” While she had plenty of IT background, Daria really didn’t know anything about AR. She looked it up on Google, researched articles, talked to people in the field and read until […]

Many of us (if not all of us) who work in AV-based technologies have a co-dependent relationship with the built environment. Suppose you’re unclear of what the built environment is, I’ll sum it up quickly. In that case, it references the designed architecture and sculpted living environment that surrounds us and has been built by […]

AVI-SPL and Igloo Vision, the shared virtual reality (VR) company, have partnered to create a new immersive workspace solution, which is on show at AVI-SPL stand #11-C155 during Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) in Amsterdam from 11-14 February 2020. UK-based Igloo Vision creates 360° immersive projection environments, such as domes, cylinders and cubes, which enable users […]

Barco has launched something called Canvas, a VR-based system that allows companies to conceptualize projects. The Canvas is applicable in all markets where 3D images are coupled with business objectives, with a focus on AEC (architecture, engineering and construction). Many VR users want to enhance their 3D visualization capabilities and shake off the disadvantages of […]

Igloo Vision, the UK-headquartered Shared VR company, has set-up home in the Thornbury suburb of Melbourne. The company designs and develops immersive 360° projection spaces, which act a little like a giant virtual reality (VR) headset. With wraparound sound and vision, entire teams can be immersed in any 360° or VR content. And, ranging in […]

For years, my family has watched America’s Got Talent in the summer. It’s a great family show that can be funny, touching and amazing. There have been numerous acts that use some type of technology. A couple of weeks ago however, there was one that really stuck with me. It was Italian psychologists (Simona and […]

At the DSE (Digital Signage Expo) last week, we partnered with Epson to shoot the highest resolution VR-based trade show booth tour, ever. No one has ever shot an entire VR tour in 72 Mega-Pixel resolution — and it’s one you can see with either a VR headset OR with a regular web browser — […]

Modulo Pi just launched a new version of Modulo Kinetic media ahead of ISE 2019, where the company will be on stand K135, Hall 14, February 5-8. The Modulo Kinetic is a fully integrated real-time media server solution that can be used across the complete workflow including show study, simulation, encoding, playback and show control. […]

Last month, we discussed the Oculus Connect Developers Convention, a meeting I had recently attended in virtual reality. This month, I thought we would address the effectiveness of meeting in virtual reality. First, let’s discuss the event itself, which was the annual conference for Oculus virtual reality developers. For those of you who have been […]

Last week, I attended Oculus Connect, the conference for Facebook/Oculus virtual reality developers. It was one of the best glimpses I have yet seen into the uses of a new technology that will change the way we do business in industries with events or communication and collaboration with remote people (rental and staging, collaboration, education, […]

I arrived at the show this morning on the first bus at 6 a.m. thinking that I could beat the lines at the Starbucks here at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Boy, was I wrong. There were 200 people in line for coffee when I got here, and I am not a patient man, particularly […]

Something that always fascinates me is how new technology creeps into our lives without even noticing. Several years ago, Google put out Google Cardboard. It was an impressive piece of technology, considering it was free to most people. Slowly, other virtual reality devices have come out, but in my opinion none have really hit the […]

News reports of experiential location-based virtual reality (LBVR) in shopping arcades, theme parks and movie theatres are taking the global press by storm. Companies including FoxNext, Zero Latency and Disney’s ILMxLab with Star Wars are demonstrating that LBVR is a viable business for investment, which is clearly enticing mainstream consumers to satisfy their VR curiosity. This is demonstrated by […]

In politics and economics, a Potemkin village is any construction built solely to deceive others into thinking that something is better than it really is. The term comes from stories of a fake portable village built solely to impress Russian Empress Catherine II (Catherine the Great) by Grigory Potemkin; the structures would be disassembled after […]

By Ben Davis Futuresouce This week, Chinese online games company, NetDragon Websoft, announced its agreement to acquire US-based Edmodo, the global education network. The deal will likely present growth opportunities for NetDragon’s broader portfolio of education solutions and could have competitive ramifications for companies operating across the breadth of the education technology sector. NetDragon’s New Triple Threat In a deal […]

Last month, we talked about AVaaS, (Audio Visual as a Service) and how it relates to the future of the rental and staging segment of our industry. My basic premise was that the current wave of cloud-based digital offerings has distorted our definition of the word “service,” much as social media has distorted our definition […]

For decades, new technologies have promised to transform education. Every year, educators are bombarded with top-ten technology lists that promise to transform their practice, their classrooms and even school as we know it. Often, these market-driven approaches represent attempts by technologists to solve what they view as problems in education. While many such solutions are effective in solving specific problems or in meeting certain […]

Before you commit to incorporating augmented or virtual reality into your design process, consider these scenarios that could harm, rather than help, your final outcome. Much like Doctor Who’s TARDIS, the toolbox for design just got a lot bigger on the inside. What was once relegated to testing labs, tinkerer’s garages, and a relatively small segment […]

At Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) in Amsterdam, IHSE will be introducing a solution to extend and switch immersive reality signals over long distances using Draco KVM systems. The new solution addresses growing interest in virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) systems in a wide variety of pro AV market sectors; in corporate and education applications such as product design and prototyping; in situational training […]

During the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) each year, nearly every big consumer tech company debuts something new — and many of them will declare it “disruptive” or “game-changing” or “innovative” or one of a dozen or so other self-congratulatory adjectives that mean nothing. And all the while, the city for Las Vegas commences to ripping people off […]

One of the display technologies that is being used in Virtual Reality (VR) headsets is OLED-on-Silicon. Recently, a new partnership was formed between US-based Kopin and two Chinese partners: BOE and Olightek. The three have agreed to form a Joint Venture (JV) to build new state-of-the-art OLED-on-Silicon manufacturing facility in China to serve anticipated needs […]

In my last column, I wrote about how virtual reality will offer amazing opportunities for integrators working in higher ed. A few days after I finished, I read an article that made me think about how augmented reality will change the basic functions of our industry. The article is titled “Why Every Organization Needs an […]

The VR Days Europe festival, which took place in Amsterdam on 25-27 October, exceeded all expectations with record attendance and participation from speakers, attendees and exhibitors. The three-day event explored the latest Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality content, technology and production techniques being used in entertainment and enterprise businesses –  including those closely aligned with AV. Integrated Systems Events, producers of the Integrated […]

In an October 28th, 2017 article in the New York Times, “Virtual Reality Gets Naughty,” Alyson Krueger writes about the pornography industry’s deep dive into virtual reality. Despite what you may feel about the ethical issues with the pornography industry, the article is a fascinating read. In particular, it is interesting because of how far […]

This morning I was involved in testing two of the new virtual reality conferencing environments. As most of you will be painfully aware, the conferencing industry has gone through a number of revolutions in the past decade, from videoconferencing to telepresence to collaboration and now on to VR. At each of them, we tout the […]

The onslaught If you have been to any of the major electronics shows this year, or even if you have only been looking at websites for the advance sales for the holiday season, it is pretty obvious that this year’s hot holiday gift will be VR equipment. All of the major gaming manufacturers, the major […]

Well, Gary Kayye and I have just finished our first podcast about the show. This threatens to be the largest Infocomm in history, with advance registration far ahead of previous years. As usual, we are both excited about the show, but disagree about the reasons. Right now, while I am excited about the presence of […]

It’s hot here in Orlando. Both outside, (where the humidity is curling my hair) and inside the Orange County Convention Center, where the largest InfoComm show ever is less than 24 hours from opening. The rAVe booth is set, and the crew is checking out our equipment, preparing to bring you all the latest product […]

With the introduction of virtual reality, the world of education is changing. As instructors are trying to bring this technology into their classroom, the one piece that has been missing has been how to store and charge both the VR goggles and phones safely and securely. Spectrum is addressing this with the debuting the new Immersion Series of VR […]

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced it has formed a Special Interest Group (SIG) that addresses standardization for the fast-growing augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) markets. Well known for developing the ubiquitous DisplayPort and Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) standards, VESA also previously defined the long-standing Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) standard–which works with VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort and […]