INITION NEWS
Last week was a busy one for us, with awards and events galore.
We were invited by experiential events company, Concerto Live, to provide virtual reality entertainment for guests at Mindshare’s Huddle. What better time than to unveil our virtual reality skydive experience (which was featured in the Drum’s roundup of the huddle this week).
We hosted OneFurther for an evening of tech demos, showing delegates from some of London’s leading arts and cultural organisations some of our wide array of VR, AR and 3D experiences.
We won the “Best Hybrid Event / Best Virtual Event” award at the 2014 Event Tech Awards for our Topshop Virtual Reality Catwalk Experience. Adding that one to the trophy cabinet.
We were also entered into the Bett Awards 2015 for the Digital Devices category by BESA for the zSpace 3D Display.
We featured in Campaign Live’s roundup of OMD UK’s Innovation Week festivities which Andy Millns attended last week.
Gilles Marcellier from Alioscopy dropped by to demo the impressive 55” full HD AutoStereo, and the 31.5” 4K AutoStereo screens.
We’re re-launching our newsletter this week so sign up to receive a monthly dose of Inition and industry news and opinions.
Just a reminder that next month we’ll be kicking off the first of our Reality Tech Tuesday events in our Demo Studio.
Samsung’s Virtual Future
As the release of Samsung’s Gear VR draws closer, debate is again rife as to whether it’s immersion or content that forms the basis of a successful virtual reality experience, and what exactly might persuade the average consumer to take up use of the technology when the time comes.
With the key drawcard being the unit’s cable-free mobility via the integration of the user’s Galaxy Note smartphone, the Gear VR has become the poster-child for the burgeoning range of untethered VR HMDs which claim to offer a greater sense of ‘presence’ than their PC-reliant counterparts.
Mobility aside, however, untethered VR is not without its own unique issues, with Oculus’ head of mobile, Max Cohen, listing heat and battery life as the primary challenges facing the development of mobile-based, smartphone integrated virtual reality HMDs.
However, it wasn’t just the Gear VR on the cards last week at the second annual Samsung Developer Conference, as the company announced ‘Project Beyond‘, a 360 degree, full 3D stereoscopic HD camera system, capable of capturing immersive footage for use in VR experiences.
This new development has again prompted discussions as to where the future of consumer virtual reality is headed, whether primarily in gaming, 360 immersive cinema, or apps, and what the catalyst – or ‘killer app’ – might be in convincing the average consumer to adopt virtual reality on a broader scale.