Never Alone: Ki Edition is rolling out to the Google Play Store
E-Line Media is now rolling out Never Alone: Ki Edition, the Android adaptation of the acclaimed PC and console adventure game, to the Google Play Store.
The Android version includes new touch controls, along with revamped menus and gameplay hints. It also has some optimized graphics. Here’s a quick description:
Play as a young Iñupiat girl and an arctic fox as they set out to find the source of the eternal blizzard which threatens the survival of everything they have ever known. Guide both characters in single-player mode or play cooperatively with a friend or family member as you trek through frozen tundra, leap across treacherous ice floes, swim through underwater ice caverns, and face numerous enemies both strange and familiar in the journey to save the girl’s village.
Since Never Alone: Ki Edition has just started rolling out, it many take a few hours before it is available on your Android smartphone or tablet. The game is priced at $4.99 in the Google Play Store.
Best Chrome extensions for staying in touch
What are the best Chrome extensions for staying in touch?
If you spend a lot of time on the internet and you love using Chrome, you probably know about extensions. With the amount of messaging and email utilities out there, some of the best can be lost in the pile. Maybe you want to schedule emails for future release, or maybe you want to quickly share articles or pictures with friends and followers. Maybe you need some help with your grammar while you write that email, or need some help translating sentences for friends you met while traveling. No matter your reason, here are the best Chrome extensions for staying in touch.
- Facebook Messenger
- Point
- Google Hangouts
- Boomerang for Gmail
- Grammarly
- Google Translate
- WhatsApp Messenger
- Buffer
- Giphy for Gmail
- Share on Twitter
Facebook Messenger
Anyone familiar with the mobile Facebook Messenger app will immediately realize the benefits of this extension. A small window showing your friends and recent chats opens up at the side of your browser; share pictures, video, and text, and receive alerts when you receive messages.
See at Chrome Web Store
Point
Sign into this extension with your Google account and begin sharing articles with friends. Share the article, highlight text while your friends are viewing, and chat in real time in a pop-out window. It’s like you’re sitting around a newspaper, holding a highlighter, talking about the subject. This app makes discussing news in the information age more effortless than ever before.
See at Chrome Web Store
Google Hangouts
What you have here is a built-in text, voice, and video chat extension for Chrome. Best part? It’s all free. Chat with multiple people at once (great for meetings or family gatherings), send images and photos, and use over 850 emojis to express yourself. Hangouts even keeps a record of chats so you can go back and see who you should catch up with.
See at Chrome Web Store
Boomerang for Gmail
Boomerang allows you to take complete control over your Gmail inbox. Imagine: you’re going to be offline for a couple of days but don’t want your dear mother to worry about you. Schedule a reassuring message to send sometime during the period you’re offline. This extension also lets you track messages and set reminders within Gmail, so you’ll never forget to send an important email again.
See at Chrome Web Store
Grammarly
Although the internet does its best to destroy all languages, Grammarly is putting up a fight. Use their built-in text editor to ensure your writing is up to snuff before publishing or emailing, and receive real-time suggestions as you type around the internet. You can also copy and paste text from anywhere to verify grammar. The free version of Grammarly does a suitable job, but if you want to upgrade to Premium (deeper grammar check) it will cost you about $30 a month.
See at Chrome Web Store
Google Translate
Wish you could read web pages published in a foreign language? You can! With the web page open, just click the Translate button and choose to translate the entire page. If you’d like to translate a sentence or two, highlight the text and click the translate button. You can even hear how the words are pronounced in the specific language you’re translating from. This is a great extension for anyone who loves to travel — keep up with friends you made in faraway lands.
See at Chrome Web Store
WhatsApp Messenger
This WhatsApp extension pops out from Chrome in its own little window. It allows you to text friends also using WhatsApp as though you’re using your phone, great for locations with internet but no cell service.
See at Chrome Web Store
Buffer
Buffer lets you take content from the web and post it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. Just right click on an image or article and click on Buffer from the menu. You can also schedule posts and tweets for a later time, and you’ll be able to track traffic around your content. This is a great extension for people who put out a lot of content on social media sites.
See at Chrome Web Store
Giphy for Gmail
Giphy lets you search GIFs by keyword to be inserted into your emails. Adding this extension to Chrome puts a small button in new Gmail messages; just click the button, search for a suitable GIF, and click it to insert. This is a fantastic way to spruce up your emails and is a big hit with everyone who uses it.
See at Chrome Web Store
Your choice?
What is your favorite Chrome extensions for keeping in touch? Let us know in the comments section below!
Volkswagen Golf 1.0-litre TSi first drive: Fore!
We already know that the Volkswagen Golf is an excellent family hatchback. In fact, we’d still rate it as best in class — and three years on, still deserving of the 5-star review we gave it back at launch in 2013.
But just how much Golf do you need? That’s the question posed in this first drive. Because Volkswagen has just introduced a very interesting new addition to the Golf range: the 1.0-litre TIS. At first sight you might dismiss it as not worthy of consideration, but you’d be foolish to do that. Here’s why.
Volkswagen Golf (2016) first drive: Cubic capacity, squared
The joy of the Golf is that there’s one for everyone. The stonking, 911-bating R, the brilliant all-rounder with spangly-bits GTD, the motorway-plodding TDI, and the sensible shoes TSi petrol.
Pocket-lint
Up until now, in the lower reaches of the petrol range you’ve been able to choose from an 85bhp 1.2 TSi, a 125bhp 1.4 TSi and a 150bhp version of the same TSi engine. All are good: we loved the 150’s mix of flexibility, frugality and speed back in 2013. But could you cope with a Golf that had just three-cylinders, and a cubic-capacity of just 1.0? That’s usually the type of engine reserved for tiny city cars.
Or at least it used to be. With everyone downsizing and engine technologies improving all the time, this tiny engine actually kicks out a whopping 115bhp (i.e. more than its bigger 1.2-litre brother). That’s pretty impressive given its physical size. Or lack of it. Not only that, but it produces only 99g/km of CO2 and will strop to 62mph in a sprightly 9.7-seconds.
Volkswagen Golf 1.0 first drive: Setting the standard
Not available in the base spec “s” trim, the 1.0 is available as a Match Bluemotion edition, with either a 6-speed manual gearbox (like we drove) or a 7-speed DSG automatic.
Pocket-lint
Match trim is good news too, because — going against the cliché of VW’s being underspecced against the competition — it has front and rear park sensors, adaptive radar cruise control, heated front seats and the Discover Navigation system with a 5.8-inch touchscreen, and a proximity sensor all as standard.
Jump on board and the cabin architecture of the Golf is just starting to show its age. The dash feels slightly cliff-like, the interior looks sparely appointed and the trim running down the centre console looks (and feels) cheap. An Audi A3 or Merc A-Class it ain’t.
Nonetheless, in a very Germanic way, the joy of it is that anyone can jump on board and quickly work out how to adjust wheel, seats, mirrors and get comfortable. Everything falls to hand and only the electronic parking brake is there to fox the unfamiliar — but even this auto-releases much more happily as you try to pull away than many competitors we could mention.
Pocket-lint
Volkswagen Golf 1.0-litre TSI first drive: Refined drive
Speaking of pulling away, the most intriguing thing about the 1.0 Golf is its refinement. Start it up, and but for the briefest chunter from the starter motor, this is one of those engines where you keep asking “is it on?”. With stop-start as standard, the biggest day-to-day driving issue is actually remembering if the engine is running or the stop-start is active. There’s none of the 3-cyclinder imbalance at idle that many other three-cylinder engines exhibit.
But then you rev it, and it produces a nice, thrum-like warble that’s got a lot more character than a typical four-cylinder engine. It feels fleet-of-foot too, skipping along the road at a decent rate of knots and — despite there being lower-spec Golfs featuring a cheaper, torsion-beam rear axle arrangement — the ride is smooth and settled.
Pocket-lint
Combined with a light clutch action and slick gearshift, this is actually a contender for one of the car’s we’ve had most pleasure driving all year. Not only does it do little wrong, but it’s really easy to develop a rhythm with the car, make decent progress and actually enjoy the driving.
The refinement of the Golf — as ever — still stands out. It’s a hushed and comfortable place to spend time. The touchscreen, despite now looking on the small side compared to some, still works better than most. And the dials are clear, with what few assistances system there are being easy to use.
Volkswagen Golf first drive: Not everyone plays Golf
For anyone who would normally default to Diesel — as many do — such is the appeal of the fuel economy of a modern TDi, it’s well worth considering this new 1.0 petrol model. We’d recommend it to anyone mainly confined to town driving, or doing less than 10,000 miles per year anyway — beause it’s more suited to that role than any diesel.
Pocket-lint
Not overwhelmed by the Golf’s size in the slightest, it’s efficient, quiet, quick and will doubtless produce less NOx emissions than an equivalent diesel, too (which we’re sure VW will not love us for pointing out). What’s that phrase? Something about necessity being the mother of invention? The new 1.0 Bluemotion Golf definitely feels like it’s been the beneficiary of it.
First Impressions
There are many people who don’t play Golf. They don’t get it, don’t understand the point of spending the extra money when you’d get something else for less. We’re not here to persuade those people they are necessarily wrong. The world would be boring if we all drove Golfs. But after an hour behind the wheel, you can understand why this car continues to be so popular and sell so well.
At £21,530 as tested — with CarPlay/Anroid Auto enabling AppConnect (£125) and metallic paint (£560) thrown into the mix — the reality is that this Golf works out at about a grand more than an equivalent Ford Focus. The bigger gap exists to the Astra, which comes in at around three grand less. All are decent cars; we enjoyed driving the Golf most.
Interior appointments put aside, the Golf 1.0 TSi’s price tag is still good enough to make you question why you’d spend more on an Audi, BMW or Merc.
Boston Dynamics’ latest robot dog can do your dishes and fetch a soda
Quadrupedal robot-maker Boston Dynamics has shown off its latest dystopian creature in a video published to YouTube (unbeknownst to its parent company, Google, apparently).
Boston Dynamics is the robotics company Google is currently trying to sell, and according to Recode, Google was unaware of the company’s last robot video from February. Google might not have known about this new video either. A source familiar with Google’s robotics team told Recode that Google is partially trying to sell Boston Dynamics because of how difficult it is to manage a “gaggle of roboticists.”
Anyway, Boston Dynamic’s latest hellhound is called SpotMini. It’s a smaller version of the Spot robot dog. It weighs about 55 lbs (25 kg), is 2 feet tall, and has an electric system instead of hydraulics, meaning it’s quiet and lasts for up to 90 minutes before needing a recharge. It also has a complex navigation setup with guidance and perception sensors, including depth cameras and a solid state gyro in the limbs.
SpotMini can perform some basic tasks autonomously, but it can also use a human for high-level guidance. It has a manipulator arm, too, for accomplishing tasks. SpotMini uses this arm (it looks like an elongated neck) to gently pick up a glass and put it in the dishwasher, for instance. In the video below, you can actually see SpotMini fetch a soda for a human, but it had a little trouble letting the can go.
This mechanical beast is undoubtedly adorable but also creepy-looking. That said, we can already envision a world in the future where tonnes of these robot dogs roam around and do all our chores.
We just hope they’re a little more cuddly by that time.
Does the world need another first-person, team-based shooter?
“I’m not the only asshole who had this idea a few years ago,” Cliff Bleszinski says in between sips of a sugar-free Red Bull. He’s perched in the lounge area of his studio’s E3 meeting space, on the other side of a thin wall where a dozen journalists and internet influencers are playing his latest game, a team-based shooter called LawBreakers. Every now and then, the players beyond the wall suddenly wail and clap as a game comes to a dramatic close.
Bleszinski is talking about the market for online, first-person, team-based shooters — a niche genre that, in mid 2016, is on the verge of oversaturation. Overwatch just came out, and it’s been a monstrous hit for Activision Blizzard. It dominates the front page of Twitch, and there are already plans to transform it into a truly competitive, esports-focused title. Other similar games, such as Gearbox’s Battleborn or Epic Games’ Paragon, are also on the market, but they can’t compare in terms of player numbers or hype.
Bleszinski thinks there’s still an audience for multiple character-based shooters; he’s confident there’s room for LawBreakers. His studio, Boss Key, revealed LawBreakers in Aug. 2015, and it just closed the alpha on June 18th. When we spoke, a handful of streamers already had their hands on it and the first round of feedback was rolling in. Bleszinski reads the game’s forums religiously, but after decades as a high-profile figure in the industry (he was the lead designer on Gears of War), he’s learned that not every comment is created equal.
“The internet is an echo chamber that always leads to stupidity,” he says.
LawBreakers, Battleborn and Overwatch may run in the same circles, but they aren’t the same game. Both Overwatch and Battleborn use cartoony art styles and character designs while LawBreakers is slightly more gritty. The characters curse every now and then — not too often, Bleszinski notes — and they’re designed to be slightly more realistic, seemingly inspired more by anime than Looney Tunes.
LawBreakers is violent but not grotesque. When characters are shot with rockets, they explode into tiny bits, blood splattering around the map’s zero-gravity areas in (kind of adorable) floating globules. It’s a delicate balance of realism and fantasy.
Bleszinski doesn’t want LawBreakers to go full Mortal Kombat, for example.
“It’s too much for me, to be frank,” he says. “When I was in my 20s and 30s I could see all that stuff, but now it’s like, I don’t need to see somebody’s spleen explode in 4K. I’m OK without seeing that. No offense to Ed Boon.”
LawBreakers is firmly a sci-fi shooter, which is how Bleszinski envisioned it. He’d rather leave the realistic weapons and violence to Call of Duty.
“I will never make a game with AR-15s and glocks and all that,” he says. “I respect guns; I’ve fired more than my share of them, but my games stay in the sci-fi realm. And it’s not a political statement in regards to being sci-fi, it’s just that I have so many freakin’ wacky ideas that if I was stuck making something in 2016 I wouldn’t be able to do the full thing I wanted to do. I couldn’t have a character use futuristic drugs to double in size and shoot lightning out of their hands.”
A patch released on June 17th completely removed aim-down sights from LawBreakers. This is a further attempt to separate the game from existing first-person-shooter franchises.
“When you give them the ability to play a game like Call of Duty, they’re going to play it like Call of Duty,” Bleszinski says.
Instead, he gets excited about fresh features like blind fire, a one-button ability that allows players to quickly shoot behind them, even when they’re flying through the air in a low-gravity zone. I had the chance to play LawBreakers on the other side of that thin wall, and I can confirm that blind fire is insanely cool, when you remember it exists. Thirteen years of habits from Call of Duty are hard to break.
As new players try out LawBreakers for the first time, Bleszinski is glad to have years of experience under his belt. He started Boss Key alongside Arjan Brussee, a co-founder of Guerilla Games and a creator of Killzone. Brussee has the skills to balance out Bleszinski’s creative background; he’s seen the full cycle of a studio starting up and selling off. Plus, Brussee comes from a coding background, which Bleszinski says is a wonderful asset.
“A programmer can bullshit me,” he says. “They can’t bullshit him. A programmer tells him, ‘This is impossible,’ and he’s like, ‘Screw you, I’ll code it myself.’”
With a solid foundation on the creative and operational fronts, a large part of Bleszinski’s job is cultivating a passionate, friendly culture at Boss Key. He tries to learn every employee’s name and even the names of their significant others or family members. He keeps a cheat sheet on his desk complete with photos of new employees, so he doesn’t accidentally call someone by the wrong name.
“I want to be at a company that’s 65 or so people, where I know everybody, I know their significant others, they bring their dogs in and even sometimes their kids,” Bleszinski says. “It sounds cheesy, but really the vibe that I want to go for is it feels like you’re a big family. Yes, we’re a business of course, and we’re in this to try and make money and keep the damn lights on, but I genuinely like everybody we have at the studio and I know most of them fairly well.”
This means he wants employees to lean on his experience when necessary. If someone at Boss Key reads a negative comment online and then comes running into Bleszinski’s office “like their pants are on fire,” for example, he offers simple, calming advice:
“First off, breathe. Second off, this is the start of a very long cycle of feedback, so you guys need to figure out how to sort through it and get used to it. Look at the data, read the forums, hear the feedback and then trust your gut. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Part of the reason Boss Key exists is because the bubble around AAA studios — big-name companies like Call of Duty publisher Activision — is popping, Bleszinski says.
“You look at AAA and the $60 price point, it’s bursting at the seams,” he adds.
That’s why Bleszinski believes Boss Key has a chance to thrive alongside other teams crafting online multiplayer experiences like Battleborn, Vainglory, Duelyst, Overwatch and Paragon. And, of course, LawBreakers.
There’s a connected hearing aid, and it actually sounds useful
With every new gadget seemingly connected to the internet to automate your life, the question arises if a lot of those items are really useful. Now there’s a hearing aid that connects to the Internet of Things, and before you dismiss it, this device seems like it will definitely lend a hand. London-based Oticon announced the Opn: a connected hearing aid that ensures the user knows when someone rings the doorbell, the smoke detector goes off or a baby monitor is chiming. Thanks to TwinLink technology, the Opn doesn’t sacrifice size or battery life for connectivity.
In addition to communicating with household tech, Oticon’s Opn also works with IFTTT’s recipe-based automation. While the company didn’t mention specifics, it’s probably safe to bet users will be able to set up alerts for things like movement detected by an outdoor security camera — just as an example. Of course, the hearing aid’s primary task is helping with listening. Oticon says the compact unit performs sound analysis over 100 times a second and locates sound in any direction while drowning out background noise. This means that keeping up with conversations where multiple folks are speaking won’t be a problem, even in a loud setting. Pricing and availability weren’t mentioned in the announcement, but you’ll probably want to consult an audiologist if you’re interested.
Source: Oticon (PR Newswire)
Soon your drone can avoid collisions using radar
Drones are all fun and games until their rotors casually meet your body. To avoid injuries, lawsuits and costly repairs, techies have built collision avoidance systems so your unmanned aerial vehicle automatically swerves away from people and obstacles. But existing camera-based solutions drain batteries and slow down flight speed when dodging things. Arbe Robotics just won TechCrunch’s first Tel Aviv Meetup and Pitch-Off last night with its own avoidance system, which counters these drawbacks by using radar to guide drones without stunting flight time.
The system consists of a mountable hardware band that scans up to 200 meters in every direction along with software that automatically avoids detected obstacles. If objects larger than a meter enter that radius, the radar system will detect it and automatically move the drone to avoid a collision. Arbe Robotics claims that its solution only uses 5 percent battery life throughout the flight.
Obviously, this is for a civilian solution detecting slow-moving obstacles. DARPA has been innovating a collision avoidance system for drones to dodge speedy things like small aircraft and other drones. Since it’s currently the size of a shoebox, it won’t be coming to small commercial UAVs any time soon. It’s also unclear when Arbe Robotics’ solution will hit the market, but until then, there’s always drone crash insurance.
Source: Arbe Robotics
The struggle to adapt storytelling for virtual reality
Storytelling in virtual reality has yet to take shape. While the simulated world of gaming has proven the visual capabilities of the medium, few have taken a crack at the art of building a compelling narrative.
But now that the battle of the VR headsets is fully underway, a shift is evident. Content studios seem to be getting ready for the next wave of virtual reality. Over the last week alone, major VR studios have announced investments from Hollywood studios that seem indicative of the cinematic experiences to come. Within, formerly known as VRSE, has raised $12.56 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and 21st Century Fox; Felix & Paul Studios has seen $6.8 million in a round led by Comcast and Virtual Reality Company (VRC) got $23 million from Beijing’s Hengzin Mobile Business in exchange for exclusive distribution rights in China.
There’s been a lot of hype and cash flow around VR in the last couple of years. But there’s little insight into what it takes to build a great experience outside of gaming. Can filmmakers turn into VR makers? Will they infuse this immersive format with dramatic storytelling? Or will it remain a simulated world that’s best suited for interactive gaming?
The experience that came closest to immersive cinema was VRC’s The Martian VR Experience at the beginning of the year. It followed director Ridley Scott’s visual cues but unlike other Hollywood companion pieces that came before, this one took on a life of its own. It gave VR headset-wearers the ability to inhabit the film as Mark Watney (the abandoned astronaut played by Matt Damon). The isolation of being stranded and the triumph of being rescued in space made for a powerful experience.
A still from “The Martian VR Experience.” (Image: Virtual Reality Company)
The Martian VR epitomized the dramatic capabilities of the visual medium. Oscar-winning production designer and VRC founder Robert Stromberg infused the experience with a narrative and emotions in a way that hadn’t been successful before. His ability to build the cinematic experience stemmed from his award-winning career in Hollywood.
For well over a decade, Stromberg has been a VFX specialist who has worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood including Steven Soderbergh, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, to name a few. His list of accolades for production design and visual effects includes five Emmys (including Star Trek: The Next Generation and Boardwalk Empire) and two Academy Awards (for James Cameron’s Avatar and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland). Last year he also won three Cannes Lions for What Lives Inside, an Intel and Dell sponsored series that premiered on Hulu.
In light of the new funding for VRC and the buzz around Steven Spielberg’s VR debut with the company that he backs as an advisor, I spoke with Stromberg about what it takes to build compelling narratives in an immersive format.
You made a push for visual effects in the ’90s and now with VRC you’re tackling another visual medium. What drew you to virtual reality and what led to the company?
I’ve been a creative person since I was a small child and I always dreamed of the idea of transporting myself to a world that didn’t exist. Virtual reality allowed me to step into worlds that could be created and that to me was not only magic but a shock: I didn’t think it would be possible in my lifetime. I spent my entire career building worlds for film. When I was doing Avatar, that’s when I started to see the technology changing and we were able to create a 360-degree world. We were making that film with a virtual camera and I knew that it was a matter of time before people would be able to put that in a viewing system that would immerse that person in the world.
I kept my eye on that and went off and directed Maleficent. Around the same time [in 2014] I heard that Oculus was being bought by Facebook. I actually cold-called Oculus, which at the time was just a startup at Irvine. I introduced myself and they invited me down to see what they were up to. It became very apparent to me what the future was going to be. I decided that day to form VRC.
What I recognized at the time was that the technology was going to be there but no one was talking about content. It was the perfect opportunity to step into the world of content and I knew it needed to be symbiotic with the tech for it to work.
Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg and Kim Sinclair with their art direction Oscars for “Avatar” in 2010. (Image: Matt Sayles/AP)
You’ve said before, “The mediums will change, but the storytelling will stay the same.” Does it really stay the same with VR or does the medium require an approach that’s different from the standard format of films?
It’s something brand new, like television was to theater. VR is a cross pollination between what you might consider a live performance and cinematic storytelling. To me it’s something that is in its fledgling stages and I still don’t believe that the nut has been cracked yet. We’re ready to tell stories but how do you do that in VR? A lot of people are pushing that dynamic to find the combination that works for them, including myself. I believe that within months to a year that sort of dramatic storytelling event will happen. A lot of people are doing one-off events, but at VRC what we’re trying to do is create that first sort of fully developed cinematic emotional storytelling content. I believe it’s very close; it’s just a matter of the tech being at a point where we can utilize it in a way that we create true emotions when someone is viewing a story.
What makes a good cinematic VR experience? What are the things to focus on and what are the pitfalls of the medium?
Two years ago, I had to prove to myself that this was a medium you could approach with a cinematic eye. So the first thing I did was created a four-minute dream world with cinematic music and all the bells and whistles. That’s when it struck me that it could be big and dramatic in this new medium. The Martian was on the heels of that. It started as a storytelling vehicle; a condensed version of the film but then we introduced an interactive component. It’s kind of a hybrid -– a cross between an observer and a participant.
I think that’s going to be the definition of how you tell a story: Are you an observer or are you a participant? If you look at it as a stage play, you go to a theater and watch a performance live and you have a choice of where to look on stage. If you were to put yourself on the stage it would be a different experience. You would feel like you were intruding if you were just an observer and if you get right up in people’s conversations you would feel awkward because you would feel like you’re a part of it. We’re doing a lot of psychological tricks with storytelling where you’re a watching a performance as opposed to being part of it or you’re in an interactive setting and you want to see a character in the story.
A still from “There”, a VR experience directed by Robert Stromberg.
The visual medium has extended the capabilities of experiencing things. But in what ways does it limit storytelling and how do you work around it?
Let’s take The Revenant as an example. You’re using the camera as a framing device and using the movement of the camera to get emotion. You have these long extended shots that move from beat to beat that still tell a story. But traditional editing can be jarring if you’re immersed in a world, so that’s one of the things we’re experimenting with: how to transition smoothly but still feel like you’re moving the story along?
There are ways to transition in VR, too, clever ways to sort of move from one experience to the next. With The Martian, I came up with what I call the “boxcutter.” You have 3D images on 3D screens that follow the edit of the film itself and it pushes the story along. It’s sort of a cheat in a way but it is a technique. I think we’re going to find many methods to transition over time. In the last year, the technology has reached a point where we can do things we couldn’t do even two years ago. Live capture, for instance. We’re capturing actual performances from actors and putting them in this world. When we have all the elements in our toolbox then we can dig and find the emotion in the stories. Until now it’s been parlor tricks to say “look at what VR can do!”
(Left to right) VRC co-founders Joel Newton and Robert Stromberg with recording artist Anderson .Paak and co-founder Guy Primus. (Image: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images)
How far are we from seeing long form narratives? What are the limitations with time when you want to immerse someone into a virtual world?
The Martian started out as a 12-minute experience, which ended up being 20 to 28 minutes depending on what you did with the interactive component. What we realized is that people didn’t have a problem in an environment that long. There’s the obvious motion sickness that we’re up against, but overall what we’re trying to do is find what we can do with the camera. How fast can we move it? What are the dos and don’ts of being immersed? What makes people uncomfortable?
One of the biggest things I learned from The Martian was that the brain was so tuned in that you had to make sure the horizon was accurate otherwise your mind tells you something’s wrong. There was one portion where people had an uncomfortable feeling but when we cracked the horizon issue it went away. So everything is still being wind tunnel tested. Over time we’ll learn what does and doesn’t make somebody comfortable. I think maybe there’ll be a rating system for VR where you’ll know going in what level you’re comfortable with. It’ll take shape, but we’re just not in that place yet.
What are you currently working on?
We’re involved with many things but what we’re focused on is high-end content. Something that’s going to be worth monetizing eventually and that’s a whole other discussion about how it will be presented to the masses – whether it’s mobile, Oculus, [HTC] Vive, Playstation [VR]. We’re working with all of those systems to make sure we cover the most territory.
“Over time we’ll learn what does and doesn’t make somebody comfortable. I think maybe there’ll be a rating system for VR where you’ll know going in what level you’re comfortable with.”
We’re working on a project with Steven [Spielberg]. I can’t say what it is yet, but I can say that it’s a series. Going back to the time limitation, I think the first version in terms of storytelling content will be episodic and shorter. We have to be mindful of whose going to be the first adopters? It’s younger people and gamers. When we bring kids in to see the threshold we find that kids can stay in there all day. The first round we’ll be looking at 10- to 12-minute episodes. Eventually when we get into longer formats, I see a version where we introduce the idea of intermissions or breaks, so you have the option to continue or take a break. It worked with films in the old days when they were three or four hours long. It wasn’t only to get popcorn, but to settle. I can see that related to the future content that comes out of VR as well.
What would you say is the general perception of VR in Hollywood? Is it considered a buzzword or is it seen as a more viable medium for storytelling?
I think the biggest thing is that it is a buzzword. When people see it for the first time there’s a wow factor about it. I think we have to be careful. We have to have enough entertainment value and enough content out there for people so it’s an ongoing and growing part of people’s daily lives. We go to the airport and see everybody heads down on their cellphones and laptops and everybody spends hours online. Will this fit into that? It’s all going to depend on compelling content.
Physicists create a ‘quantum ruler’ to measure the universe
A group of physicists from the Russian Quantum Center and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology have come up with a new method of creating a special entangled quantum state, one that could be used as “a high-precision ruler” for measuring large distances with subatomic precision. The technique, described in a new study in the journal Nature Communications, could be used to increase the sensitivity of optical interferometers like the ones used by the LIGO project to detect gravitational waves.
Simply put, LIGO works by splitting a single laser into two beams, which are then recombined. If one of the beams experiences interference like a gravitational wave, it shifts the wavelength and creates a measurable difference between the two beams called an interference pattern. LIGO can currently measure differences “comparable to the diameter of a proton,” the study’s authors wrote in a press release. This new “quantum ruler,” on the other hand, utilizes NOON states of photons, where a multiphoton laser pulse is at two points at the same time. In the experiment, the photons at each point, referred to as “Alice” and “Bob”, are each in an entangled state. When one of their entangled parts experiences interference (in this case, the laser was shot through a piece of darkened glass), it creates a measurable difference from the original NOON state in a phenomenon known as entanglement swapping. That difference can be measured in sizes even smaller than a proton.
While the study conducted this research in a lab, according to lead author and RQC research Alexander Ulanov, the same method could also be used in terrestrial interferometers like LIGO or its space-borne sister instrument LISA.
Chicago decides not to clamp down on ride-sharing services
As is the case in many cities around the world, the debate over regulation of ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft rages on. In Chicago, the city council voted down a measure this week that would’ve required fingerprint background checks for drivers and maintain a certain number of vehicles that accommodate handicapped passengers. Uber has already said that fingerprinting won’t help and would most likely cause them to stop offering rides in the city. The council instead plans to study fingerprints for six months before revisiting possible regulations.
In terms of handicapped passengers, services will have a year to begin to offer those types of rides. What’s more, Uber and Lyft drivers will be required to obtain a chauffeur’s license, which can be done online. Cab drivers, on the other hand, must attend class in person to gain the required credentials and those courses are more expensive, according to the Chicago Tribune. The failed measure would’ve also required up-front drug testing and a physical exam, but instead the city’s license commissioner will only require those for driver when a complaint is filed.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has back ride-sharing services in the city despite vocal opposition over fair competition and unfair regulations. Emanuel said that the likes of Uber and Lyft employ 90,000 registered drivers and offer people in Chicago more transportation choices, especially in underserved neighborhoods. Chicago approved a package from taxi unions in 2014 that, among other things, allowed for cabs to have their own app for hailing a ride. The discussion over the services is far from over in the city, especially with the taxi industry’s stance that the new rules do too little to even the playing field.
AIVAnet 