Google pledges to help initiate criminal justice reform

The company has committed to doubling its investment in organizations working to help solve the issue of mass incarceration.

As a company, Google isn’t one to shy away from political topics. It’s come out in support of gender equality, immigrants, and now it’s taking a stance against mass incarceration.

Google.org, in particular, has pledged to donate $11.5 million in grants to organizations across the country working on reforming the criminal justice system. From the official blog post:

We believe better data can be can be part of the solution [against mass incarceration], which is why we’re investing in organizations using data and evidence to reduce racial disparities in the criminal justice system. We’re giving $5 million to support the Center for Policing Equity (CPE), which partners with police agencies and communities by bringing together data science, trainings and policy reforms to address racial disparity. This intersection gives CPE a unique opportunity to both identify the cause of problems, and propose concrete solutions. CPE’s National Justice Database is the first in the nation to track national statistics on police behavior, including stops and use of force, and standardizes data collection across many of the country’s police departments. Soon, Google engineers will be volunteering their time and skills with CPE to help build and improve this platform.

Google plans to dole out the grants to ten different organizations. “The goal of these efforts is a society where everyone, regardless of race, is ensured an equal outcome under the law,” writes Justin Steele, Principal at Google.Org. “We hope that our grants will provide resources and support to bring about this much-needed change.”

FCC lifts transparency requirements for some internet providers

The Federal Communications Commission today voted to remove reporting requirements for internet providers with fewer than 250,000 subscribers, a move that chips away at the foundation of net neutrality. Today’s vote means these smaller carriers no longer have to publicly share information about data caps, fees, and network performance and management practices for at least five years.

The Commission just acted to relieve thousands of small broadband providers from onerous reporting obligations. #OpenMtgFCC

— The FCC (@FCC) February 23, 2017

The FCC, which recently became a Republican-controlled regulatory body, called the accounting and reporting requirements “unnecessary burdens” on carriers. The commission had previously exempted carriers with fewer than 100,000 subscribers from these reporting requirements, but today’s vote expands the waiver. As PC World notes, only about 20 internet service providers have more than 250,000 subscribers.

“Relieving small providers of these excessive, burdensome reporting obligations will free up resources for these companies to invest in new and expanded networks, which provide more competitive options for consumers and lower prices,” an FCC spokesperson said. “Consumers will continue to have access to the information they need to choose a provider and plan, which broadband providers already disclose and was required by the 2010 Open Internet Order.”

The vote passed 2-1 along party lines, with Democrat Mignon Clyburn opposed. Clyburn argued the new rules impact larger carriers as well, allowing their smaller subsidiaries to operate without transparency.

“In an ongoing quest to dismantle basic consumer protections for broadband services, the majority has decided to exempt billion-dollar public companies from being transparent with consumers,” Clyburn added. “This represents yet another in a series of steps being taken to jettison pro-consumer initiatives.”

New FCC chairman Ajit Pai is firmly against net neutrality, as is commissioner Michael O’Rielly. In early February, Pai announced the FCC would no longer investigate carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T for “zero rating” programs, which have been criticized as circumventing the goal of net neutrality.

All the smartphones we expect to see at MWC 2017

It’s that time of year again. Barcelona, with its stunning architecture and succulent jamón, will soon be packed with new smartphones, tablets, wearables, networking gear, app developers and, well, tech journalists like us. By the time you’re reading this, we’ll already be on the ground in Spain laying the foundation for a week of intense coverage. Read on for a rundown of what we expect to see as the show unfolds.

LG

I’ll admit, I was swept up in the sheer novelty of last year’s G5, but that modular gamble hasn’t paid off the way LG hoped. That explains why the G6, which LG has already revealed in drips and drabs, seems like a dramatic change. All signs point to the G6 being a non-modular device, which, while unsurprising in some ways, should come as a blow to G5 adopters who believed the company when it said those bolt-on “Friend” accessories would be compatible with this year’s flagship phone. Still, some things are familiar: It packs an upgraded quad-DAC for high-resolution audio (like last year’s V20), as well as a dual-camera setup similar to what was used on the original G5.

That’s not to say the rest of the package as we understand it isn’t a little weird. LG has confirmed that the phone will have a big screen running at an odd aspect ratio (18:9, compared with 16:9 on most other phones). Rumors also suggest that the device will pack a relatively common Snapdragon 821 chipset instead of the newer, more powerful Snapdragon 835. That would be a bummer, but there might be one big silver lining: Reports claim that the G6 will be the first non-Pixel smartphone to integrate Google’s Assistant. Considering that the V20 was the first phone to ship with Android 7.0 Nougat preloaded, we’d be a little surprised if that last tidbit wasn’t true.

HTC

In years past, HTC used MWC has a launching point for whatever new flagship it was working on that year. This year, however, the company pulled back the curtain on the U Play and flagship-level U Ultra closer to CES, leaving HTC without new high-end hardware to show off in Spain. It’s an unorthodox approach, but one that another competitor is running with, too.

Samsung

This year is a peculiar one for Samsung as well. 2017 is the first year in a long time where the company isn’t unveiling its new flagship smartphone in Barcelona. The Galaxy S8 should make its official debut shortly after MWC, but we have word of new tablets in Spain to keep us satisfied. One is a follow-up to last year’s Galaxy Tab S2, predictably called the Tab S3. Reports point to a 9.7-inch Super AMOLED screen and a Snapdragon 820 chip — all the rage in last year’s flagships — with an included S Pen, to boot. We’re also hearing Samsung will have another ultraportable Windows 10 tablet called the Galaxy Book. Conceptually, it’ll be pretty similar to the awkwardly named Galaxy TabPro S, with one of Intel’s Kaby Lake i5 processors. Surprise, surprise: This tablet will apparently come with an S Pen of its own, which only makes sense given Windows’ penchant for pen inputs.

Beyond the stuff you’d normally expect at a show like this, Samsung also confirmed it’s bringing some goodies from its experimental C-Lab. This time, it’s mostly AR and VR stuff, including a pair of glasses that could replace your traditional PC monitor, as well as a Gear VR app that pledges to help the vision-impaired watch TV and read screens more clearly. Remember: This is a part of the company where employees are encouraged to pursue offbeat ideas and generally act with the flexibility of a startup, so a little weirdness is to be expected.

Huawei

No surprise here: Huawei will unveil its new P10 smartphone at the show, most likely with an all-metal body and the usual dual-Leica camera setup. That should sound pretty familiar, but new to the mix are a slew of unexpected colors unearthed by prolific leaker Evan Blass. At this point, it looks like the fingerprint scanner has been moved to the phone’s front, under the screen, and it supposedly uses a Kirin 960 chipset with 4GB to 6GB of RAM and between 32GB and 128GB of storage. And like before, there’s persistent word of a bigger, more premium model — in this case, the P10 Plus. Leaked renders suggest it might have a curved screen similar to the S7 Edge.

It’s also clear that Huawei will launch a new Android Wear 2.0 watch at the show. Most recently, a teaser image posted to Weibo points to a sportier build than the original. Also on deck is optional 4G LTE connectivity, which has become a hallmark feature of high-end wearables — just look at Samsung’s Gear S3 Frontier and the LG Watch Sport. There’s currently no word on whether a classier model or a model specifically for women are in the works, but hey, what fun would this show be without surprises?

Sony

The love-them-or-hate-them Xperias Sony unveiled last year were a bit of a surprise, and you can expect even more this year. Rumors point to a broad array of Sony phones, the most exciting of which is said to pack a 5.5-inch 4K screen and one of Qualcomm’s brand new Snapdragon 835 chipsets. That sounds like serious flagship horsepower, which feels downright refreshing when you consider how little Sony pushed the envelope with the X Performance (pictured above). The rest of the line-up is considerably more mid-range. In particular, we might also see new Xperia XA phones packing Mediatek P20 chipsets and 23-megapixel rear cameras to round out Sony’s portfolio.

We’d also be surprised if Sony didn’t have projector-related announcement this year. After all, the Xperia Projector was revealed as a fascinating concept at MWC 2016 and a version we saw briefly at CES 2017 seemed very close to ready for the masses. Turning any wall into a touch-friendly Android interface is no small feat, though, so maybe its time just hasn’t come yet — the rumor mill has been pretty quiet about it.

ZTE

ZTE might have more secrets up its sleeves, but it already announced what is probably its more important device. It’s called the Gigabit phone (for now), and as the name implies, it’s a device capable of super-high-speed data connections that should make 360-degree VR, 4K video streaming and truly seamless cloud storage a very real possibility. Alas, this high-speed tech obviously requires some serious network infrastructure — good thing it looks like 2017 is the year real-world 5G testing will finally start ramping up. We wouldn’t be shocked to see some mid-range stuff from ZTE too, but do know that its style-conscious Nubia sub-brand will have a presence on the show floor. Too bad that stuff never winds up in the US.

Lenovo/Motorola

Credit to Lenovo for doing a nice job staying off the radar — we’ve heard that there will be at least one new Android tablet in the works, and a new Yoga 720 Window 10 convertible if we’re lucky. Beyond that, most of the major leaks have come courtesy of Motorola. We’re positive at this point that we’ll see two 5th-generation Moto G phones at MWC, one of which will have a 1.4GHz Snapdragon 430 chipset, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and a 5-inch display.

Moto G5 Plus for Verizon. pic.twitter.com/XfmzLMc8zn

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 22, 2017

Meanwhile, the “Plus” model will pack a bigger screen and a faster Snapdragon 625 processor. Fair enough, but we’re more impressed with the G5 aesthetic than the specs these phones sport — it looks like we’re getting curvaceous, comfortable-looking metal bodies that come off as more premium than prior models.

TCL/Alcatel/BlackBerry

TCL just might be one of the busiest companies at MWC this year. Part of that is because of its fascinating partnership with BlackBerry to develop devices like the impressive new BlackBerry “Mercury.” That code name may well disappear soon, but the device itself is still full of that BlackBerry DNA — after all, it was designed with BlackBerry and packs a great (so far) physical QWERTY keyboard. Sure, we saw it at CES already, but (barring any major mishaps) it’ll be out in the wild shortly.

Meanwhile, TCL’s Alcatel brand might have a modular smartphone of its own with a removable back to show off at MWC. If true, that would make Alcatel approach more Motorola than LG, and that might be a very good thing indeed. We’re hearing the brand will also have four other phones to announce, though the juicy details are hard to come by at this point.

Nokia

While we’re on the subject of unexpected companies representing storied brands, HMD-owned Nokia should show off around four new smartphones at MWC. That might seem a like a lot for a company trying to revive the Nokia name, but don’t forget the China-only Nokia 6 sold out within a minute. No wonder Nokia’s new parent company is prepping some follow-ups.

The rumor mill says the Nokia 3 will be a lower-end device with a plastic body, while the slightly higher-end Nokia 5 comes swathed in metal. The 8, meanwhile, could be a full-on flagship device with a 24-megapixel rear camera and a Snapdragon 835 chipset if whispers hold true. We’re hoping the specifics surrounding the 8 are true, though; it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a properly lust-worthy Nokia phone.

Most exciting, though, are rumors that the classic 3310 will make some kind of return at MWC. Is it a feature phone? Some sort of rugged, Android-powered affair designed to pick up where the original 3310 left off? We’re not sure, but we hope it’ll take a beating as well as Nokia’s truly classic candy-bar phone did years ago.

Apple Updates iTunes Remote App With Two-Factor Authentication for Home Sharing

Apple today updated its iTunes Remote app, which is designed to allow users to control their iTunes libraries from anywhere in the home.

The new update adds support for Apple’s Two-Factor Authentication system, adding an extra layer of security when signing in for Home Sharing purposes. Using Home Sharing will now require a verified device or a verified phone number that can receive a Two-Factor Authentication code, preventing an unauthorized user from accessing a home library with just a password.

For those unfamiliar with Two-Factor Authentication, it is an opt-in system that’s designed to increase the security of Apple ID accounts. It asks users to provide a verified code when signing in to new devices, when using iCloud, and when using services like iMessage and FaceTime.

Apple’s iTunes Remote app was last updated in September of 2016, adding iOS 10 compatibility and minor performance and stability improvements. The app lets users browse their iTunes libraries and send music to AirPlay speakers.

The iTunes Remote app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Tags: Two-Factor Authentication, iTunes Remote
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Latest Nokia 3310 leak reveals new details about revived 17-year-old phone

HMD must be surprised at how the internet blew up last week when the media leaked news about it resurrecting the Nokia 3310. And that now, because of the huge interest, a new report with even more details has surfaced.

HMD Global Oy, the Finnish manufacturer marketing phones under the Nokia brand, is reportedly bringing the Nokia 6 and three budget Android phones to Europe. One of those budget phones is a revival of the Nokia 3310 from 17 years ago. It is described as “modern version of a classic workhorse” with plentiful battery life and a “nearly indestructible build”. Also, according to a new report, it will “remain a feature phone”.

A report from GizmoChina, which has cited an anonymous source that “was one of the first to report the revival of the Nokia 3310,” said the phone will not run Android. It will also look a lot like the original phone that released in 2000 (pictured below for reference), but it’ll be lighter and thinner, which makes total sense, considering phone components have slimmed down quite a bit in the last two decades.

Aman Firdaus (Flickr)

• Mobile World Congress 2017: Nokia, Sony, Huawei, and more

While the original Nokia 3310 had a 84 x 84 monochromatic display, the new one will have a larger colour display, but it won’t be high resolution in order to maximise the phone’s battery life. And finally, the default colours for the Nokia 3310 were grey/black, blue and ash, but this time around, you can expect multiple colour variants like red, green, and yellow. And it will cost only €59, naturally.

The Nokia 3310 is expected to launch alongside the Nokia 6 on 26 February at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Pocket-lint will be there to bring you the latest as it happens, including details on UK pricing if made available.

In the NBA’s eSports league, diversity means a new kind of athlete

With millions of gamers willing to watch people play League of Legends or FIFA for fun, major players in the entertainment industry see eSports as an intriguing business opportunity. Earlier this month, the NBA announced a partnership with Take-Two Interactive, developer of the renowned NBA2K franchise, to create a one-of-a-kind eSports league. This new professional gaming competition, known as “NBA 2K eLeague,” will be the first owned by a major US sports organization when it starts in 2018. That’s assuming the NFL, MLB or MLS don’t make any sudden moves before then.

According to the NBA, each of its 30 teams will eventually have its own eSports squad, just as they’re represented in the WNBA or the lower-tier D-League. At launch, however, only eight to 12 NBA teams will participate, with the rest expected to do so later on. Every 2K eLeague team will be made up of five human players, which the NBA plans to treat the same way it does athletes who play for the San Antonio Spurs, New York Knicks or any of its other NBA, WNBA or D-League clubs. There will be contracts and endorsement deals at stake, for instance. The main difference here is that there’s room for more diversity, since these pro players can be of any age, gender or race to play on the same court — even if it is a virtual one.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick

NBA and Take-Two Interactive said they’ll create custom avatars for each player in the 2K eLeague, so players can see a digital version of themselves in every game. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says that eSports gives the league access to a new kind of athlete, different from what audiences are accustomed to seeing live or on TV. “Physical prowess, at least the way it’s necessary on an NBA court, will no longer be necessary,” said Silver during his All-Star Weekend press conference this past weekend. “It may be a different kind of physical prowess in terms of reflexes and your ability to move your thumbs very quickly, but these athletes can be any shape or size, and any age, and from anywhere.”

To get a clearer picture of the NBA 2K eLeague as a whole, I sat down with NBA VP of Global Partnerships Matt Holt and 2K’s SVP of Basketball Operations Jason Argent, two of the people involved with the project. Based on our conversation, there are still many details to be ironed out, like whether you’ll be able to watch these games on ESPN, Twitch, Youtube or elsewhere. But with the competition not scheduled to start until early next year, we’ll find out their distribution strategy soon enough, as well as which specific NBA teams are going to be part of the inaugural season.

NBA players during a 2K event at All-Star Weekend 2017 in New Orleans.

How did this partnership come about?

Matt Holt: 2K on their side had been doing their own gaming tournaments: We had “Road to the Finals” last year and then our owners have been super active in the space. We’ve been making investments, we’ve been exploring different ways that we could participate in eSports and we sort of said, “Let’s stop looking around. Let’s work with one of our biggest partners in 2K,” and the two conversations just kind of converged.

What’s next, now that the league has been announced?

Holt: The next steps are talking to our teams to find out exactly what teams are going to populate the league. We’re expecting that we’re going to get roughly half of our teams that are going to opt in and join up. Once we have that, we’re going to put together some of the details about schedule, timing, but right now we’re targeting 2018.

Jason Argent: I think the goal we all have collectively is to really create a league that’s a match and consistent with what happens in the real NBA world. We’re a simulation video game; obviously we would love to have a league that simulates that. So same team, same structure. You know, possibly a different season timing, but basically the same simulation of what happens in the real world in the NBA.

What sort of challenges do you think you’ll face trying to accomplish that kind of structure for the eLeague?

Argent: We’re creating something that has never existed, but I think everything is in our favor. We have a great momentum with eSports in general; we have a great partner with the NBA. And I think the fact that there’s never been something where there’s been a partnership with a professional sports league and a video game company before is all in our favor. But sure, anytime you’re a vanguard or someone leading the charge, there are some challenges and some unanswered questions, but I think that’s something that made both of our companies successful.

Holt: I think the other thing is, we’re starting a league from scratch. So, with the NBA, we have the NBA, we have the WNBA, the D-League, and now we have an eSports league. We have some experience in doing that, but it’s a big lift. You’re starting a league from scratch, we have to sign a partnership, we have to sign up teams, we have to figure out a schedule, we have to figure out timing, we have to build from a development standpoint, so it’s exciting, but it’s a big lift.

What about in terms of diversity? How are the teams going to work in that regard? Is it going to be male only or can women play too?

Argent: I think that’s one of the most exciting parts to us. You know, you have to have some very serious level of athletic prowess to compete in the NBA. There’s a different level of prowess with this. So, males, females, 18-year-olds, 27-year-olds, 80-year-olds, you know, that’s the cool part about this for us. Everyone can participate, assuming they have the prowess of being able to play the game at that professional level. For us, it expands our video game audience, and I’m assuming that with the NBA it expands their audience as well, so that’s one of the biggest, exciting parts of it for us.

Who are the naysayers?

And in terms of deals with networks, is the league going to be streamed on Twitch, YouTube or elsewhere?

Holt: I think the first step is we got to get some of these details locked down, and then I think media, schedule, timing, those things will start to fall into place.

What else intrigues the NBA and 2K most about this?

Holt: The main thing is, we’re starting a fourth league. It’s kind of like a fourth pillar of the game of basketball; it’s a totally different world. You know, some of the things about the different types of players that can potentially participate in the league, the fact that it could be global. You can imagine down the road, where, yeah, we have a bunch of franchises in North America, but there is no reason why you couldn’t have a franchise in London, or in Shanghai, or in some other international city, so that’s really cool.

Argent: ESports in Asia, and certainly internationally, are a little bit ahead of the United States. We’ve learned quite a bit about that, so that’s hugely exciting to us. The idea of utilizing that and being able to be on the front lines of doing what they’re doing, or replicating what the international markets are doing on our level, it’s very cool to be leading that charge in North America. But, you know, a lot of it is expanding. The NBA has done such a fantastic job growing internationally, and the video game business is obviously a big international business, so the ability for us to partner together to do that and to expand globally is super exciting for us.

Is the idea to treat the 2K eLeague the same way as your other three leagues? Will you include it in a future All-Star Weekend or maybe awards season?

Holt: We’re starting at a smaller level, and it’s in the beginning stages right now. But that’s the vision: That it runs in parallel with the NBA season and it’s a fourth league that we run and operate together.

What about for the naysayers who say eSports are not real sports?

Argent: Obviously, I don’t think we believe that. Who are the naysayers? That would be my question. Like anything that’s new, there’s a question mark. But I think there’s enough momentum, there’s enough proof, and there’s enough people, enough people and enough consumers who are playing and participating in eSports that it’s a very viable market in our opinion.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Apple speaks out against regressive transgender policies

Apple spoke out against the Trump administration yesterday, criticizing its stance on transgender rights in schools. While the previous administration offered inclusive guidance to schools on transgender rights, the government yesterday revoked a federal law that allowed transgender children access to the bathroom of the gender that they identify with.

Speaking with Axios, Apple released a statement condemning the move. “Apple believes everyone deserves a chance to thrive in an environment free from stigma and discrimination. We support efforts toward greater acceptance, not less, and we strongly believe that transgender students should be treated as equals. We disagree with any effort to limit or rescind their rights and protections.”

This isn’t the first time that Apple has spoken out against Trump’s Administration, with the company publicly disagreeing with his recent travel ban. It also took a similar stance against states who tried to use legislation to limit LGBT rights in 2015.

Source: Axios

Google improves two-step verification on phones

Last summer Google introduced phone prompts as a way of approving sign-in attempts protected by two-step verification. Instead of an email or text, users receive a simple pop-up alerting them to a new sign-in request. While useful, there wasn’t much information on the card, save for the location and device being used. Now, Google is refreshing the feature, adding more details about the associated time, location and hardware. As Android Police notes, the wording has also been adjusted slightly in the prompts, from “no” to “no it’s just me.” It’s a small change, but one that should help privacy-conscious users distinguish friend from foe.

Google Fiber launches its first wireless gigabit project

A Denver apartment complex is the first to get gigabit internet speeds from Google via its wireless Webpass service rather than Fiber. Webpass specializes in multi-unit internet service using point-to-point wireless tech instead of cables. The company already offers its services in Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Diego, Oakland and San Francisco (above), but Denver is the first new city since Google acquired it last year.

Webpass uses a combination of fiber optics, wireless and ethernet tech. It transmits high-speed cable via rooftop antennas, and the signal is then captured at installation sites (with ten or more units) and distributed to individual apartments via eithernet.

Google is having problems building out infrastructure in Fiber cities like Nashville, thanks to red tape issues and entrenched utilities that aren’t exactly cooperating. Consequently, it recently announced it would halt expansion plans and lay off about nine percent of its Fiber workforce. It is reportedly looking instead at providing internet to communities wirelessly, and Webpass is a key part of that.

The company still has to get fiber lines to the antenna transmission sites, and the tech isn’t economically feasible for single family homes. However, Webpass eliminates the need for “last mile” wiring so that Google needn’t rely on utilities or rivals like AT&T for pole or underground right-of-way access. Google Fiber co-exists with Webpass in three US cities (Chicago, San Diego and San Francisco), which could allow for rapid expansion in those areas.

Google has posted job listings for a “General manager to launch our Seattle market,” so Denver could be just a start for Webpass. Last month it revealed that six metro areas “may be eligible to use Webpass if their building has at least 10 units, and is wired with Ethernet cabling.”

Source: Google

Exploring death through the isolation of VR

I’m sitting on a field of tall, red grass staring straight ahead at a lone tree. Its leaves match the crimson landscape that stretches out before me. In the distance, a rusty orange forest fades into the background. There’s a gentle rustling of leaves, occasionally interrupted by the faint chirping of a bird, that forces me to breathe slower.

“Thank you for being here and being willing to consider moving towards the idea of dying and death,” a calm, male voice prepares me for the virtual meditative journey.

A hazy white light source rises in the distance as the voice walks me through the process of focusing on my breathing. I watch the blades of the grass swish to the left with the wind. The tree slowly starts to lose its leaves. “Feel the air around you,” the voice continues. “Feel yourself letting go as if you’re a tree dropping your leaves. The breeze takes the leaves away. Everything that you know and everything you cherish will be taken by the wind.”

As I let the weight of those words sink in, the blue sky slowly takes on a deep green hue, ushering in darker skies. Within moments, the field beneath me turns into a deep red lake that starts to rise around me. I gasp for air before I quickly remind myself that I have an Oculus Rift headset on my face.

When We Die is a virtual reality experience for perhaps the most difficult kind of contemplation: the end of life. The first half, with the metaphorical tree, presents the ephemerality of nature as a symbol of the finiteness of your own life. But the next chapter addresses the wider perception of death as a tragedy through real-life experiences.

In the second half, serene views of the cosmos shift the narrative from considering your own mortality to thinking about the process of dying as an inescapable reality for all. Celestial objects that dot the night sky reveal audio clips from a hospice worker, who shares her observations of death, and a neurologist, who grounds the experience in a physician’s approach to it.

“We wanted to create a safe space for people to have difficult conversations,” said Paula Ceballos, an NYU student who is a part of a trio that created When We Die for the school’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. “We find that in the Western culture death and dying and aging get put behind closed doors, and we wanted to bring it up and make you think about it.”

The fear of death, your own or a loved one’s, is deeply ingrained in the human psyche. It can drive the choices we make, yet it continues to be shrouded in mystery. Over the years, hundreds of research studies have probed the process of dying, the fear of confronting death and how the awareness of one’s own mortality has impacted religious, cultural and spiritual world views.

When We Die makes room for that spiritual contemplation with its abstract worlds: There are no physical bodies, only metaphors for the process of aging and dying. But the idea is rooted in a more practical understanding of the ways in which neglecting end-of-life processes can hamper the process of dying, especially for the elderly and the terminally ill.

Your browser does not support the audio element

Dr. Devi shares her personal experience in When We Die.

“It leads to systemic challenges,” said Leslie Ruckman, an NYU student whose background in health care informed her work on When We Die. “There’s all this money that gets spent on treating patients in ICUs, and people [often] end up dying in hospitals even though advance directives might say they’d rather die at home. These are bigger issues that arise out of the inability to look at the end of life and not being able to define what a good death might look like.”

The VR experience relies on surreal visuals to make that happen. According to co-creator Dana Abrassart, when the group first started working on the project, they envisioned a James Turrell-style liminal space. But they quickly realized that a virtual take on the light and space movement would trigger motion sickness.

Nausea in a death-related experience would defeat the purpose of their work. So instead, the group found inspiration in Richard Mosse’s infrared imagery. “It’s this idea that there’s a light spectrum around us but the human eye can’t see it,” Ruckman told me. “We liked that as a parallel to this natural process that is always present and yet, we choose not to see it.”

Death is a constant. Yet its prevalence is hidden behind hospital doors. “In the US, there’s a sanitization of death,” Dr. Gayatri Devi, the neurologist whose voice floats through the cosmos in the second half of the VR experience, told me at her clinic in Manhattan. “Our current view of death might be a victim of industrialization and development. There’s less contact with ill people who are dying so they get sequestered and put in a different place. Whereas in India, for example, there is a philosophy of maintaining contact with family and contact with death is not uncommon.”

More than 80 percent of Americans with chronic illnesses would prefer to forego hospitalization, but according to the CDC, 70 percent of that population dies in a hospital or nursing home. Even in cases where patients have advance directives to avoid aggressive measures, a widespread study revealed that only 25 percent of the physicians were aware of their patients’ end-of-life choices. The discrepancies are jarring. Even though the rise of palliative care and hospice work in the past few years is starting to close that gap, the inability to talk about death continues to get in the way of making better choices.

“Death is not a contagious illness,” said Dr. Devi. “But in some ways, we treat it like one. We need to talk about it and get comfortable around it and maybe use VR to experience it. The better the conversation about death, the more likely we’ll be to allow more of us to die at home so we’re not scared of it.”

Conquering those fears has been the focus of recent psychological explorations in VR. While When We Die uses a light meditative touch to approach conversations around death, a Spanish research group recently simulated an out-of-body experience to tackle the full spectrum of thanatophobia (or the fear of dying) in an attempt to reduce anxiety.

“Death is not a contagious illness. But in some ways, we treat it like one. We need to talk about it and get comfortable around it and maybe use VR to experience it.” — Dr. Gayatri Devi

The idea of one’s own nonexistence has always been a tough one to conquer. “But it’s a reality and we can’t opt out of it,” said Dr. Devi. “When you allow yourself into that space of thinking you’re dead, where you lose agency over yourself — that can be a powerful experience. Allowing yourself to sit with that makes you vulnerable and to be able to think about death. You have to allow that to happen.”

While some might consider this exploration of death terrifying or even futile, in many cases the practical rewards offer the required motivation. Preparing beforehand, for instance, allows people to get their affairs in order, which unburdens families from making end-of-life decisions.

“When people are faced with death, if they haven’t done any preparation, there’s too much fear and anxiety to let anything else in,” Stephanie Hope, the hospice nurse who shares her experiences in When We Die told me. “It makes it important to talk to people who aren’t faced with that yet.”

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Stephanie Hope talks about the “dignity of dying” in When We Die.

Hope, who has been a hospice worker for about four years, points out that when people think about having limited time, they start to withdraw and often show an inclination to spend time with people they’re close to. She likens that purposeful shrinking of the world to a kind of intimacy and peace that can be felt in the aloneness of VR.

The isolation, which tends to be one of the biggest criticisms of the medium, lends itself to the deeply personal experience of contemplating death. “You’re in your own world and this is your moment,” said Hope. “So to think that that’s what it might be like at the end for you can be powerful thing.”

19th century phantasmagoria

While the immersive possibilities of VR feel contemporary, tools that address the human predisposition to death have been around for centuries. John Troyer, director of the center for death and society at the University of Bath, traces the lineage of the visual format all the way back to mediumship. “For me, a lot of it, although a different kind of technology, has a relationship to this idea of connecting with the dead in some way,” he said. “To understand any kind of new tool that is supposed to help people think about death, we have to place it in context of the long history of tools that were created by humans to help other humans make sense of their mortality.”

Troyer pointed to theatrical experiences like phantasmagoria of the 19th century, which played with themes of monsters and death long before VR. The use of projection systems like magic lanterns turned those imaginative ideas into visual experiences for audiences, which in a way is comparable to the current applications of the immersive technology.

The visual trickery of present-day VR, however, is far more profound than its predecessors, both in terms of the visual display as well as its potential for real-world impact. Death-related VR experiences can help prepare people for the inevitable but can also be used to train hospice nurses. Hope believes that bringing VR headsets into nursing school simulation labs, where trainees already work with dummies to stage scenarios, could provide crucial insight into hospice work from a patient’s perspective.

While hospice workers are trained to care for the dying, physicians are primed to prevent death. “In medicine we’re taught to keep that heart beating,” said Dr. Devi. “There’s an attitude of ‘let’s do whatever we can to keep this person’s heart beating, even if that doesn’t improve their quality of life.’ But why are we putting our elderly or very ill patients through these aggressive ways when the outcome is not going to be a good-quality life?”

When We Die doesn’t address those questions directly. Instead, it gets at them with an acknowledgement of death as a potentially positive experience. There’s an inherent belief that dying is depressing. It continues to be a terrifying unknown because we lack experience in it. But as the VR experience reveals, the tragedy of death isn’t true for all.