Abu Dhabi culture and tourism department secures world record for largest AR screen

Abu Dhabi has been awarded the Guinness World Record for installing the world’s largest augmented reality (AR) screen in London.

The AR screen, which used the Piccadilly Lights digital billboard and ran across 5,904 square feet, captured images of people near the statue of Eros in the city’s Piccadilly Circus and placed them digitally by using 3D AR overlays, among some of Abu Dhabi’s most famous tourism landmarks.

Ali Al Shaiba, acting executive director of...

3 January 2020 | AR

Raytheon and CAE examples show how VR can be utilised for aerospace training

Defence contractor Raytheon and airline simulation technology provider CAE have both made recent launches showcasing the potential of virtual reality (VR) in terms of employee training in the aerospace sector.

Raytheon has announced the launch of a VR version of its portable V-22 trainer. According to the company, the Aircraft Functional V-22 Trainer-Virtual Reality is a fully immersive system that provides hyper-realistic training across all experience levels that also includes...

5 December 2019 | Applications

AR and blockchain technology is creating the perfect storm in gaming ‘ it’s time to get involved

Opinion ‘Digital convergence’ was the major buzz phrase during the nascent days of what we’ll call ‘mobile content’. In the early-2000s, you couldn’t open a trade magazine (remember those?), visit a tech website or attend a conference without being bombarded with the word and what it would mean for myriad industries specialising in creating content, its means of distribution or the devices for consumption.

Sure enough, the smartphone is probably...

12 September 2019 | Applications

How virtual reality is being used for workplace training – to create greater empathy

VR worlds are arenas which frequently take you away from the mundane and move into the magical. Yet a key long-term use case for virtual reality could be around the mundane – and sometimes uncomfortable – tasks in the workplace.

Retail giant Walmart has long since been an advocate of VR for training its staff. The company utilises Oculus to give employees direction on various scenarios. “We can create scenarios that may never happen – like severe weather...

12 August 2019 | Case Studies

John Lewis & Partners to trial new ‘Visualise Your Space’ virtual reality experience

John Lewis & Partners has announced that it will be trialling a virtual reality (VR) experience called ‘Visualise Your Space’, in order to help customers in deciding which home products they should shop for in order to suit their home perfectly. 

Guided by John Lewis Partners in three trial shops, customers who are shopping for home products will be able to put the dimensions, windows and doors of the room of their choice to update into an iPad via an app, and...

7 June 2019 | Applications

Virtual reality fitness: Improving physical and mental health

With summer just around the corner, many of us will be wanting to get ourselves into shape for our upcoming holidays. But the effect of the hot weather in summer means that it can be all too easy to get back into bad habits and put fitness regimes on the backburner. The thought of being stuck in the gym, pounding the treadmill fills many of us with dread, but it needn’t, there are other, more stimulating ways to get fit.

No, this isn’t referring to the latest rave or...

28 May 2019 | Applications

Man spends entire week in VR headset, notes strength of community despite missing nature

Jak Wilmot, co-founder of Atlanta-based VR agency Disrupt VR, spent an entire week locked into a VR headset – and while he missed the ‘energy’ of the natural world, his conclusion was that virtual reality was “whatever you want it to be.”

The experiment – or publicity stunt, delete as appropriate – came with a couple of caveats. Wilmot could take up to 30 seconds out to switch VR headsets and have 30 seconds without the headset on to eat if...

18 March 2019 | Case Studies

Immersive economy report suggests UK is VR/AR hotspot

A new study suggests that the UK has an oversized impact on the virtual and augmented reality spaces, with companies specialised in AR and VR generating £660 million in sales, accounting for an estimated 9% of the global market.  Furthermore, with appropriate support, this figure could reach more than £1 billion in 2018.

These impressive sales figures are the work of 1,000 companies which employ 4,500 people, which suggests there are a quite a few small...

22 May 2018 | AR

Majority of parents concerned about VR’s potential negative effects on children

60% of parents that took part in a recent survey by Common Sense reported being concerned about the potential negative effects that VR could have on their children. These concerns are, however, accompanied by a belief that VR will provide children with highly informative and beneficial educational experiences.

62% of surveyed parents think that VR will be educationally beneficial, rising to 84% for those whose children already use the technology.  

According to the study,...

5 April 2018 | Case Studies

What is the scent of virtual reality?

The following article is authored by Avery Gilbert, with contributions from Jacki Morie and Saskia Wilson-Brown

Dogs are renowned for their keen sense of smell, but the human nose is no slouch. It’s capable of distinguishing more than 1 trillion different scents, according to Rockefeller University scientists.

In fact, although that’s far more than the 10,000 that decades-old research indicated, the Rockefeller University study concludes that even 1 trillion...

6 March 2018 | Case Studies