Category: News

Many people assume that virtual reality is a recent arrival on the technological scene, but in fact, it goes back much further than many of us realise. There are three separate issues here which are discussed as separate articles within this section. They include: How did virtual reality begin? Who invented virtual reality? Who coined...

This is another virtual environment or to be more exact, a virtual world in which you can interact with others and form new friendships. Social networking is the main theme here. The emphasis is meeting new people in exciting places and trying out various activities. These include shopping, playing games or relaxing at home. This...

Virtual worlds are recently new phenomena in that they enable people to meet and socially interact with others in a variety of online environments. Each user is able to build an environment which they navigate by means of a 3D figure or avatar. This avatar is personalised by the user and acts as their ‘alter...

Many educational virtual worlds are designed for children, for example Miamiopia which is part of a learning network. This site uses games as a method of teaching curriculum subjects such as maths, biology, geography, history and science. Children ‘earn’ rewards in the form of virtual coins which they can use to purchase items from the...

Our Second Life for education article talks about the role of this virtual world in a learning environment. It looks at how and why it is used in this type of setting. This article discusses the benefits of doing so. The benefits of Second Life in education are: Visit other countries without leaving the classroom...

We often think of virtual reality games for teenagers and young people in general but there are plenty of adults who enjoy these types of games. Virtual worlds such as Second Life and Kaneva enable you to play games within a virtual world. But there are others which include: RuneScape Cybertown Entropia Universe Meez Outerworlds...

Xiaomi today unveiled a low-cost VR headset alongside their Mi Note 2 smartphone at the company’s Mi Product Launch Event in Beijing. Much like Samsung Gear VR, Mi VR features a built-in dedicated motion sensor for low latency head-tracking and only works with a select number of the company’s phones. Mi VR will ship with a 9-axis...

Hammerhead VR, the creators of the splendidly creepy ABE VR, a short VR film that puts you at the mercy of a robot gone awry, today revealed a first-person horror game called Syren. Hammerhead is a VR production studio that’s worked with VR game development, real-time visualization, and 360 degree video, but they’re probably most well known for their work...

Cognitive VR is an VR analytics platform that has an impressive system for visualizing a player’s movements and gaze within a 3D representation of a VR experience. Their SceneExplorer tool translates the 3D geometry from a Unity or Unreal experience into a WebGL mesh that can be shared within a web browser. It allows VR...

Just what Google has brewing in their skunkworks, we can’t say for sure, but with their most recent acquisition of Eyefluence, a company that builds eye-tracking technology for VR headsets, it seems Google is getting ever deeper into what’s largely considered ‘the next generation’ of dedicated VR hardware. A report from Engadget published yesterday maintains that Google’s...