Category: Augmented Reality Technology

VR game to be created by IBM’s Watson

| February 29, 2016

The supercomputer is going to be converting an anime from a book series into a huge multiplayer online game.

The Japanese division at IBM has now turned its attention to creating a VR game out of an anime called “Sword Art Online: The Beginning” with the assistance of its Watson artificial intelligence supercomputer.

The project is meant to turn the book series into a virtual reality multiplayer game available online.

The team at IBM is using Watson’s cognitive computing, in conjunction with the cloud service from SoftLayer, as a part of a partnership with Namco Bandai. They intend to be able to test the new VR game in Tokyo, in March. In order to be able to play the virtual reality game, players will need to wear VR headsets so they will be capable of viewing the world in the role of their 3D avatar. In this way, the player doesn’t use a controller in order to participate in the game. They actually become the controller.

The VR game will support the HTC Vive, while it also looks as though Occulus Rift and SlashGear will be supported.

Aside from some introductory basics, there hasn’t been much in terms of details that have been revealed, so far. Moreover, at the time of the writing of this article, IBM hadn’t provided an immediate response to comment requests.

The anime, in question, Sword Art Online, was first launched in 2012 and was based on a 2009 light series of Japanese novels. The story includes a considerable focus on virtual reality and opens up a tremendous opportunity for multiplayer role-playing games (RPGs).

The series that will become a VR game first ran in 2012 in Tokyo, but it has since streamed on Hulu and Crunchyroll. In 2013, it arrived in North America, where it is also now available on Netflix. At the Mobile World Congress (MWC), IBM announced that it would be bringing the IBM Cloud together with the Apple Swift runtime package. The goal result is to have a enterprise app development based on cloud tech, that would function with Swift. The MobileFirst platform can also be leveraged by customers, meaning it’s possible for them to use hybrid app versions for managing mobile from one platform.

Augmented reality enhances the Harvard mobile tour app experience

| February 24, 2016

Tourists head to the ivy league university every day and now they are seeing it in a whole new way.

Harvard has now launched a new official university tour app that uses augmented reality technology and other features to provide visitors with an enhanced version of the more traditional form of audio tour that is often seen in museums.

The new mobile app is called the Harvard Official Mobile Tour and is currently available to tourists.

This application represents the first project that was taken on by PIVOTtheWorld, which is a startup operating out of the Innovation Lab at the university. Visitors to the campus simply need to download the mobile app, install it and launch it. Then, when they point their device at any of the 23 different applicable “pivot points,” that is, landmarks throughout the Harvard grounds that have been selected to be a part of the tour, they can learn about those spots through augmented reality features.

The augmented reality app lets a visitor see what the pivot point looked like, back in time, when it was new.

harvard university augmented realityThe pivot points are typically buildings or statues, some of which date back by centuries. Some of the old images are photographs, while others are paintings, as many of the pivot points are much older than photography. The idea is to be able to use the AR technology to be able to look at the way that specific place has changed over the years, while the visitor is able to learn more about what they are seeing.

PIVOTtheWorld is a company that was first founded by husband-and-wife team Asma Jaber and Sami Jitan, following the death of Asma Jaber’s father. Her father, originally a Palestinian, moved to the U.S. in the late 1960s. Jaber was raised to hear the stories of the world he had first called home. When he died, she had only recently graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Despite the fact that she had lived her life in rural South Carolina and then went to university at Harvard, she said she “grew up with a vivid image of Palestine.”

Her husband, Jitan, is an anthropologist. Also a descendent of a Palestinian family, he shared in her passion for cultural history. It was that common enthusiasm for the subject that led to the formation of PIVOTtheWorld and the development of augmented reality experiences that would allow people to see more than what is in front of their eyes when they visit a place of historical significance.