Friday
May042018
May 4 Podcast #842: VR Jackets and Mobile Movie Theaters
Category: Podcast Tags: Mobile, Theater, VR, Virtual Reality
Podcast Tags: Mobile, Theater, VR, Virtual Reality 
Disney Research teamed with MIT to build a bizarre virtual-reality "force jacket" that can simulate physical sensations. Including creepy ones. Combine that with the Royole Moon, a virtual 800-inch curved movie screen (about 66 feet) you can strap to your head and home theater just got a lot weirder.
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VR Jackets and Mobile Movie Theaters
Disney and Marvel continue to push the superhero envelope at the box office, with Avengers: Infinity War serving up their latest victory. The mega-mashup smashed a number of records in its global debut over the weekend, less than three months after Marvel's Black Panther began its own historic run.
It was put together by Disney Research, alongside MIT. It's essentially a jacket stuffed with airbags and sensors that can be calibrated to simulate a number of different physical experiences. Disney highlights a few: the feeling of being punched, hugged, or having snakes slither all over your body.
When you wear glasses like this, you are presented with the equivalent of sitting relatively close to a large projection screen, with your peripheral vision essentially filled by the image. Royole suggests that the Moon provides the equal of an 800-inch curved screen (about 66 feet) viewed from about an equal distance away. That’s close to standard IMAX territory. The experience is akin to watching my 92-inch projection screen from a fairly tight 10 feet away, if not closer. In other words, the same highly immersive quality we attribute to the front projection/cinema experience is apparent in spades here and is made all the more so by the addition of some good-quality earphones.
Reader Comments (2)
Braden had some good ideas on protecting home networks. I think they are worthy of being the feature of a dedicated episode. The show was timely because I'm replacing a failed extender with a mesh network as I listen; so this is a good time for me to take another look at security.
Hey Ara - I tried a number of IP addressable wall switches and by far the best for range and reliability was the Lutron fixed switch and dimmers. They are HomeKit compatible. I have approx 20 of them installed now and have had zero failures.
Check them out.
PS - I also had problems with Leviton switches losing connection.