Star Wars: A New Reality

On April 24th, 2017 an announcement was made that Disney and the Star Wars franchise are going to partner with Nokia to bring Star Wars content to virtual reality.  This is only one example of Hollywood's recent move into bringing people virtual reality content. With this Star Wars content viewers will be able to visit the sets and go behind the scene of the new and upcoming Star Wars: The Last Jedi film, as well as visiting the fictional locations the story is based in. They will be able to traverse the Star Wars universe in VR and that is exciting.

"Utilizing the Nokia OZO to capture our behind-the-scenes material allows viewers to be transported to fantastical locations and virtually visit the incredible sets where their favorite Star Wars scenes were captured," said Lucasfilm's senior vice president of franchise creative and strategy, Brian Miller, in a statement (Mashable). 

This actually isn't Disney's first venture into the realm of virtual reality. They have been recently partnering with Nokia using the 360-degree Ozo virtual reality camera. This new camera is revolutionary for filmmakers and allows them to make 360 degree virtual environments for viewers. They have used this before with Disney's live action remake of The Jungle Book, recording a round table interview with the directors and cast in which the viewer felt as if they were at the table with them. Now they are shooting to get premium content for their newest and biggest franchises Star Wars and Marvel. 

This is amazing news for geeks all over the world, including myself, who have grown up loving the Star Wars universe. Soon we will be able to soar through space with Tie Fighters and X-wings in virtual reality. Soon we will be able to feel like an innocent civilian in the middle of a huge battle with the Avengers, and this is only the beginning. Virtual Reality is an amazing new tech with endless possibilities, and the future is exciting!

Virtual Reality: Reach Out and Grab It

Disney recently released a video demonstrating the new experiments using virtual reality interacting with real life and it's amazing. In the video we see a guy equipped with VR goggles interacting with another person in a ball throwing activity. This experiment shows how soon, using nodes attached to real life objects along with a glove with nodes worn by the player, we will be able to interact with the world around us through virtual reality. This is the future we always dreamed of that used to only be seen as science fiction in the 1980's and 90's, and now it is here, and available.

Using a technology that is still new to us, people are working more and more to advance it even further and the future of virtual reality technology is endless and mind blowing. In the video, Disney researchers Matthew Pan and Gunter Niemeyer demonstrate some of the features that are being worked on with these new advances such as basic throwing and catching, targeted throwing and catching, predicted trajectory. and predicted targets. They do this using the new virtual reality head set, the Oculus Rift, which was released late last year and add motion trackers, which are also available for the HTC Vive. All of these things are in the beginning stages but have definite and promising futures in many different aspects of life.

The military has also been implementing VR into their training as of late as the accuracy and technology have advanced. Experiments are also being conducted to eventually allow virtual reality surgery, interactions with people, cognitive help for the elderly, gaming, life and death situations such as bomb diffusing and raids, and many other aspects of daily life. The possibilities are nearly endless and only time will tell what the future holds for VR, but the world is ready and we can't wait to see what comes next! If you would like to read further into this amazing world of technological advances check out Pan and Niemeyer's research paper for the VR ball catching experiments here.