Ericsson & Volvo Collaborate to Create Remotely Operated Construction Equipment

Thanks to Ericsson, I can check off operating heavy machinery from my bucket list.

No, the telecommunications equipment manufacturer didn't have a massive excavator in its booth at the Mobile World Congress trade show here. But it had the next best thing: an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and an operator seat with heavy machinery controls. I put on the helmet, and I was instantly transported 2,500 kilometers, or 1,550 miles, away into the cab of an excavator sitting on a mound of dirt in Eskilstuna, Sweden.

This was no simulation. Ericsson hooked up the seat and Oculus headset to a real Volvo excavator in Sweden, using a 4G wireless network for a real-time video connection. When I nudged the right control stick forward, the giant arm lifted up. It was a little freaky -- and I loved it.

The excavator setup was one of the whiz-bang demonstrations Ericsson had in its traditionally massive booth, serving as an illustration of the power of cellular networks and its vision for a more connected world. It's also a reminder that wireless networks can do more than just power our smartphones.

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How to Allow Interaction With Reality While in Virtual Reality

Augmented reality provides a live view of the real world with computer generated elements superimposed. Pilots have long used head-up displays to access air speed data and other parameters while they fly. Some smartphone cameras can superimpose computer-generated characters on to the view of the real world. And emerging technologies such as Google Glass aim to superimpose useful information on to a real world view, such as navigation directions and personal data.

But there’s a related problem that most people will not yet have considered. Imagine wearing a virtual reality headset and that you are immersed in a virtual world quite unlike the physical one around you. Now suppose you want to take a sip of water from a cup on the desk in front of you.

The only way to succeed is by feeling your way to the cup while still immersed in the virtual world or by removing the virtual reality headset and returning to the physical world. Neither of these is particularly good, say Pulkit Budhiraja and pals at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who have come up with a solution.

These guys have been testing ways of superimposing physical reality onto a virtual reality experience. The goal is to find a way to allow users to interact with real physical objects while they remain immersed in a virtual world—a kind of augmented virtual reality

Budhiraja and co began by modifying an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset with a pair of cameras that produce a stereo view of the real world in front of the headset. They then came up with four different ways of superimposing the real world images onto the virtual world for the task of picking up and drinking from a cup, while remaining immersed.

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Plan X: DARPA Exploring Using Oculus Rift in Cyber Warfare

For the last two years, Darpa has been working to make waging cyberwar as easy as playing a video game. Now, like so many other games, it’s about to get a lot more in-your-face.

At the Pentagon Wednesday, the armed forces’ far-out research branch known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency showed off its latest demos for Plan X, a long-gestating software platform designed to unify digital attack and defense tools into a single, easy-to-use interface for American military hackers. And for the last few months, that program has had a new toy: The agency is experimenting with using the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset to give cyberwarriors a new way to visualize three-dimensional network simulations–in some cases with the goal of better targeting them for attack.

“You’re not in a two-dimensional view, so you can look around the data. You look to your left, look to your right, and see different subnets of information,” Darpa’s Plan X program manager Frank Pound told WIRED in an interview. “With the Oculus you have that immersive environment. It’s like you’re swimming in the internet.”

In its demo setup, complete with two motion-sensing Razer Hydra controllers for navigation, the user does more than swim. As captured in the video below showing an Oculus user’s view, Darpa’s proof-of-concept begins with a collection of “missions” to choose from, each of which is represented by a spherical network of computers. Select one, and you’re presented with a planned series of actions to carry out–like scanning a certain network or probing target endpoints for vulnerabilities–and a collection of tools to use, represented by different abstract icons. Then you’re thrown into the network to carry out the mission, while the enemy launches attacks like distributed-denial-of-service bombardments back at the user.

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If the Internet is American, Will Virtual Reality be Chinese?

It's called the ANTVR Kit. It looks to be a Oculus Rift challenger. That is, should it get funded and, more importantly, live up to its promises.

This VR system is from a small Beijing-based team called, wait for it, ANTVR.

Courtesy of TechInAsia, here's how the developers say their system stacks up agains the Oculus Rift and the Sony Morpheus:

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Norway Tests Oculus Rift to Control Tanks Through Augmented Reality

As it usually happens, video games are designed to mimic real-world fighting. Now it seems the model's being flipped on its head—the battlefield, for better or worse, is bearing an increasing resemblance to a game.

Look at Norway, where the Army has started using Oculus Rift to drive tanks with increased visibility, according to the Norwegian TV station tu.no. Four VR cameras are mounted on the sides of the tank to give the soldier inside donning the headset a full 360 degree view of what's going on outside, like X-ray vision.

Using cameras to "see through" a vehicle isn't a new concept; when the hatches are down tanks are notoriously hard to navigate. But the Oculus Rift dev kit is just a fraction of the price of traditional 360-degree camera equipment: Lockheed Martin's F-35 helmet for pilots can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

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Is Facebook's Next Social Network Virtual Reality Based?

Facebook today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Oculus VR, Inc., the leader in immersive virtual reality technology, for a total of approximately $2 billion. This includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock (valued at $1.6 billion based on the average closing price of the 20 trading days preceding March 21, 2014 of $69.35 per share). The agreement also provides for an additional $300 million earn-out in cash and stock based on the achievement of certain milestones.

Oculus is the leader in immersive virtual reality technology and has already built strong interest among developers, having received more than 75,000 orders for development kits for the company’s virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift. While the applications for virtual reality technology beyond gaming are in their nascent stages, several industries are already experimenting with the technology, and Facebook plans to extend Oculus’ existing advantage in gaming to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas. Given these broad potential applications, virtual reality technology is a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications platform.

“Mobile is the platform of today, and now we’re also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow,” said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. “Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate.”

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Combine This With Boston Dynamic's Atlas and...

Never need to worry about a Zombie Apocalypse again.

I'd swap a kinect for hydra, but that's just me.

SpaceX's Virtual Reality Design Tools