Walmart is bringing VR instruction to all of its U.S. training centers

by Lucas Matney

VR instruction will be used at each of the retailer’s 200 “Walmart Academy” training centers in the U.S. by the end of the year, helping educate the estimated 150,000 employees that will go through the program each year. Each location will have an Oculus Rift headset and gaming PC showcasing a collection of VR training content.

The virtual reality instruction Walmart will be using is entirely 360-degree video-based and will include interactive on-screen cues asking trainees to make decisions after encountering various situations. These scenarios may be related to customer service, management or seasonal situations like encountering the Black Friday rush in VR.

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Contact Information

Strivr Labs, Inc.

e. info@strivrlabs.com

With Rebrand, Upskill Sees Bright Future in Wearable Devices

by Sam Sabin

Now called Upskill, the wearable software company is making a bet on one of its core tenets: “upskilling,” or retraining, manufacturing workers.

Upskill CEO and founder Brian Ballard joined the DC Inno team on the latest The Beat Podcastto talk about the transition from APX Labs to Upskill and where he sees the future of smart wearable devices heading (hint: not to consumers).

Ballard said he and the team had the idea to rebrand a couple of years ago, but the startup had just started gaining traction with clients and they had only been around long enough to raise its Series A round. So the idea was put on hold—until mid-January.

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Contact Information

UpSkill

This News-Writing Bot Is Now Free for Everyone

by Klint Finely

THE AGE OF robot writers is upon us. The Associated Press uses software to generate news stories on corporate earnings reports. Fox auto-generates some sports recaps that appear on its Big Ten Network site, while Yahoo uses similar technology to create fantasy sports reports custom-made for each of its users. Now you can turn your own data into stories, too—no writing necessary.

Today Automated Insights has launched a beta version of its new free service based on Wordsmith, the technology it uses to generate stories for companies like the AP. Typically, Automated Insights, much like its competitor Narrative Science, works with large customers to create the templates that the Wordsmith software fills in. This new service allows anyone to create their own templates and dump data into them on their own.

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Virtual technology can make landscaping easier

by 

 

Just as virtual technology has become a common tool for anyone planning to repaint or redecorate a home, a growing array of apps can make landscaping easier too.

But know when to use them, and when it would be easier to pull out an old-fashioned pencil and a sheet of graph paper — or to seek out a professional.

“We’ve seen an increase in virtual interior design services within the last two years, so it’s only natural that this functionality would make its way to the exterior of the home as well,” said Stephanie Sisco, Real Simple magazine’s home editor.

A few of the more popular DIY gardening apps include Garden Designer ($9.99, from Artifact Interactive), Design your New Surroundings ($9.99, from Home Revivals), Garden Plan Pro ($9.99, from Growing Interactive), and Perennial Match ($4.99, from Harmony systems, Inc.).

“We have seen several hundred thousand downloads,” says Patrick Pozzuto, founder of the iScape app ($9.99, from Home Revivals LLC), aimed at both professional and home landscapers. Based in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Pozzuto worked as a contractor before launching his app.

“Arranging plants using a touch screen is way easier than using your lower back to do it,” he says.

“But while the pros have been using apps for a long time now, home gardeners do encounter some hiccups sometimes,” he admits. “They don’t necessarily know what plant goes with what, and what areas it’ll grow in. And some people don’t have an artistic mind, and get into trouble.”

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Contact Information:

iScape Apps

 

This billion-dollar startup wants to capture your emotions in virtual reality

by 

Social VR has the potential to shift the bounds of human communication, it’s part of the reason why Facebook has invested billions in the technology.

One of the keys to having positive VR interactions will be having the ability to interpret the emotions of the people you’re chatting with. Today, MindMaze is showing off the MASK, a device that reads the emotions on your face while you’re in VR.

I had a chance to meet with MindMaze CEO Tej Tadi and demo the emotion-tracking product. After strapping the MASK-equipped headset on, I was able to see an onscreen avatar mimic my emotions with startling speed.

What really makes this product stand out is the genius form factor: electrodes are outfitted into the foam liner face pad that is already pressed up against your face when you’re securing your headset. These electrodes get a sense of your facial muscles and can even predict what your emotions will be milliseconds before you fully complete it.

The device senses a limited range of emotions at the moment including smiling, frowning, winking, smirking and raising your eyebrows but there’s so much you can convey in a social VR setting once you unlock body language. Once major headset manufacturers unlock eye-tracking technologies the combination will make social VR experiences that much richer.

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Contact Information:

MindMaze

a. San 535 Mission Street,
14th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105

e. info@mindmaze.com

p. +1 (415) 449 5414

Sunu – Sonar bracelet for the blind

The vision-impaired frequently hurt themselves, with one blind person going to the hospital every 5 seconds due to head injury. But their options are limited to a low-tech $30 cane or a pricey $30,000 guide dog. Sunu is a sonar bracelet that vibrates to let the vision-impaired know that they’re approaching an object. Its six-month beta test saw users reduce accidents by 90 percent. Sunu has sold $25,000-worth of its bracelets that ship in October. Now that the product has been built and patented, it’s seeking to sell one to all 10 million blind people in the US. People are willing to pay a premium for safety, so even if cheaper devices emerge, Sunu could win by becoming a trusted brand.

 

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Contact Information

Sunu, Inc.

21 Drydock Ave. 6th

Boston, MA 02210

via email: hello@sunu.io

Guest Post: Startup Simulanis uses augmented and virtual reality to skill professionals

The widening gap between the skills required by businesses and the know-how of a large number of engineering students got Raman Talwar started on his entrepreneurial journey.

With an aim to help bridge the skills gap, through the aid of advanced technology, this 28-year-old engineering graduate founded Simulanis in November 2013.

“The foremost inspiration to start this company was my passion for building computer-aided simulation models that mimic real-life processes, followed by the desire to solve the challenging problem of the high unskilled population in our country,” says Talwar, Founder and CEO, Simulanis.

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Contact Information

support@simulanis.com

Simulanis Solutions Private Limited

+ 91 11 41017922

Coresights // PlayLabs

Coresights provides evidence-based training to improve wellness and enhance resilience. The platform combines VR and AR technologies with clinical-grade wearables to make training engaging and capture real-time data.

Contact Information:

MIT PlayLabs

Info@playlabs.tv

Hidden Switch // PlayLabs

Hidden Switch created an AI-powered content generator for competitive video games. Based on research from the MIT Media Lab, this technology exponentially increases the amount of content in a game and personalizes it to each player. Their demo game, Spellsource, is the first of many applications towards our mission: to make an unlimited video game.

 

Contact Information

MIT PlayLabs

Info@playlabs.tv

 

Guest Post: “Now There’s a Nausea Dial for Virtual Reality”

by Rachel Metz

Some people have no problem flipping and flying in virtual reality; others find this kind of activity literally sickening.

The problem stems from a disconnect between your eyes and your inner ear: what you see doesn’t always match up to what you’re feeling when you wander around a virtual environment with a headset on. It doesn’t bother everyone, but it remains one of VR’s biggest challenges to becoming a mainstream technology.

Companies and researchers have been exploring a slew of potential solutions, from beefing up the resolution of the displays in headsets to limiting your field of view when there’s a lot of motion-related activity going on in the virtual world. And a very young startup called VRemedy Labs is working on an interesting fix of its own: a sort of software-based dial that you can turn up or down to raise or decrease the excitement level—and, it hopes, the resulting nausea—within VR games.

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Contact Startup

VRemedy Labs, Inc

email: inquiries@vremedylabs.com

 

 

A startup from MIT Play Labs

Info@playlabs.tv