VR – Startup Weekly

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

Posted on October 2, 2017September 27, 2017 by definitelyray

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.

Sunu – Sonar bracelet for the blind

Posted on September 4, 2017September 4, 2017 by definitelyray

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.

Guest Post: Roofr uses satellite imagery to evaluate the state of your roof

Posted on September 4, 2017September 4, 2017 by definitelyray

by BÉRÉNICE MAGISTRETTI

The Toronto-based startup offers customers a free online quote using its satellite imagery software, which takes the square footage and slope of the roof. It is currently using a Google API to capture satellite images from Google Earth.

The team then connects customers with vetted contractors who provide full replacements for any type of roof, including cedar, slate, and metal. A new roof costs approximately $6,000 and is expected to last about 10 years. Roofr charges contractors a small fee every time they do a job through the Roofr platform.

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

Posted on September 4, 2017September 4, 2017 by definitelyray

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.

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

Posted on August 28, 2017 by definitelyray

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.