Luis Sotillos

From Storytelling To VR 'Storyliving': Future Marketing Communications

Google Zoo, Alphabet’s in-house creative think tank that provides value ad for brands and agencies by helping them devise creative ways to use Google products and new tech platforms, recently released a study with Google News Lab about how audiences experience VR. The study includes implications …

Magic Leap Chief Game Designer Talks Internal Demos and “Everyday Adventure” Format for AR

Speaking at the Games for Change 2017 conference, Magic Leap “Chief Gaming Wizard” Graeme Devine offered some insight into the types of AR …

Intel cancels Project Alloy wireless VR headset, but is still investing in AR/VR

During last year’s Intel Developer Forum opening keynote, company CEO Brian Krzanich revealed the company’s virtual reality project, aka “Project …

Why companies must focus on creating a culture of innovation through design thinking

In a fast-paced world where market incumbents can get toppled by start-ups, creating a corporate culture of innovation has never before been more …

Brené Brown on Empathy

The case against empathy

Why this Yale psychologist thinks you should be compassionate, not empathetic.<p>Who can be against empathy? If our moral intuitions align on anything, is it not on the idea that empathy for other human beings is a good thing? What harm could come from identifying with the thoughts and feelings of our …

Prompts to consider when making things for others to use.

Use NoCoffee<p>Add this low vision simulator extension to Google Chrome. Turn it on before using the web.<p>This prompt helps you understand what it’s like …

How VR, AR, & AI Can Change Education Forever – Part 1, Today's Problems

Education is an odd bird: we all know it could be better, while at the same time it is the best it has ever been in human history. For the last two …

Samsung is Developing VR Tools to Help Diagnose Mental Health

Samsung Electronics has recently signed a partnership with Korean VR studio FNI and Gangnam Severance Hospital, one of South Korea’s largest …

Massive black hole discovered near heart of the Milky Way

Astronomers find evidence of enormous black hole one hundred thousand times more massive than the sun in a gas cloud near the galaxy’s centre<p>An enormous black hole one hundred thousand times more massive than the sun has been found hiding in a toxic gas cloud wafting around near the heart of the …

The Gift Economy Dynamics of ‘Anyland’ & Social VR Anecdotes

<i>Anyland</i> is a social VR experience focusing on worldbuilding and avatar creation tools that allow you to create interactive experiences while in VR. …

3 Impressive WebVR Examples Worth Checking Out With Firefox’s New Support for Vive and Rift

Now that the latest release of Firefox supports WebVR on the Vive and Rift by default, you may be wondering what you can do with it. Here’s three …

Google is Exploring Ways to Let You Animate Your 'Blocks' Creations

Google’s team at Daydream Labs have been prototyping ways of animating objects and characters in <i>Blocks</i>, the company’s recently released VR modelling …

Firefox soon will help you lose yourself in the VR web

Mozilla's next version of its browser, due Tuesday, brings WebVR support to personal computer browsing. Eventually, AR could be the bigger deal.<p>Mozilla plans to release a version of its Firefox browser Tuesday that embraces a version of virtual reality for the web.<p>Back in 2014, Mozilla developers …

VR’s answer to relaxation? Meditation experiences

The videos capture what it’s like to come to a meditation center<p>Mindfulness has become a flourishing industry, worth some $1 billion, and now, a New York production company called m ss ng p eces (the spaces are deliberate) has launched VR meditation experiences, including one that puts users …

‘Second Life’ Successor ‘Sansar’ Launches Open Beta Today, Pricing Revealed

Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual world <i>Second Life</i>, is today launching successor <i>Sansar</i> into open beta, this time built for the VR era. …

The Golden Age Of UX Won’t Last. Here’s How To Prepare For What’s Next

When I started the digital design agency AJ&Smart in 2011, UX design was still so misunderstood that I spent the next three years just explaining to my clients what it actually was and why it was valuable (while also defining it to myself). It was also extremely difficult to hire good UX designers, …

New York City Invests in AR/VR Incubator to Bolster City's Jobs, Tech Talent

New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, Alicia Glen, recently announced the selection of NYU Tandon School of Engineering …

Oculus 1.17 Update Will Let You Launch SteamVR Apps From Oculus Home

Until recently, Oculus Rift owners have had to maintain two separate repositories for games; Steam and Oculus Home. And depending on where you bought …

Watch the Trailer for Spielberg's VR Blockbuster 'Ready Player One'

In the future of 'Ready Player One,' people actually use VR. That's the problem.<p>The year is 2045, and Columbus, Ohio is the fastest growing city in the world—if you can even call the fragile-looking iron frames with trailer homes stacked up top of one another a city. Overpopulated and polluted, the …

The 2017 Top Programming Languages

Python jumps to No. 1, and Swift enters the Top Ten Image: Randi KlettIt’s summertime here at <i>IEEE Spectrum</i>, and that means it’s time for our fourth …

Apple Support Staff Confirms Upcoming AR/VR Headset

Apple has long been rumored to be working on its own standalone augmented or virtual reality device. Today, we might have received the first official …

Using Experiential Design to Expand VR Presence Theory

Dustin Chertoff has pulled experiential design insights from the advertising world to come up with a more holistic theory of Presence in virtual …

JigSpace With ARKit Gives You AR Manuals For Just About Anything

We’ve seen how AR can thrive as an instructional platform before, but what if there was a singular AR app that could teach you how to work with …

Using Apple’s ARKit, This Company Built Inside-Out Tracking for a VR Headset

Nexus Interactive Arts, an immersive media division of VFX production studio Nexus Studios, have used Apple’s ARKit working on an iPhone 7 in an …

AI And Chatbots Are Transforming The Customer Experience

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is dramatically changing business, and chatbots, fueled by AI, are becoming a viable customer service channel. The best ones deliver a customer experience (CX) in which customers cannot tell if they are communicating with a human or a computer. AI has come a long way in …

4 tips for transforming your customer communications with AI

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are not just tools for streamlining customer engagement. They represent an opportunity for companies to completely rethink how they build context around each individual, ultimately creating a better experience and a more loyal customer.<p>By tapping …

Santander pays 5% cashback when you pay by mobile phone

<b>Paying for goods and services using your mobile phone could net you 5% cashback with Santander this summer.</b><p>Under the offer, Santander 123 Lite …

Oculus Rift and Touch controllers on sale for $399 through summer

The best current hardware experience for VR is also now one of the most affordable: Oculus Rift and the Oculus Touch Controllers are reduced to just $399 for both for the remainder of the summer, or the next six weeks. The deal brings the Rift and Touch Controllers to price parity with the …