Blame NextVR and Drake for Kevin Durant going to the Warriors.

NextVR is virtual reality capture and delivery technology company based in Laguna Beach, California. The company started as Next3D, a 3D TV broadcast technology company. It switched over to VR in 2012. NextVR is able to capture and transmit live HD, 3D VR content over the internet, delivering an immersive and life-like experience. They presented the Golden State Warriors NBA Championship Ring Ceremony and Opening Night Game Against New Orleans Pelicans. They may have also brought them a championship next season by helping with a VR presentation.

According to a recent USA Today post about the presentation, "There were shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, footage from the Warriors practice facility, of coach Steve Kerr talking to his team inside the Oracle Arena locker room and even a courtside view inside the building," all set to Drake lyrics. 

It could have been that the Bay Area is more lucrative than Oklahoma or that Durant is friends with Draymond Green but I would like to give credit where credit is due. Drizzy and VR are a match made for each other. Both are literally game changers.

Cats And VR

Elite Dangerous: Arena Free On Steam this Weekend

Elite Dangerous Arena will be completely free on Steam and the Frontier Store this weekend. If you purchase a copy of Arena between now and 6PM BST on Monday July 11 you won’t be charged a thing, and you’ll retain access to the game even after the deal ends.

Steam Link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/443080

Elite Dangerous: Arena has native HTC Vive and Oculus Rift support through Steam. 

Here is what to expect.

Four different ships to choose from with varying play styles,
Ranks and custom loadouts to unlock over time,
Four different maps to play on,
Three game modes: 8-player Free-for-All, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag,

When you reach CQC Rank 50 you’ll be given the option to 'Prestige'. You will set your rank back to one and lose all your unlocks, but in return you’ll be able to earn more credits for use in the main game, and get a permit to the Attilius Orbital starport in CD-4311917 where you’ll get exclusive discounts on many modules and ships. You can prestige up to level 9 and at that point you’ll be receiving the maximum amount of credits you can take in to the Elite Dangerous galaxy.

Arena is the PVP mode already in Elite Dangerous so all players who own Elite Dangerous or Elite Dangerous: Horizons will already have access to it. Simply select Arena from the in-game main menu to play.

Source: https://community.elitedangerous.com/arenaisfree

Oculus working on new Haptic tech for extrasensory VR.

HapticWave, an Oculus research project, uses a metal plate on a ring of electromagnet actuators to send vibrations to your hand to let you feel virtual objects. A headset and audio help the illusion along, says Ravish Mehra, a research scientist at Oculus. 

With this tech, your hand would stand in for your entire body, says Ravish Mehra, a research scientist at Oculus. If someone in a video game is creeping up behind you, you might feel vibrations at the base of your palm. If you're in an educational experience exploring the world of dinosaurs, your entire hand might vibrate with each step. "Our hope around this project was being able to generate this extrasensory input so users can be more perceptive and more believable of virtual objects," Mehra says.

There has been some recent demos created to showcase this new tech and will be showcased later this month at the Siggraph computer graphics and interaction conference. http://s2016.siggraph.org/

Virtuix partners with billion-dollar game developer to bring VR eSports and VR Cafes to china.

Virtuix are forming a joint venture with Hero Entertainment, a billion-dollar, publicly listed Chinese game publisher and developer of Crisis Action, the most popular mobile first-person shooter game in China with more than 400 million players. Hero is partnering with Virtuix to convert Crisis Action to VR gameplay with the Omni, and to create other VR content and product bundles for both the U.S. and China markets.

Hero also owns the Hero Pro League, the largest eSports league in China, to which they will add a VR eSports competition featuring the Omni. In addition, Hero is investing a large sum in the Virtuix Series A round. 

 In addition UNIS, one of China’s largest suppliers of amusement machines, intends to purchase 5,000 to 10,000 Omni units this year for sale to VR cafes and entertainment centers. China has some 140,000 internet cafes, many of which will be retrofitted as VR cafes. 

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Hear about The Beatles’ Early Days in this 360° video from JauntVR.

On this day in history, Paul McCartney met John Lennon. Hear about The Beatles’ Early Days in this 360° video from JauntVR. 

An emotional journey with Paul through Early Days and the formation of The Beatles. A visual and aural landscape of light, sound, and a few kids from Liverpool. Directed by Tony Kaye. Soundscape by Geoff Emerick.

Check out more from Paul McCartney provided by JauntVR. 

Virtual Reality music sandbox SoundStage hits Steam Early Access on 7/7

If you look at old rock concerts, you’ll see these HUGE synthesizers that the musicians connect together to make electronic sounds. These instruments are literally enveloping the player. SoundStage attempts to capture the feel of those epic music machines then take it to the next level with tools only possible in a virtual environment. All in a world inspired by the airbrush paintings and computer graphics of the 80s. 

Available 7/7 on Steam Early Access: http://store.steampowered.com/app/485780 SoundStage is a virtual reality music sandbox built specifically for room-scale VR. Whether you're a professional DJ creating a new sound, or a hobbyist who wants to rock out on virtual drums, SoundStage gives you a diverse toolset to express yourself.

Cats And VR

Student VR Project of the Month: VR Flush-a toilet experience.

So here at CatsAndVR.com we are starting a new thing to promote student projects. The Student VR Project of the Month. We will be looking for fun and unique student projects to help promote and send bumper stickers to. The very first award goes to VR Flush, a toilet VR experience.

This VR project was noticed by one of our globe trotting VR correspondents at the FRAVR Conference. FRAVR is a 1-day, free to register B2B conference about Virtual Reality in gaming and entertainment hosted in Frankfurt, Germany. The event had some amazing speakers for a up and coming conference. 

One of the VR projects on the expo floor was VR Flush, a project I am excited about due to the absurdity and the fact that they have a cat reference. They also used a toilet for the demo. I look forward to more from this team. Please check out the game play video, it is actually way more interesting than you may realize and has a very Outer Limits feel to it. The dialog is on point as well. 

VR Flush is a 5th Semester project at Hochschule Darmstadt (Animation & Game)

Team: Lenz Monath, Felix Barton, Tobias Fischer, Jan Philipp Eckert, Nicolas Künzer, Patric Keßle

If you are currently a student and working on VR please let us know. We want to send you bumper stickers.

Cats And VR

Deadmau5 partners with Absolut Vodka for VR game and Cardboard headset tie-in.

Deadmau5 partners with Absolut Vodka for VR game and Cardboard headset tie-in. The headset retails for $17.95. We are fans of the headset because it has a cat on it.

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Check out this blurb from the Knox Labs site.

"Join electronic music superstar deadmau5 as he goes on an epic night out. Use this Limited Edition collectible Absolut deadmau5 headset to visit his studio, and then navigate him through a series of gameplay challenges, ending with you standing next to him in the booth as he plays his latest track, Saved.

The Absolut deadmau5 app launches on July 27th. Order by July 8th to guarantee your headset will be delivered in time for launch. 

Please ensure you are of Legal Drinking Age in your country to purchase this headset.

http://www.knoxlabs.com/products/deadmau5

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Starbreeze looking to bolster their VR play with the acquisition of ePawn.

Starbreeze, today announced its acquisition of the French toys to life, VR and augmented reality tech company ePawn. This comes right after Acer gave Starbreeze $9 million to help fund development of the company's StarVR. Looks like Starbreeze plans on having a huge Payday with Virtual Reality. 

“With ePawn, we will significantly diversify our virtual reality and toys-to-life offerings, as well as speed up the development of existing internal projects already in the works,” said Bo Andersson Klint, Starbreeze CEO. “The ePawn team has already innovated and productified their technologies and we acquire not only many good ways of applying them, but also a solid portfolio of patents that will benefit Starbreeze for many years to come.”

ePawn is a next generation VR and toys-to-life company merging real life gaming experiences with their digital counter part through its gaming boards and mats in table and room scale sizes. ePawn’s patented technology captures everything that happens on the game board and feeds digital applications with information. Up to 40 objects equipped with off-the-shelf NFC (Near Field Communication) tags can simultaneously be put into play on a game board and ePawn’s technology will calculate their position, orientation and altitude in real-time and at the millimeter level. ePawn has developed several versions of its technology to fit many gaming-related markets, such as video games, toys, board games and greatly enchanted augmented reality support between for example a toy and a mobile device.

Virtual reality applications include large and flexible flooring tiles that can be assembled to equip spaces with a solution for affordable positioning system capable of tracking several people in a room.

“For ePawn, I especially appreciate the location based entertainment applications, where for example the VR-mat will enable us to offer even more immersive experiences in our VR-centers,” said Emmanuel Marquez, Starbreeze CTO. “Additionally, the toys-to-life applications are numerous and the ability to technically track physical objects in our future games, such as Geminose, are really promising. The potential to be able to add augmented reality components to further enhance the gameplay for mobile devices are really exciting.”

Zeality launches 360° Video contest to be the next VR producer for the San Francisco 49ers!

THE 2016 ZEALITY 360 SHOOTOUT
The hunt is on to find the next VR producer for the San Francisco 49ers! Zeality and The 49ers Studios are excited to announce the 2016 Zeality 360° Shootout -- a first-of-its-kind industry event where five teams of 360°/VR filmmakers will compete head-to-head in a two-day Shootout/Hackathon to produce the best 360°/VR video. Learn from the industry’s best VR production companies, get hands on experience with the full ecosystem of cutting edge VR gear and tech solutions and showcase your talent to top VR media and tech leaders.

Teams enter by submitting their best 1-5 minute original 360°/VR video for consideration. Entries will be voted on by the Zeality online community and judged by a panel of VR Industry leaders from Hollywood and Silicon Valley to determine which five talented teams will shoot it out at Levi’s® Stadium. The winning team with the best, 360°/VR video will win $20,000 in cash, plus top VR gear and tech solutions and the once in a lifetime opportunity to produce a Game Day 360°/VR video for The San Francisco 49ers.

http://zeality.co/shootout/

MetaVRse Launches Canada's First Full Service Virtual Reality Agency

Toronto-based VR Agency MetaVRse has launched as Canada’s first full-service Virtual Reality agency. MetaVRse offers a wide range of experiential marketing and event production, content production and consulting services to brands interested in harnessing the incredible power of virtual and augmented reality technologies.

Founded by Alan Smithson, serial entrepreneur and inventor of the Emulator DJ system and Dan Flatt, a former lawyer, management consultant and leader of social media for Canada’s largest media company, MetaVRse offers a wide range of customized solutions including: 360° video and interactive Virtual Reality content development, 360° live streaming for festivals and events and VR rentals for tradeshows, marketing initiatives and events.

“The biggest challenge facing the emerging VR industry is showing the world VR,” said MetaVRse President, Dan Flatt. “We are leveraging the power of corporate events to solve this challenge.”

“Our mission is to show the world the future,” said an enthusiastic Smithson. “VR is already the most powerful and engaging platform for entertainment, gaming and branded content.”

With over one million active monthly users of the Samsung GearVR, millions of Google Cardboard units and high-end Oculus Rift and HTC Vive pre-orders, Smithson believes that brands that are early to develop unique and engaging content for VR and will have a huge advantage over their competition.

Studies show that people remember VR experiences the same as real memories. With the growing VR user base hungry for new content, marketers can create meaningful connections with their customers through innovative branded experiences.

MetaVRse has worked with marquee clients including: Royal Ontario Museum, Adidas, Footlocker, Niagara Falls Tourism and CDW. MetaVRse has been onsite capturing immersive 360° video at Groove Cruise, Bestival, MuchMusic Video Awards, and more. Smithson will be speaking at the Virtual Reality Toronto (VRTO) conference in Toronto and International Live Events Association (ILEA) conference in Austin. He will also be performing a live DJ set in VR at the Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference (MWPC) in Toronto.

Sneak Peak:Ghostbusters:Dimension from The Void, Made with Unity.

Unity, the largest global development platform for creating 2D, 3D, VR and AR games and experiences, today announced a new and truly unique virtual reality (VR) experience "Ghostbusters: Dimension" has been built using the Unity Technologies platform. Led by tech innovators THE VOID, the experience was created in partnership with Sony Pictures, Madame Tussauds New York, and Ghost Corps.

In Ghostbusters: Dimension, THE VOID's proprietary hardware and software allow guests to step beyond reality and into the world of the Ghostbusters. Based on the new movie, this first-of-its-kind, Hyper-Reality experience blends real world physical environments with a unique untethered virtual reality (VR) setup that uses real-time interactive effects powered by the Unity Platform and 3D engine.

"This is precisely the kind of innovative use of VR that Unity is now powering with our 3D engine and platform," said Clive Downie, CMO Unity Technologies. "With an untethered VR experience that allows people to roam freely and interact with a physical world that matches the digital one they are seeing, consumers will have whole new levels of delight as they lose themselves in another realm. It's giving presence to interactive storytelling putting people into the Ghostbusters world with high definition, high frame rate high excitement action, powered in part by Unity."

Audiences get to experience what it's like to be a Ghostbuster, tracking and trapping a supernatural foe through a New York apartment complex. The entire experience lasts about 15 minutes, with up to three people at a time and is scheduled to open to the public at Madame Tussauds New York on July 1, 2016 as an add-on to their Ghostbusters Experience.

"The Ghostbusters world is the perfect fit for THE VOID because you literally strap our RAPTURE gear on and it turns into your proton pack and proton gun," said James Jensen, Chief Visionary Officer at THE VOID. "One of the key components to powering this experience is a powerful 3D engine, and Unity was the obvious choice. Their VR platform allowed us to rapidly iterate on our ideas, while offering us an editor that lets us focus on storytelling instead of being bogged down in writing a lot of code."

For more specifics on Ghostbusters: Dimensions, please visit: https://thevoid.com/Dimensions/Ghostbusters. If you do get to the experience, make sure to use #unity3d #voidvr and #Ghostbusters when sharing your pictures and thoughts!

Are you a VR startup? HTC & Friends are looking to help and have 10 BILLION to share!

HTC  announced a 10 billion dollar Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance ,bringing together a close-knit membership comprised of 30 of the top Virtual Reality Investors in the world with the goal of funding startups working in VR as well as AR and MR. The  president of VRVCA is Alvin Wang Graylin,President of VR at HTC China.

The purpose of the Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance (“VRVCA”) is to foster long-term growth in the VR industry through identifying, sharing and investing in the world's most innovative & impactful VR technology and content companies.

Here is an overview of their plan.

6 opportunities to pitch  per year and $10+ Bn USD in deployable capital to invest in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed reality startups of any size from anywhere around the world. They will meet six times a year with a base of operations out of Beijing and San Francisco.

http://www.vrvca.com/

Google Daydream Labs Update- 6/28/2016

Daydream Labs have been experimenting with ways to reduce technical complexity and even add a greater sense of play when animating in VR. In one experiment they built, people could bring characters to life by picking up toys, moving them through space and time, and then replay the scene. Check out the latest updates from Daydream Labs

An app experiment from Daydream Labs. Instead of animating with graph editors or icons representing location, people could simply reach out, grab a virtual toy, and carry it through the scene.

To create more intricate animations, they also built another experiment that let people independently animate the joints of a single character. It let you record your character’s movement as you separately animated the feet, hands, and head — just like you would with a puppet.

An app experiment from Daydream Labs. Independently animate the joints of a single character.

Check out more from Daydream Labs.

https://developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/daydream-labs-animating-3d-objects-in-vr.html

Cats And VR

Rick And Morty In Altspace VR! Justin Roiland premieres the new Altspace VR drawing app!

Justin Roiland premieres the new Altspace VR drawing app in like :30 min! As you can tell I am a Rick And Morty fanboy.! Rick and Morty is a cult sensation and hit cartoon from Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Join fans and watch creator and voice actor, Justin Roiland, draw live in VR in AlspaceVR's newest drawing app. Viewers can attend on Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. To download AltspaceVR visit http://altvr.com/get-altspacevr/. Altspace will be using their feature FrontRow, which mirrors Justin to as many rooms as there are people that want to attend. So everyone gets a front row seat. He'll be joined by Rick and Morty board artist Erica Hayes. They'll be debuting the latest SDK Painter app. See you in VR.

Event link: https://account.altvr.com/events/445747139373432922

HTC Vive remake of Duck Hunt using a Vive Emulator!

Remko van Brakel recently released his HTC Vive remake of Duck Hunt. That is super awesome but what really messed with me today is learning of how to play it using a Vive emulator.

Shout out to the founder of Destructoid for making me aware. 

"The game works on the Vive, but of course there's ways to emulate the Vive if you don't have one. I recommend Riftcat.com with a cardboard viewer to demo these things on the smartphone you already own. If you don't have bluetooth controllers either, you should stop buying Pokémon buttplugs and get a proper nest of just-in-case cables. I wrote a guide on how to use a $30 Leap controller in VR to emulate Vive's motion controllers. 

https://www.destructoid.com/guide-how-to-make-a-dirt-cheap-steam-vr-headset-with-low-lag-358924.phtml

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Jaunt ONE Camera to be made available to public allowing anyone to Shoot, Edit and Distribute High-Quality, Immersive Cinematic VR Experiences

Jaunt Inc., the industry leader in cinematic virtual reality, today announced that the award-winning Jaunt ONE camera will be made available for public use through a pilot program with Radiant Images, a Los Angeles-based digital cinema innovator and rental house. In addition to the patented camera technology, Jaunt Cloud Services (JCS), Jaunt’s cloud based stitching and rendering pipeline, will also be available to creators providing them with the only scalable, end-to-end, hardware and software solution for shooting, producing and distributing immersive cinematic VR experiences.

Starting in July, the Jaunt ONE camera will be available for rent via the Radiant Images website and rental house, giving everyone from rising filmmakers to established creatives and brands the opportunity to shoot with the highest quality professional-grade stereoscopic VR camera, designed with visionary VR creators in mind. The Jaunt ONE 24G model features 24 global shutter sensors, ideal for low-light and fast moving objects, and the setup can be coupled with 360° ambisonic audio recording, which in post can be mixed with Dolby ATMOS.

"Over the past 12 months we have used Jaunt ONE to film hundreds of hours of content all over the world. Jaunt ONE is a production tested camera that we are thrilled to be opening to the public through this rental program with Radiant Images," said Koji Gardiner, VP of hardware engineering at Jaunt. "Radiant is the perfect partner to enable broader access to our technology, and their expertise in the VR space makes them a great resource for filmmakers eager to explore VR as a new storytelling medium."

“The incredible Jaunt ONE camera is the perfect match for the many visionary VR creators we collaborate with who are eager to continue to push the boundaries of this new technology,” said Michael Mansouri, VP and co-founder of Radiant Images. “We’re honored and excited that Jaunt has entrusted us to help get this camera into the hands of talented filmmakers determined to take VR content to the next level and beyond. The power and versatility of the Jaunt ONE, together with Jaunt’s seamless software and distribution solutions, is unmatched. We’re thrilled to be the first rental house to have this amazing camera available to clients.”

After capturing stunning omnidirectional video with Jaunt ONE, production teams can also stitch and render their footage in the cloud using JCS, Jaunt’s proprietary cloud based algorithms and tools. JCS transforms footage into the highest quality stereoscopic VR experiences, ready for publishing. JCS also integrates seamlessly with most off the shelf post production tools for compositing, editing and color correction.

Once the experience is finalized, creators have immediate access to all of the assets necessary to publish to any platform that supports 360° video, including the Jaunt VR App. The Jaunt VR platform utilizes ‘deep-links’, allowing content creators to publish directly to their audiences. These unique content specific ‘deep-links’ give global audiences immediate access to the experience without having to search for it, regardless of the device or platform.

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Rumor Mill-EA working on Burnout VR.

 Earlier this week by EA posted a QA VR role, but  removed the job this morning after the media began to run with the story. 

The job was described as “an exciting opportunity for a short term contract Quality Analyst position to work on a yet to be announced VR title.” It said that qualified candidates, “will be responsible for identifying and reporting software defects, assisting with establishment of strong VR testing guidelines, writing and running test coverage and verifying fixes.”

The role was for Criterion Games who is owned by EA and is developing the Star Wars Battlefront: X-Wing Mission for PSVR. The rumor mill is saying that the role was for a Burnout VR game.

Cats And VR

Immerse yourself with Shark Week in VR...well 360° video actually.

This year, SHARK WEEK celebrates its 28th anniversary and will keep viewers on the edge of their seat with all-new jaw-dropping and compelling shark stories and, for the first time ever, offering an immersive virtual reality experience. Working with nearly two dozen of the most respected marine biologists and science institutions, SHARK WEEK will also highlight some of the most recent breakthroughs and developments to reveal remarkable new insights into these magnificent creatures.

http://www.discoveryvr.com/

Shark Week programming will be available via the Discovery VR app for viewing with Samsung GearVR and Oculus Rift. So YEA!!!!

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Jerrys Place VR looks to be a safe space for Jerry and Jerry fanatics.

JerrysPlaceVR is coming to the Oculus Rift CV1 and the HTC Vive very soon. It gets more exciting, JerrysPlace will be integrating with VRChat! This means you can now discuss a show about nothing or do absolutely nothing at all with a whole VR community. VRChat lets you create, publish, and explore virtual worlds with other people from around the world. This means that you will be able to create your own abstract as F episode of Seinfeld. Just check out some of these community created avatars VRChat has to offer. http://www.vrchat.net/marketplace

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Check out JerrysPlaceVr.com , the new version for CV 1 and Vive should be coming 07/05/2016 - the 17th anniversary of the Seinfeld Pilot air date.

I already know what I will be doing with the new update, creating a safe space for Jerrys with no Ricks invited.

Here is what the creator of Jerry's place had to say about his creation. 

 "I've been a fan of Seinfeld for a long time. After purchasing the Oculus rift I started imagining what my first project might be. I decided to pick a project that would gradually introduce me to Unity without being overly complex. I was not new to 3D modeling, however this would be my first project in Unity. I came up with the idea of recreating Jerry's apartment, in it's entirety for virtual reality. Television is virtual reality in some ways. We make believe that Jerry's place is actually a Manhattan studio and Monks Cafe is just down the street. We suspend the reality that his apartment is just a set in Hollywood, with tons of cameras and lighting dangling overhead. I thought it would be a novel virtual reality experience to take a place that only exists in Hollywood magic, and make it for the Oculus Rift as if it were real. Virtual Reality Virtual Reality. 

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