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VR motion sickness and Augmentor - The Virtual Perceptions Newsletter

January 27, 2020

Virtual Perceptions Newsletter

Hello everyone, The major read this time is on VR motion (and simulator) sickness, and its causes. I've reached out to Microsoft and HTC for comments on the hardware level, and the article includes some great insights from members of the community. I hope you enjoy. Otherwise, I tagged along to the Augmentor showcase to see some of the start-ups vying for investment - some great companies are at the event, and I highly recommend taking a look. This week I will be visiting WaveOptics in Oxford - I look forward to seeing the team! Finally, the jobs board is under construction - if you want to be a part of it, hit me up. As always, if you're up for any sort of conversation, hit me up! Best,Tom FfiskeEditor, Virtual Perceptions-

A few immersive professionals have seen people suffer motion (and simulator) sickness. New people who try out new VR experiences, excited to try something fresh. After a short while, they get a bit motion sick; a deep, uncomfortable kind that makes for an uneasy experience, and they tread away, a potentially lost customer in a vibrant and creative ecosystem.Through history, many art mediums meet boundaries because they are so fresh, and people do not yet have the experience to handle it. Silent films gave people a shock when trains came towards them. Sound heightened the horror of films like Psycho. And VR, fresh and new, is making people feel motion sick. For adoption, that is an issue. The article will explore whether the design of headsets hampers the enjoyment of some people, including women. During the analysis, we avoided the common but incorrect phrase ‘gendered design’; instead, we will lean towards sex-related terms. While gender is based on identity, we want to focus on how being male or female-bodied impacts viewers playing VR.Virtual Perceptions explored the topic previously, covering areas like hardware and software. But over the years, evidence has shown other dimensions to the issue. Most contentiously is whether being female-bodied naturally hampers the enjoyment of VR. How accurate is this, if at all? And how could this be lowered on the software level? We’ve outreached to women around the industry to collect their thoughts, as well as major VR headset manufacturers for their discoveries and innovations. Click here to read more.

 

Digital Catapult invited Virtual Perceptions to their Augmentor investor & executive showcase, with ten start-ups meeting a room full of investors looking for the next big company.An overall analysis of the day can be found at the end of the article. But for now, let’s go through each start-up one by one, with my thoughts on each. We highly recommend reading about them all, to get a feel of some innovative companies which may take off – similar to Gravity Sketch some time ago.Click here to read more.

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Jobs board

Virtual Perceptions will soon launch a jobs board, Employers can put up new openings which will then be seen by VR and AR professionals in the UK. If you would like to submit a job or ask for further information, please contact Virtual Perceptions at [email protected].