This week’s NYVR meetup had three amazing companies present, EEVO, Cerevrum and SpaceVR, and we had a live VRChat demo by our incredible meetup co-organizer DJ Smith.
EEVO, known as the “Netflix of VR”, has developed technology to stream the highest quality VR content more efficiently than any other platform. The team started the company when they realized that great VR film content, could transport people places they could have never imaged possible. They looked at the technical barriers of streaming VR content and set out on their mission of providing users with the best virtual reality experiences possible. They are working with top content creators to ensure a steady flow of rich, engaging cinematic VR experiences. Their system analyzes where users are looking during the film and then they give that information back to the content creators. Currently, all content on EEVO is free but in time, users will be able to purchase content on the platform.
Cerevrum is the future of brain training. Built as an entirely new approach to cognitive improvement, they combine virtual reality, cognitive neuroscience and data-driven machine learning into an approach they call “neurogaming”. Co-founder, Aldis Sipolins, said that current brain training is broken and does not improve cognitive function, contrary to what their advertisements make us believe. Cerevrum is here to change that. With their team’s background in neuroscience and gaming, they have developed VR games that are fun to play yet engage cognitive skills that we use in everyday life. With their proprietary machine learning algorithms, their program adapts to the players skills, notices if you are avoiding a harder memorization task and puts it in front of you more often until you master it. At SVVR, Palmer Luckey played their game and got up to level 4, which Aldis noted was pretty high for someone’s first time!
DJ Smith, gave us a rundown on the current state of social VR, followed by a live demo in VRChat. Inside VRchat, we watched a demo that EvolvedAnt had created: a firework show over an enormous castle. DJ Smith said he took a liking to VRChat because he found that it was really easy to build with Unity, even for a non-developer like himself. He is currently developing a NYVR VRChat meetup room with the goal of hosting NYVR presentations there and have them streamed virtually so that anyone can attend. If you’d like to help out with building this interface, please reach out to him!
Up next was SpaceVR, the company trying to bring space exploration to everyone by sending a 360-degree camera to the International Space Station. Ryan Holmes, CEO, dialed in via Skype to quickly pitch SpaceVR and promote their Kickstarter page. They are ready to launch the camera, all they need is the money to make sure it happens! If you want to see space in virtual reality, contribute to their Kickstarter!
See you all next month!
This post was written by Sophia Dominguez, founder of AllThingsVR, a weekly curated newsletter that highlights the best VR news, innovators and content! Please subscribe to receive the best updates in VR!
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