Digital Den showed off their brand new Samsung GearVR along with the rest of their VR collection to a group of Emerson students for a Meetup at Champions in Cambridge on Sunday, April 19th. Of course, the VR concerts and movie demos where big hits!
It has been a long winter, but spring is *finally* here, so it’s time to get back into the swing of things. There have been a lot of new VR headsets released recently, and more are on the way! Guess what? Digital Den has been expanding our collection (e.g. Samsung GearVR), and we will be getting even more as they come out. We will be showing off some new demos at the NEW Computer Museum Meetup on Sunday, April 19th from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm at Champions Sports Bar in Cambridge. You can see details and RSVP here on the NEW Computer Museum Meetup event page.
It’s been a great month for the VR community with fun times to be had both near and far!
While the Digital Den team has been quietly working on moving forward with new development in our own shop a lot of things have been going on elsewhere.
Here’s a recap of what’s been up around town lately…
Last week Mary got to go visit Rob Lindeman’s HIVE lab at WPI…
http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Virtual-Reality/events/212175182/
These are a few of the snaps Mary took of Rob, one of his rigs and, yes, a sound vest!
Then this week Mary attended Boston VR Meetup’s Bar Night with Game Over Boston at the East End Grille in Somerville on November 25th to kick-off a long holiday weekend…
http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Virtual-Reality/events/218617122/
Here are a few of shutterbug Mary’s snaps from that event too!
On other fronts, Jaunt VR (who visited the Boston VR Meetup last month) teamed up with Paul McCartney to create an impressive demo of virtual concerts! Check it out…
You can find out more about this work in this article Paul McCartney’s Candlestick Park Footage Gets Virtual Reality Release (Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone)
You can also learn more and get the app at Jaunt VR
Of course, December is shaping up to be a great time too!
We will be going to Boston VR Meetup’s next event with AltspaceVR at the Microsoft NERD Center on December 16th…
http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Virtual-Reality/events/218620744/
We are also very excited about the upcoming release of Samsung Gear VR just in time for the holidays :-)
Stay tuned!
A lot actually!
It’s been a busy fall at Digital Den, and here are some of the highlights…
In-house…
The development studio has finally come together and is now all setup and working.
Nathaniel settles in.
Nathaniel has also just received his Oculus Rift DK2, yeah!
We are currently in the preliminary phases of defining our first fun “demo” in Unity for the Rift, and work on that will get underway in the coming months.
Out and about…
There has been a lot happening on the VR scene in general and especially locally.
The Boston VR Meetup hosted a visit by Jaunt VR at Hack/Reduce on October 15th.
http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Virtual-Reality/events/207496722/?oc=evam
They demonstrated their new 360 video technology and showed demons on the Rift.
Other members of the Meetup also showed off their newest work too.
Then the Boston Unity Group hosted Ray Brierly at the MIT Stata Center.
http://www.meetup.com/B-U-G-Boston-Unity-Group/events/209247582/
His entertaining and informative presentation, Sensory Input – Making Games That Can See, Hear and Feel, explored some of the more unconventional ways to get input into Unity (e.g. Motion controls, camera and audio input). His fun demo of a Twitter feed “3D blocks” visualization was definitely a major hit!
Ray Brierly, Boston Unity Group Meetup, MIT Stata Center October 27, 2014
Finally, just today, October 28th, Condition One officially launched their first VR documentary for the Rift entitled Zero Point, and it looks like it could be a real game changer. You can read a Mashable story about the release here. If you have a Rift, this is a definite “must see!” Check it out on Steam here!
So, it’s been a busy and exciting October, and November is shaping up to be even better!
Please stay tuned…
On Thursday, September 25th the Cambridge Marriott Hotel introduced Boston to their new implementation of Mortin Heilig’s Sensorama concept. They dub the project “Travel Brilliantly,” and the idea is to fully immerse users in virtual travel experiences using the Oculus Rift VR Headset combined with sound, heat, mist and, yes, even motion!
It was fun to go to Hawaii, and they even send you a link to a video of your experience.
Here are some YouTube videos that describe the project, give behind-the-scenes information and show what the experience looks like.
There are also stories on Boston.com and Yahoo! about the project.
Marriott’s press tour to major cities with the rig will definitely bring more awareness about the Oculus Rift to the general public. It will be interesting to see whether or not that exposure will translate to wide-spread adoption when the Oculus Rift and its’ cousins become available for purchase over the next few years…
Digital Den hosted Which way to the holodeck? on Friday, August 22 at the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge. Around twenty attendees got to have fun chatting with each other and playing with some geeky toys like the Oculus Rift. The evening included a presentation by Mary Hopper in which she gave her entertaining take on the current state of Virtual Reality. The talk concluded with an announcement that Digital Den is evolving away from an initial focus or research and event hosting and moving towards more of a focus on development of original software (i.e. doing the “D” in R & D :-) )
Check out our newest upcoming event for August!
Which way to the holodeck?
Friday, August 22, 2014
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Microsoft NERD Center
1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
Have you heard? VR is back! Or is it? Is it hype or real? Can you really feel like you are walking around Paris, Egypt, the Moon or Mars from the comfort of your chair? Come find out, and better yet, try it! You will also hear about what is going on in the local area and even find out how to make your own VR experiences. You MUST RSVP to attend!
Digital Den and a number of other individuals and groups shared their fun virtual reality related toys at the Boston VR Meetup held on Wednesday, July 23 from 6:00 pm – 9 pm at hack/reduce in Cambridge. The event was also covered by Kyle Alspach for the Boston Globe’s Beta Boston and appeared as a story the next day under the title The virtual reality revolution arrives in Boston.
Digital Den’s most popular exhibits included an iRacing Test Track game using a Logitech Driving Force GT gear with an Oculus Rift as well as a vintage Nintendo Virtual Boy.
We are really looking forward to taking new demos to the next Boston VR Meetup in August and perhaps even hosting one in the Fall. Please stay tuned…
Digital Den took their Immersive Interfaces exhibit to LA for this year’s Immersive Education Initiative’s Immersion 2014 conference that ran over the weekend June 6th – 8th. The conference was hosted by The Getty (J. Paul Getty Museum) and Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution and the Western USA Chapter of the Immersive Education Initiative (iED West). It was a wonderful event where many fantastic speakers shared their perspectives on the state of immersive education today, and the exhibits all gave attendees a taste of the current state of the art. Special thanks to Nick Potvin for helping to make the Digital Den exhibit a great success!
Wow, what a great time! I’ve just returned from Vintage Computing Festival Southeast 2.0 that was held Saturday, May 3 and Sunday, May 4, 2014 in Roswell, GA. It was sponsored by the Atlanta Historical Computing Society and Computer Museum of America. I gave my presentation Computer Museums: Here and there, now and then… then had fun visiting with Lonnie Mimms (Computer Museum of America), David Greelish, Alan Hightower and Brian Stuart (Atlanta Historical Computing Society).
Here is another attendee’s very well done photo gallery of the VCF exhibits…
Retro Innovations Store’s Photo Album
The Computer Museum of America’s Apple Pop-Up Museum was particularly inspiring…
Computer Museum of America’s Apple Pop-Up Exhibit
There was one point where I even found myself holding this Apple I in my lap!
All in all, it was a very impressive event!
Digital Den 
You must be logged in to post a comment.